I've been looking for a pair of studio monitors (speakers with internal amplifiers) which would fit a Roland RD-700GX.

The lowest octave goes from A to A (next lowest). The lowest octave has a frequency range of 27 Hz - 55 Hz. Very few studio monitors go further down than 50 Hz!!

If I'm not completely malinformed, this means that I can never hear the low octave from my speakers correctly even when playing indoor at home? (unless I pay a few times more for my monitors than my DP)

I feel like I will become tricked if I buy a DP without speakers.

Does anyone have a solution for getting speakers/monitors of $300 - $800 (500 euros) that give a decent sound in the frequency range 27 Hz - 20 kHz?

Are headphones better? Which ones then?

I would take a look at Blue Sky MediaDesk 2.1

I've been using them with VSL Vienna Imperial and I'm very pleased with them. They're also in your price range.

First off, we know we can hear the low notes on the built-in speakers and they don't come even close 50Hz. By your theory we shous almost never be able to hear those notes. But we do hear them. So there must be more to the theory

Two things happen to enable you to hear the low register (1) The speakers, even if spec's as "60Hz, 3db". do go lower but just with attenuation greater than 3db. So they might be playing those low notes a 1/10 or less volume and (2) This is the largest effect, human hearing do does NOT need to hear the fundemental frquency to hear the pitch. It's just the way the ear works. In fact no one can hear 30Hz. Those low notes are below the range on human hearing. But still we know we hear them. What the brain does is deduce the fundemental from the harmonic serieas. We hear the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on overtones, note the space between the overtones and "figure out" what the 1st must have been. Everyone does this.

The better speakers can reproduce (maybe) the 2nd. Cheaper speakers can only do maybe the 3rd or 4th. They begine to sound thin as you loose the lower harmonics.

In amplified music the only way we directly experience those low sounds is a thump in the chest.

How to buy speakers? Pick out a CD from your collectionof solo piano works that you know very well. Take it to the store and listen. Spend a good long time and listen to an entire piece. Ask your self while litening if you can hear certain things, and tally them up. Some cheaper speakers will come up with a shorter tally. For example can yu hear the the damper hittig the string or ther trembre if a high note, or even middle C on a really cheap speaer. Take notes on what you can and can't hear on each speaker

To get those low notes you'd need some expensive gear. and typically, yes musicans who play in bands will spend a lot on the amps and speaker. The speakers are after all what make the sound.

Thanks for your answer. I've also been looking on the net for answers and so far I've got one part filled, in about the way you stated.

The Frequency Response is apparently the standard range of frequencies that don't drop in sound volume more than 3 dB. So you're right, it should be possible to hear even lower keys on for example a 70 Hz - 20 kHz monitor.

I noticed a trick Yamaha uses on their monitors'/speakers' specifications to make the monitors appear better. Yamaha specifies the Frequency Response in terms of when the volume has dropped -10 dB...

Yamaha HS monitors (HS80M) click the Resources tab & then the PDF

subwoofer. I have one on both of my setups and makes all the difference. I have $300 each 8 inch monitor speakers and $100 subwoofer.

How do you connect the subwoofer, are you using a mixer board? The RD-700GX has only two XLR3 exits and with two stereo monitors I don't know how to connect a subwoofer, as that would need a 3rd XLR exit from the DP.

I practical terms this is the most cost effective way to go. But $100 will not buy a sub woofer that goes to 30Hz. But if it reproduces 60Hz and above then you hear the 2nd and higher harmonics and we perceive the 30hz pitch.

I've got an old Hammond organ that I bought for the parts but I'm playing with it before I chop it up. The pedals can really produce some low notes. I can hear them and they sound like the low register of a pipe organ but I'm certain the amp and speakers cannot reproduce those pitches. It's physically imposable given the parts Hammon used.

BTW the Hammon parts are for a digital piano amp project. I have a theory that I can banish the "digital sound" of a DP by running the audio through some vacuum tubes and some rather massive audio transformers. I'm building something that is a lot like a Hammon design from the 1950's. I think a lot of what I hear and don't like in DPs is coming from the transistorized amps and over bright (cheap) speakers.


BTW Dayton makes an 18" driver that will reproduce sound very cleanly down to 25Hz. The Dayton model PF460-8-18 is 18 inches in diameter. You need at least that diameter for 25Hz fundamental pitch. This is the kind of driver they'd use for THX sound in a movie theatre. Cost about $185 each for the bare driver.

Oh I'm using a software piano, Pianoteq, and I connect one of the outputs (headphone) of my Yamaha Audiogram 3 sound interface to the subwoofer and the other two to the monitors. I did try a very high end subwoofer but aside from nearly destroying our china cabinet I could not tell the difference, though I'm sure if I had a frequency meter I could see it.

Wow, if you get it up and running, please open a thread and tell us how it has developed.

So you don't subscribe to the 4" woofer / 6" woofer / 8" woofer nonsense, eh? Good for you.