Nearfields for audiophile listening?

There are many problems with running large drivers up high. Even with perfect pistonic action a 15” will start tightening up the dispersion, which sometimes can be beneficial for directivity control. JBL do it with their M2 and 4367, but even then the 15” is crossed over to the waveguide at 700Hz. With real drivers running a 12” or 15” up to 1kHz usually incurs breakups, unless the driver is very high quality. Getting a 12” driver do the same thing as a Scanny 18WU won’t be easy...

I’d personally run a smaller dedicated mid from 500Hz to 3kHz and relegate the bottom to a larger bass driver and top to a decent tweeter. Companies like 18sound have 10” mids, but I’d like to see them go against a 12WU in a CSD measurement. Sure, can’t beat a 10” mid for SPL, but not that many people really crank their systems to benefit from PA SPL’s.

 

Its funny
with thorsten it seems you either love him or hate him lol. He has been incredibly helpful with me and is unmeasurably more knowledgeable then me.

bon... back to nearfields!

 

except for beaming, in terms of resolution, can a 15” be as detailed then a 6.5 inch up to 1khz?
in theory beaming is only a problem off axis right? since my room is treated and listen on axis i wonder if the idea that a smaller mid having more detail from 300hz to 1khz is a myth...
in terms of image size and dynamics, big mids have a clear advantage: one just need to listen to some tannoy dc 15 gold or red...

 

As I understand it, beaming typically refers to poor power response. Sitting on axis, as the signal gets louder the frequency response changes. So with a hypothetical high efficiency big woofer, what was a flat response with mild treble droop at the listening position and 90db, on axis, could become a 2-4khz 6db bump due to some bad resonance in the voicecoil or the dust cap as you turn up the volume to 96db. The driver cone also acts as a waveguide, further exacerbating things. And add to that the Fletcher Munson curve...

 

Some thoughts that have been bing-bonging in my head regarding just that:

• would they be perfectly pistonic, then yes they would only beam
• vast majority will not be pistonic in their op range, with the dust cap and adjacent rigid cone structure following voice coil business, adding to the treble, while the 'soft parts' that makes up for most of the surface area (--> bass output) would 'flap in the breeze', not contributing proportionally to bass/low mids and on top introducing distortion. This all will reduce the 'beaming' effect to a degree.
• the more efficient, the lighter cone, the lower down in freq breakups occur (large driver problems)
• mechanical damping seems to help reduce cone misbehaving, yet mech damping is arguably main thing killing 'resolution'. Tonally pleasing vs resolving seems to be the balancing act. (small 'clever material' driver problems)
• all the large mid drivers I know are PA drivers --> ''strong springiness'' ie low VAS (for high power handling). That probably also affects low level resolving performance adversely, esp in conjunction with low BL and high electric Q values.
• 6'' mid will have trouble doing 200 Hz loud and with authority (dynamics) due to it being forced to do noticeable excursion. It's evident from distortion measurements that for loud listening this is not ideal use case. Either higher XO point or larger driver to be used.

It's a compromise. The small inefficient megatech super expensive Scanspeak-Accuton ..etc types will have better low level low volume intelligibility but worse dynamic performance.
Detailed is a large pool of properties. Large drivers deliver everything with more authority and clarity. That is form of 'detailed'. Small drivers do more 'delicacy', again, a form of 'detailed.

I suppose the future tech brings the small driver properties to larger drivers to bridge the gap. There is going to be a 100 dB eff 8..10'' driver that has no noticeable breakup up to mid-treble, no wiggle in bass region with Mms in the 5..10g range with low-ish Fs --> high VAS. Note; some of the uber expensive wide-bangers are in many ways close to this target.

Motor tech, beaming and excursion (Doppler, BL/spider nonlinearities) will still be problems, and 3-way speaker will be around for decades to come.

Ime and in my beliefs large drivers have more pro-s than cons, even regarding 'detail'.
Still, a 15'' used for mids (all the way to 1280 Hz) does not fit in my vision as of this moment. It probably sins in various ways that I would not care for. 10'' is largest I would use for mids.

 

I concur that this doesn't have any business sounding as good as it does. I had a similar setup when I borrowed Marv's Gungnir A2. Basically,

Gungnir A2 -> Lepai -> Micca MB42x

I was expecting zero improvement and the speakers were only plugged in so I wouldn't have to switch sources with the headphone setup. Goddamn it sounded good. I totally understand the 'source first' approach.

