Alesis M1 vs. M1 MKII

[atma]

What is the real difference between these 2 active monitors? i need something in this price range, and it seems like it's either one of these, or an event ps5 or ps6, but i cannot afford a sub, and it appears the alesis have a better LF response. i guess that could be another question, M1 vs. ps5/ps6. Though i'm particularly interested in the fine details of the m1 vs the m1 mkII. anyone?

[recordingpro]

I don't know the exact differances, but I will point out another popular monitor in the same price range that you may have forgotten...the Yamaha MSP5's. Also, I'd like to hear what type of music you are doing, and what you are doing (mastering, or just mixing and recording?)

[atma]

as far as style is concerned, that has got to be the most difficult question to answer.. "underground" is the best i can feel comfortable with. influences would include David Sylvian, later era Talk Talk, Brian Eno, no-man, etc., pretty much anything interesting in the underground scene (which encompasses quite a lot).

That being said, my rhythms can be fairly heavy, with influence from trip hop/hip hop, drum & bass/jungle and any number of other styles (old or new). my music doesn't fall into anything that's really categorizable, it's in some hazy borderland where stylistic tendencies are blurred beyond recognition :)

above all, i just want monitors that are as flat as possible, with an accurate enough low end for that price range. from what i've heard/read the yamaha's don't seem incredibly appealing.

which brings up another question: why isn't it possible to get a perfectly flat response in a monitor? +/- 3 dB isn't exactly what i'd call "flat", especially if you look at the spectrum analysis of white noise.. why can't a monitor be built to have a response like that? :)

[recordingpro]

well it does sound like accurate bass representation is going to be important for your music. speaking of your music, do you have any posted on the web that we could check out ?

to answer your question about why they can't design a speaker to be perfectly flat...thats a pretty tough thing. The material and size of the woofers, the way they are anchored into the cabinet, the cabinet itself, etc etc etc. can all impact the frequency response of the finished speaker. It's very complicated and well beyond my expertise. Many speakers actually incorporate various components (such as DSP chips) that they use to tweak the speakers frequency response with. Alesis has decided to take this idea one step further and have a new speaker in the works where you can save several preset eq's for the speaker, thus allowing you to emulate differant mixing situations and environments.

Do you have something that you are using now ? Are you also monitoring with headphones or a second set of speakers ? If you have something already I might suggest that you actually save your money for a while with the hopes that perhaps you can get an even better pair of speakers that will give you a nice response across the spectrum, with enough bass to mix accurately and with good imaging. The speakers you have mentioned are all great, but if you can make a slightly larger investment, I think you will be pleased with the results. Then again, with a good understanding of your mixing environment, I have no doubt that you'll be able to do a pretty good mix on any of the speakers we mentioned....