Nearfields for audiophile listening?

Have you heard the Geithains already? Otherwise "I know I won't regret it" is a dangerous assumption.

No need for an amp for powered speakers. One of the primary functions of a preamp is volume control, so yes it would be a benefit.

Your Apogee Duet is an all-in-one unit that combines DAC, preamp, and headphone amp. You can replace it with a different all-in-one, or go to separate components (DAC, preamp, and headphone amp). For separates, I could suggest the Schiit Bifrost DAC with JBL Nano Patch for volume control (both support balanced), and add a headphone amp later.

 

I just bought an RME ADI-2 DAC FS which i run connected to an Auralic Aries Mini (All music files stored on a SSD) to my Hedd Type 20´s and i think it can´get much better than this.
So my sugestion would be, if you have the chance, to try the RME with your setup, i think that you would be surprised about what this tiny little black box can do!

 

I wouldn’t be 100% sold on the Geithains for work. They have a coax tweeter and all coaxial tweeters have imd. The components will be far better than Neumanns. I’m not sure integrating monitors with hifi speakers gives the best results. A monitor with a flat, unrecessed midrange gives better results. Dynaudio and Adams might sound better than your Neumanns but the midrange will be even less accurate. For more accurate think Yamaha HS8, ATC SCM20ASL, KRK 6000 type of stuff. You might not want to listen to most recordings, even modern classical music ones, on them but they are accurate. You’ll never be able to hunt down problems on things that won’t show them to you. None of the AMT tweeters comes close to this stuff.

If you’re going to be recording and monitoring, ignore most of the advice you’ll get here. Most people will give you advice for colored line level gear and won’t take into account driver stability and latency at all.

The RME ADI 2 Pro is decent but only decent. It’s not great. The sound quality is much better than the other rmes but in the grand scheme of things, it’s still cleanish lofi. It has too much latency for live recording and monitoring and no way to monitor off a built in mixer. No total mix. It’s worse than Lynx, MOTU, and modern non dongle Apogee soundwise.

The RME Babyface Pro (FS) is the most reliable bus powered unit. It’s just sounds lofi and maybe slightly better and cleaner than a Focusrite Scarlet. If you want bus powered portable units, it and the metric halo 2882 are the only games in town.

How many inputs do you need at once? The MOTU AVB and Lynx Aurora (n) are killer for that. The MOTU 16a rules and has no breakout cables. The 828es has more monitor control functions and 2 preamps but less inputs and outputs. 8pre-es has 8 preamp/di/line level combo jacks. These are way more featured and pro than the Apogee Elements. The AVB Ethernet ability to chain them together is brilliant. The desktop Ultralite AVB is usb only and I presume your iMac has thunderbolt. Use the thunderbolt if you can. The AD is not as good as the DA but it is still very good.

The Lynx Aurora (n) is more neutral AD with more inputs running at once and slightly more stable. Motu has more detail over DA but it is warmer. Neither have a fan. The lynx is top tier for multichannel if you can afford it but I’m not sure about the monitor control functions.

Apogee abandoned pro market to become Apple partnered and make junky dongle stuff a while ago. Only the Symphony mk II is pro but the metering is worse than the mk I and it still has the fan that engages when the most of the inputs are used. Bleh. Everything else is consumer or prosumer. If you want to record quickly, it has the soft limiter so you can’t clip anything.

UAD moved downmarket too. The guy who made the 2192 makes the Burl gear now. Burl is great if you like that sound but you’ll need another digital interface. The Apollos are chifi Sabres. UAD sells to guys who get conned into using the plugins based on the days when CPU’s weren’t Powerful enough for audio processing and everything ran on dsp chips. The drivers are far more flakey than the others but are idiot proof to use in practice, unlike Lynx and MOTU.

If you only need two inputs, I would strongly consider the upcoming Apogee Symphony Desktop if the usb drivers are not generic xmos. It will be a huge upgrade from what you have.

Other interface brands are mostly unreliable unless they have Dante hookups but then you’ll need a Dante interface or pcie card to reliably record.