 

I always understood the larger woofers moves more air, by having a large surface. They do not have to have basically any excursion compared to a smaller driver, which in turn will provide cleaner more detailed sound. A larger woofer are more directional from lower so that it provides more direct sound at the listening position than smaller drivers? What would be the benefit then be of using a smaller driver?Not sure at which point volume wise or what or driver's size this really becomes an issue.

 

I just bought the KRK Rokit 5 G4 and set them up. These are much less veiled than the bigger ones, which extend further down and get retard loud. A huge improvement over the previous KRK Rokits, bringing them more in line with the expensive KRKs. These destroy the JBLs, Yamahas, Adams, and Mackies for me. Those are all weirder and more veiled sounding. Good for actual nearfield use only. My new favorite in the lower end monitor price class. At more than about 2 meters away, just no. They struggle and are a little boxy and warm in the lower and mid bass but are the best I've heard in the price range overall. Just a great buy for 360 USD a pair. You can get deals with stands for that price from a couple retailers.

Edit: Very slight hiss. Not a big deal. I only notice it when my tinnitus is active when I'm very tired.

 

Detail and immediacy in the all critical mid-range, especially when up close in the sweet spot. This is much more noticeable with nearfields and two-ways. Listen to JBL LSR 305 vs the 306 or the 308 and you will hear the difference right away. All the 8" two way monitors are veiled. Very often the 5-7" woofer two way is the best overall one to stick to the topic. It varies from line to line and brand to brand. One size in the lineup is always the best speaker regardless of size, extension, midrange detail, and volume if you accept those limitations: Rokit 5 G4, HS8, A7X, LSR 305, KH 310, etc. Very often one might be much worse than the others too and just there to take away shelf space and sales from competitors, a shelf turd.

 

I bet it's the lower xo point and the tweeter struggling, or in case of 308 too high xo point and the woofer misbehaving in highs;
all despite 4th+ order xo.

Too much is being asked of the puny 2-way.
It could be not veiled wielding a 8'' pro-esque woofer, but then it wouldn't have much business below 60..70 Hz.
How the hell does the engineer tell if the sound is ultimately veiled, when monitoring with typical studio monitors?
We, end customers suffer.

 

Don’t get too hype about the DSP and the screen. It’s just a cheaper replacement for switches. The phone doesn’t control it, they’re just making a basic app to sine sweep rooms and suggest equalization and setup options. The biggest improvements are probably just in driver quality and the cabs being less resonant.

The drivers on the JBL LSR 305 already misbehave. Or it might be the waveguide. The 305, even the new one, already is a tiny bit v-shaped and the 308 is ridiculous. JBLs do not tend to sound normal in the midrange and treble and the 305 mk ii is one of the most normal ones.

It seems to be very hard to get an 8” woofer to crossover with a 1” tweeter to produce a coherent midrange. Many of those are still good speakers anyway though, just not the most critical.

Referencing the track on multiple sources. The same as ever. The problem is often that the modern home or project studio guy doing the referencing has nothing with a clearish midrange that shows vocal and string (including guitar) transients well. He might have a pair of 8” monitors (for the bass), a car, earbuds, a v shaped hifi system (or a blue tooth sound bar), and a pair of closed headphones. Most of the modern hip hop and electronic music “engineers” using this stuff are detail deaf and not working on anything worthwhile musically anyway. Demo cassettes and mix tapes from 20-30 years ago were more carefully recorded and produced.

 

So, not sure if this will be useful for anyone but I wanted to share my recent experience with the Dynaudio Special 40 in a nearfield/desktop application.

The hype for this model has been strong since release, and since I'm a bit of a Dynaudio fan and an introverted cheapskate who's more comfortable buying/selling used than dealing with an actual dealer and salesperson, I picked up a pair at a resell-able price from USAM to try out.

My 2-channel (office) system for some time now has been Gungnir Multibit A2 > Mackie Big Knob Passive > dual SVS SB2000 > B&K ST2140 > Dynaudio M1

I've been quite happy with the M1's since I acquired them (for 1/4 of the price I paid for the Special 40), so it wasn't a dissatisfaction with my current setup so much as a ridiculously expensive curiosity.

I had a Vidar on hand so I hooked them up to see what all the hype was about. Out of the gate the first thing to strike me was the capability of the Esotar 40 tweeters. The ease with which I could perceive low-level detail was noticeably better than the M1's older Esotecs, and the improvement in soundstage depth was not subtle. They threw a huge soundstage, which was a lot of fun to listen to.

That being said, I was surprised to find the Special 40's lower treble/upper mids to be a bit... harsh? Weird, since Dynaudio is one of the last makers you'd accuse of fatiguing treble (given the reputation of their silk dome tweeters). I measured them in REW to see what was the issue and the treble measured every bit as flat as the M1 with no noticeable spikes to speak of, so I played around with placement a bit (which @rlow advised could be finicky) to see if early reflections off my desk were to blame.

