Can someone please educate me on the differences between these two;
stage monitors and stage speakers. Is there some sort of feedback
control on a monitor that is not present on a speaker? Or is it simply
the way most monitors face up at an angle as opposed to horizontally
straight.

How is it you can face a monitor towards you on stage and not get
feedback problems? Is it something inherent in the monitor design?
Why not just use a good speaker?

wrote:

Can someone please educate me on the differences between these two;
stage monitors and stage speakers. Is there some sort of feedback
control on a monitor that is not present on a speaker? Or is it simply
the way most monitors face up at an angle as opposed to horizontally
straight.

Both. It's the fact that a slanted speaker is easier to place such that most
of it's sound hits the microphone in the area where it is least sensitive.
You could do the same thing with most any speaker, but you might have to
stand (or sit) in a pretty uncomfortable position while performing.


How is it you can face a monitor towards you on stage and not get
feedback problems? Is it something inherent in the monitor design?

Yes, it's the slant.


Why not just use a good speaker?

Well, hopefully your monitors are good speakers.

wrote in message
ups.com...
Can someone please educate me on the differences between these two;
stage monitors and stage speakers. Is there some sort of feedback
control on a monitor that is not present on a speaker? Or is it simply
the way most monitors face up at an angle as opposed to horizontally
straight. Is it something inherent in the monitor design?


A 'stage monitor' is just a 'speaker' being used to monitor sound on a
stage.

Why not just use a good speaker?

Any speaker will do if it goes loud enough, but one specially shaped is
likely to be more satisfactory as it sits at an optimal angle.

They are often driven from a separate mix, tailored to whatever the
requirements are of the person who's benefit it is for. More sophisticated
stage monitoring solutions may have separate mixes for each stage monitor.

My preference is for active speakers (less amps and crap to think about).

How is it you can face a monitor towards you on stage and not get
feedback problems?

Feedback - yes, a problem. But the mic is generallly hyper-cardioid and
facing away from the monitor.

On 3 Jan 2006 17:32:51 -0800, wrote:

How is it you can face a monitor towards you on stage and not get
feedback problems? Is it something inherent in the monitor design?
Why not just use a good speaker?

The trick is to point the "back" of the microphone at the
monitor speaker. This almost works.

And, yes, a good speaker here is a good thing. If it survives.

Good fortune,

Chris Hornbeck
"Only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value."
-Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_

Chris Hornbeck wrote:

And, yes, a good speaker here is a good thing. If it survives.

Good point. It's high time somebody invented a good alternative to horns for
HF drivers in wedges. It's stupid to put something that looks like a funnel
in close proximity to idiots with beer.

Ok thanks guys. I will definitely use a hyper-cardioid from now on,
but how does the design of a monitor differ from a regular speaker?

I'm really paranoid about feedback now so I'm wondering what the trick
with monitors is to achieve good levels without feedback. Is my
problem solely that I've been using a cardioid up till now? I have had
the back of the microphone to the back of the speaker so I'm scared of
turning the speaker into a position more prone to feedback. Playing
halfway through a tune, hearing a feedback loop coming, stopping to
turn it down, really messes up your disposition... prevents you from
playing at your best

At the moment I'm considering in-ear monitors but would like to know
more about regular monitors and if I can put my paranoia at rest now.



..





Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 3 Jan 2006 17:32:51 -0800, wrote:

How is it you can face a monitor towards you on stage and not get
feedback problems? Is it something inherent in the monitor design?
Why not just use a good speaker?

The trick is to point the "back" of the microphone at the
monitor speaker. This almost works.

And, yes, a good speaker here is a good thing. If it survives.

Good fortune,

Chris Hornbeck
"Only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value."
-Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_

On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 03:30:04 GMT, Agent 86
wrote:
And, yes, a good speaker here is a good thing. If it survives.

Good point. It's high time somebody invented a good alternative to horns for
HF drivers in wedges. It's stupid to put something that looks like a funnel
in close proximity to idiots with beer.

Arf! I built on-stage monitors for our theater with
line-arrays of nine (each) 5" drivers, all hooked up
so they could be driven by ordinary amplifiers.

These are very robust electrically, but I'd be very
afraid if any drinks were allowed on stage. Also,
there're both good and bad points to the dispersion
pattern. Not for everybody, fersure.

