Cut To The Chase. What are the Best DJ Studio Speakers?
Below I outline the necessity of great monitors in a production environment. I’ll also give my professional review and why I chose these monitors. I personally think they’re the best DJ speakers for in home studios. If you’re not worried all that much about the info, I just share my recommendation here.
In my Professional opinion the best speaker is any one from the KRK Rokit Monitor Speakers line. The higher the brand number the better they are, but the Rokit 5 are outstanding for in home studios.
Why You Need Specialized Studio Speakers
When working in a studio environment you can’t take shortcuts. There are so many acoustical nuances that get left behind in the every day world. Mixing in a studio is just like mixing in a lab. you need precision and crystal clear perfection. Every beat needs to be measured with perfect timing.
You can’t create amazing art without the right set up. These are all reasons you want to get good studio speakers. Regular speakers just won’t cut it in this environment because frequencies will be lost. Quality will take a hit as the sharpness of your highs and the bass of the lows will be distorted.
When it comes to a DJ studio, you need a special type of speaker called a monitor speaker. These speakers are designed with clarity, wide frequency ranges, and as close to signal reproduction as possible. Radio stations, recording studios, and DJ booths all require these speakers as a bare minimum.
This allows the person in charge of the production to make the changes they need. All without worrying if the sounds coming out of the speakers are the real sound of the song, recording or mix. Monitor speakers have an even gain and distribution of power along frequencies. So bass, mid range and highs are all treated equal. What you hear is what you get.
The Speakers I’ve Seen in Most Radio or DJ Studio I’ve Worked In
With that out of the way it’s time to let you in on a trade secret. I’ve worked across the country maintaining television studios, radio stations, and recording studios. I worked with clients on installation projects and got to see other sound engineer’s recommendations.
Whether I walked into a studio, or got the new gear shipment I always ended up seeing the same brand and product line of monitor speakers. They were always some form of KRK Rokit Monitor Speakers.
Rokit is a line of speakers manufactured by KRK. There are multiple different kinds of models based on how pure you need the sound in your studio. You can check out all their offerings here.
These are hands down the best and most consistent speakers I’ve found. Whenever I had to worry about monitors, it was always because we went with a different brand. To save the trouble of worrying about nonlinear gain/distortions in our recordings, I’ve pretty much moved to only KRK Rokit Speakers.
I guess this is accidentally becoming a review of the KRK brand. There’s a lot of other options, but I’m a creature of habit. Making a gamble with a new brand can greatly impact an studio build with time delays and return costs. So I’ll stick with this outstanding and consistent company.
The speakers have a naming convention with Rokit X. Where x is a number, and the higher the number the higher the crisp perfection of the sound quality. You can buy them either one speaker at a time or in a pair.
If you’re looking to get started doing in house production, I’d probably go with a pair of Rokit 5 Speakers. If I had any aspirations of going full time professional, I’d take the dive and go straight to some Rokit 8s. They do have a Rokit 7, but the sound quality jump isn’t quite as noticeable.
If you’re actually building a commercial studio go all in on two Rokit 10 (here) and pick up their 12″ Subwoofer as well.
