John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hey, I'm currently building a studio in the top floor of a Mill. Heres the thread for the design: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =1&t=19739

I've got a quick question on soffit mounting as i'm going to end up with 3 sets of speakers and i'm not sure which should go where.

I currently own a pair of KRK rokit 8's link here: http://www.krksys.com/krk-studio-monito ... kit-8.html
There fairly entry level monitors and dont have a very flat response so i'm going to invest on some new near fields to do the majority of my mixing on. I'll probably get something like these Adam A7X's : http://www.adam-audio.com/en/pro-audio/ ... escription or maybe a bit higher end.

I also have a pair of RCF art 312As that i used to use for gigs which are currently gathering dust: http://www.rcf.it/products/pro-speaker- ... 2-a-mk-iii
My question is should i mount my rokits or the bigger RCF speakers? the room is 6 metres long, and 4 metres wide and will be around 2.2m high when i put the floor in.

Apreciate any advice.

Cheers,

Matt

I love those RCF's! I have used them in several live gigs over the years, and they have turned out to be pretty good.

But I would not use them as mains in a control room. They are not designed for that type of close-up work. It would also be a hell of a job to soffit mount them, as they are large and heavy. They would also look rather strange in a small room like yours, and they'd have to be mounted very low down to get the acoustic axis at the right height, which creates problems for you desk / console. Not a good choice.

I wouldn't go with the KRK's either. They aren't bad speakers, but if you are also considering Adam's, then there's just no contest: the Adam's win, hands-down, no questions asked. I have done several studio designs for people with soffit mounted A7X's and A8X's, and they work out very well. John has done a couple too, I think. The only down side to those speakers is cutting the strange shape in the front panels of your soffit to fit the beveled face of the Adams, but it's not that hard, and the benefits are well worth the effort . I even have one client who cast his soffit baffles in concrete for his A7X's. Very successful.

I'd suggest a pair of A8X's for a space that size, and also add a Sub-10 to fill out the low end, if you do a lot of bass-heavy work. That's a great combination, and would work well for your room.

- Stuart -