Horns come from the twin requirements of high volumes
and tight patterns, but too-small-by-necessity designs
don't really solve either requirement very well.

Good fortune,

Chris Hornbeck
"Only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value."
-Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_

On 3 Jan 2006 19:30:58 -0800, wrote:

Ok thanks guys. I will definitely use a hyper-cardioid from now on,
but how does the design of a monitor differ from a regular speaker?

Don't hyper-cardioids have a response off the back? I
thought only true cardioids nulled, even theoretically.

Monitors are just speakers. No magic allowed here,
unfortunately.


I'm really paranoid about feedback now so I'm wondering what the trick
with monitors is to achieve good levels without feedback. Is my
problem solely that I've been using a cardioid up till now? I have had
the back of the microphone to the back of the speaker so I'm scared of
turning the speaker into a position more prone to feedback. Playing
halfway through a tune, hearing a feedback loop coming, stopping to
turn it down, really messes up your disposition... prevents you from
playing at your best

This issue is simple to solve. Get somebody else to run
sound. You can't do both, and do both right. Problem
solved, Mon.

Good fortune,

Chris Hornbeck
"Only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value."
-Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_

What I'm saying is, is the difference solely in name or in actual
design and realworld difference? What are the main differences if so?

wrote:
Ok thanks guys. I will definitely use a hyper-cardioid from now on,
but how does the design of a monitor differ from a regular speaker?

I'm really paranoid about feedback now so I'm wondering what the trick
with monitors is to achieve good levels without feedback. Is my
problem solely that I've been using a cardioid up till now? I have had
the back of the microphone to the back of the speaker so I'm scared of
turning the speaker into a position more prone to feedback. Playing
halfway through a tune, hearing a feedback loop coming, stopping to
turn it down, really messes up your disposition... prevents you from
playing at your best

At the moment I'm considering in-ear monitors but would like to know
more about regular monitors and if I can put my paranoia at rest now.



.





Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 3 Jan 2006 17:32:51 -0800, wrote:

How is it you can face a monitor towards you on stage and not get
feedback problems? Is it something inherent in the monitor design?
Why not just use a good speaker?

The trick is to point the "back" of the microphone at the
monitor speaker. This almost works.

And, yes, a good speaker here is a good thing. If it survives.

Good fortune,

Chris Hornbeck
"Only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value."
-Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_

Monitors are just speakers. No magic allowed here,
unfortunately.

Ok, so it is just in name for the application. Thanks.


Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 3 Jan 2006 19:30:58 -0800, wrote:

Ok thanks guys. I will definitely use a hyper-cardioid from now on,
but how does the design of a monitor differ from a regular speaker?

Don't hyper-cardioids have a response off the back? I
thought only true cardioids nulled, even theoretically.

Monitors are just speakers. No magic allowed here,
unfortunately.


I'm really paranoid about feedback now so I'm wondering what the trick
with monitors is to achieve good levels without feedback. Is my
problem solely that I've been using a cardioid up till now? I have had
the back of the microphone to the back of the speaker so I'm scared of
turning the speaker into a position more prone to feedback. Playing
halfway through a tune, hearing a feedback loop coming, stopping to
turn it down, really messes up your disposition... prevents you from
playing at your best

This issue is simple to solve. Get somebody else to run
sound. You can't do both, and do both right. Problem
solved, Mon.

Good fortune,

Chris Hornbeck
"Only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value."
-Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_

Don't hyper-cardioids have a response off the back? I
thought only true cardioids nulled, even theoretically.

Hypercards have nulls off-axis; cardiods have a null directly behind
them. See my lousy sketches in the incomplete document smile/ at

http://www.walkaboutclearwater.org/s.../soundsrc.html

Chris Hornbeck wrote:

These are very robust electrically, but I'd be very
afraid if any drinks were allowed on stage.

I have less problems with drinks onstage than with low stages where audience
arms can often extend above my wedges. All things being equal, I'd
probably just avoid those venues, but (surprisingly) they sometimes pay
pretty well. Luckily, the audience for those gigs wouldn't know good sound
if it jumped up & bit them on the ass, so I carry all my old cheap ****
system that wouldn't hurt too much if it got trashed.

Which brings us to Tim's first law of bar band PA:

NEVER sell, throw out, or give away ANY piece of PA gear. No matter how
****ty it is, you'll eventually wish you had it back, if only to shield
another piece from harm.

wrote in message
oups.com...
What I'm saying is, is the difference solely in name or in actual
design and realworld difference? What are the main differences if so?

