[MorrisL]

Headphones are nice and all, and I've bought a few by now... But before my room looks like a headphone shop, I'm wondering about speakers, which some say give a better experience of music than headphones ever could.
 
My question is this: HD600 is the best headphone I have at the moment. Now, what are the cheapest speakers/monitors that could give the same (or better) quality sounds as these headphones? 
 
P.S. This thread might be in the wrong section of the forums, but I think it's still highly relevant to those who love headphones and might be curious about speakers.

 

[Sundown]

I'd like to know this as well. I'm considering build a pair from a design by Paul Carmody.

 

[Kabonfaiba]

JBL LSR305
 
They'll be the HD600 of studio monitors, very highly praised by the general music listeners and various audiophile forums, exceptional transparency, imaging and great value on top of it.
 
Better than HD600? Add the LSR310s subwoofer. (Now it's better than a Stax SR-009)
 
Although the LSR305 isn't bass anemic like the HD600, it provides the transparent bass extension at the same quality as the rest of the sound signature, for which it has barely any negatives about it. The perfect blend of analytical / involving balance that lets you enjoy music and detail for hours and hours.
 
No moving around the room with studio monitors though! Stay in the sweet spot.

 

[Sundown]

BuMmer its jbl, and active.

 

[nastynice]

I can't answer this question, but one thing I'll say in general is that lots of people say internet direct speaker companies have better bang for buck.  My dream speakers are
http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/SRM1/srm1.html
 
There's other companies like emptek, aperion, axiom.  If you search "internet direct speaker list" or something u can probably find a bunch.
 
I've never heard internet direct speakers myself, so I can't say specifically what's up, however I've heard a internet direct subwoofer (hsuresearch stf-2), and for ~$375 it absolutely blew the socks off of ANY sub $700 (maybe even $1000) sub I used to sell when I worked in home theatre at fry's.  Based off that sub experience, my opinion is internet direct companies are worth looking into.  Some of them even let you audition for 30 days and pay shipping if you want to return.
 
I know it doesn't answer ur question at all, but figured I could throw that out there just as general info

 

[CaveManta]

   Tyll of Innerfidelity.com did a rave review of Emotiva's Airmotiv 5 Active Monitor Speakers, and he's a well-regarded reviewer around here.
Emotiva has a number of speakers in different price brackets with the cheapest, their Airmotiv 4, selling for $300(paired) from their website.
   I think that the prices seem great, especially because the speakers feature ribbon tweeters. But I haven't heard them myself...

So check out Tyll's review! http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/emotiva-airmotiv-5-active-monitor-speakers
 
   In my experience, speakers at or above the price of similar headphones will almost always sound better. Not just because of bigger drivers and moar power though. It's all about acoustics. So in some circumstances, it flips, and speakers may actually sound inferior! If you have a room with weird geometry, causing echoes, reverb, standing waves, etc, you might end up in a bad way. I sometimes find myself struggling to position my speakers just right to get the best sound from them..
   But who knows. Maybe your room is great, and your desk top will be the perfect place for a couple of active studio monitors! Just be wary. I wish you the best of luck!

 

[Acix]

The HD-600 remind me the something between the Tannoy PBM 8 and the Mackie HR 824. For studio use I prefer the K-702 that is more like my Adams A7.

 

[MorrisL]

Thank you all for the recommendations! I've looked up all of the gear mentioned here and it's really interesting to explore the whole world of speaker sound, which is something really new to me.
 
The reason I started this thread is because I recently went into a studio (with nice room treatment and all) and hung out there as they were recording something. When they then played back the stuff they'd recorded, I was blown away by the quality of the sound I was hearing. No headphone I've ever heard approached that level of realism. The HD600 I love so much wouldn't even come close to the quality of sound that came out of there.
 
I don't know what gear chain was behind that sound. One of the engineers said they had some moderately expensive stuff around there but I didn't stay long enough to inquire. I just remember reading the word "TANNOY" on the monitors.

 

[loopfreak]

Speakers have completely different presentation, and they can better the headphones easily but not at at the same price IMO. You need to splash much more cash to dive into something at similar level.
 
 
And when you splash that cash be sure that you don't set up your speakers like this guy
 

 
The key of this set up is to open the windows behind the speakers to avoid reflections.

 
(which is not such a bad idea, if you are living on a country and have demolished one wall and turned the speakers facing inside...I should get some sleep, I guess)

 

[nastynice]

  Speakers have completely different presentation, and they can better the headphones easily but not at at the same price IMO. You need to splash much more cash to dive into something at similar level.
 

 
yea, matter of fact this is the exact reason I started to really get into headphones, I knew hifi sound was just something I couldn't even think of approaching with my budget.  But with headphones, its possible to hit that mid-fi, borderline hifi for me

 

[nastynice]

  Thank you all for the recommendations! I've looked up all of the gear mentioned here and it's really interesting to explore the whole world of speaker sound, which is something really new to me.

