£700 of new monitoring equipment

[Cerzi]

Hey guys

I'm looking to upgrade my monitoring setup (or, rather, get one - currently just using logitech PC speakers and a sennheiser headset). I've got about 700 quid to spend, and a rough idea of what I want, but as this is the first time I've bought monitors I could do with a bit of guidance, particularly when it comes to other things I might need.

So far I'm looking at:

2x KRK RP6s. Seems to be one of the best monitors for the money

Sennheiser HD650s. I could use a decent pair of 'phones for nighttime work, especially as I'll be back my crappy student house in a month and I doubt the neighbours will be happy with me endlessly fine-tuning small loops from my KRKs at 4am.

The rest:
I ought to get a new soundcard too (using realtek sound on my asus pkc board, shockingly), possibly a decent external one. I'd also like to have an amp to attach my monitors and headphones to, something not too pricey though.

Is there anything else I'll need? Acoustic treatment is tempting too but not sure how practical it'll be in a student house...

I make the monitors and headphones out at just under 500 quid, which means only a couple of hundred for everything else.. feasible?

Cheers folks.

 

[Cerzi]

Thanks guys, can anyone give me advice on the stuff I'll need in addition to the phones/speakers though? eg will a budget amp do the trick for connecting them to my PC (presumably with a converter too) or is there a better option? eg maybe just a small mixing desk?

cheers

 

[Cerzi]

Decided to scrap the headphones for now, and stick with the ones I've already got. In their place I'm going to get the KRK RP8s instead of the RP6s for the extra oomph in the low frequencies.

Not going to bother with an amp either, instead I'll just get an audio interface. One thing that worries me is that I'm a gamer and I use the same PC for music production and gaming, but I've heard audio interfaces are a bit rubbish for gaming. Is this true? If it is, how feasible is it to have 2 different soundcards? I mean, I'm currently using an onboard soundcard (realtek on an asus p5kc). Would I be able to continue using this for my gaming needs, and then just have the audio interface for my mixing?

Cheers