Main differences - monitors (as opposed to speakers designed for house use):

1) They're usually wedge-shaped, designed to sit in a particular spot on the
floor and point up to a standing vocalist.

2) They may not have as much bass response as a house speaker, because most
of the time your main consideration in monitors is the vocals.

How to avoid feedback:

1) Choose monitor speakers with a reasonably flat frequency response, rather
than a peaky response. With the latter, the system will feed back at the
peak frequency before you get loud enough at the other frequencies to hear
properly.

2) Choose microphones with a similarly flat frequency response. Note that
the frequency response should be un-peaky both on- and off-axis to avoid
feedback. (Why does the on-axis response matter? Bounce-back from the wall
at the rear of the stage.) I like Electro-Voice RE16 microphones for this
reason. (I liked RE15s even better, but they've been discontinued.)

3) Place the microphone carefully so that the monitor speaker is in its
null. The reason hypercardioids are good is that typically the null is
deeper than with cardioids. It's at 135 degrees rather than 180 degrees, so
you'll need to angle the microphone somewhat differently to keep the monitor
in the null.

4) Keep the volume reasonable on stage so you don't need to turn the monitor
up too high.

5) If all else fails, use EQ -- but use it in an educated way. I remember
visiting a contra-dance in a western community which shall remain nameless;
the EQ was a graphic and all its sliders were down between 8 and 10dB. Worse
than useless. The way to use EQ to cut feedback is to do steps 1-4 first,
then use EQ very sparingly on the first 2 or 3 frequencies of feedback.

6) See 4.

Peace,
Paul

"Chris Hornbeck" wrote in
message
On 3 Jan 2006 19:30:58 -0800,
wrote:

Ok thanks guys. I will definitely use a hyper-cardioid
from now on, but how does the design of a monitor differ
from a regular speaker?

(1) Stage monitors don't need extended frequency range, particularly at the
bottom end.

(2) Stage monitors do need lots of dynamic range.

(3) Stage monitors usually work best if they are pretty directional.

Don't hyper-cardioids have a response off the back? I
thought only true cardioids nulled, even theoretically.

Stage monitors are frequently used in sitautions where they aren't exactly
aligned with the backside of the microphone. For example, for 3 years I
worked with a situation where the performers performed from a ledge that was
about 38 inches wide. This meant that if the performer worked directly into
his mic, the stage monitor was about 80 degrees off the axis of his mics,
instead of zero degrees. In the current context up 6 performers are squished
between two walls that are about 24 feet apart. This means that there is a
lot of spill from one monitor to the next.

Cardioid mics have very little rejection of sound at 90 degrees off-axis.
This is were hypercardioids and supercardioids shine.


I'm really paranoid about feedback now so I'm wondering
what the trick with monitors is to achieve good levels
without feedback.

The usual trick is to add notch filters to the signal path that drives each
monitor, at frequencies that are prone to feedback. The process of doing
this is called "ringing out".

In severe cases, notch filters are also added to microphone signal paths.

In really severe cases, it may be helpful to also add notches to the signal
path for the main speakers.

I wish that mic manufacturers would put a marking on each microphone
indicating the angle of the null for that particular mic. Mics vary in
their degree of "hyperness" or "superness", and even if you know what
the angle of the null is for a given mic, in the heat of setting up,
it would be nice to have a graphic indicator of where the null was.

Set up mic. Put monitor _there_.

Life should be so simple.

On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 23:19:44 -0500, Joe Kesselman
wrote:

Don't hyper-cardioids have a response off the back? I
thought only true cardioids nulled, even theoretically.

Hypercards have nulls off-axis; cardiods have a null directly behind
them. See my lousy sketches in the incomplete document smile/ at

http://www.walkaboutclearwater.org/s.../soundsrc.html

On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 12:13:51 GMT, (Willie K. Yee,
MD) wrote:

I wish that mic manufacturers would put a marking on each microphone
indicating the angle of the null for that particular mic. Mics vary in
their degree of "hyperness" or "superness", and even if you know what
the angle of the null is for a given mic, in the heat of setting up,
it would be nice to have a graphic indicator of where the null was.

Set up mic. Put monitor _there_.

