What are Reference Monitor Speakers?

Updated: Jan 27, 2024

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This article will teach you how to buy reference monitor speakers for beatmaking, as well as what are reference monitor speakers.

This knowledge applies to any DAW, but I teach with FL Studio.

When you purchase speakers to make beats, reference monitors come in sizes like 5″ and 8″, and are often “active” meaning they’re self-powered. You just plug in the power cable, and the audio cable.

IMPORTANT – reference monitors are sold individually, so you need to buy TWO to make a pair (left and right channels).

This video is part of my Studio Reassemble Series.

What is a Reference Monitor Speaker?

A reference monitor speaker is a special type of speaker used in music production to allow musicians to hear music accurately.

You see, when you buy speakers off the shelf at a store, companies often enhance frequencies to make them sound better when listening to music (which helps encourage more sales).

As a music producer, we’re looking for FLAT RESPONSE.

This means when listening to our various instruments like pianos, guitars, or mixing drums in FL Studio, we are hearing the sounds AS IS to make the most accurate decision for a mix that translates.

Translation is the goal mix engineers are after.

Having a song that “translates” means YOUR MUSIC SOUNDS GOOD ON ANY AUDIO SYSTEM! (Whether that be headphones, ear buds, an alarm clock radio, or big speakers.)

You have to understand that not all speakers allow you to hear THE FULL FREQUENCY SPECTRUM OF YOUR MUSIC.

Small speakers cannot produce low-end bass.

If you mix music on small speakers, then play your music in the car that has sub, you might be surprised when your bass sounds horrible in your mix. (You can’t mix something you can’t hear!)

What Size of Speaker to Buy for Music Production (Beatmaking Specifically)

Since my website is about making beats in FL Studio, I’ll answer what size of speaker to buy if you make beats.

The main difference of speaker size for making beats vs. music production is hearing low bass. Other genres like rock do have bass, but not that same super deep bass that hip-hop or dance does.

Reference monitors usually come with two speakers built-in:

• Tweeter (high frequencies)
• Woofer (mid frequencies + some low frequencies)

This is called a Two-Way speaker. There’s also There-Way speakers, which are often more expensive. The benefit of 3-way speakers is it allows each speaker to focus on a particular frequency range, however one disadvantage is it has “two crossovers”, where as 2-way speakers only have 1 crossover point. (A crossover is needed when there’s more than one speaker so each speaker doesn’t play overlapped frequencies).

When buying reference monitors, the woofer changes in size, but usually the tweeter stays the same.

If a speaker is 8″, they mean woofer size. (And now it’s clear an 8″ speaker gives us lower frequencies; important for beatmaking!).

What Speaker Size for Making Beats?

Here’s the answer for the best size of speakers for beatmaking.

There’s three options you can take to buy speakers:

• Buy 5″ Speakers
• Buy 7″ (or bigger) Speakers
• Buy 5″ Speakers + Subwoofer

5″ Speakers for Making Beats

A 5″ woofer for making beats is way too light on bass.

When we talk about bass, there’s actually 3 areas within bass:

• Low-Low Frequencies (What we FEEL)
• Low-Mid Frequencies (What sounds FULL)
• Low-High Frequencies (What hits HARD [kick drums])

People may say bass is great on 5″ speakers, but what kind of music are they working with?

If they’re MAKING HIP-HOP BEATS, they’re definitely not hearing the LOW-LOW and LOW-MID frequencies.

When I was brand-new to making beats, I went with 5″ M-Audio Speakers because I was new and trying to save money.

Being so excited, as I’ve never had reference monitors before, I plugged them in, played a beat, and I was so disappointed.

My first thought was… “WHERE IS THE BASS?“

This was not M-Audio’s fault.. IT’S A 5″ WOOFER! 🤦‍♂️

When you look at reference monitor speaker specs, they have a measurement called FREQUENCY RANGE, which tells the lowest and highest frequencies the speakers can reach.

