Mai 7, 2021 : to work better on my recordings and do a better job at checking my IR captures – and to potentially get a better balance in my small mixes or demos and play guitar with amp sims- I decided to replace my good old JBL 305 with Yamaha HS7 monitors. I was feeling somewhat limited by the relative boominess and some lack of balance from the JBL : after comparing and deciding for clarity and flat response over other criteria, I decided to replace them with a pair of HS7. After one month and a half, I am extremely happy with the clarity and tone they provide, though they are a little bit cumbersome for my small home studio (note: I was hesitating with the 5 inches Yamaha, but they seem to sound really – really!- dry, at least too dry for my taste and use).

So why writing a blog entry for a simple monitor change ? First, I am sharing the fact that these HS7 are -according to me- extremely good for the price, and secondly I am sharing the fact that due to COVID curfews and stores being closed, I had to rely on reviews, feedback and articles to make my opinion…. Looking at reviews, I discovered the Youtube channel of Digital Stereophony ((https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm-MKyxKdanxpOBTx8wiY1w) : they have a large set of videos comparing different brands and models of studio monitors… It may sound a little bit silly to make an opinion about studio monitors by listening to a Youtube recording of the monitors BUT the recording work done by these guys is -IMHO- extremely good : of course you won’t have an exact feel of the monitor in the room, but they perform interesting comparisons : they A/B two monitors against each other and against the original record, on many styles of music (electro, classical, blues, rock/metal,….) : very handy, especially if you know well one of the tested models so that you can make the comparison between their recording and the real monitor. That was the case for me with the LSR 305 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfhioKq68Y. Another example that I used is the HS7 against the Adam T7V :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64wfMYpACEQ

If you don’t own any monitor speaker and are looking to buy your first pair : you should better go in a store and listen to the monitors in the room… If you are more experienced and have a precise idea of the characteristics that you are looking for, then these videos may help and complete the different reviews and measures that you will find on the web.

I ordered mine from a French dealer : Sonovente.com, they were shipped fast and monitors were there in a couple of days…. : https://www.sonovente.com/yamaha-hs7-p39770.html

Last, to ease my life and avoid to move around the desk in order to adjust my monitors and headphone volumes, I also bought a small and simple monitor controller : a Palmer Monicon, that does the job nicely for me.