Our monitors

Here's where to talk about preamps, cables, microphones, monitors, etc.

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Here's where to talk about preamps, cables, microphones, monitors, etc.
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mhschmieder
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Re: Our monitors

Post by mhschmieder »

Somehow I missed this post the first time around, but it showed up in a Google search tonight when I was looking into how people compare the PSI A17M's to the Neumann KH120's.

Although GS folks say it's night and day (in favor of PSI), and that KH120 sounds chemical and plastic, inorganic, I have had personal experience with them in other environments besides my own, and found them quite natural and balanced for all sorts of music, with truthful bass coverage.

What got me looking into this is that Warren Dent had some B-stocks of the PSI's earlier today (all but the sub have since sold) at almost half-price, so they were closer to the price of the KH's and thus piqued my interest.

Although the SOS review said they were the first new speakers in almost ten years to place in the top ten of all time, Hugh Robjohns later said in forum talk that they wouldn't be worth the extra money over the KH's in a smaller, untreated room (e.g. a good but only semi-pro home studio, such as mine):

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul11/a ... m-a21m.htm

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showf ... er=1125961

In general, people seem to say the PSI's are a bit hard to dial in and are room-sensitive, which of course is often the case with truly great speakers, so I've put them on my back burner list for if I ever switch to a larger room for my home studio work and/or add a lot of treatment (right now we have simply treated the garage and a larger room that is our primary recording room but not our mixing or mastering room).

For the past few years, I have been using JBL LSR 2300 series, which are the same price as the KRK Rokits they replaced but 4-10 times as good. Well, actually, I began to hate the KRK's as muddy and inaccurate, even with a sub. The JBL sub is also way better but isn't as essential as with some mains.

Now that I have stepped up my production skills considerably (though I still think of myself more as a composer/writer/arranger/performer and recording engineer than a mixer/producer), I'm thinking it might be a good idea to upgrade from the JBL's later this year (and this time, in price and not just in quality and bang-for-buck as with the KRK to JBL transition).

I wanted to like the various Focal models but they haven't grabbed me yet. Same with Adam, Yamaha, Dynaudio, and a few others that are good value for cost but seem more particular about room matching than the Neumanns. I may prefer the earlier all-wood K+H's, but couldn't A/B so don't know if there's been a step-down with the cheaper Neumann versions.

We have been running my current productions through a friend's Adam A7's in a treated room as a sanity check. He consistently finds too much bass until I back it off, which is funny because I naturally overcompensate for being a bassist by backing off the bass. :-) I guess the JBL's are just so much more truthful there than the KRK's were, that I thought I was home free, but now I'm feeling nervous that my next production job had better be on higher-end monitors.
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Re: Our monitors

Post by mhschmieder »

On a separate note, I bought the Behritones when they first came out. They may look similar (and better, actually) to the Avantone MixCubes, but I found them useless, and that was after spending a LOT of time working with them, adjusting their setup, placement, etc.

I didn't buy them to save money, but because I hated the way Avantone went about the power supply. Lesson learned. I still haven't gotten around to buying the Real Deal, but also have some curiosity about those Trident speakers that sometimes get mentioned.

At any rate, I wrote this up at the time (probably in another topic here, but maybe only on the Music Player Forums). I no longer remember the details, but I was pretty thorough in listing the issues with the Behritones. Still, they're good value for their cost, and possibly better than the popular Fostex small-profile speakers (though I don't think those are one-way models?).
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Re: Our monitors

Post by mikehalloran »

I like my Equator D5 pair.
http://www.equatoraudio.com/

I spoke with Ted last week. Equator should be getting in new models of both the D5 and D8 in about 60 days. He says the big improvement is in the low end. I may go to the D8 sometime this year if I can find room on my desk top.

I don't care as much for my sub (ok, it's crap) and am looking for a replacement. The JBL LSR310S, KrK 10S and PreSonus Temblor T10 all seem to have the feature set that I am looking for including balanced I/O, variable low-pass, polarity reverse, 80Hz high pass and are in the $300-$400 range. Unfortunately, all of the reviews are the usual new product fluff and I haven't found any that tell me a darned thing on real world performance. I may actually have to find a (gulp!) GC and listen to a few. Yikes!
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Re: Our monitors

Post by wylie1 »

I use a LSR310S with my D5's great combo.
Sometimes I think I'm listening to the Q10's.
I may change the D5's but I'd never give up the Q10's
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Re: Our monitors

Post by wdegillio »

I'm using the Dynaudio Acoustics BM5's. I love their imaging ability, even with my minimally-treated room. They are placed on Primacoustic Recoil Stabilizers, which in turn are placed on bar stools. (Yes, really! Check out the picture on my website for proof.) I may eventually get a sub, but for now, I'm enjoying them.
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Re: Our monitors

Post by mikehalloran »

wylie1 wrote:I use a LSR310S with my D5's great combo.
Sometimes I think I'm listening to the Q10's.
I may change the D5's but I'd never give up the Q10's
A remodel to include a pair of Q10s ... Not on the horizon anytime soon, unfortunately. We had one of those minor plumbing problems that turned into a five-figure new drainage system (ouch!).

Anyway, I can make one of those JBLs happen. Of the three, it was the one that was looking best on paper.
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Re: Our monitors

Post by mhschmieder »

Stay far far away from the KRK Rokit 10" subwoofer. The JBL sub was an even bigger upgrade for me than going from the KRK6's to the 5" LSR's. In fact, it might be worth keeping even if I switch to Neumann's for the mains -- especially as the Neumann sub is $2700!