The sad thing is, we as customers never truly know how accurate those numbers are.

Let’s say a speaker says its lowest frequency is 47Hz.. I never believe it because you don’t know how quiet 47Hz actually plays. If 47Hz plays WAY QUIETER than 60Hz+, then those low frequencies @ 47Hz are useless to us as beatmakers.

In other words, your bass is going to SUCK!

Another VERY IMPORTANT POINT.. bass frequencies move much slower than high frequencies. If you have 30Hz.. then 60Hz is double! However, if you have 1,000Hz, then 2000Hz is double. If you take 1,000Hz, and add 30Hz, that’s only 1,030Hz (barely any difference!). This is why it’s so important to hear your LOW FREQUENCIES.

TO GET BASS, YOU NEED A BIGGER SPEAKER.

Here’s an example of an 8″ to a 5″ FREQUENCY RANGE that’s advertised. 8″ goes way lower than a 5″ (70% lower!), because science can’t change these audio principals of a small speaker producing more bass. (At least yet..).

Just because a speaker can play let’s say “38Hz” doesn’t mean it can play it loud, like a subwoofer could. It’d struggle to produce that, so that’s why I said we’d probably be able to hear 50Hz in real practice better from the speaker..

So now you’re thinking buying 8″ speakers is the best choice for beatmakers.. but I never said that, stay with me here!

Buy 7″ Woofer (or Bigger) for Beatmaking

My three options to buy reference monitors above listed a subwoofer, and I’ll get to that shortly. If you decide to buy bigger speakers, it’s not as easy as you may think.

Here’s what to consider if buying a big speaker:

• Do you have room to fit the speaker? (they’re BIG!)
• Bigger speakers cost more!
• Big speakers are heavier!

When I bought 5″ speakers (which had no bass), the only fix was purchasing a subwoofer. (I want to say this was my favorite way of mixing and making beats so far).

However, for some reason I upgraded to an 8″ speaker, and sold my 5″ speakers..

And here’s what I learned..

The 5″ speakers are easier to position, and cost less. You’ll also get a better mid-range woofer because it can’t go as low, which allows the subwoofer to own the low-end.

I currently have 8″ speakers paired with a subwoofer, and it’s a little tricky to fine-tune the crossover of the subwoofer to the 8″ woofer. (But I still enjoy the setup).

This isn’t to say 8″ and a woofer is bad, but as long as you have a sub, you’ll get a good result either way.

If you want to hear bass in your beats, you have two options..

• Buy bigger speakers (still can’t hear low-lows)
• Buy a subwoofer with any speaker size

5″ Speakers + a Subwoofer for Beatmaking

Let me just recap here.

5″ speakers by them self are very weak on bass (for making beats).

What’s tricky when reading reviews is WHAT MUSIC ARE THEY USING?

To make hip-hop, rap beats, and even dance music, you need to hear that low-end.. it’s so important.. so a 5″ woofer is not sufficient.

Some companies offer a 6.5″ or 7″ woofer, which you could look into, but it will won’t produce the low-end you’re needing.

When I play my 8″ speakers WITHOUT the sub, the low bass is audible, but even then it’s still lacking on that low-low end to mix tight basslines with your kicks.

BONUS: Subwoofers often have have a pedal to turn off off the sub while the speakers still play! This is an amazing way to quickly test your mix WITH and WITHOUT the sub and hear the low-end.

Will More Expensive Speakers Make You Mix Better (Or Improve Room Acoustics)

Buying more expensive speakers to improve your mix is probably one of the most common questions out there..

Here’s a good comparison for you.

A $4,000 vehicle in great condition gets you to work fine.

A $12,000 vehicle gets you to work the exact same way.. it just has more bells and whistles, and probably is made with better parts.

What you need to understand when buying the best speakers for FL Studio is that the room you’re mixing music in is more important than how expensive your speakers are!

It’s called audio acoustics, and we use room treatment to fix it.