Placement mitigated the issue somewhat, and switching the Vidar out for the ST2140 (with its warmer, smoother signature) helped further. It was now perfectly listenable (and very detailed) but still had the slightest bit of glare on certain recordings compared to the M1. Not enough to really be an issue for me, but unfortunately the mids were different story.

I'll start by saying the Special 40's mids were pleasant enough. Again, measurably very similar to the M1's flat response, but they sounded a bit cloudy/smeared (particularly in the lower mids) in comparison to the M1's dual drivers, which sounded more clearly delineated. Instruments like hand percussion seemed to ring, and decayed more slowly on the Special 40, but the M1 more clearly maintained the spaces in between. Now, I have heard that the Special 40 suffers from excessive cabinet resonances due to poor bracing - whether or not that is to blame here I have no idea.

Bass is no contest - the M1 rolls off so quickly that they can hardly be considered to have any bass at all (hence my use of dual subs). The Special 40's extension is pretty impressive for their cabinet size (control is just OK, we're talking about 6.5in drivers here after all), to the extent that I could easily live with them without subs.

Now the point of decision - are the Special 40's impressive treble detail and soundstage depth enough for me to part with my M1+dual SVS setup? In short, nope.

While I was continually impressed by those aspects of the Special 40 (and let's not forget the posh grey birch finish), going back to my M1's was like a breath of fresh air. Even though the two model's frequency responses measured quite similarly, the different in presentation was much more apparent than the graphs would indicate.

The M1's are no slouch where soundstage depth is concerned, but next to the Special 40 they are more up-front (particularly in the mids), which I found myself preferring. The Special 40's soundstage could take on this etherial quality at times, which was amazing for particular recordings but not very helpful for picking out elements of a mix (this setup has a dual purpose as my music listening setup and A/V workstation). The M1's greater midrange speed also made them a good deal more engaging to listen to, giving the music an energy and quickness that the Special 40 lacked in spite of its impressive tweeters (which never quite shook that bit of extra zing).

It was fun, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to put them through their paces, but the Special 40's ultimately went back in their boxes and were shipped off to their next (presumably happy) owner. Curiosity satisfied; back to listening.

 

May I ask if you are also using small sub for nearfield (2.1 channel) or strictly 2 channel?

I am thinking to get small sub + 5" monitors for nearfield setup instead of 7" monitors without sub and not sure many people add small sub to extend lower end a bit more for nearfield.

(P.S.) Tried 12" velodyne sub in my small room briefly and it was problematic. Too much bass echoing in my small room so thinking to try small 8 or 10" sub.

 

No sub. Subs are hard to integrate in small rooms. Very very small rooms have problems in the lower bass no matter how well you treat them. If you want slightly more extended bass, I’d just get a bigger woofer.

Buy the best sounding monitor in the line regardless of woofer size and claimed extension. Usually one speaker in each lineup is simply best one in that line for various reasons. If you want further bass extension, check out a different brand or line. For example: JBL LSR 305 mkii, KRK Rokit 5 G4, KRK V6 S4 and V8 S4, Yamaha HS8, Adam A7X

I’ll eventually buy a very good 8” monitor to compliment what I have at the same distance. Three ways you must sit further back from and have an additional crossover.

 

I will add that you @Decomo might have different priorities so you might want to sacrifice midrange detail and overall cohesiveness for more bass extension when starting out. Also it matters if you are doing any production or not and what you are doing. The only way to decide is to know what you want and listen for yourself. You might not care too much about slight midrange veil or tweeters and want just slightly more bass so then go HS8 or you frickin hate mids and like flabby bass so JBL 308, or you want decent warm bass but hate mids so then KRK Rokit 8, etc. I realized I would have to spend 1600 for the 8” KRK that didn’t suck in the mids and didn’t feel like shelling out that much until I upgrade interface, guitar, amp, and maybe drum kit.

 

Thank you for sharing those info and feedback.

I have no monitoring work at all but strictly listening music at nearfield. Try to achieve not too warm or bright but truthful to music source and I may like a bit of bass extension for a bit extra excitement.

8" monitor might be too big even putting them on stand behind the desk beside large computer screen and too expensive. I noticed that 5" monitor price is competitive but 7" or bigger gets quite expensive.

5~6" would be perfect size for me so will check out Rokit 5" G4 first soon and if I crave a bit more bass, might add a small sub to test.

Thank you again...