alienux Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 So I've spent quite a bit of time deciding which active monitor to buy to use at home for dialing in patches. I've been using an old Crate PA system with a left channel that no longer works. It's a big, heavy, and bulky 3 piece system that stays in my basement, but it worked for the purpose of helping create patches for when I play live. Since all of the rest of my guitar gear is upstairs (2 levels up from the basement), I've been using a decent pair of PC speakers plugged into the headphone jack on my POD. It works for practicing, although the POD clips the speakers on a number of patches, even with the volume fairly low on the speakers. I'd been planning on getting an active monitor and looked at Behringer, Kustom, and a few others. I finally settled on the Alto TS110a and it arrived today. It's bigger than I expected and is currently sitting atop my Peavey Vypyr VIP II amp. I've only had about 15 or 20 minutes to play through the speaker, but I am very happy with what I'm hearing so far. It sounds better than my Crate PA system and speakers, and is much closer to the sound I get when plugged into the deck playing live, and of course it's a huge upgrade over the PC speakers I've been using for practicing. So the big benefits for me are 1) not having to take my guitar and POD to the basement when I want to build a new patch and 2) having my practice time sound much better. The speaker also has 2 separate inputs, each with it's own volume control for mixing, and each input doubles as either XLR or 1/4". The speaker lists for $349, but the street price is $249, and so far I couldn't be happier with the purchase. I'd almost decided to go with a Behringer Eurolive until I stumbled upon an older post somewhere recommending the Alto speakers. After researching, it sounded like what I wanted, and now that I have it, I'm glad it's what I went with. At some point, unless I discover something I don't like (which doesn't seem likely at this point), I'll probably end up buying a second one to run them in stereo. I see lots of posts here and on other forums asking about affordable active monitors, so I thought I'd share. If you're looking for something like this, you might want to check one of these out to see if it's something that would fit your needs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuskey Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 This is the exact same monitor I've been using with mine for a little over a year now. I've got no complaints and the price was definitely right! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alienux Posted January 15, 2015 Author Share Posted January 15, 2015 After using it everyday for a week now, I'm really liking the Alto very much. It sounds better and better to me each day, and it's definitely helping me get my patches dialed in more accurately at home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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