Reliability of Active Studio Monitors

[avliner]

well, after reading a lot about Active Monitors here and over at AVS, I decided to audition some myself, though.

At the shop I was in, I've found a demo pair of Behringer 2031A monitors, powered by a Behringer amp (A1500) - in an acoustic treated room - and I was really, really impressed by their perfomance, to say the least.

I went back home and fired up my rigs and put one of my ref. red book CD's on, to draw some initial conclusions. On same day I went back to the audio shop with my ref. CD to, once again, audition the monitors with my CD.

To make long story short, those monitors put my poor E-50's to shame...
Some of you guys may argue that my speakers are far to be JBL's best effort - which I agree, in part - although I consider them good performers, but then again, WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!

As a matter of fact, we must also consider that the room I was in with the Behringer's is acoustically treated, whereas mine is not; therefore I may find a quite different behaviour of the active monitors performing in my untreated room; who knows? Next step is to convince the guy at the shop to allow me bringing the monitors home, for a real face-to-face comparison on my HT room.

If I decide to go the active monitors route in future, I might as well grab 3 of them for the main fronts only (L/C/R).

Having said that, I'd like to hear some comments about the reliablity & durability of active monitors X normal HT speakers, though.

Considering that the monitors have their own amps., chances are to be more factible to failures of any sort, in the medium/long term, right?

Let me have your comments/suggestions/advices on the above, please.

Thanks!

 

[cornelius]

At work we use active monitors all day, every day, with no problems - Dynaudios, KRKs, Events... They don't all sound great, but they're all built well.

 

[jaxvon]

Professional monitors should have the least reliability issues of any speaker. They are designed to be used every day, all day, and often at high levels.

 

[auujay]

Behringer 2031A is an active monitor, therefore the amp is integrated into the speaker (it is strapped onto the back), if you were really listening to the active version of this speaker the A1500 was not in doing anything. It it really was hooked up to the A1500 then you were listening to the passive version of the 2031s.

I would not worry about reliability, though it is a good concern since these involve more pieces than a simple speaker. I have not heard many people complaining about their active monitors dieing on them.

You are definitely want to hear them in your listening environment if you can. This whole excise may just convince you to acoustically treat your room

cornelius' list is a good start for the companies that make nice active monitors. Not knowing your budget I will through out another one to look at: Mackie. Some people complain that the Mackies make everything sound good and are therefore "bad" to mix on (others love them), but in your case I think this point is moot. Mackie has finally come out with a new version of there classic HR series of monitors; therefore you may be able to find the mkI's at some decent discounts. Check out the HR624.

If the Mackie's are too pricey check out some other active monitors by M-Audio and Alesis, they should offer some that are close to the Behringer price point.

 

[avliner]

Thanks guys,

that's a good starting point, though.
Yeah, next step is to audition the monitors in my HT room, in order to make a final decision. What is also interesting about active monitors is their relative low price, if compared to normal home speakers and apparently offering a lot more for the money.

Auujay, you gotta be right about the outboard amp., I saw it in the rack with some other gears, but there's no reason whatsoever to have an outboard amp. feeding the monitors, once they have their own amps.
I was confused, for sure. Thanks for highlighting that!