Gaming Speakers vs Studio Monitors, thoughts?

djwhitfield

djwhitfield

djwhitfield

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Hello everyone,

TL'DR.
Gaming Speakers vs Studio Monitors?
Best External Soundcard for Monitors and Headphones?
Can the soundcard support surround monitors?

Thank you for your time.

For quite a while now I have been using Logitech Z5500s. I always wanted high quality audio in the form of speakers. They have served me well, but I was a little underwelmed at first when I got them. But at the time I was using on-board sound from Realtek, I upgraded to a Asus Xonar D2X and still only noticed a slight increase in quality.

I have a pair of Sennheiser 598HDs headphones which I love but I only use headphones when I'm in chat with friends over microphone or gaming at night. The quality is fantastic and the only reason I didn't getting the Sennheiser 600HDs is because of a lack of headphone amp. Anyway I wanted to replicate this quality in speaker form.

My Z5500s are starting to die on me now and I'm thinking its time for a upgrade and maybe replace the soundcard. I want the highest possible quality, price is not so much of an issue but price to performance is perferable. I been looking into studio monitor, I just to do music production in college for 4 years and I know the quality of studio monitors are fantastic, however I heard some people saying that studio monitors for gaming are not very good. I seem to believe this is total bull because I wouldn't see any reason they wouldn't be since its only outputting the sound same as any normal speaker.

I'm also thinking of maybe having a surround setup of monitors in the future, maybe 5. 2 front sides, 2 behind, 1 center. But this is something for far future. Please any suggestion on external powerful soundcards would be great too. Anyway please give me your thoughts, is this a good or stupid idea?

Thanks for your time.
 
Studio monitors will outperform gaming speakers. As a rule of thumb, any audio product with "gaming" in the title means excessive bass, red LEDs and a high price tag.

What's your budget? If you can afford to spend £200-250 I would recommend the JBL LSR305s. I have a pair and they are fantastic.

Other options would be PreSonus Eris E4.5s for £150. Cheaper than that I'm not sure off the top of my head but if you do some research you'll find a good pair I'm sure.

Soundcards won't make that much of a differnece to how speakers sound, they're more important for headphones. Your D2X is more than enough. You'll probably need a 3.5mm to 2x1/4" jack cable though, to connect to monitors.
 
I'd go with the above if you want a surround speaker set up. Having a surround set up made from studio monitor speakers will be messy. Go for studio monitors, if you want a stereo set up.
 
Passive studio monitors with a nice amplifier to power them is a good solution. Active monitors require each speaker to have mains power and a signal cable.

Studio monitors tend to be quite neutral in presentation so aren't necessarily as fun as hi-fi speakers but I certainly can't complain with mine. (I use vintage tannoy super red monitors and JBL control one pro)
 
I've gone through a few studio monitors, gaming headsets and a couple of bass boomers, depending on what you need you can choose.
Studioms: Great for everything, good accurate reproduction but not very fun sounding there is no boom just great clarity
Gaming: usually mid range boosted, if you play FPS at a high level or want to get mid boosted headphones as footseps are mid range my current choice crossfade LP i cant hear ANY footsteps because of the recessed mids.
Bass boosted: sounds fun games go thump and boom if you like action theyre more immersive.

Also a shout out to anything like HD598 that has a good sound stage as it makes storyline driven games better.
 
passifid said:
I've gone through a few studio monitors, gaming headsets and a couple of bass boomers, depending on what you need you can choose.
Studioms: Great for everything, good accurate reproduction but not very fun sounding there is no boom just great clarity
Gaming: usually mid range boosted, if you play FPS at a high level or want to get mid boosted headphones as footseps are mid range my current choice crossfade LP i cant hear ANY footsteps because of the recessed mids.
Bass boosted: sounds fun games go thump and boom if you like action theyre more immersive.

Also a shout out to anything like HD598 that has a good sound stage as it makes storyline driven games better.
Click to expand...

oops thought you meant headphones for some reason... but anyhow if thats the case go with DAC/AMP monitors!
 
If money is no object and want to take the next step from your 5500's, then I'd echo some of the comments above..

If you want 5.1 surround, then get a 5.1 Amp, some nice hi-fi bookshelf speakers and a sub.. should be easily do-able under £1000

Personally I have a small AMP/DAC (Teac) with DALI Bookshelf's and a BK Gemini II sub, this is excellent for stereo gaming/music (Approx cost £600), when I want surround sound for gaming I use 5.1 gaming headphones since I tend to be also chatting with mates while gaming.
 
TheDesX77 said:
Studio monitors will outperform gaming speakers. As a rule of thumb, any audio product with "gaming" in the title means excessive bass, red LEDs and a high price tag.

What's your budget? If you can afford to spend £200-250 I would recommend the JBL LSR305s. I have a pair and they are fantastic.

Other options would be PreSonus Eris E4.5s for £150. Cheaper than that I'm not sure off the top of my head but if you do some research you'll find a good pair I'm sure.

Soundcards won't make that much of a differnece to how speakers sound, they're more important for headphones. Your D2X is more than enough. You'll probably need a 3.5mm to 2x1/4" jack cable though, to connect to monitors.
Click to expand...

