While studio owners seem happy to build their own studios, wire their own patchbays and even wash their own coffee mugs, it seem few are prepared to entertain the idea of building their own monitors. Paul White thinks they're missing out.

Judging by the numerous phone calls I receive on the subject, studio monitoring is still something of a grey area. For many readers, there remains an air of mystery around the essential differences between a hi-fi speaker and a studio monitor, and there seems to be a degree of uncertainty over what size of speaker will work well in what size of room.

My own feeling is that most affordable nearfield monitors are too bass-light for serious monitoring work, while larger studio monitors are likely to produce less than accurate results in a small or non-acoustically treated room. The ideal choice for serious home recording would seem to be a mid-sized speaker with a reasonable degree of bass extension, good overall accuracy, and sufficient power handling capacity to survive the inevitable enthusiastic outburst from drum machine or bass synth. There is no shortage of such speakers on the market — until you bring price into the equation. If you set an upper limit at, say £500, the choice becomes pretty restricted. In that light, you might be interested to know about the Volt Home Studio monitor, which is available in easy-assembly kit form from Wilmslow Audio and falls well below the £500 price break.

Before starting, let me put your mind at rest as regards kit building. Wilmslow's cabinet kits are made from very accurately machined MDF and all you have to do is to apply PVA wood glue to the joints, hold the corners together with masking tape or clamps, and wait for an hour or so for the glue to dry. After that, you simply paint the cabinets, bolt in the drivers and crossovers, and you have a new pair of monitors. There is a small amount of soldering to be done in wiring up the drivers, crossovers and terminal panel, but if you can solder a jack plug, you'll find this very easy. If you can't — watch this space for soldering lessons at some time in the future!

THE KIT

The Volt Home Studio monitor features a 7.25 inch BM 2202 bass driver built by Volt, the company also responsible for many of the drive units used in pro monitoring systems, such as Quested. This is paired with a 3/4 inch, Scan Speak D2101B soft-dome tweeter and housed in a fairly conventional ported cabinet producing a very laudable 30Hz-20kHz response. The passive crossover, which uses hand-wound, air-cored inductors, comes ready assembled and the overall efficiency of the finished design is quoted as 90dB for 1 watt at 1 metre — which means you don't need a huge amplifier to get things motoring. Though amplification of up to 200 watts per channel is recommended, I have used these monitors with a 75 watts per channel amplifier and never needed to run it flat out. The nominal impedance of these monitors is 8 ohms, so they shouldn't put any undue stress on even fairly modestly specified amplification.

In addition to the cabinet panels and electronics, the kit includes pre-cut piping for the bass ports, self-adhesive damping panels for the inside of the cabinet, Acoustilux cabinet wadding and speaker grille for those who want a more conventional-looking end product. All you have to provide is the solder, the glue and the paint. If you feel like veneering the monitors rather than painting them, Wilmslow do a nice line in iron-on wood veneer.

SOUND CHECK

Since I first checked out the prototypes of these monitors in 1989, there have been a couple of small modifications. The bass driver has undergone minor design changes, while the crossover and terminal panel can now accommodate bi-wiring. The length of the tuning port has also been extended slightly, which has the effect of tightening up the bass and increasing the sense of bass extension.

On a variety of listening material, these monitors can best be described as smooth yet quite detailed. They are very comfortable to work with over long periods and are reassuringly accurate in the mid-range where many two-way designs fall down. The bass end extends right down to the realms of organ pedal notes and manages to be full without overwhelming the mid range or top end. The new porting has tightened up the bass a little; the original bass was deep but could sound a trifle 'soft' on some material.

Though not exceptional, stereo imaging is better than average, and for optimum performance the speakers should be placed on open steel stands rather than perched on top of the mixing desk. Because of the deep bass, it is advisable not to mount the speakers too close to walls or corners. A position around a foot or two behind the mixing console is probably ideal.

SUMMARY

At well under £400 per pair, these monitors perform extraordinarily well. It's not a case of "these are good for a kit," they're good — full stop. Their physical size makes them ideal as main monitors in a small private studio where the combination of bass extension and tonal honesty will be appreciated. They are also capable of higher monitoring levels than is strictly healthy should you push them.

I will reiterate that the kit is very easy to build — a couple of evenings work at most — and the small effort is well worth the result, especially when you consider the money you save over buying ready-built. A secondary consideration is that if you do damage a driver, you know where you can go for a spare, and you know you won't get charged a silly price.

Further Information

Volt Home Studio Monitor Kit £379 inc VAT plus £18 carriage.

Wilmslow Audio, (Contact Details).