Monitor Field Trip to Guitar Center

Is it me or are these more alike than different?

We measured five different monitors and what we came to was that the room impacted the sound more than the actual speakers. Especially below Schroeder frequency.

Five speakers, same room.



One speaker (Yammy HS5), six rooms.

 

Very interesting. People are always on about the effect of rooms on sound, and I don't have a problem with what they say, but it is not often that one sees a comparative room test rather than a speaker test.

 

When I visited London last year, it was without a debt repayment that was waaay overdue and had been really-really-this-time promised. Had wondered about going to studio shop and listening to a pair of Geithain RL906 for the desktop. Might have brought them home too. And, you know... even with the subsequent hearing loss, I'd still get huge pride-of-ownership just looking at the things!

But it wasn't to be, and I had a great trip without going near any audio shops at all.

And when the money did come back, it was just in time for real-emergency flood spending. So I guess stuff worked out.


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there is some other things to consider with rooms. it's not just frequency you look at. you got decay time and comb filtering issues that can occur depending on environment and speaker. highs are very easy to take care of. with mids to lower mids being not too much issues either but, more than highs and of course from around 200hz and below is always a nightmare in lot of rooms in most cases... it's not just room size alone too, you have to think about floor,wall and ceiling materials that was used as well and if there is any insulation used or not. i think sheet rock with drywall still is one of best wall types and with insulation behind it you have mostly pretty much lot of the range dampened pretty darn well without treatment. you got other things like ambient room temperature and humidity levels to calculate too but, that's down farther into the rabbit hole most people will ever attempt to bother with.....but, while sounds complex, it's not really all that hard. rooms can even be tuned by ear if know what you're looking for.

 

probably but, i am not an expert on measuring stuff. i only know how to read the stuff. i know with headphones it showed in the frequency response on decay issues due to peaks being disguised as a dip and so forth so it is possible.

 

They just released this - https://www.minidsp.com/products/minidsp-in-a-box/minidsp-2x4-hd

It does FIR processing and our software guys made a utility which can poop out a file for the Minidsp the understand. The DACs on this unit are decent, but ultimately you'd need a SHARC processor with better DACs at the end.

As both of my Equator Q12 speakers have their own AD/DA chains, I'm not sweating on the DAC too much. Here's what I got with some IIR filtering from the Minidsp 2x4HD.



The curve still needs some licking and bass needs some attention positioning wise, but AFR is better than 90% of the studios I've seen. Rex is right about the time domain effects - my room doesn't sound perfect. It needs treatment for that.

 

Well, I'd keep it as a cool box for designing loudspeakers. If you're swinging for big buck driver then I'd use this - https://www.minidsp.com/products/minidspkits/minisharc-kit

And strap two Soekris DACs at the end complete with a Curryman DAC for bass.

 

Visited Guitar Center's Studio Monitor listening room in Redondo Beach today and did some impressions.

In general, the larger speaker diameters had smoother tone, better cohesion, and more bass, but not always as much as I'd expect. Additionally, I didn't check EQ on every monitor, some were flat, some were not, others I adjusted myself. Some were closer to the floor and the bass improved unfairly as a result.

In the end, I came close to going with Rokit 7's and staying reasonable, but I lost myself listening to the Adam A7V's and bought two of them.

JBL 305P mkII
It was my least favored option of all the monitors in the room. Just not terribly impressive technicals, kinda wonk cohesion, and kinda crunchy and artificial. I had heard a lot about these and I was not impressed, but then again, I had probably expected too much from $240/pair 5" speakers.

JBL 308P mkII
Same signature as the 305P but actually good. Quite detailed especially in the bass, realistic timbre with good instrument separation, good air with sparkly highs without being fatiguing. Good balance between laidback and lively. But huge. 16.5" tall and a foot deep, too much for my computer desk and the glossy black chassis is obnoxious, at least for my taste.

