Help, choise studio monitors bi-amped 5-7", room 10m2, front bass

Off-Topic
1

Hi!I do not know if it’s appropriate to hang this here. But there it goes!

I need help from people with experience on the speaker models I’m going to quote. I have in mind to invest about 300 - 350€ in a pair of studio monitors (150, 170 € per unit).I do not have the opportunity to stop by a specialized physical store to listen to the specific models I’ve seen online.I would like to invest more money, but the economy is not to be wasted.

I have a simple room, about 10m2.A large and long table with a shelf above, a nearby bed, window and door.The room is not acoustically conditioned, but I do not have serious reverberation problems.Points to keep in mind:

  • Nor do I ask for professional-grade speaker specifications.But you know, the better quality / price, better.With double amplifier better.
  • I’m going to put the speakers about 50cm-60cm out of my head (they are quite close).
  • I need them to be used to compose orchestral music, in the style of original soundtrack.I need to hear nuances, silences, and powerful sound when needed.Basically, orchestra and synthesizer instruments, including electronics.From time to time, I also produce electronic music, but it is not my priority.
  • Speaker size, between 5 and 7" of woofer. Compact size, with powerful bass.
  • I do not want a subwoofer. I need the speakers to be enough for the recordings.
  • Front Bass Reflex. The speakerswill stick to the wall.I need accurate bass, without delay, up close.
  • I need the amplifier to not make any noise.Some models have problems with this.
  • Valid to drop 90º. Front design with all centering (is secondary, but …).
  • Flat sound for production,not colored.
  • The newer the better (not old models).

Speakers list (with price):

(I put in parentheses the problems that I have compiled of each model)

  1. Tannoy Reveal 502 (amplifier noise?) ( ~139€/u )
  2. Presonus Eris E5 or E8 (amplifier gets very hot?) ( ~119€/u )
  3. Presonus Eris E44 (??? , price)( ~198€/u )
  4. KRK RP6 Rokit G3 (colored bass)( ~125€/u )
  5. Adam F5 (bass poor, price)( ~198€/u )
  6. Fluid Audio F5 (lack of presence between 100 and 200Hz) ( ~239€/pair )
  7. Samson Resolv SE8 (???)( ~159€/u )
  8. Behringer Nekkst k6 or k5 (???)( ~274€/pair )
  9. Yamaha HS5 (bass reflex back! :unsure:) (bass poor, peak 1KHz, “tinny”, not shielding) ( ~165€/u )
  10. Yamaha HS7 (bass reflex back! :unsure:) (not shielding) ( ~180€/u )
  11. JBL LSR 305 (bass reflex back! :unsure:) (???) ( ~129€/u, offer! )
  12. Focal Alpha 65 (not volume level, price) ( ~210€/u )
  13. Pioneer S-DJ60X (???) ( ~150€/u )
  14. Mackie MR6 MK3 (bass reflex back! :unsure:) ( ~145€/u )
  15. Alesis Elevate 6 Active (???) ( ~125€/u )
  16. Gemini SR-6 (colored bass) ( ~109€/u )
  17. M-Audio BX5 D2 or BX8 D2 (bass reflex back! :unsure:) ( ~222€/pair )
  18. Any more models that you know ???

Has anyone tried the Presonus Eris E44 or E66? They are more expensive, but I like them to be horizontal. I’m an amateur, not a speaker expert. Please help by providing your experience specific opinion on these models. I would be so grateful. I’m not in a hurry, I just want to make the right purchase, and not regret it later.Surely, buy at an online store in Spain…

I really like the Tannoy Reveal 502.Does anyone have them?Or a friend?Amplifier causes background sound?

How about Presonus Eris E5? etc, etc…

Could they add their models of monitors and their experience, to get to know this world?

I put a reference album of music, to know the music that I want to produce: Pan of John Powell or Avatar of James Horner,This style. You will see that music is a coming and going of energy, with much detail, whisper and power…

In advance, thank you very much for telling your experience!

