Above: my lil home editing setup: Apogee Mini-Me, MBox 2, Macbook, Fostex T40s, 2nd LCD display and… my HS50s (astride DIY’d platform/isolators). Oh yeah and of course the Mighty Mouse. Best time-saver ever.
How y’all doing today… srry for the lack of recent posts; been working on some pretty exciting new projects here at PS dot com that we hope to unveil soon. In the meanwhile: a tip: people often ask me for speaker recommendations, and for many years now I’ve been reco’ing the Yamaha HS50s. I bought mine at Sam Ash maybe 5 years ago for $300/pair, which seemed like a bargain at the time. Well now the price has dropped, likely in advance of a phase-out. The HS50 is a powered speaker with balanced inputs, dunno how much power but more than enough for working at home, trust me. Now, you can spend a lot more on speakers, but when yr gonna stick them on a desk, right next to a big ole LCD display, in some untreated spare bedroom: why would you? I’ve worked on literally hundreds of spots, jingles, and film and TV tracks on these suckers and I’ve never been disappointed. At the studio we have (along with Tannoys and Avantones) a Blue Sky speaker rig that cost about 10x as much, and yeah it sounds better. But… it’s also in a properly-dimensioned room with a shit-tonne of acoustic-control devices that cost a fortune in parts and time to build. Unless you take the time to really treat your listening environment, I am not convinced that you need much better desktop speakers than the HS50s.
BTW – I reco these not just for musicians/engineers, but for anyone who needs good small speakers for listening to anything – TV, music, etc. Small, well-made, reliable, accurate sound.
Yamaha HS50s – $129/ea at MF dot com.
Download the original 4-page catalog for the EXR Exciter circa 1979:
