Massdrop JBL LSR30X 5" Active Studio Monitors

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by purr1n, Jun 18, 2017.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    phase2.png

    I will verify slopes when I get the chance.
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Yup, the cabinets are too light. Likely intentional to control shipping costs. However, it seems JBL engineered their way around low mass. They sound less boxy than they should for their weight.
     
  3. 9suns

    9suns [insert unearned title here]

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    Speaking of "upgrades" on studio monitos, run away from the Adams (A5X, A7X), they're not an upgrade to the LSR305 and very innacurate and incoherent speakers, sloppy sounding and V shaped FR.
    For the same price and miles better, the Presonus Sceptre S6 sound like a million bucks.
    Better active speakers than the Sceptre, mmm would bet a kidney for the new JBL LSR 705P & 705P, those things have to sound stunning.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2017
  4. westermac

    westermac Friend

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    I've had the opposite experience actually. I owned a pair of LSR305 for a year and a half, and yes; they are a ridiculously good value. I actually bought them purely out of curiosity when they were $99 apiece on Amazon prime, and I liked them so much they promptly replaced my much more expensive Dynaudios.

    I've since moved onto an Adam A5X/Sub8 setup that gives the 305's a pretty sound spanking (as it very well should at the price difference). Imaging chops and soundstage depth of the A5X's are far and away better to me, HOWEVER if you're just going to listen to music the LSR305's are certainly more forgiving, and won't beat you over the head with any poorly mixed/mastered music you may have previously enjoyed. This aspect is valuable to me though so I very much appreciate it.

    Side note: LSR-305/30x will sound good out of the box, but good heavens treat your room if you really want to experience what they (or any loudspeaker) are capable of :sail:
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    That's pretty much my impression too. The Adam A5X is a step up. I guess they could sound V shaped if you tweak the LF and HF dials on the back to the max. However way it goes, there is a reason why these pro monitors have these dials. Environments will differ.

    For the record, I've dialed in -2dbLF and -2HF on my desk for the LSR 30X.
     
  6. 9suns

    9suns [insert unearned title here]

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    Yes, room treatment is mandatory, in fact, I think that speakers without adequate room treatment is a complete waste of money.

    I think that, for an audio transducer (let alone a studio monitor), the most important is frequency response, and the Adams are anything but flat, also I could hear the ribbon tweeter not blending well with the woofer. Yes, they have more detail than LSR-305, but get the key aspect (tone and neutrality) wrong. I can understand why some people love their sound, but for me they're the opposite of what I want not only when mixing music but also for listening pleasure.

    On the other hand, I was amazed when I've heard the Presonus Sceptre S6, those were neutral and easy to listen with a ton of detail.
    Ended buying Amphion One15 but that's a different story.
     
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    For professional use, absolutely. For home use, unnecessary, unless you have no furniture, no carpet, bare floors.
     
  8. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    I meant for headphones, not speakers, where even Sennheiser now has a weird FR for their new Orpheus.
    Lol, that is true. Well, I guess Focal did go for a distinct sound with their headphones, although it's not a FR that I like all that much. I guess they started to believe the Harman target too much.

    Looks like some IR delay. Phase shouldn't shift this much. REW aligns this automatically for you, but I don't know if ARTA does. Anyway, the slopes look like 4th order to me based on the IR, so phase response should look something like this (assuming drivers are aligned perfectly (which they probably aren't, even with the waveguide) and in this case with a 2kHz xover frequency):
    [​IMG]

    Might be more meaningful to take a very zoomed in look at the excess group delay to see how much the woofer lags behind.
     
  9. 9suns

    9suns [insert unearned title here]

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    For sound quality is the most important aspect by far when using speakers, in fact, a room independent speaker does not exist.
    A 10k speaker in a bathroom will sound much worse than a 200$ one in a room of proper dimensions and adequate room treatment, that's how important acoustics are.

    I understand that not everyone can have a dedicated room, but some treatment can be done always unless the wife has a gun license.
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I don't think ARTA aligns it. My old CLIO did it right though. Excess group delay essential looks the same. I will run REW to compare when I get a chance. Or maybe not. Like you, I used to care obsessively about step responses and phase maybe fifteen years ago. Until I realized none of this is necessary to build a good sounding speaker. Let's say I'm not in the time phase coherent camp.
     