Yes, I’m a rare which does not use Renoise to produce experimental electronic music :slight_smile:

Include photos:

1. TANNOY REVEAL 502

tannoy-reveal-502-persp.png

http://www.tannoy.com/creation/products/Recording/Reveal/Reveal-502/

2. PRESONUS ERIS E5

presonus_eris_e5-front_big.jpg

https://www.presonus.com/products/eris-e5

3. PRESONUS ERIS E44

presonus_eris_e44-front_big.jpg

http://www.presonus.com/productos/es/Eris-MTM-Monitors

4. KRK RP6 ROKIT G3

g3-6-front.jpg

http://www.krksys.com/krk-studio-monitor-speakers/rokit/rokit-6.html

5. ADAM F5

F5_gallery.jpg

http://www.adam-audio.com/en/pro-audio/products/f5/description

ETC…

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Most if not all the monitors you have listed are not going to do well flat against a wall. They need ventilation on the back to dissipate heat generated by the amplifiers.

I haven’t used all the monitors you have listed, but I find the ones I know to have a slightly hyped sound. Usually a notch in the midrange and/or hyped floppy undamped bass.

I keep going back to the Yamaha monitors because they have a very flat tight sound with accurate midrange. They probably don’t have the bass that you get out of other monitors and that may be what you want. The larger Yamaha monitors have more bass, but not a floppy bass.

3

Most if not all the monitors you have listed are not going to do well flat against a wall. They need ventilation on the back to dissipate heat generated by the amplifiers.

I haven’t used all the monitors you have listed, but I find the ones I know to have a slightly hyped sound. Usually a notch in the midrange and/or hyped floppy undamped bass.

I keep going back to the Yamaha monitors because they have a very flat tight sound with accurate midrange. They probably don’t have the bass that you get out of other monitors and that may be what you want. The larger Yamaha monitors have more bass, but not a floppy bass.

Thanks for comment!I will not have ventilation problems because of the heat. The speakers will not be recessed.They will be a few inches against the wall (~6 or 8cm, in angle). They will actually be against the bottom of a shelf, very open from above.

I currently use my old HIFI equipment to produce (Technics SC-EH750, that it has never disappointed me), with its limitations for production (colored sound). He has the bass reflex behind, and I have problems with the bass.

As top priority I need the front bass reflex.I’ve seen the Yamaha HS5 and Hs7,But I will have bass problems, the bass is not direct, but reflected.Unfortunately my desk can not be separated from the wall.I know these speakers should separate a few inches from the wall for best results.

At first he discarded all models with bass reflex rear.

I really like the Presonus Eris E44(Horizontal configuration).I use two screen monitors and I intend to upgrade to larger screens.It is very possible that I can place a speaker under the screen.

But I want opinions from people who have been able to try these models on the list, or other similar.

4

When I was looking for new speakers/monitors I listened and tested a bunch of monitors. I ended up choosing between Rokit KRK 5’s and Yamaha HS5. Even though the Rokit’s color the sound a bit (compared to HS) I ended up picking them just because the bass was a tad more present. I thought the Yamaha’s sounded really good and true and probably better if you mix and want a more true-to-life sound out of your monitors.

I’m very happy with the Rokit’s. Now, I’m just a hobby musician. Not doing any mixes or “professional” music. So, for me, they sounded what I was looking for. Allround presence of sound in a wide perspective, registers, and frequencies. Using them in my bedroom so no effort taken to acoustics. I still get surprised how good they sound when I have been listening to my mid- to upper-range stereo and speakers before. Granted this was a few years ago and I don’t know how monitors have evolved since then.

Never had any heat problems with them and I keep mine quite close to the wall in an angle.

So, my tip to you is just listen to various speakers and pick the ones that sounds good to you. Depending on what you will to and achieve.

5

…I’m very happy with the Rokit’s. Now,…

I will have to say that although the Yamahas are usually my preferred monitors, I often reference with the Rokits when I want to here what the mix is going to sound like on systems with the hyped bottom end. The Rokits may be a little more hyped than the Yamahas, they are nowhere near as extreme as most consumer speakers.

So I would say they are a good compromise, especially if you need the low end thump and the price is reasonable.

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@Robbie S and @mclstr

I like that you have controls behind to adjust the sound. The Rokit and Presonus are very good.

So, my tip to you is just listen to various speakers and pick the ones that sounds good to you. Depending on what you will to and achieve.

This is a problem for me. I do not live in a capital city, and I do not have a specialized physical reference store nearby, which has all these models available.That is why I go to the forums, to the experience of the users.

I really like the Tannoy Reveal 502 (my first choice), but in several forums I have read that they have noise problems with the amplifier.What? I have assumed that this kind of speakers are milimetrically manufactured to avoid these things.They are already decent study speakers.

