i see them advertised on different sites. some say monitors, some say full range. what exactly is the difference? i couln't tell the difference. what should i be listening for? well full range means just that. so ok whats the other one mean??
A monitor speaker is a bookshelf. It is primarily a marketing thing that caters to the snooty type audiophile that does not want to own mere bookshelf speakers, but wants to own monitors. It plays on the perception that being branded a monitor it will have higher quality components and sound better. This is not always the case.
My turn. To begin with you are mixing metaphors - or in this case marketing blah-blah-blah.
A ful range speakers is supposedly just that - it has extension down into the lowest octaves. That description says nothing about its accuracy or consistency. Some would argue large Cerwin Vegas are full range speakers and they could generously be said to be correct. The CV's play down to about 35Hz in their best models. That's technically not a "full range" speaker as that term more often refers to a speaker that would not require a subwoofer to reach to at least 20Hz. So, full range applies only to the raw frequency response limits and not to how well maintained everything between those limits would be. What one might term "critical listening" would never be performed on a CV. Monitors, however, are in their best iterations meant for the most critical of listening.
"Monitor" is a term that can mean a speaker with very tight control of its frequency balance - variance acros it entire frequency range - or a speaker with high levels of transparency to minute details or whatever the seller prefers it to mean. The really is no description of "monitor" as the seller/user is free to select which speakers suit their particular purposes. A recording engineer might choose a somewhat different speaker for monitoring purposes than would a mastering engineer.
Quite often a recording engineer will use two sets of speakers for on the fly monitoring purposes - one a small not at all full range system that can be mounted on top of the console and is well suited to near field listening (3-4 feeet away from the listener) and another set with broader frequency extension which would be mounted away from the desk and would represent more of a "finished" sound.
Either way a monitor speaker can be any size and therefore have any frequency response limits applicable to the job at hand. A monitor could be a large B&W full range speaker or a small LS3/5a shoebox sized system. The idea of a monitor is to have rather exacting standards for frequency response across its bandwidth and therefore any good monitor from, say, Harbeth would be interchangeable with an identical model from Harbeth. On the other hand, two pairs of CV's might sound drastically different from each other when it came to truly critical listening.
The word "monitor" has been b@sradized by marketing people to apply to any speaker they care to sell. I think Gavin's a PITA for mentioning "snooty" audiophile" type buyers since audiophiles are probably more likely to be shopping in the consumer market and not encountering speakers being sold as monitors. Many companies who sell in the consumer market also sell in the professional market and many times there isn't a great deal of differnce between the two products from the same company other than a more industrial finish on the studio gear.
In the end, however, you would need to be comparing apples to apples and not full range systems to monitors.
OK SO WHAT MAKES A DEF TECH ST MONITIOR 450 A MONITOR. AND A PSB B-6 A FULL RANGE SPEAKER. SORRY FOR SHOUTING THE GUY IS CUTTING THE GRASS OUTSIDE MY WINDOW, LOL
so basicly its all a bunch of crap. unless you are a profes. musician in a studio setting. its all the same sH T. so most of the speakers available to people at a affordable price. are one mans trash and another mans treasure. quality audio is in the ears of the beholder. when i hear things like this, all i can think about is the biggest scam artists in history (BOSE)
Usually I agree with you,but thus time I do not. I was using snooty as a metaphor to describe someone that only cared about the label, and that the manufacturer was using it to sell the speaker as such.
The misuse of the term was where I was going with that post as you probably figured out. I just remember seeing many consumer grade speakers (like the klipsch pointed out above) labled as monitors, seemingly for a certain 'snob' appeal
"so basicly its all a bunch of crap. unless you are a profes. musician in a studio setting. its all the same sH T."
It's no more useless than the words "sport sedan", "automatic camera" or "wrinkle free shirt". It's the manufacturer's desire to sell their product. It's the consumer's desire (we hope) to get the most for their money whatever that "most" might be. If Bose suits your needs and you don't investigate other brands, then it's not the fault of Bose they got your money.
Would you buy a speaker that was labelled "monitor" without first judging whether you thought it suited your needs? If so, then you deserve what you get.
I certainly have no figures to back this up but I doubt any great numbers of people have seriously been taken in by the term "monitor" just because of the word itself. No more at least than have been taken in by "1200 watt" home theater receivers or "8000 watt" car stereos. People buy what they want and, if a particular speaker fills the bill, I doubt that labelling in and of itself has played a significant role in the decision.
Few high end audio consumers are interested in "monitors" - whatever that word actually means - so I don't see getting yourself worked up over this or screaming about scams. The point I was trying to make, that you apparently took to mean something else, is that full range and monitor are not synonymous terms. That was your original question.
If you're going to get worked up over the abuse of "monitor", you might as well also get worked up over labelling a speaker "full range" when it can only extend is response to 27Hz. It's not about what the label says, it's about whether you're smart enough to buy what suits your needs.
So, please, sheath your sword, uncock your weapon and take a deep breath here.
you are right Jan, i was just curious. maybe thats why polk audio stopped the monitor series and started the tsi series. now what about thase reference speakers.. just kidding lol. what did you guys think of those cables i posted about earlier? not to bad for cheap eh?