Life should be so simple.

Unfortunately not possible. The angle of null is frequency-dependent.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 12:13:51 GMT,
(Willie K. Yee, MD) wrote:

I wish that mic manufacturers would put a marking on
each microphone indicating the angle of the null for
that particular mic. Mics vary in their degree of
"hyperness" or "superness", and even if you know what
the angle of the null is for a given mic, in the heat of
setting up, it would be nice to have a graphic indicator
of where the null was.

There is a loose de-facto standard of putting a pickup pattern graphic on
the acoustic front of the mic. The graphic is usually detailed to
distinguish an omni from a cardioid from a figure-8 from a hypercardioid.
But, its no substitute for a spec sheet.

Unfortunately spec sheets are often far from sufficiently detailed. IME, one
tends to learn about mics from actual use, not spec sheets. One listen can
be worth the proverbial thousand words.

Simple experiments like rotating a mic in a plane in front of your mouth
while recording or listening with headphones, may be as good as you ever
get.

Set up mic. Put monitor _there_.

In the real world, its not always possible to achieve ideal juxtapositioning
of the speaker and mic.

Life should be so simple.

Unfortunately not possible. The angle of null is
frequency-dependent.

You forgot the "highly" ;-)

Most mics are only highly directional at midrange frequencies and up. They
tend to lose their directivity at low frequencies. So do speakers.

The whole issue of speaker directivity is something that is evolving. It is
possible to build speakers with cardioid and hypercardioid radiation
patterns, and they could be very useful, but not many people are trying to
do it.

Also, its usually the width of the cardioid/hypercardioid null that varies.
Most cardioid capsules have back vents that are go all the way around, so
the null is exactly off-axis.

Don Pearce wrote:
Unfortunately not possible. The angle of null is frequency-dependent.

Granted, but there's still a rough direction which is going to be
lower-sensitivity for most frequencies; the important thing is realizing
that for hypercardioid that is *not* directly behind the mike.

wrote:
Ok thanks guys. I will definitely use a hyper-cardioid from now on,
but how does the design of a monitor differ from a regular speaker?

Usually the main difference is in construction. The cabinet is designed
so that the direct radiation from the speaker more or less points
toward the performer's ears, and they're designed not to obstruct sight
lines. They also tend to be more directional than speakers that are
designed to cover a large amount of space since you want the monitors
to 'light up" as small an area as necessary.

I'm really paranoid about feedback now so I'm wondering what the trick
with monitors is to achieve good levels without feedback.

It's really a group of tricks. You need to position the speakers
correctly relative to the mics, you need predictable radiation and
pickup patterns, and things need to stay pretty much the same as in the
steady-state condition. If a singer points a mic in the wrong
direction, he can cause feedback. If someone steps into an area that
causes the speaker sound to be reflected into the mic with the proper
phase relationship, that can cause feedback. If a singer cups his hand
around a mic (blocking ports and changing its directivity pattern) it
can cause feedback. And of course you have a basic setup for feedback
ready to happen so you need to find the frequencies where the gain of
the system (which includes the speakes, mics, and room) is sufficiently
high and the fed back signal is in phase with the radiated signal, and
reduce gain at those frequencies - this is called "ringing out" the
system.

Still, it's rare that you won't have feedback, at least until you get
used to how things work and what you have to do in order to avoid it.
One way to avoide it is to turn down the monitors, but that's
un-American.

Is my
problem solely that I've been using a cardioid up till now? I have had
the back of the microphone to the back of the speaker so I'm scared of
turning the speaker into a position more prone to feedback.

You can get very good results with a cardioid mic, but mic patterns are
only what you think they are (and sometimes not even then) at specific
frequencies and under ideal acoustic conditions. For a given price
point, a "cardioid" mic often has smoother frequency response in more
directions than a "hypercardioid" and sometimes that can make a
difference between feedback or not. Pick your mic for what it sounds
like, not for whether you think it won't feed back (because it WILL).

At the moment I'm considering in-ear monitors but would like to know
more about regular monitors and if I can put my paranoia at rest now.

