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You'll find several pairs of monitors in most studios.

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Monitors: you a buy a pair, sit them on your desk and then forget about them, right? Unfortunately, if you want to get the best out of them, there's a little more to it than that.

If your plan is to create a monitoring system that will enable you to produce decent-sounding mixes (we'll take it as a given that it is), it's worth spending some time not just choosing your speakers, but also setting them up correctly.

To help you on your way, here are answers to seven of the most important and frequently asked monitoring questions.

1. Why does everyone bang on about Yamaha NS10s?

The single biggest industry standard in the history of music production hardware? Quite possibly.

These unassuming two-way passive monitors were first released in 1978 and built a reputation for being revealing if a little unpleasant sounding. They've been criticised for their harsh highs, uneven frequency response and lack of low end, but they've helped plenty of producers get good results in spite of all these flaws.

The old adage that "if it sounds good on NS10s it'll sound good on anything" still seems to apply. You'll find a pair sitting on the meter bridge in the vast majority of pro studios to this day.

2. Do I need to spend loads of money to get good monitors?

It's generally true that more expensive monitors are better, but our reviews show that there are good and bad monitors in any price range and there are usually a few surprises in any group round-up.

Whatever your budget, there are sure to be a couple of pairs which stand out as being particularly impressive. In the budget market, for example, our old favourites the Samson Rubicon R5As are only £235 but they're true giant killers, beating monitors twice the price.

3. Why can't I just use hi-fi speakers?

There's no reason you can't use speakers marketed for hi-fi use. After all, the Yamaha NS10 was originally marketed as a consumer hi-fi speaker and that seems to have done alright as a monitor for the last three decades.

The problem is that this is only true of a handful of consumer products and the vast majority of hi-fi speakers don't have the characteristics we're after. Home hi-fi kit is designed to make all music sound good, which is the last thing you want when you're mixing.

If you stick to products marketed specifically as studio monitors you should avoid this problem.

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