Studio Monitors

If you need a set of speakers for a studio, home recording setup, or simply a home office, there are plenty to choose from here: Thomann offers a wide range of different studio monitor speakers. Which model is the right one for you – or the "best" – depends on a number of factors. This buyers' guide provides tips and recommendations to help you find the monitor speakers for you, explaining exactly what to look out for.

How much do good monitor speakers cost?

There are very affordable monitors available that are perfectly capable of effective studio work. The key question is what the speakers will be used for – producing songs? Recording musicians, mixing DJ sets? Or just listening to music and making video calls from home? Producers working on music professionally are often particularly demanding: The reason why speakers used in studios are often referred to as monitors is because they're used to actively monitor and evaluate everything that's happening on an audio track. The more accurately and transparently they reproduce sound, the better the results.

That said, the same applies to listening on any hi-fi system: Music is simply more enjoyable through good speakers. Complete simple systems – perfectly usable, of course – are available at relatively low prices, sometimes even at the two‑digit prices per pair. Truly high‑quality studio monitors, on the other hand, can cost well over 1,000 euro per speaker.

With all this choice, this buyers' guide is intended to help our customers find the right speakers for their exact scenario and set up. Thomann's even more comprehensive studio monitor guide provides detailed information on everything else you might like to consider when purchasing and indeed using monitor speakers. The Thomann Studio department is also on hand at any time with advice and support at studio@thomann.de, via web chat, or by phone on +49 9546 9223‑30.

The unique acoustic characteristics and qualities of speakers, as with all musical equipment, can't be explained in mere numbers and measurements: For instance, monitors will sound different depending on where they're used. This is exactly why we offer our 30‑day money‑back guarantee, to allow producers to test their new gear at home. Once you've found the right speakers, our 3‑year Thomann warranty ensures that you can enjoy them with complete peace of mind.

What different types of speakers are there?

A simple – and useful – way to categorise speakers is to look at the distance between the speakers and the people listening to them. What this means in practice is that the vast majority of studio models can be classified as nearfield monitors: They're designed to sound best when listened to at close range, which happily enough is exactly how many producers, musicians, and audio engineers work. Similarly, anyone working from home will likely have relatively short listening distances.

Because the sound doesn’t need to travel far, nearfield monitors benefit from a number of technical advantages: The speakers can be smaller, with less output – plus the acoustics of the room tend to have less of a negative impact. The logical consequence: Smaller, low-output speakers can either be more affordable, or offer higher sound quality at the same price compared to larger models.

Midfield monitors are, as the name suggests, positioned slightly further away from the listener, often well over two metres. They have more or less replaced the now rare main monitors that used to sit far behind the mixing desk in large studios, or were even built directly into the walls.

A popular setup is to use compact nearfield monitors as satellites together with a single subwoofer. The subwoofer can be placed out of the direct line of sight and complements the monitors' output with powerful, low-end bass. It can be added later or purchased straight away as part of a 2.1 system consisting of two satellites and one subwoofer.

Speaker type and listening distance

• Nearfield monitors: approx. 0.5–2.5 m
• Midfields: approx. 1.5–4 m
• Main monitors: more than 3 m

What components make up a speaker?

Sound can only be produced by moving parts. In speakers, these are called drivers, and they're usually round. They are housed in a speaker cabinet, most commonly made from plywood, though plastic or metal is used in some cases. Those key components are all you really need to call it a speaker!

Getting more technical now: Inside a speaker with multiple, a crossover typically ensures that each driver only reproduces a specific frequency range, such as the high frequencies. Depending on whether this crossover is integrated technically before or after the amplification, we distinguish between active or passive speakers. Studio speakers in particular often feature built‑in amplifiers, with separate amps for each driver, after the crossover. These models are referred to as active monitors, as opposed to the less common passive monitors, which require external amplification before the crossover.

Additionally, active speakers often allow you to make certain more or less complex sound adjustments, which are handled via filters that help adapt the speaker to its placement and the room's acoustics. Some models also offer room calibration, where a microphone measures what actually reaches the listening position and automatically adjusts the speaker's output accordingly.

What's the difference between two‑way and three‑way speakers?

While it's possible for a single driver to cover the entire audible frequency range, most speakers use multiple drivers, each responsible for a different part of the spectrum. The most common configuration combines a woofer for low frequencies with a second driver for the highs. This is known as a two‑way speaker. A three‑way speaker adds an additional driver specifically dedicated to the midrange frequencies. This design is usually found only in larger studio monitoring systems.

How big do speakers need to be?

It's often assumed that you need really large speakers to play really loud music – especially when it comes to delivering lots of bass. That isn't entirely true, although of course the concepts of size and sound are not wholly independent of one another. A small speaker can actually reproduce very low frequencies – just not at very high volumes. Or it can play loud music, but with reduced bass response. If you want both at the same time, especially over greater listening distances and in larger rooms, size actually does start to matter. Many speaker designs use a clever approach to improve low‑frequency response by employing a bass‑reflex cabinet with an additional port. The good news is that even compact speakers can still deliver surprisingly deep bass.

The drivers themselves don't necessarily have to be huge to produce low frequencies either – otherwise headphones wouldn't have any bass at all! Speaker sizes are usually specified in inches, which is often reflected in the model's name. A speaker with an 8 somewhere in its official designation, for example, will typically feature an eight‑inch woofer.

The larger a speaker's size, and the greater the listening distance, the more influence a room has on the sound. As such, for acoustically untreated spaces, it's often wiser to invest in smaller, high‑quality speakers rather than larger, lower‑priced ones. In professional studios, it's also common to use multiple sets of monitors, often in different sizes.

What are the important sonic characteristics of a speaker? What makes a "good" speaker?

Specifications such as the frequency response give an initial indication of a speaker's acoustic capabilities. If the response starts at 70 Hz, it won't reproduce as much low end as a model specified down to 39 Hz. With studio monitors, a neutral reproduction across the entire frequency range, without boosts or dips, is generally considered desirable: If a particular frequency is exaggerated, there's a temptation to compensate for it while mixing. The result may then end up sounding hollow or unbalanced on other systems, without the producer necessarily having made a "mistake" per se.

Neutral studio monitors are primarily used for critical listening and analysis. This means they also need to be able to accurately reproduce the dynamics of a track: Put simply, the speakers shouldn't compress the differences between very quiet and very loud parts of the sound.

What's the difference between a studio speaker and a "normal" hi‑fi speaker?

Speakers designed for recording, producing, mixing, and mastering thus differ in some respects from those intended for use with a home hi‑fi system. That said, there are some models that work well both in the studio and in your living room, and are often chosen for exactly that versatility, like the Neumann KH 80s or the Genelec 8000 series.

Studio monitor vs hi‑fi speaker