Hi Ward:
This is sort of like asking what flavor ice cream does everyone prefer. However, I'd say a minimum would be something along the lines of a Mackie 824 or similar small-ish (but not tiny) powered monitor. Some might prefer a subwoofer in that system but I think the 824 is of enough size to move enough air in a close-in monitoring situation that you can get a reasonable to excellent idea of what's there, soundwise. There are numerous similar speakers of that type, some reviewed as better some as worse. I would argue pretty strongly against using headphones as your sole monitoring device, but some might disagree. Also, with speakers, no need to damage your hearing but you gotta move enough air to hear what's there. That's why, among other things, Mike Casey's report suggests a quiet, isolated area with minimal background noise and enough isolation to avoid disturbing others in the area.
In the world of console-less computer-centric recording, a decent monitor controller is very useful as well. You can spend from a few hundred to thousands on this. I have a Mackie Big Knob and consider it quite good as long as one takes the time to read the manual and understand the gain structure and hence not overdrive any of its stages. Presonus makes a similar but slightly more expensive device that I believe also included D-A and perhaps A-D converters. You can go up in price as much as you want from there.
Mike's report also talks about the benefits of a clean, direct signal path. This can be greatly aided with a well-designed patchbay. I'm a fan of old-school brass TRS 1/4" telephone-style stuff, with as much normal-ing as possible for the commonly used (ie "default") signal paths, but that's only because I had a few excellent units on hand and thus didn't need to invest in newer technology. There are many options today. What I would not recommend is pro-sumer stuff that uses unbalanced "guitar cable" 1/4" connectors as these are notorious for getting noisy and intermittent. For unbalanced stuff, I have an old Fostex RCA patchbay and it has never failed me. If you do a digital patchbay, make sure to understand impedence and termination issues if they exist.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ward Duffield" <wardd@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 5:54 PM Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Pristine Audio (?!)
-----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Tom Fine Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 6:09 AM To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Pristine Audio (?!)
There's also a whole separate issue of not even knowing WHAT to use to hear
things properly. Notice
in Mike Casey's report that a few pages are spent talking about "proper
listening environment."
Is there any consensus on cost-effective, accurate speakers?