Nearfields for audiophile listening?

Wow nice, unfortunately they were $750 here in NZ. But I don't realy worry about these things anymore as it's a great place here. Still a bit crazy though!

 

Back midrange finds it's way out the port and why they tend to be better in back as it has less effect on the mids in room. In a small speaker it's more likely tuned to 50 or 60 HZ and will load more in back with proximity. Midbass and midrange still comes out that port. Not just the tuned frequency. Isolate a port sometime and give a listen.

 

Ports can also be farty, particularly if they aren't flared. Normally only a problem if you stick your ear up to it which isn't the case for most people (I'm not gonna judge if you do). But a rear port too close to a wall does tend to reflect the fartiness and make it audible from the front if it was there to begin with.

 

Known as Chuffing.

 

Ah thank you. I was wracking my brain trying to remember the word for that! Much more elegant than "fartiness"

 

We're all about elegance in this thread.

 

Just a question that should be pretty easy to answer for you all, but a new to a headphone listener. I'm not sure what to put on the input sensitivity switch on the JBLs +4 or -10.

The JBL manual says:

I'm using a Schiit Midgaard, here is the impedance info, I'm using Balanced out:

 

Start with -10 dB, just as the instructions suggest. Unless your digital front end is a pro studio board of some kind, -10 dB is correct.

I had a pair of powered speakers that gave me this option, but the manual was helpfully specific that the +4 dB setting only applied to all-balanced studio gear chains.

 

Cool, thanks. I'm guessing it's on -10 from the start? It is fairly loud. I'm at about 9am on my Midgaard volumes pot even on low gain and it sounds like a good 70 - 90 db from where I'm sitting.

 

Quite apart from this pro/level vs consumer level thing, gain mismatches can arise in pretty any system, often because the output voltage of the DAC (or streamer) is on the high side.

For years, the typical output voltage of a single-ended DAC was around 2.0v. Even when the DAC is balanced and has at least 4v output on the 2 x 3-pin XLR outputs of the DAC, the single-ended output via RCA outputs was usually around 2.0v.

But in recent years, I've seen something of a "gain war" break out, with single-ended DAC outputs commonly being 2.5v or even 3.0v; and balanced outputs of a balanced DAC can go as high as 6-7v. This can cause havoc in one's system.

My favorite of my 3 NOS DACs, the single-ended MHDT Labs Orchid, is a case in point. Its 3.0v output causes gain issues throughout my complex main system (which supported both headphone amps, preamp, power amp, speakers and sub).

I'm not really sure what your system is. But if you're connecting pretty much any balanced DAC to a headphone amp, the possibility of excess gain at the amp's output is real.

PS: the other variables that really matter are the impedance and sensitivity of the headphone in question. If you have a low impedance, very sensitive headphone, any gain issues in the gear that feed it will be even more apparent than would be the case with a high impedance dynamic, or a relatively insensitive planar headphone.

 

Line level matching isn't terribly critical for home use unless you're chaining a whole bunch of devices together. Flip the switches and doohickeys until you get to a useable range on your volume pot and call it a day.

 

For years, I worked on the basis that if you needed +4, you knew you did, and I used it when I had a DAC that had balanced "pro" output.

Yep. Those years, I guess.

Gosh. Things got complicated.

If I remember correctly, the +4 and -10 are not even the same sort of dB. So it not a difference of 14dB. Correct me, someone?

 

fwiw The line level out with variable volume on my ifi zen is, I believe, a low 1V, but when I press the power match button I get a much better gain structure for how I use my JBL 305s.

Like @armgaegis suggests, try a few settings and use your ears to guide you as to what sounds best. For me, the powermatch on add a bit more body along with the increased gain even when volume matched .

 

Well, was a fun weekend doing some work from my desk and listening to music. But I think I've ultimately decided these studio monitors are not for me. Sound is excellent, but like I figured the low level hiss just drives me crazy. I really like a silent ambient room and I build silent PCs because even a fan noise bugs me. I think I'll try these in my kitchen with some type of Bluetooth capabilities connected.

 

Sorry, I've lost the plot. Are you talking about the JBLs?

 

Ah yea JBL 305.

 

Yeah that's a slightly unfortunate part about the 305ps. There should be other similar models out there (e.g hs5, lp6v2, A5v) with lower noise.

 

Yea, I can imagine for 95%+ of people they probably don't even notice the hiss. It's low level, but I'm use to dead silent equipment.

 

Never noticed it before, but I can hear it with ear about 2-3 inches from tweeter, but nothing a few feet away. I hear my refrigerator in the open kitchen about 20 ft away more than the speakers. Sorry it did not work out for you. Can you return them?

 

I think at close near field they would be audible, something like arms reach distance, like at my desk. Nah, unfortunately you can't really return a product here in NZ because you don't like them / buyers remorse. There has to be a fault. I can put them up for sale locally with $100 off and they should move fast.