  11. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Though even in his notes and measurements afterwards, there doesn't seem to be much improvement after the mods.

    If I were to load down the baffle, I'd probably just buy a quart of weldbond white glue. Much easier to work with, and it dries clear and is semi-flexible which I'm gonna assume will have reasonable damping effects. No fumes or messy chemicals to deal with. The only downside would be drying times. You probably wouldn't want to pour it in too thick, so maybe three or four layers with a day between each.
     
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Concrete.
     
  13. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    As far as alternatives to these, I would put the Mackie MR MK3 line. I don't think either is substantially better than the other. They are a little different, but they are still monitors and the tuning IMO is similar.

    Going up to more expensive monitors may not afford one substantial improvement over these IMO. Possible that some designs will yield different dispersion patterns as a function of frequency, higher/lower sensitivities, and with that different levels of distortion. These are not rock concert speakers. They will distort if pushed to Public Address levels. But for studio and home applications I don't think there should be a problem. A sub-woofer should be used with these to complement the low end. A 5" monitor can go down to 50 Hz. But it may not do so very cleanly.

    Based on the phase plot here, I think these look sort of linear phase in the passband. At least at the location where the measurements were taken. I don't see the frequency response discontinuity @Serious is talking about in those plots. Also, a discontinuity does not imply minimum phase. Note a headphone in general is not minimum phase. And I feel we maybe overusing the minimum phase term. For all I can see, in general, the phase looks great and the tweeter and woofer integration is fantastic at the listener position.

    Regarding headphones, sorry, I think these speakers beat the living shit out of most every other random headphone. Different applications.

    Regarding room treatment, I think a lot of the difference would be seen in less echo issues (severe combing of the frequency response) and less over-shoots in the bass and perhaps treble. Only so much one can do. I definitively don't want my house to look like a f'ing anechoic chamber. It's creepy. These seem to work great for home use.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2017
  14. Armaegis

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  15. Clemmaster

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    Not sure king Mansilla would approve of this setup :rolleyes:

    I've been looking at these for a long time to replace my Emotiva Airmotiv 4 (original) but can not resolve myself to part with them; they sound so good (not to mention I also have the Solo6 Be, for bigger spaces).


    Would you be interested in measuring them?
     
  16. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    Point taken. I definitely don't have enough experience to be sure.

    Based on the step response these are definitely the minimum phase plots calculated from the FR, not the actual phase response. Otherwise the step response would be perfect.
    I don't quite understand. Why not? The excess phase plots in my headphone measurements are all basically 0 across the whole range, as they should be (disregarding some time delay or weirdness with my setup). Unless maybe some closed headphones that use the backwave to augment the bass.
     
  17. westermac

    westermac Friend

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    Yeah, treatment is probably unnecessary for most home listening, due to the volume of crap we all have at home diffusing and absorbing the energy. Carpet and furniture go a long way. Anyone going so far as to setting up a dedicated listening space definitely stands to benefit though, especially in a smaller or squarish room (hello bass suckout). And it doesn't have to cost much! Just buy a bunch of rockwool, put some frames together and cover it with burlap. Viola!

    Creepy? or... AWESOME?

    But yeah... back the LSR-30x. If you don't have these, or comparably awesome speakers, just buy them. Your ears deserve it.
     
  18. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    The definition of minimum phase is not strictly related to the step response. Based on my recollection of some random measurements I've made, a headphone phase plot is not all zeros across the whole range. In most cases I see actual discontinuities in the phase measurements.

    The real question is: Are all the zeros of the system inside the unit circle? I can tell you that I have not seen a headphone whose zeros are all inside the unit circle. So no. Most every other random headphone is not minimum phase.

    A speaker has a delay associated with it due to the fact that it's somewhat far away from the listener. Not minimum phase bro.
     
  19. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I will take one thing back. Group delay in the bass, for ported woofers. Too much group delay is bad. That's one thing I will notice.
     
  20. Clemmaster

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