Personally, I use Mackie MR-5's powered speakers and a Polk audio sub. All are fed straight out of my Focusrite interface.

You are right in thinking you should use some studio monitors. They are "supposedly" flatter in their response across the frequency spectrum than stereo speakers...even the high end ones. Stereo speakers are often designed with a certain "sound signature" in mind.... more bass response, smoother mids and highs, etc.... this is determined by the electronics in the crossover and the enclosure itself.

The MR-5's I use are $300 a pair. (or there about) The sub is a Polk Audio home theater sub which I picked up at a really good price. Nothing top of the line at all.

The speakers are only one part of the sound equation. The room, it's shape, and contents, what the walls are covered with , the ceiling material, the flooring, all contribute to the sound in the room....reflections, dampening, and resonate frequencies nulls and peaks will all factor into the sound you hear, and ultimately affect the way you mix.

Before you spend any money, do yourself a favor and buy Mike Senior's book Mixing Secrets for the small studio. He starts out by discussing speakers in the 4 chapters of part 1...hearing and listening. Book is about $30 last time I looked. I have it. Great book to have on your reading list.

ARC software.... also known as Room Correction software is handy and I recommend it for the more serious folks wanting to further tune their sound and how it relates to the room. ARC actually listens to the room with a calibrated condenser mic, using test tones it generates, in the area you will be seated while mixing. It then evaluates the room and compensates by sending you a mix that is pre-adjusted for a more accurate representation of the mix. When you finish mixing, you turn off ARC and export the song and it will be more accurate. I also have ARC and use it. I need to recalibrate it and start using it more often as I have gotten a bit lazy recently.

Probably the most important thing is to learn whatever monitoring speakers you are using whether they are headphones, ear buds, stereo speakers, or the most expensive studio reference speakers. Until you learn their strengths and weaknesses and are able to compensate on the fly for those things, your mixing will not be as good as it could be.

All that said.... if you are in a situation where you can not afford to drop a couple hundred dollars on each of these solutions, there is no problem using headphones and stereo speakers until you can tackle them one by one. I'd start with some fairly decent studio monitors priced in the $300 to $500 range.

Hope this helps a bit.....and by all means get that book. It's worth it's weight in gold.

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