Monitor vs Hi-Fi speakers
While no rigid distinction exists between consumer speakers and studio monitors, manufacturers more and more accent the difference in their marketing material. Whereas in the 1970s the JBL 4311’s domestic equivalent, the L-100, was used in a large number of homes, and the Yamaha NS-10 also served both domestically and professionally during the 1980s, there are no present-day equivalents. Professional companies such as Genelec, Klein and Hummel, Quested, PMC, and M & K sell almost exclusively to the professional monitor market, while most of the consumer audio manufacturers confine themselves to supplying speakers for the home. Even companies that straddle both worlds, like Tannoy, ADAM, Focal/JM Labs, surrounTec, Dynaudio, and JBL, tend to clearly differentiate their monitor and hi-fi lines.
Generally, studio monitors are physically robust, to cope with the high volumes and physical knocks that may happen in the studio, and are used for listening at shorter distances (e.g., near field) than hi-fi speakers, though nothing precludes them from being used in a home-sized environment. Studio monitors are increasingly self-amplified (active), although not exclusively so, while hi-fi speakers usually require external amplification.
Many inexpensive hi-fi models are designed to make a pleasing sound by deliberately manipulating the frequency response curve of the audio signal they receive. No speaker, monitor or hi-fi, regardless of the design principle, has a completely flat frequency response; all speakers color the sound to some degree. Monitor speakers are assumed to be as free as possible from coloration.
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