It's a good idea, but it's not an automatic solution. It's true that
there's much less tendency for feedback and there are big advantages to
reducing the on-stage volume by not having speakers blaring up there.
But you have to be very careful not to injure your ears, and an in-ear
system almost always requires some baby-sitting to make sure things
don't get out of hand and become painful for the performers. Feedback
is soft of a self-regularing volume control - when the system feeds
back, the first thing you reach for is the volume control. But if an
in-ear system gets too loud, about all you have to protect you (most
systems do anyway) is a limiter. So without someone to correct for the
volume increase, your ear monitors get to sounding like a transistor
radio turned up too loud.

Paul Stamler wrote:
1) They're usually wedge-shaped, designed to sit in a particular spot on the
floor and point up to a standing vocalist.

I've seen small mains used as monitors, with a plywood cradle to hold
them at the proper angle. Not elegant but it certainly works.

wrote:
Can someone please educate me on the differences between these two;
stage monitors and stage speakers. Is there some sort of feedback
control on a monitor that is not present on a speaker? Or is it simply
the way most monitors face up at an angle as opposed to horizontally
straight.

Stage monitors tend to have very narrow radiation patterns and often
have very reduced low end. Most of them are voiced with a huge presence
peak for better intelligibility.

How is it you can face a monitor towards you on stage and not get
feedback problems? Is it something inherent in the monitor design?

Hopefully the monitor is in the null of the microphone. If not,
you'll get feedback.

Why not just use a good speaker?

You can, but it won't be easy to aim, and it might spill more than
you want. And it will probably have too much low end if it was
designed to be flat.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 08:29:09 -0500, Joe Kesselman
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:
Unfortunately not possible. The angle of null is frequency-dependent.

Granted, but there's still a rough direction which is going to be
lower-sensitivity for most frequencies; the important thing is realizing
that for hypercardioid that is *not* directly behind the mike.

Nope, 'fraid not. It isn't a matter of most frequencies facing one
way, with the ends tailing off. The angle varies pretty much
continuously over the frequency range. There really is no defined
direction.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 3 Jan 2006 19:30:58 -0800, wrote:

Ok thanks guys. I will definitely use a hyper-cardioid from now on,
but how does the design of a monitor differ from a regular speaker?

Don't hyper-cardioids have a response off the back? I
thought only true cardioids nulled, even theoretically.

Right. The null on a hypercardioid is at 120', not 180'. So you have
to put the monitor to the side. But, the null on a hypercardioid is
(usually) tighter.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Willie K. Yee, MD wrote:
I wish that mic manufacturers would put a marking on each microphone
indicating the angle of the null for that particular mic. Mics vary in
their degree of "hyperness" or "superness", and even if you know what
the angle of the null is for a given mic, in the heat of setting up,
it would be nice to have a graphic indicator of where the null was.

Just because the manufacturer doesn't do it doesn't mean that you can't.
A paint pen or a little nail polish should do the job nicely.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Joe Kesselman" wrote in
message
Paul Stamler wrote:

1) They're usually wedge-shaped, designed to sit in a
particular spot on the floor and point up to a standing
vocalist.

I've seen small mains used as monitors, with a plywood
cradle to hold them at the proper angle. Not elegant but
it certainly works.

A current popular scheme seems to be to angle the enclosure's sides
differently so that the speaker sits on its side at different but usable
angles, depending on which side is down. The EV ZX5-60s that I use also have
a flip-out foot to provide yet a third angle that works for a floor wedge in
some situations.

EV's ZX series speakers also come with rigging points, which is takes them
well afield of being just stage wedges.

"Willie K. Yee, MD" wrote:

I wish that mic manufacturers would put a marking on each microphone
indicating the angle of the null for that particular mic. Mics vary in
their degree of "hyperness" or "superness", and even if you know what
the angle of the null is for a given mic, in the heat of setting up,
it would be nice to have a graphic indicator of where the null was.

Set up mic. Put monitor _there_.

Life should be so simple.

The last time I bought a new Shure Beta58 there was a small cardboard
protractor included in its literature that one could use do what you
suggest, Willie. It's been almost a decade, though, so I don't know
if they still include it, but it did effectively point out that the
Beta58 was a hypercardioid and probably works differently than one might
expect.


In a seperate but related matter...

Last October I responded to a query in AAPLS concerning why monitor
speakers don't immediately result in feedback, explaining that the
directional qualities of the mics used are the primary reason. Everyone's
favorite participant in these newsgroups exhibited his all-too-typical
jump-down-one's-throat technique to insist that this was incorrect and
that the reason was, instead, something to do with those mic's proximity
effect.

