Cave Puppy
"Humph Bo, he's wond!" - John Lennon
+2 on the Kali. Any Kali. I have the LP6s in a small room. Kali are always innovating at a very affordable price.
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Monitor speakers
- Thread starter Bill Clifton
- Start date
If you have strong budget check out:
Kii
Kii Audio ::: for_studio
You can offset some of the costs of room treatment due to the cardioid bass design.
Kii
Kii Audio ::: for_studio
You can offset some of the costs of room treatment due to the cardioid bass design.
I've been very impressed with their offerings. The one failing seems to be a relatively high amount of self-noise compared to many of their competitors. I actually preferred the sound of their IN8s to my ADAM F7s but the constant hiss coming out of the monitors got to be distracting so I returned them within the trial period. This has been discussed at length over on Gearspace, and Kali is evidently working to resolve the issue. I'm excited to hear the result.
Gosh I miss having the room to record. I cobbled together an ‘81 Technics amp (185 a side!) pushing some garbage pick realistic T-100s. Don’t want to derail the OP but there are a lot of avenues you can take. Anyone remember the Minimus 7s?This is what I did, but my kit is significantly older, being mostly from the 70’s. Which means the speaker enclosures are ‘real’ wood.
Similar to myself.
I have a set of Bose 2001 speakers from around 1998 powered by an Onkyo amp. They do the job well enough that I hesitate to spend over $1000 (NZ) for what would be low-to-mid level studio monitors. I'm sure they are far from being flat response, but for my very amateur recording skills and equipment, they do the job.
I used JBL308p in my previous home studio setup and they are ok for the price (but as some mentioned they are really ugly). I had a larger room back then.
I've moved and now have a smaller room so I went for Neumann Kh120A and they are great for my small home setup, very well defined mids and high end and just the right amount of low end for my small room.
I've moved and now have a smaller room so I went for Neumann Kh120A and they are great for my small home setup, very well defined mids and high end and just the right amount of low end for my small room.
Most of the budget monitor speakers from Kali, JBL, Focal, Yamaha etc. are quite good. Room treatment and positioning the speakers correctly plays a much larger role. 5.000,- speakers in an untreated room in the wrong position will sound much worse than a pair of 200,- speakers in a treated room at the right position.
For positioning the speakers these are the rules:
Positioning The Loudspeakers - Neumann.Berlin KH 120 A Operating Manual [Page 10] | ManualsLib
If you want versatility I could recommend the Yamaha NX N500. These are very similar to the HS speakers, but are far more flexible, you don't need an audio interface and they have better tweeters. These were 700,-, but I've seen them much cheaper.
I use them more for casual listening on my computer and have Focal Alphas for mixing. But I like them a lot and they have lots of inputs and bluetooth and wifi and can be integrated in the musiccast multi-room system from Yamaha.
For positioning the speakers these are the rules:
Positioning The Loudspeakers - Neumann.Berlin KH 120 A Operating Manual [Page 10] | ManualsLib
If you want versatility I could recommend the Yamaha NX N500. These are very similar to the HS speakers, but are far more flexible, you don't need an audio interface and they have better tweeters. These were 700,-, but I've seen them much cheaper.
I use them more for casual listening on my computer and have Focal Alphas for mixing. But I like them a lot and they have lots of inputs and bluetooth and wifi and can be integrated in the musiccast multi-room system from Yamaha.
Neumann's 'dWall' dimension recommendations are good but I'd widen them a bit.
TL;DR - Put the back of your monitor speakers as close to the front wall as possible without actually touching, or move them to 2.5-3m out from the front wall. Anywhere in between is going to cause accuracy problems. In a small room avoid rear ported monitors.
At 2m the quarter wavelength cancellation frequency is 60.03hz and the half wavelength cancellation frequency is 30.01hz. Neither of which are very easy to deal with from a commercial or DIY acoustic treatment perspective, especially in a small room. ~60hz is in the usable range of most monitors (not subs), whereas ~30hz is well below what most will do even if the specs list it. Pushing this out to 3m gets things below what most monitor speakers can reliably produce thus making it a non-issue. In that regard I understand why they specify to avoid 2m but think it would be better if they pushed it out a little to 2.5-3m unless you're talking about something like an NS10 with no bottom end response.