We put absorbent materials on our walls to dampen audio, and reduce room reflections!

Taming mid and high frequencies is pretty easy, however properly treating bass is not, and requires THICK DENSITY material.

Many “bass traps” are not bass traps, but because they’re so good at marketing, people believe that’s what they’re buying.

To control bass frequencies, there’s two things that matter:

• The size of your room
• How thick your acoustic treatment is

If you’re in a small bedroom, taming the low-end probably is impossible, because bass frequencies are LONG and SLOW-MOVING. (You can tame them a bit, but you need THICK material, which would make your room so congested lol).

The short answer to do expensive reference monitor speakers make mixing easier, is to an extent.

If you bought a $100 speaker, upgrading to a $1000 speaker will give you quite an improvement, as the materials and research + development will take a good jump up.

Once you pass that, in order to see even more results, people often say you have to pay much more (like $10,000 a speaker)..

That last statement is definitely regurgitate, because there’s so many greasy audio products, you really don’t know what will give you the BEST improvement.

I can say that proper acoustic treatment is more important than more expensive speakers, however!

How to Connect Reference Monitor Speakers to Computer

These reference monitor speakers have studio grade quality connections, which are 1/4″ TRS or XLR connections.

(Usually low-end speakers have RCA or 3.5mm jacks).

LEARN: How to Buy Audio Cables

You also need an audio interface which plugins into your computer through USB. We then plug the audio cables into the OUT 1 + 2 to the LEFT and RIGHT speaker.

Reference Monitors vs. Headphones vs. Ear Buds

Depending on your living environment, you may not be able to have speakers, or at least play them loud to enjoy them.

If you’re in this kind of restricted environment, you may not want a big speaker either, because it would produce more bass.

But are headphones good for mixing beats?

Headphones can be useful, but their problem is each ear does not hear both speakers, since each speaker goes on one ear.

Headphones are good for listening, and making critical adjustments here and there, but when making music, it’s wise to mix on speakers so that you can hear room reflections.

Also, speakers are much more enjoyable to work on because headphones can hurt your head in long sessions, especially if you wear glasses!

In this case, if you need to use headphones, you may want to look at a nice pair of ear buds, or in-ear monitors, as that won’t hurt your head, but they can hurt your ear canals after long sessions..

Speakers do not have any of these issues of hurting your head this way (except if you listen to music too loud!)

Conclusion: What are Reference Monitor Speakers?

There’s A LOT to know about speakers, and most reviews don’t really tell you much more than just the product’s specification page.

Buying the best speakers for beatmaking is not easy because there’s so much snake oil with many marketing terms like improves bass response, or lessens ear fatigue.

There’s also a lot of hype with new technology regarding room correction software built into speakers nowadays.

The fact is, we’ve been making music all these years, and music has been extremely high quality at all these professional studios.

I understand music production has become more popular, but these companies are preying on new producers saying their “built-in room correction features” will solve their poor room conditions..

The truth? There’s no replacement for GOOD ACOUSTIC TREATMENT. (Which doesn’t have to be too expensive for an acceptable improvement).

We’ll see whether these tools are useful in coming years, but from my research, they quickly increase the price of the product.

Here’s some links to speakers on Amazon:

• 5″ Reference Monitor Speakers
• 8″ Reference Monitor Speakers
• Studio Subwoofer for Reference Monitors

I hope that helps you decide on how to buy speakers for a studio, and what are reference monitor speakers.

Small speakers don’t have enough bass for us beatmakers.

Ultimately, my recommendation is getting a subwoofer no matter what speakers you go with.

About Author: GratuiTous

GratuiTous manages his Beatmaker Training Platform, authors Beatmaking Books, and hosts the "Music Production Made Simple Podcast". Introduced to FL Studio by his good friend in 2009.. he began FL Studio tutorials in 2011, eventually leading to his 35+ Courses in the platform. Fun Fact: He was an electrician for 10 Years!

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