 
Yea, its definitely cool.  Between headphones, home audio, and car audio, I'd say home audio is my personal favorite.  There's nothing like a low deep hitting sub absolutely filling a room to the max with clean sub 30hz frequencies.  Its borderline magical, lol

 

[AlanU]

I ran an inexpensive emotiva mini Xa 100 and a pair of Kef R100's with an old Energy 8" sub for my desktop setup. The speakers were sitting on Auralex Mopads.
 
The setup actually sounded very good with incredible imaging but I grew tired of that setup and ended up purchasing inexpensive Audio Engine A2's with the cheap AudioEngine D1 dac and my exisiting sub.
 
What I find is for my musical entertainment I'll gladly throw on a pair of headphones or listen to a real 2 channel setup with floor standers at a farther distance. 
 
For simplicity I'd suggest looking into the AudioEngine A5+ powered monitors and call it a day. They sound very good for a decent price and they go on sale from time to time.
 
I wonder what Tannoy monitors they were using. 
 
I'll warn you that this type of hobby is quite addictive in chasing audio nirvana.......  My power conditioning alone for my 2 channel is substantially more than my Burson Conductor Virtuoso and HD800's. 
 
What I find interesting is that on Head Fi  I do not see that much emphasis on power conditioning and power cable tweaking. The system you were listening to probably had some isolation power transformer or other for of power conditioning. Sonically I can hear quite a difference just by swapping power cords and interconnects. 
 
My current headphone rig I use a blue circle power conditioner and for this particular setup I built diy Furutech power cables with gold plated AC connectors. That alone is a step in improvement for SQ. You can add warmth to an amplifier with a power cord and on also you can speed up an amp that is laid back by using silver coated copper wires using FP 314AG bulk furutech power cord.  My take is if people can sonically hear a difference using different headphone cords they a can easily hear the difference in swapping power cords on their headphone amp or AC powered dac. 

 

[MorrisL]

 
 
I wonder what Tannoy monitors they were using. 
 

I was very curious too. So I stopped by at that studio this morning (it's a TV production studio) and asked them about the monitors. They had monitors costing several thousand dollars there, but they said what I had heard last week came out of their Tannoy REVEAL 6.5s. I looked it up and it looks like an old pair of passive studio monitor speakers costing barely over $500. Very strange that it would blow me away like that. 
 
Given this experience, I find it hard to believe people who say it costs a lot more to get good sounds out of speakers than headphones. The msrp on the HD600 is almost the same as it is on the Tannoy monitors I heard, but I can't imagine anyone in his right mind preferring the sound of HD600. To me the quality increase on those monitors was a bigger jump than I had experienced going from my $17 mdr v100 to HD600 last year.

 

[AlanU]

  I was very curious too. So I stopped by at that studio this morning (it's a TV production studio) and asked them about the monitors. They had monitors costing several thousand dollars there, but they said what I had heard last week came out of their Tannoy REVEAL 6.5s. I looked it up and it looks like an old pair of passive studio monitor speakers costing barely over $500. Very strange that it would blow me away like that. 
 
Given this experience, I find it hard to believe people who say it costs a lot more to get good sounds out of speakers than headphones. The msrp on the HD600 is almost the same as it is on the Tannoy monitors I heard, but I can imagine anyone in his right mind preferring the sound of HD600. To me the quality increase on those monitors was a bigger jump than I had experienced going from my $17 mdr v100 to HD600 last year.

 
Please note your experience you had in the conditioned sound room is the "near field" exposure to the speakers. Put that same set of speakers in a 13x18 room and  you'll fine those speakers to be "ok". 
 
The imaging of decent bookshelves near field will be entirely different due to the speaker distance and your ears (triangle).
 
Even the cheaper line of kef Q100 sounded excellent when I tested the my Q100's to my R100's on my desktop. I  highly doubt I'd get a dramatic difference if  I put a set of Kef Ls50 for near field use. 
 
Even totem mites or rainmakers would be a resolving hifi sound that would not destroy your bank account. I'll have to say my Kef Q100's for my desktop setup did a fantastic job but for the sake of bulky size on my limited space I bought small Audio Engine A2's and put more emphasis on my headphone rig and 2 channel system (floor standers)
 
Going from an HD650 to a HD800 is quite dramatic. 

 

[MorrisL]

I understand that the state-of-the-art acoustics and probably their high-performance amps were a big part of the reason why their sound seemed such an improvement over my HD600. But the experience was strong enough for me to consider making one of the rooms in my house a dedicated space for music enjoyment and production. It wouldn't be too difficult to treat room acoustics and recreate the same environment where low-budget speakers like those Tannoys can produce such music nirvana.
 
Those Audio Engine speakers are really nice but, by AudioEngine's own admission, they were not designed to be revealing monitors for mixing and other music production purposes in the way that the Tannoy 6.5's were. If only the Tannoy speakers weren't passive. I wouldn't like to have to buy amps and dacs for them. Emotiva's Airmotiv 5 or some others recommended here might be what I need.