The hard part for me is to get my monitors to sound a lot like my headphones, so I could switch between silent practice at night and monitors in the morning. I play mainly out of my desktop with VSTIs and SFZs. Hopefully I could find a good EQ with the ability to save user presets
This is one of the reasons why the standardization of a flat frequency response and smooth directivity is important -- it would also give something for headphones to aspire to. In any case, it is easier to find headphones that can sound like a good pair of speakers than the other way around. In general, for *most* people, a headphone that follows the 'harman curve' or harman target will have similar tonality to a flat pair of speakers in a good room. There's some variability due to individual anatomical differences and preferences, but this has been demonstrated to be true for a majority of listeners in multiple papers.
Maybe some of you would like to comment on how stage monitors perform at assorted distances. Can I use small monitors (6 or 8 inch) if I place them very close, just like we do with studio monitors? Or will the bass end disappear all the same?
Without first buying some small speakers I can't really test these things. Any tips on what sort of nominal bass end (Hz) I should shop for to reproduce piano patches would be welcome. I play jazz in assorted styles, so I need quite a lot of the bass notes, but I want them to sound incisive. I don't want them to boom as they do on so many (cheap?) speakers with large woofers, and for me the mids are crucial.
So should I fuss over some optimum speaker size? Or is it all about quality?
And can anyone comment on the Yamaha DBR10 and the DXR10? Good candidates?
There are two things to consider: the speaker's frequency response and its output capability, which is basically how well it can maintain that frequency response at higher volume levels.
Think of it this way: You can get a 1-inch driver to output bass all the way down below 20Hz... that's basically what headphones do. The difference is that they are right next to your ear, so the absolute output requirements are much lower than, say speakers meant for a living room.
So more to the point of your question, distance isn't going to change the bass output capability of the speakers. What might be affected is that these speakers can play their low frequencies more cleanly because their absolute decibel requirements. But if they can't get down to 30 hz -- which describes most speakers of any size -- they aren't going to be able to at close distances either. In theory, you could attempt to EQ the speakers to have more bass at close distances, but this is unlikely to lead to good results.
The simple solution: get a subwoofer. Subwoofers are often misunderstood as being tools for excessive bass, but that's just one way of using them. Their more important roles in a high fidelity system is to 1)increase bass output in a linear, realistic fashion and 2) to help minimize the effect of room nodes that lead to an uneven sound below 400ish Hz or so in almost every room. Multiple subwoofers can dramatically help with this, in fact, but for a listener in a single position as you would be at the piano, this isn't too essential.
The addition of a properly integrated subwoofer will allow you to use smaller primary speakers and/or lessen the burden on those speakers, allowing themto play more cleanly at high volumes. Of course, they will also extend frequency response into the sub-bass, which IMO is essential for properly replicating the physical sensation of being in front of any instrument with low bass content.
Yamaha tends to be rather inconsistent with the performance of their speakers, but the DXR10 and DBR10 appear to be decent from the measurements I've seen.
I wouldn't trust any manufacturer provided frequency response range unless they actually have graphs measured in an anechoic chamber or using an equivalent method. There is no standard for how these ratings are achieved and that can alter results dramatically depending on the whims of the individual manufacturer . The only time a simple "X hz to X kHz" metric is useful is for comparing speakers from the same manufacturer, but even with this I've seen inconsistencies.
If anechoic data is available, I'd say extension down to ~45 Hz (-6dB) as a minimum, which should mean that in a room, which will add a bit of extra bass, you should have audible frequencies into the mid 30s.
Lastly, and I know this is a long post, but the most important thing for clean bass notes is proper room calibration (which a subwoofer will help with too). The fact of the matter is that in any typical room(as in, smaller than a large venue like a concert hall), the room itself begins to dominate how frequencies are presented below 400 Hz or so. Without room correction, *very* extensive room treatment, and/or a very unique and rare type of speaker, you simply cannot get an even response below these frequencies. At best, you can hope a speaker matches your individual room's characteristics, but the problem is much more effectively and reliably solved with room correction.