From Presonus I do not have a clear reference of audio quality. And I also care a lot about bass and low frequencies.For example, with the E44, with cones 4.5", will not you stay short of bass sound (low frequencies)?I’m referring to the frequency range.These kinds of things are what interest me.

Yamaha has very good opinions, but he has the bass reflex behind.A shame…I will continue reading opinions. Maybe it helps more users.I’m not in a hurry to buy. I want to inform myself well…

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I have a pair of Adam F7. I can recommend it for quite precise bass transients (due front bass?), but not for precise highs (strangely, though they have that special tweeter concept?). Mids not too much, too. I would not trust in these as the only pair available. My room is not that useful for audio though. I don’t know. Just saying the tweeters are a bit of shit. Yamaha HS7 is very linear, but bass ist always a problem, yes. But highs are precise here. If you sit directly in front of it.

The Behringers look the most interesting for me. Also it’s 6,5 inch. IMO go for that.

Or these?https://www.thomann.de/de/presonus_eris_8.htm

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I once tried big speakers with (sub)bass in mind and a naive “it won’t be so bad without treatment”, and had very bad luck with the room. The bass was somehow canceling itself over wide proportions of the range, especially the subbass below 60hz or so, making it impractical to even try working on the lower freqs unless volume was very loud, and then stuff was very messy like molassis and uneven. High freq reflections weren’t so bad for me but rather easing work with very direct sounds & somehow improving soundstage, but again this might just have been luck, and because of the very ill bass I didn’t try for very long to work with the speakers. I think the room was just fucked up (it was >20m²), also in different corners of the room - for some speaker position setups - you could experience strange phenomenons like delayed higher freq ghost images of the subbass, very odd. I just underestimated the problem, or my room maybe just was a very bad configuration.

I returned to headphones, also because it is just a hobby and the living situation was not in favour of driving stuff loud at night. If again, I’d rather get small speakers for the footwork, and leave the detail and lowend freq work completely to headphones/freq analysers. This, or investing in room treatment aka having a dedicated studio, which would be too much for just a hobby for me. And maybe favouring a subwoofer for the low end over 2 large stereo woofers could result in less problems with the low end as you can place the subwoofer more freely, and it is just one point instead of two which could mess with each other in more complex ways. Subbass in stereo makes no sense anyways, only for letting the brain wobble laterally via big headphones.

Maybe you can get a good idea of what to expect with calculating/simulating the room resonances of your room, I think there are manual methods and software tools for looking for bass resonances to expect. I heard some people do placement of speaker in the middle of a room to ease bass problems a bit?

Also the monitors I’ve heard did sound somewhat different in character in the mid and top end. I’d advise you to take investing into the stuff seriously, and plan a city trip with some well-known-to-you soundfiles in the pocket. Yeah, studio monitors are different from hifi stuff, very wide, kind of soaring mids, and detailed and glittering and breathing in comparison to the cheap stuff. But I still found they all have kind of a honk of their own, so you better like it if you plan to spend many hours as third point of the triangle.

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I include the Yamaha HS7 in the list! This are the bass reflex back, but the sound quality is magnific (as I have read in all forums.).The price is already starting to skyrocket, but its size would be ideal for me.

  1. Is it necessary to separate much from the wall?
  2. Is there a problem when laying down 90º (horizontal configuration)?

35526_12075_1.jpg
35526_12075_1.jpg900×900

http://usa.yamaha.com/products/music-production/speakers/hs_series/hs7/

The black and white looks good with any MIDI keyboard ^_^!!!

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Now that I think of it, your speakers are going to need to be more than 4cm from the wall to get enough ventilation to keep the amplifiers from overheating.

That is plenty of distance for the rear bass reflex ports to work properly on speakers with rear ports. You just don’t want them so close to the wall that they effect the resonance frequency of the tunning of the port.

The bass coming out of the port is low enough that it won’t hinder the low frequencies coming from the port at all. Low frequencies don’t need to reflect off the back wall, they are omni-directional and easily wrap around the cabinet.

11

I have the Tannoy Reveal 601a. This is the older model. I bought them back then after comparing them in several stores with other speakers such as the Yamaha or the Rockits. The Yamaha did not reveal as much in my reference tracks as the Tannoy and the Rockits sounded too much like HiFi speakers to me. I like the Tannoys very much. They have a great stereo image and sound quite clear and balanced to me. The model I have has no issues with amplifier noise. I’m not sure in how far this helps you as it is an older model, but it might give you a more general idea of what to expect from the Reveal line (if it has not changed completely in the new version).