Thanks for the reminder on Equator as they weren't quite on the radar the last time I made my short list and as AES was moved from SF to LA last year and I stopped going to NAMM, I haven't heard any new stuff in person for 3-½ years now.

I kind of assumed the PreSonus monitors are second sourced and didn't have the patience to try to sort out what they really are, but have recently noticed them getting a bit of a buzz so maybe they shouldn't be dismissed just because in general that company's hardware isn't exactly made as robustly as my preferred brands (I really like stuff that is built as though you plan to keep it, even if G.A.S. leads us to upgrade). I'll try to track down some useful info.
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Re: Our monitors

Post by kelldammit »

dynaudio bm5a mkII's here. was looking at both the equator d5's and the neumann kh120's, but i'd had the original bm5a's, and found the mkII's for a song...
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Re: Our monitors

Post by mhschmieder »

I didn't like the original BM5's as much as I had hoped, and sort of liked the original BM6's better than the mk II's, so got very confused by TC (and especially disliked the AIR series). I remained a bit curious about the BM5 mk II but never had a chance to hear any as our pro audio shop went out of business before they arrived.

Have you noticed much difference between BM5 mk II and the originals? I found the originals a bit wooly, woofy, or whatever. Maybe overly room-sensitive as well. Yet still, they ranked near the top. It was just that the JBL's seemed less room-sensitive and more balanced overall, without exhibiting any obvious characteristic spikes in various euphonic zones.
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Re: Our monitors

Post by mhschmieder »

Based on the descriptions, photos, etc., it appears the PreSonus monitors are re-brandings of the Equator monitors.

I found conflicting information for the Dynaudios, seeing BM5a II listed as 7" or 7.5" and the BM6a (no mk II designation but looks newer than the original version; maybe a mk III?) listed as 6.9" (which makes no sense). My recollection is that they were roughly the same diameter but different cabinet sizes.
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Re: Our monitors

Post by monkey man »

I saved my bananas for, I dunno, at least 7 or 8 years or so, from the day they appeared on the market, and only recently was finally able to acquire my beloved Opals. My previous pair was the Alesis 720DSP, of which one was broken upon arrival. It still channels(!) the ocean in cycles, but I can live with that for my first home stereo. The fella who imported them for me failed to respond to my 30 or so messages left every day on his answering machine over a period of 2 months, but kindly followed up 6 months later with a 3 or 4 page hand-written letter detailing numerous threats aimed at me, most of which were physical but, imaginatively, included psychological ones too. Perhaps it was his love of money or his new-found penchant for steroids that helped drive his crazy response. At any rate, he ended up in Dubai chasin' the dollar shortly thereafter.

Not only are these puppies a ridiculously-huge step up from my monitorless situation(!), but they're that good that when I chose to share my love for them in a Monkey Review™ thread, I couldn't muster the words to do 'em justice. I still can't.

I can confidently say that I believe they do indeed cut the mustard, and that they'd serve anyone here with distinction. To demo them would be to hanker after them, IMHO. Best hardware purchase I've ever made... and the most expensive too, but the idea was after all to go for something that'd be good-for-life. I believe they are.

Oh, and I realise I'm only "supposed" to briefly state what I've got, but please understand that even the thought of 'em sends my head into a spin. I've therefore managed to avoid any semblance of a sonic description both here and in my thread thus far, but if pressed to choose just two words in this regard, I'd have to say "balanced and true". Just freakin' awesome. Incredible. I had no idea just how crap my room sounded until now, but I'm gonna have to live with that. Done the home-made bass-trap thing and covered the walls with layers of curtains, but the proximity of the rear wall (filled with books) is unavoidable, and at 3 meters is not ideal by any stretch. High mids are a right pain in the ear, and that's bang in my pet-hate frequency range. No matter. If I ever make it to my own place one day, these babies will take pride of place and I'll be able to do 'em justice.

FWIMBW, Monkey's cheapest cure for a bad room? Monitor at levels sufficiently low as to not excite the modes, and better still, even softer than that so as to effectively exclude the room's sound from the equation.

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daniel.sneed
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Re: Our monitors

Post by daniel.sneed »

If you're not confident enough in your room, you may choose to go real nearfield. Ears around 3 feet from high tranducers.

My room is correct, with low, mid and high absorption, but going nearfield definitely solved my monitoring doubts.

BTW, setting a reference gain, level such as SMPTE RP200, will help in trusting what you hear.
Bob Katz's book is very enlightening on this subject.
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Re: Our monitors

Post by mikehalloran »

...able to acquire my beloved Opals.
I am not worthy.
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Re: Our monitors

Post by James Steele »

I'm souring on my aged ASP8s. I'm really interested in some Equators.
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Re: Our monitors

Post by HCMarkus »

James Steele wrote:I'm really interested in some Equators.
Me too… those Q10's would be a fine addition to the studio, and Ted is right here in Chula Vista. I met him many years ago when he used to work (and I used to hang out) at Hogan's House of Music in Torrance, CA. I think he sold at least a few of the DX7 data cartridge (the "Fourplay" four-bank cartridge) my brer' in law and I designed, built and marketed for a few years. As many know, Ted went on to great success with Alesis and Event Electronics before starting Equator Audio.
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