What’s the Best Floor Monitor for Me? |
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Since they allow the people performing to actually hear what they’re playing, avoid singing out of tune, and falling off the beat, Floor monitors are an on-stage essential. In this Guide, we cover everything you need to know about floor monitors so you can find exactly what you need. If you can’t find the answer to your question here, feel free to contact us! What is it? | Positioning | Active/Passive | Size | Wattage | Connections 1. What is a Floor Monitor?Floor monitors are a special kind of speaker. A lot of them look much like any standard full-range PA speaker that’s set up to deliver sound to the audience, but since these speakers have a slanted back or side, they can be placed on the floor and angled upwards, pointing the sound up and at the ears of the performers on the stage. This means that, when performing, you’re not depending on the PA speakers out front, which are usually very difficult to hear. Also the sound engineer is able to feed a different mix of the sound to each monitor, so that each performer, or even the DJ in the booth, can get their own personalised mix. There are also standard full-range PA speakers that can be used as floor monitors. While these speakers aren’t specifically designed to be used as monitors, the cabinet has the right shape so they can also be laid on the floor and set up as a floor monitor. An alternative to floor monitors is in-ear monitoring. Just as with normal speakers, a lot depends on the woofer size, power output and connection options of floor monitors. Read on to find out more! Floor Monitors
2. Where Should You Set Up a Floor Monitor?Floor monitors are almost always placed on the ground. The housing of most monitors have a flat side finished with little feet for the speaker to rest on, while the other side is curved and fitted with a grille to protect the woofer and tweeter. The monitor is placed on the floor, so that the grille is pointed up and the sound is directed towards the musician or performer. Some monitors can also be mounted on a stand if there’s not much floor space or if, for example, the drummer needs their monitor to be raised. Also, on larger stages, speakers are often set up at the sides of the stage between the wings. These so-called side-fills deliver the front-of-house mix across the stage, so that the performing musicians are able to hear everything.
3. Do I Need Active or Passive Floor Monitors?The most important difference between one floor monitor and another is whether it’s active or passive. For most beginners, active monitors are the most useful. If a monitor is active, it means that an amplifier has been built-in, so there’s no need to use an external one. As such, an active monitor should never be connected to an amplifier! Compared to passive monitors, an active monitor will usually come fitted with a volume control and offer equalisation options. Since the monitor sound is usually fed directly from the mixer, a passive floor monitor and mixer with a built-in amplifier (powered mixer) is sometimes all you’ll need. An amplifier can also be set up between the mixer and monitors. The advantage of using passive monitors is that they’re relatively lightweight and less expensive (but don’t forget, that you’ll also need to add an amplifier). This way, you can put together the ideal amplifier and monitor combo, maybe even adding external filters to ensure the most optimal stage sound possible. Active Floor Monitors
4. How Big (in Inches) Should My Monitors Be?In short, the bigger the woofer diameter, the fuller the bass reproduction. The downside of this is that, the bigger the woofer, the less focussed the sound gets. So, what should you go for? This depends on what you’ll be using the monitor for: are you a duo, maybe with a guitar and vocalist? Then you’ll only need a small monitor, of around 10 to 12-inches, since you only need to support two or maybe three instruments and don’t need so much bass. The more musicians there are in the group or band, and the deeper or more important the bass is to the sound, the bigger the woofer needs to be (around 12 or 15-inches). You could, of course, use multiple monitors with different sized woofers, and divide them across specific instrument groups and frequency ranges, but you need to make sure that you have a mixer with enough ‘monitor sends’. If you’re struggling to figure out what you need or have an awkward set-up, feel free to contact us and we’ll be glad to help you out. Active Floor Monitors: <8", 10", 12", 15"
5. How Much Wattage Should My Floor Monitors Have?If you want to know how much power (measured in Watts) your monitor needs, then you need to know what you’ll use it for. If you’re a duo with a singer and guitarist, then you usually won’t have to play too loudly to be heard by one another, so a monitor with a lower RMS Wattage is fine. But if you have a drummer in the band, plus two guitarists and a bassist, each with an amplifier stack, then you’ll need a lot more power. A full band is likely to need at least 100 Watts RMS (the amount of power that the monitor is able to continuously deliver), but you’re likely to be safer with 200 Watts RMS. An even better method for picking out the right model is to look at the SPL (Sound Pressure Level), which indicates the ‘sensitivity’. Generally speaking, the higher the Wattage, the higher the SPL, but if you want to know how loud a monitor can get, then look at the SPL and by how many dBs (decibels) louder it can go. Active: <200W, 200-350W, 350-500W, >500W
6. How Are Floor Monitors Connected Up?Passive monitors are easy to connect up. Nine out of ten times they’ll be fitted with a locking speaker port (well-known manufacturer, Neutrik called these Speakon ports) or 6.3mm jack ports. Always makes sure to use specially designed speaker cables to connect up passive monitors, and not standard signal cables. Active monitors usually come with multiple inputs and outputs, like XLR ports, and XLR/6.3mm TRS jack combo ports (so that either an XLR or jack can be plugged in), and in some cases you’ll also get normal 6.3mm TRS jack or RCA ports. Both passive and active versions can be linked, so that the audio signal can be sent through multiple monitors and you don’t have to use up every monitor output of your mixer. Tip: When browsing through our floor monitor section, the filters on the left of the page can be used to select the kind of connections you need. 6.3mm Jack Cables (voor active)
Links & More InformationProduct Categories Active Floor Monitors Blogs & Buyer’s Guides The Difference Between Active & Passive Speakers
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