2024 Studio Monitoring System

This is the third of these amps I've bought-- this one for the home studio monitoring system. The other two are used for an annual broadway musical I do sound for and Crown just makes a superior product.

I have a project studio in a rental apartment so am a bit limited as to modifications that can be made for acoustic treatment; the room is very minimally treated and I knew some of its problems already. The room correction results I was able to get using the IK Multimedia ARC Studio v4 are quite impressive for my monitoring system (Heritage Audio RAM System 2000, Mackie HRS10 Sub and HR624mkII monitors). Currently, I have limited the range of the correction to the HR624s from about 53Hz to 16kHz, but once you have taken all the measurements (takes around 10 minutes for 21 points - very simple) it's very easy to change frequency ranges and target curves; the resulting sound is incredible given my room and monitoring system. Is it perfect - no - but given the starting point it's tremendously better; I think this is evidenced in the before and after graphs, but the graphs don't do justice to just how much better the resulting sound is; sound stage and separation are drastically increased, lows tightened, mids evened out and vocals have become much clearer. Should you purchase it? While there is no substitute for a well treated room - $300 (the cost of the ARC system) is probably not going to get you very far in traps, diffusers, absorbers, etc. (even if you DIY) - and your room will still have problems; so, for my use cases and budget it was definitely worth a try. I think that it will be my best studio purchase of 2024. Perhaps it will be yours also?

" I Love " it makes your TV look like an all-in-one monitoring system

Wireless monitoring system ideal for distribution on a movie set.

A good combination of studio monitoring and casual music listening

Ive used the standard Sony studio monitoring headphones for video production purposes, and while they sound fine, they just dont last very long...ear cup material comes apart or just comes off. The Sennheiser HD 280s are buil to stand up to the riggors of location production applications while providing great isolated sound for monitoring purposes. My only compliant/wish would be for them to switch to a non-coiled headphone cable...gets stretched out if someone decides to wrap it around the earpieces or if it gets shoved into a bag.

Living in a rural area having monitoring system is great and bring awareness

I use this system in my production studio and it rocks!

I bought these for monitoring/mixing in my home studio. The sound is clean, the balance is excellent; it is easy to distinguish each track and hear all the detail I need to add/adjust effects and mix down. In short, I find these excellent for the purpose and don't feel the need to spend significantly more (and you'd have to to get a meaningfully better sound). There's a reason these are an industry standard.

My third pair for home studio. Durable, good value and acceptable fidelity for blogging, voice-overs, monitoring, recording, etc. Excellent choice for general purpose headphones for musicians in studio recording and field recording. Moderate sound isolation - not the best for noisy environments. Not wireless. Decent frequency response with minor coloration. There are better options for critical high-fidelity monitoring, but usually at a much higher price point. Popular for decades, with proven track record.