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I have the Tannoy Reveal 601a. This is the older model. I bought them back then after comparing them in several stores with other speakers such as the Yamaha or the Rockits. The Yamaha did not reveal as much in my reference tracks as the Tannoy and the Rockits sounded too much like HiFi speakers to me. I like the Tannoys very much. They have a great stereo image and sound quite clear and balanced to me. The model I have has no issues with amplifier noise. I’m not sure in how far this helps you as it is an older model, but it might give you a more general idea of what to expect from the Reveal line (if it has not changed completely in the new version).

Thanks Fladd! I’m very disappointed with Tannoy Reveal 502 by the noise of the amplifier.I understand that this model sounds great, as it is suitable for my style of music.But many people on the internet forums have complained about the noise of the amplifier, both recent and months ago and the people have complained about the attitude of the manufacturer, who sees no problem.

Such is the bad publicity, that I do not know if Tannoy has corrected that ruling at the moment, and it sells a new batch of the same series, without the noise of the amplifier.It’s a bit of a mess. Before I make my purchase I should ask the brand and the store,. and still I would not trust.

Does anyone know when they usually the manufacturers launch new series of speakers? At the beginning of the year?On the eve of important fairs?

13

Go listen some in your local shop. Adam’s are (to my ears) the best you can get.

edit: I listened to these far more cheaper JBL LSR 305 monitors the other day in my local shop, and they sounded very clear and honest also.

I’m working on Yamaha HS50’s , very little bass, but transparant as heaven. My next buy will be the HS80’s definetly. But hey, that’s just my taste. I like my speakers honest and transparent and not colored.

The thing is, you’ll have to get used to get working on your own speakers, you’ll need to get to “thrust them”

Read this

The most important advice is to not spend to much money at the beginning in equipment. We did 2 albums using very basic set up and AIWA speakers.

edit2: KRK Rokit’s are SHIT. (but hey… that’s my taste :wink: )

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Go listen some in your local shop. Adam’s are (to my ears) the best you can get.

Adam is expensive for my budget.I would have to save more, but I’d rather invest in other hardware.I understand the F5 have few bass, and very good in treble.Does not seem balanced…

I like to read the experience of some renoisers :slight_smile:

15

Re: “I understand the F5 have few bass, and very good in treble.Does not seem balanced…”

They are comparatively flat in the treble. Not a hyped treble.

The F5 is too small to produce a good solid flat bass. The reason other small speakers seem to have more bass has to do with using electronics and/or speaker and cabinet design that creates an unnatural sounding under-damped and peaky low end. This false bottom end on many small speakers gets more noticeable/annoying the more you have to listen them.

The larger Yamaha models are much better on the low end and would be my choice if you can afford them

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If the Yamaha HS7 had the front bass reflex, I would already be buying them.7" would be my favorite choice. 8" seems too big for my space, and 5" little (little bass).

@Roppenzo I read very good impressions of JBL LRS 305.It looks like another firm candidate, like the Yamaha HS7.I add them to the list.

lsr305_front_r.jpg
lsr305_front_r.jpg700×460

http://www.jblpro.com/www/products/recording-broadcast/3-series/lsr305#.WDjYyvnhCUl

With 5", and specifications frecency range 43Hz -24KHz. 43Hz??Few 5" reach that frequency, most of them hover around 50HZ".

By the way, my speakers are 3 way. Are the average frequencies not hampered by the low frequencies in 2-way loudspeakers, definition?Why are not they 3 way?

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edit2: KRK Rokit’s are SHIT. (but hey… that’s my taste :wink: )

There are several people who think the same thing.They may be the first to rule out, in addition to Fluid Audio F5 , Samson Resolv SE8 and Behringer Nekkst k6.Of these 3 I have no idea.

18

:slight_smile:

19

Yamaha HS7 , Cable AC + Speacker

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I have a pair of HS8. Really like them, great sound, but I might have been better off with a smaller set. They can be quite loud. :slight_smile: But I got a really good deal on them.

I don’t have a subwoofer. I have no need for one, for the kind of music I’m producing and the size of my studio. (This might be different if I had a smaller set.)

I have mine on speaker stands with some isolation padding, and nothing behind them.

http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-hs7-hs8s

https://www.attackmagazine.com/reviews/the-best/ten-best-nearfield-studio-monitors/5/