See articles 7 and 8 at http://makeashorterlink.com/?O3262196C

Comments?

--
================================================== ======================
Michael Kesti | "And like, one and one don't make
| two, one and one make one."
mrkesti at comcast dot net | - The Who, Bargain

"Michael R. Kesti" wrote ...
Last October I responded to a query in AAPLS concerning why monitor
speakers don't immediately result in feedback, explaining that the
directional qualities of the mics used are the primary reason.
Everyone's
favorite participant in these newsgroups exhibited his all-too-typical
jump-down-one's-throat technique to insist that this was incorrect and
that the reason was, instead, something to do with those mic's
proximity
effect.

See articles 7 and 8 at http://makeashorterlink.com/?O3262196C

Comments?

Update your killfile?

"Michael R. Kesti" wrote in message


Last October I responded to a query in AAPLS concerning
why monitor speakers don't immediately result in
feedback, explaining that the directional qualities of
the mics used are the primary reason. Everyone's
favorite participant in these newsgroups exhibited his
all-too-typical jump-down-one's-throat technique to
insist that this was incorrect and that the reason was,
instead, something to do with those mic's proximity
effect.

See articles 7 and 8 at
http://makeashorterlink.com/?O3262196C

Comments?

Of the posters on this thread, Alex seems to have the most ducks in a row of
the bunch, so I've quoted his 5 points below:

"1) the signal chain mic-monitor should have a gain ratio lower than the
loss that affect the sound traveling from the monitor to the mic (wich
is proportional to the distance). This gain is called "gain-before-feedback"

GBF is like the rules of the road avoidance of feedback.

"2) the polar characteristics of mic and monitor should be used to
increase that loss so you can get a higher GBF

Hence our little discussion of cardioid versus hypercardioid.

"3) you can decrease the need of GBF moving the mic closer to the wanted
source.

Thus proximity if not also the proximity effect are highly relevant.

Proximity effect is of course distinct from issues related to the relative
proximity of the the loudspeaker and the mic to the source.

Proximity effect as we know is essentially a bass boost that increases as
the mic gets closer to the source. Proximity effect can work advantageously
because the loudspeaker is almost always further from the mic than the
source, so the source gets the greater bass boost. This advantage is often
needed because the directionality of most mics and loudspeakers is far
poorer at low frequencies.

"4) You can increase the loss moving the mic away from the monitor.

As long as you don't also move the muso further away from his monitor at the
same time. Then you're robbing Peter to pay Paul.

"5) if some feedback still occur you can try to minimize the effect
reducing only the most problematic frequencies with an eq (usually
graphic 1/3 oct). This procedure is called "ringing-out".

In tough situations, ringing-out monitors (and maybe even mics and mains)
can be a way of life. Note that parametric eq is generally more effective
and less damaging to sound quality than 1/3 octave.

"Joe Kesselman" wrote in message
...
Paul Stamler wrote:
1) They're usually wedge-shaped, designed to sit in a particular spot on
the
floor and point up to a standing vocalist.

I've seen small mains used as monitors, with a plywood cradle to hold
them at the proper angle. Not elegant but it certainly works.

That's why I inserted the qualifier "usually". The E-V 100S speaker, for
example, was mostly a small house speaker, but you could screw a peg into
the socket on the back and use it for a monitor. The socket was off-center,
so that it could be used for standing musicians or, flipped over, for
sitting ones. Great design for a low- to medium-volume situation.

Peace,
Paul

You answered my question very thoroughly, thanks very much everyone!

Scott Dorsey wrote:
wrote:
Can someone please educate me on the differences between these two;
stage monitors and stage speakers. Is there some sort of feedback
control on a monitor that is not present on a speaker? Or is it simply
the way most monitors face up at an angle as opposed to horizontally
straight.

Stage monitors tend to have very narrow radiation patterns and often
have very reduced low end. Most of them are voiced with a huge presence
peak for better intelligibility.

How is it you can face a monitor towards you on stage and not get
feedback problems? Is it something inherent in the monitor design?

Hopefully the monitor is in the null of the microphone. If not,
you'll get feedback.

Why not just use a good speaker?

You can, but it won't be easy to aim, and it might spill more than
you want. And it will probably have too much low end if it was
designed to be flat.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."