 

Or... I should try to convince this guy to buy my Prism Lyra

 

Reading through this massive thread, and NOT buying a studio monitors as my two channel speakers, seemed like a horrible waste of time, that's probably why I am now anxiously awaiting delivery of Rokit 10-3 G4s.

But I am spending so much time listening on headphones that having a big amp and Totem Hawks just seating in my living room is just a waste, so I wanted something smaller and less expensive for casual, midfield listening.
Experimenting with LSR305s and RME ADI-2 DAC was very promising, Jan Meyer crossfeed and a bit of EQ made them sound more than a little better, but even with two subs they still sound small.

So after my failed attempt to buy Adam A8X in the UK for a lot less, I finally decided to order a pair of KRK RP10 G4, the biggest reasonably priced active monitors I could find .
I found nothing particularly wrong about them in this thread, or in the reviews,and if I remember @Psalmanazar said somewhere here that they are not bad, but I cannot find the exact quote.
I will see how they are doing with RME ADI-2 DAC, and report here.

 

They shouldn’t be. The Rokit 10-3 og version were the first reasonably priced krks since the passive K-RoKs to not suck. Expect warmth and cohesiveness and no suckouts. The current Rokit 5 with the Kevlar tweeter are good but the bigger ones lose the midrange. The V6s4 I’m rocking now are killer. Somehow KRK is back on track from years of mediocrity.

 

I'm confused. Crossfeed is for making 'phones sound more like speakers. sound as in replicating the stereo sound stage. Unless you have a speaker pointing at each ear, why would you apply it to speakers?

 

You are right, initially I had speakers pointing directly at my ears, but playing with the toe-in I could not get a good instrument placement, for some reason crossfeed "fixed" it.
What I read about nearfield listening is that it is used to eliminate the room interaction. In some rooms it requires seating close and pointing monitors at your ears. It is not impossible that crossfeed may help in this situation with stereo image, although but it just my guess.
And in general the stereo image depends on the speaker toe-in and the room interactions. Crossfeed will be one more factor and it may have a good or bad effect. My point it should not be needed with speakers, but it is likely to affect the stereo image.

I hope you meant "they shouldn't be bad".

 

I meant... like headphones. Then you'd need crossfeed.

This is the first time I've ever heard of anyone using crossfeed with speakers. Maybe that's because I never looked. But show me a speaker amp with crossfeed: I can show you some 'phones amps with it, to replicate speakers.

It could be that you have a uniquely weird room, but I have a hunch that you are overcomplicating things. How to listen to speakers is... put them equidistant, the "right" distance away. Tweak toe-in if need-be. For monitors, tweak elevation if need-be. Enjoy.

If that formula does not essentially work, one or more of speakers, ears or room/positioning is wildly wrong.

 

That’s the colored ass computer waveguide limiting overall dispersion and making the stereo center way too big. Those monitors are actually crap for precise imaging. Drum kits in mixes that aren’t LCR get blurred. So if the Kick or snare have to be panned a little bit to be in phase with the overheads, yeah that sucks. The JBLs, Neumanns, Kalis, and Genelecs all have them. The JBL is the most messed up one but largest sweet spot.

 

No contest here. I did not say that crossfeed is the right thing to do with properly positioned speakers and in a reasonable room. The only thing I am saying that with other things being out of order, crossfeed may compensate.

According to a couple of links, and studio monitor manuals I checked pointing directly at your ears, like headphones, that's how nearfield studio monitors are being used. So that was my starting position, and no matter what I did after hat, it always sounded better with Jan Meier crossfeed. And if I understand what @Psalmanazar is saying, whatever problems I had with the stereo image, the JBL waveguard was not helping.
On the other hand some people here got it right. What I was trying to do is to is to mimic @squishware JBL setup with one more sub, and he is very happy with the results.
Good thing that with KRK 10-3 G4 I should not need a subwoofer, they supposedly extend to 27Hz. I doubt it.

 

For nearfield i like this setup: http://carltatzdesign.com/acoustic-tools/the-null-positioning-ensemble.pdf
You can adjust measurements just keep the ratios the same.

 

And the lowest price.

