We’re Monitoring the Situation: Studio Monitor Sales in 2021

The surge in home recording that began in the very early days of the pandemic continues unabated. Naturally, independent music creators – of all experience levels and budgets – need to actually hear what they’re producing and most very quickly come to the conclusion that relying on headphones, alone, simply won’t cut it when crafting a mix.

Whether small nearfield models, larger tri-amped models, or anywhere in between, studio monitors are an essential tool for home studios or upscale production houses, alike. Smaller reference monitors allow users to get a quick take on what the average consumer’s perspective might be, but the general goal of monitors is to provide as flat, uncolored, and “unaided” a sound as possible. You want to hear everything in the mix, warts and all, so that you’re getting a true perspective of the performances and sounds you’ve captured and you can work accordingly.

MMR recently polled over 400 MI retailers on the topic of studio monitors and, not surprisingly, almost 85 percent (82.1%) reported that sales of such items are either up or level when compared to this same time of year in 2020. Also unsurprisingly, nearly all observe that their customers prefer powered units (or “active” monitors) to unpowered studio monitors. The latter are something of an anachronism these days, although “passive” monitors od present some advantages: because they require a separate power amp, they allow from some flexibility in choosing components and setting up multi-speaker arrays; unpowered monitors usually have crossover circuitry for splitting high and low frequencies; and for those who already own a power amplifier for their studio, these models typically represent a price advantage.

Read on to see what brands are ringing the registers across the land.

When compared to fall of 2020, sales of studio monitors at your store are…

Up: 50%

Down: 17.9%

Level: 32.1%

What types of monitors are most popular with your customers?

Powered Studio Monitors: 93.8%

Unpowered Studio Monitors: 6.2%

What brands of monitors are selling best for your business?

Yamaha: 74.3%

PreSonus: 63.9%

KRK: 58.1%

JBL: 49.6%

Genelec: 44.4%

ADAM Audio: 42.2%

Dynaudio: 38.4%

Kali Audio: 38.3%

Mackie: 37.9%

Focal: 31.4%

Neumann: 28.4%

M-Audio: 26.6%

Tannoy: 25.1%

Pioneer DJ: 21.3%

“Other”: 17.4%