At 0.8m quarter is 150.06hz and half is 75.03hz. The quarter wavelength cancellation is easily addressed acoustically. The half wavelength is doable but getting a little challenging. If they cut that recommendation in half and set it at 0.4m, which should be in the ballpark of "as close to the front wall as possible without actually touching it" the quarter goes up to 300.13hz and the half goes up to 150.06hz. Both of these are much easier to deal with acoustically.
Hummergeist
Commercial User
- Jul 21, 2020
- 1,269
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Dedicated monitors are always going to be better than 'hifi' speakers, but you have to use what you can afford. I used to mix my songs using the aux input on an old boombox, it could have been worse!
The KRK Rokit 8 G4’s are awesome for not a whole lot of money, you can also catch them on sale every so often. You can even tune them to your room, front ported so if they are up against a wall they won’t get fussy
They are big and heavy but they really let you hear stuff you otherwise wouldn’t, I haven’t tried any super fancy monitors but these are the best I’ve had.
Started with Mackie CR3s which are great for what they are. Picked up KRK classic 5s which are very good reference speakers, meaning if it sounds good on them, it’ll sound good on anything they are almost like car stereo speakers, kept those and got the KRK 8s and a 10.4 sub
Between those 3 sources I really got all my bases covered. 8s for detail, 5s for reference, and the sub to keep the low end and rumble in check.
I spent a lot of time listening and comparing online and I think the new KRKs are where it’s at, there’s also Kali and Adam Audio, JBL, Yamaha.
I went with KRK because I felt like they offered the most higher end features for the least amount of money. Where other brands offered good features and quality, they seem leave a little more on the table reserved for their higher end speakers.
They are big and heavy but they really let you hear stuff you otherwise wouldn’t, I haven’t tried any super fancy monitors but these are the best I’ve had.
Started with Mackie CR3s which are great for what they are. Picked up KRK classic 5s which are very good reference speakers, meaning if it sounds good on them, it’ll sound good on anything they are almost like car stereo speakers, kept those and got the KRK 8s and a 10.4 sub
Between those 3 sources I really got all my bases covered. 8s for detail, 5s for reference, and the sub to keep the low end and rumble in check.
I spent a lot of time listening and comparing online and I think the new KRKs are where it’s at, there’s also Kali and Adam Audio, JBL, Yamaha.
I went with KRK because I felt like they offered the most higher end features for the least amount of money. Where other brands offered good features and quality, they seem leave a little more on the table reserved for their higher end speakers.
If this is for computer audio, don’t sleep on getting a good external DAC along with your speakers. A good DAC can vastly increase your audio quality regardless of what speakers you end up using and will be better than whatever your computer has included. Schitt Audio has a range of DAC’s that are worth considering.
I have these and theyre really nice. Mackie CR3-X 3-Inch Multimedia Monitors (Pair) Bundle with Knox Gear Studio Monitor Isolation Pads (Suitable for 3 or 4-Inch Monitors) & 1/4-Inch to 1/4-Inch TRS Cables (4 Items) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PBYGGH...abc_WKV06YZWNEEJZ4Z007DX?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
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Valid point, that.
Observation from my IN8s: it is there, and audible from less than a metre away. However, it falls away quickly; at my working position about 1.5m from the speakers, I have to strain to hear it. Anything played audibly through them immediately masks what remains, and my laptop fan drowns it out completely.
Incidentally, I emailed them with a pre-sales enquiry about a break-in period, because the manual doesn't say anything about it one way or the other. I got a quick and very comprehensive reply, which boiled down to "it's a non-issue with this model; we tested for it, and failed to find any difference." So I'm happy with their customer service, too.
Cave Puppy
"Humph Bo, he's wond!" - John Lennon
I remember hearing something about their new offerings will have a lower noise floor. I think the new LP6s do.
Kali's web site is making this claim for both LP-6 and LP-8:
"Kali’s celebrated LP-6 and LP-8 studio monitors just got a major upgrade. With improvements in the noise floor, output level, frequency response, and distortion..."
Probably not an accident that the first one they mention there is noise floor.
I’m using ADAM F7s and a Sub8, so not totally dissimilar to your setup. I added a pair of Avantones a while back and it’s a great combination. They each bring their own strengths and weaknesses to the table and offset each other nicely.
