Need Some Monitors

Have a listen to the KRK Rokit series. They are the best sounding monitors at an affordable price point that I could find... More on my experience here... http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=670067&highlight=studio+monitors

 

With a budget of only $150 it's going to be tough to find a pair of accurate and clean-sounding monitors.

The KRK Robokit speakers are excellent speakers in their price range, but they're over your budget of $150. I did see pairs of the older model 5" KRKs going for ~$200 a few month back, but they quickly sold out. Normal street prices is about $300 for a pair of KRK RoKit 5 G2s.

Frankly, if producing an accurate sound track is a priority I'd suggest you raise your budget for monitors.

 

Headphones. It does not sound like you need the stereo image per se. The Sennheiser HD-280 will serve you well, weigh in at about $80, and not piss off your neighbors/roomates.

 

Get a good pair of headphones (Grados and Sennheisers are great) for around $100 and then save up your money for a GREAT pair of studio monitors.

I use ADAM A7's and they make inferior monitors like the KRK's sound like ****.

 

At that price range you are going to have some difficulty. I can't remember how much I picked up my Behringer Truths, but it was under $200, the 2031a's are 8" though...

Agreed.

I don't know how your monitor's would make mine sound bad? But I'll take my E8's and V88s in the battle royale

 

You'll get considerably more for your money in the secondhand market. Thats what I would do..
Also, with that budget, there will be plenty of decent and useable hifi stuff too. Not ideal, but if you choose carefully you could scrape a workable solution together.

I've done some pretty big jobs on very modest monitoring equipment before. Actually, thats a lie.. I was using hifi (albeit reasonably decent hifi) for my monitoring equipment The trick is learning the system and being 100% familiar with how it sounds. That way you know exactly what to expect when you pipe your own material through it. This has its cons of course.. But in short, it is possible to do some great work using quite humble equipment so long as you are familiar with it.

 

imho, cheap monitors can be made useful w/ just a couple hundred bucks of smart room treatment. c.f. the 244 panels from gik acoustics or the minitraps from realtraps.com.

 

I just happen to have a "502" right here on my desk. You will not need great monitor, the 502's sound is not that good. I only use it to mix sound from an iPod or metronome into the headphones for "play a long" practice in headphones. I only need to hear the notes. I tried using it for recording -- noisy preamp.

For your use, you just need to hear the audio track and are not mixing those $100 m-audio speakers would do it. They lack bass

You might also want to concider headphones. You can buy some very nice ones for $100

If you are really short on cash check out the local thrift stores. I found an 80's vintage pair of passive studio monitors for $35 this weekend. Not small by any means but you'd pay at least 10X the price for the same ones bought new