Yamaha HS8
Bright tilt with strong clarity in the highs, decent plankton, but not that bassy. Not sure how they were EQ'd, but all the Yamaha's seemed similar. Solid choice for classical music. Good cohesion, full sounding. Bit expensive, but attractive chassis

Yamaha HS7 / HS5
Everything the same as the HS8 but technicals, bass and fullness all drop off as you'd expect as the size shrinks.

KRK Rokit 8 Generation 5
Wonderful, lively forward mid range. Non-fatiguing signature, party mode of all of the options, very fun. The issue is the total technical performance is sorta mid, cohesion is a hair off, some hollowness, highs have some crunch. Bass sorta weak and loose for an 8", still kinda limpdick even with EQ +2dB. Still, I really like KRK speakers because of the fun factor. Slightly above average in price but reasonable.

KRK Rokit 7 / Rokit 5
Rokit 7 has the same lively mids as the 8 and seemed more cohesive at times despite being smaller and a little crunchier. The Rokit 5 is a little too crunchy and small sounding, but I'd still pick it over the 305P, but understand if others wouldn't.

Presonus Eris Studio 8"
Dark tilt, this is the HD650 of the bunch with all the mid bass. Very laidback, full sounding, and cohesive but kinda veiled. Detail takes a back seat and there's not all that much separation. Transients are pretty slow. Still, preposterously easy to listen to. This and a Scotch would go well. Price is very good if you want this sound.

Kali LP6 v2
If I didn't know someone's preferences and their budget was tight, I might tell them to pickup these. This 6.5" is well balanced, better than average bass response, and generally good technicals. It's not necessarily the blackest or best separation or highest clarity but detail is still good. It's much darker than the JBL 308P but not as dark as the Presonus Eris 8, so it seemed like a good middle ground between signatures.

Adam Audio A7V
Different weight class than rest of the shit on this list. Everything that's good about the other speakers with few or none of the drawbacks. These deserve to be compared to Genelec and Neumann. Signature wise, we have loads of Genelec at work and the A7V's are more fun to listen to, but I'd prefer to mix on Genelec's which spotlight defects. The Adam has lots of plankton and blistering fast transients. Without EQ, the highs are sibilant, reminiscent of an unmodded HD800, but you can easily cure with two button pushes to tilt things darker. Vocals and mids soar with lively realism and give a superb sense of flow and dynamics. Bass doesn't hit quite as low as some of the 8" speakers but it's competitive and integrates cohesively. Balanced, nuanced, and manages both laidback and lively qualities. Has advanced features like you can upload detailed EQ curves directly to the speakers over wired ethernet. Smaller than any of the 8" monitors at 7". You get what you pay for.

 

Had a similar adventure last year or earlier this year when I got my desktops. Agree with most of your impressions. I will say I liked the sound of the A7V the best out of all of the above as well but I couldn't get over the amount of background / white noise they had (maybe not particularly high on an absolute scale, but high to me where I would use them).

The Kali felt like a safe choice all around that I wanted to like, but something I couldn't place my finger on felt "really missing" from their sound, even when accounting for the demo setting, etc. Otherwise, yes, KRK 7 and HS8 were the good choices without any major flaws, just with very different sounds.

 

Definitely sins of omission thing. Nothing wrong but nothing so right that you take notice.

 

Happy to see those impressions of both the latest KRK and HS8. I remember doing a similar tour a LONG time ago. Hated the HS8 after about 30 seconds, ended up buying the KRK's and returning them. This was the path that led me to my current Audioengine 6's. The temptation to dabble in powered monitors hits every now and then, but the path from the Audioengines is probably...bigger. Much bigger.

 

What didn't you like?

 

Was a LONG time ago, but they ended up being too bright in my setup for regular use. I thought they sounded pretty good at the Guitar Center. I DO think I had some power issues at the time, either with them or with the source, but I ended up switching to headphones for a time, then finally settled on the Audioengines, once they went on sale.