Whilst you're not wrong it's totally weird how it works like that as bass is so unhelpful for so many games where you rely on environmental sounds :D

Good shout on the LSR305's other option would be tannoy reveal 4/502's
 
I have a pair of Adam P11a's, which are very nice but like most good studio monitors they're XLR input only. (got them for about £400 excellent condition on an auction site)
I haven't tried them for gaming yet - I'd have to plug them in through my SPL Crimson and I'm not sure if there'd be driver conflicts; probably not as I get a choice of which drivers I use with them.
I'm gaming though my Sennheisers, which is just as well as my R9 390 nitro gets a bit feisty when driven. (but beautifully quiet with open cans on).
 
Not all monitors are xlr. My yammys take xlr, 6.5 jack and rca. Even so you can still get xlr to rca cables, you just have to watch for interference.
 
Hi all. I just happen to have taken pretty much the same plunge the OP was looking at so thought I'd share what I've bought and opinion of it in case it's helpful.

I had a Logitech 6.1 surround system - well, I say 6.1 but it was more like 4.1 at a push because the centre channels had blown and sometimes the onboard soundcard didn't bother outputting the front channels at all. Good points? Reasonable sound quality, small desk footprint, volume control where you can get at it and something to rest your feet on! :D Bad points: it picked up 4G chatter whenever my phone picked up email. 3G not a problem but 4G was a pain.

I wanted something that would definitely not be susceptible to the interference, different sound device (because of the issue with it not using the front channels until you changed it to stereo and back) and preferably external because I didn't want case-clutter or to have to drain the loop and bend a new pipe to avoid the new card. I also thought I wanted more accuracy.

I went with a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. Why? It's an external DAC, has balanced outputs (rejects interference), it puts volume control just under my monitor and as a bonus it's got two inputs if I want to get back into recording or just want to plug my guitar in (and pretend I can play it!). It's also got a headphone amp in it but I don't have a set of headphones good enough to tell whether it's any good - there seem to be mixed reports on that front.

Speakers? I went with a pair of KRK Rokit 5 G3's. It's worth noting that, like the JBL's, they are sold individually and not as a pair. Balanced inputs (both TRS jack and XLR) were one of the main reasons as well as a good reputation and bi-amp'ing. As has been said, I was a little disappointed by the bass response of them. The accuracy is good, and I do appreciate that but I was expecting a bit better bass oomph from a 5" speaker. They do seem to have warmed up a bit as they've been used for a while - which is worth noting. It's also worth noting that lifting them up so that they are at ear height makes quite a significant difference - I'm now looking for a speaker stand that clamps to the edge of the desk...but that seems to be something that either doesn't exist or they want £300 for.
Also worth noting is that, like quite a few monitor speakers, the volume control is on the back - hence wanting the volume control on the Focusrite.

Because of the lack of bass - I'm not after wall-shaking blow-your-face-off bass, just lower, richer and with a little bit of oomph. Enough to make a bass guitar sound like it's there - I added a KRK Rokit 8s sub. Massive difference. Again, it took a little while to warm up - I'm talking minutes here, not days - so don't judge it instantly. Takes balanced inputs, balanced outputs, does the crossover and fills in the bottom end nicely. My only quibble is that it's a little too high to rest my feet on....but it does have a metal grill to stop me destroying it with my feet! :D

Would I recommend it? Yes, I like it - although to be fair, I don't have experience of many other systems to compare it with. I think though, like coffee and chocolate, we've been conditioned to accept something that isn't top-quality to the point that when we do hear (or taste, for this metaphor) something that is, it isn't to our liking at first. If you can get over that and look at the positives - there's much more detail and crispness to be had - it's an enjoyable change.

Total cost: £702 (£118 Focusrite + 2x£115 speakers + £319 sub + £35 four interconnecting cables)
 
I'm looking to get a pair of KRK Rockit 5 G3's soon mainly for music production. I've got a SoundblasterZ soundcard at the moment will those speakers work ok with it do you think?
 
Yes. I think the speakers use RCA for the unbalanced inputs. You'll need to split the 3.5mm output from the sound card into 2 RCAs to go into each of the speakers.

One of these cables is probably the easiest thing to use, as you can pull the cables apart right down to the jack if need be, so you can get maximum distance between the 2 RCA connectors if the speakers are further apart. There are different lengths if you need longer.
 
Definitely. As Marsman said there are unbalanced inputs and they are on RCAs. Onboard amp - bi-amp actually - so you don't need a separate amp. Each speaker has its own amps so you will need two power leads (standard PC 'kettle' lead) and they go into standby after no sound for 30 mins. They wake up when they get sound over a threshold.
They're crisp and detailed. Sound better if raised up to ear level - it says this in the instructions but it does actually make a noticeable difference. I found it improved the bass too whereas I believe it's mainly supposed to be for treble. I ordered vibration isolation pads too but found they just weren't needed. There is a thin layer of foam on the bottom already.
If you want lower bass (cello, bass guitar etc) it's worth considering adding a sub. The Rockit 8s was plenty big enough for me and has the inputs and outputs that you just run sound card to sub and then sub to speakers.
 
the only problem i had going from 3.5mm onboard straight to the unbalanced RCA of my HS5, was a horrid interference.

got a SMSL DAC and ran it from the onboard optical and it's been fine since.
 
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