 

Don't know for sure about 906s, but big Geithains are great. Soft, clean, big and relaxed, they play Metallica live tracks like very good PA speakers.
5" nearfields must be very limited in SPL and thinking distortion-wise, you should take into account this chart (acoustic diagrams)
https://www.me-geithain.de/en/rl-906.html
They just unusable fullrange at SPLs more than 85 Db, I'd say, if you assume monitoring as it should be.
So, if you cut them below 80 and use them VERY close, they might be OK.
Otherwise, I'd suggest something bigger. At least 904s...

Regarding electronics - i'd prefer investments into weakest points of any acoustic chain = speakers and room.
Most probably, it will have better bang for buck than source exchange.
By the way, Prism interfaces are nice, despite relatively old design. At least I hear so.

 

Geithains I’ve heard nothing but good things about. Only bad thing I’ve heard of is treble grain from imd coax tweeter but nothing ad bad as a tannoy.

Yeah, most nearfields are fragile in pro music use ime. Even the 8” woofer ones and some the three ways can’t get loud easily. The drivers cannot survive pops and crashes.

ATC is the sturdiest by far I’ve seen. Their pro speakers just can’t die. The special drivers, beefy plate amps that don’t distort with built in FET limiter. Then Yamaha and KRK. Not the Ns10 and Rokits. The latter two may be made in Asia but they are high volume and the driver coils simply need to cool down for a little bit to sound normal again. That HS8 woofer is a piece of shit but it works. The Yamaha plateamps are hard to kill. KRK and old Dynaudio plate amps can fry but the drivers are tanks. Old Genelecs were ultra sturdy but the newer ones are less tank.

Most of the Duets suck. The original was warmed over lofi, the later one was Sabre sound + Apogee sheen for enhanced pain, the current one is like a shittier Quartet. Getting rid of them is huge. Converters matter. Prism is a huge upgrade. Workman Lynx and MOTU converters are also flatter than Apogee and the Prism Orpheus and Lyra.

 

ATC SCM25A and SCM20ASL are two that have been on my list. I will stick to Geithain RL906's for now as my room is very small- have gotten by fine with my KH120's for the past five years. Might eventually add the Basis 11K sub. But the moment ATC comes out with an SCM25A Mk II with the updated tweeter (a la 20ASL) I will order a pair to compliment the Geithain's. Longer term, I'd really love to get a couple Geithain 901K's for a dedicated hifi setup in a larger room.

 

im confuse. Geithain is not a real coaxial like kef or tannoy, in that the tweeter is placed in front of the woofer, but not in the middle of the woofer. I dont see how the Geithain would have any IMD issue resulting of their quasi-point source arrangement.
never heard them, but from everything ive read, they are top notch all the way

 

Hi! I have been reading this topic for some time and now need a bit of an advice. I am going to buy acoustics for nearfield usage at home for music listening. After checking it all, I have decided I want to try going with studio monitors. I listed to metal genres, technical/prog death at most. Yea, I know the recordings are compressed as hell,but thats what we have as reality for today... Budget is no more then 1500 USD for a pair.

I have 2 shops in my city that sale good acoustics and will allow to listen it beforehand. After making some research I have decided to order Dynaudio LYD7 and Focal Shape 65 to check (so much for goods avaliability in a 1.5 mln people city).

Some brands discussed and praised here... I have not even seen it for sale anywhere! I am not ready to order acoustics without checking its sound first. However I am kinds worried since the models I am going to choose from were not discussed or advised much here. So, how are they doing for their price range? What troubles may I expect? What should I pay attention to while listening to them at the shop (they have a treated room)?

 

You're right. Geithain uses a coincident driver array, so the tweeter doesn't use the woofer membrane as a waveguide. Therefore it cannot be modulated by woofer membrane movement.

 

Tech death is computer metal crap. Just buy something as big as possible. Not those turds. Yamaha hs8 or bigger. Hs8 will tell you it’s crap. Focal won’t but the metal tweeter will rape your ear canals with cymbals. Dynaudio will never punch for tech deaf. Just buy something like JBL LSR 708p. Sounds huge and works up close. Sheened over up top but who cares for listening. It sounds huge. Yeah JBL 708p for computer metal turd music. It’s natural male enhancement for everything without huge suckouts and is sheened over up top so nothing sounds too rough.