One day: Dynaudio LYD 48
…
1100€ x2 
Recently, I have not seen entry-level monitors, manufacturers have released virtually nothing. KRK has released a new serie.I’m seriously looking at 2 models: Adam F7 and Focal Alpha 65.Both almost € 600 the pair, and it is already a very high expense (both mid-range).All models with the rear air outlet I have discarded them.I get the feeling that if I buy a pair of monitors for about € 300 pair, I will end up buying a higher model later.
However, there are things I do not understand well.These studio monitors have a large box, but inside there is a large amplifier, which takes up quite a big of space, and I suppose it influences the medium and especially bass sound.Then the manufacturers say that theedges are trimmed, or that the holes are round because it is better for the air outlet.And what about the internal amplifier?
On the other hand, it also looked for models recently released to the market. For example, the Adam F7 have been in the market for almost four years.
No, it’s pure logic and maybe physics wasn’t your strength. If the bass reflects to the back, it makes you totally dependant (much more dependent) on your room structure. Also of course the bass comes to the ear too late and diffused too. So you don’t have a change to perspective bass transients anymore, like you can do on normal speakers. So the whole concept is no concept.
Stop spreading misinformation.
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There’s no “reflector”.
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The wavelengths of sound coming from the bass ports are so long that the box is virtually transparent to them, they literally wrap around the speaker and radiate omnidirectionally.
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Same thing happens with bass coming from the driver at the front, even a closed box has omnidirectional bass for this same reason.
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=> standing waves due to reflections from room boundaries happen with every construction, this is not affected at all by the location of the bass port or even its absence unless the speaker is 10 cm from the wall. The only way to affect this is by a huge amount of huge bass traps.
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Bass ports do affect group delay, but it’s not very significant with such small boxes and it has nothing to do with reflections.
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It takes your ears several wave cycles until you detect that a bass frequency is playing (and even more to be able to detect the pitch). Several cycles at these wavelengths is a long time and the marginal delay from the front of your speaker and the back of your speaker is absolutely negligible. For the same reasons any transients you hear at bass frequencies are in reality transients in higher harmonics.
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At bass/subbass frequencies you can’t distinguish direct sound and reflected sounds, diffusion doesn’t play a role (and it happens with closed boxes just the same).
Thanks Vozka for the confirmation.
I doubt it will change the minds of those who don’t understand acoustics( eg. the physics of sound), but those with an open mind may learn something from your post.
in this series i will choose yamaha or better adam F7
i have adam p22 and it’s best monitor i’ve heard
Stop spreading misinformation.
There’s no “reflector”.
The wavelengths of sound coming from the bass ports are so long that the box is virtually transparent to them, they literally wrap around the speaker and radiate omnidirectionally.
Same thing happens with bass coming from the driver at the front, even a closed box has omnidirectional bass for this same reason.
=> standing waves due to reflections from room boundaries happen with every construction, this is not affected at all by the location of the bass port or even its absence unless the speaker is 10 cm from the wall. The only way to affect this is by a huge amount of huge bass traps.
Bass ports do affect group delay, but it’s not very significant with such small boxes and it has nothing to do with reflections.
It takes your ears several wave cycles until you detect that a bass frequency is playing (and even more to be able to detect the pitch). Several cycles at these wavelengths is a long time and the marginal delay from the front of your speaker and the back of your speaker is absolutely negligible. For the same reasons any transients you hear at bass frequencies are in reality transients in higher harmonics.
At bass/subbass frequencies you can’t distinguish direct sound and reflected sounds, diffusion doesn’t play a role (and it happens with closed boxes just the same).
This really is utter nonsense, not well thought and you seem not to be able to understand really simple logic: All I say is, front reflex bass can reach your ear directly, so makes you more independent from your room. I can say, since I switched to those type of speakers, I have almost none mixing problems anymore. And also a very, very simple fact is: The larger the speaker, the more precise the bass. No “fancy” invention will circumvent this fact.
Yamaha HS7 sound quite shit to my ears, if you don’t use it in the perfect position in the room with lot of room treatment (And who is able to have such a room nowadays in a city). And this is because the bas reflex goes to the back, bounces at one wall, bounces at the room edge and then returns as a phase cancelled rest of bass. I am not willing to discuss this any further.
Do believe what you want.
Re: “Do believe what you want.”
I’ll take the laws of physics over an individuals unscientific opinion any day. Especially since some of us have actually worked and or studied in the field.
It is curious, but in many forums in different languagesseems to be discussed this issue of problems derived from low frequencies.Without wishing to enter into discussions. Before believing in something even scientifically based, it is better to rely on and believe in one’s own experience.In fact, because a person has studied in a particular field, it does not imply that he is an expert. Experts are born of experience, not of theory, or of the belief of physical or scientific laws. A good scientist tests things to be able to affirm them.This is just a comment, I’m not arguing with anyone.
Regarding my experience, I have very clear, because I rely on my experience, that a speaker with bass reflex reflex, is more difficult to orient than a loudspeaker with bass reflex front.The reason is that the speaker amplifies these lower frequencies to boost them.Then, it is necessary that the bass reflex is well calculated depending on the design (volume, distances, etc. from the acoustic box) to boost low frequencies properly and without problems (regardless if the bass reflex goes in front or back).
The fact is that studio monitors are thought to be more directional, especially at medium and high frequencies (more directional waves). But the low frequencies are still deep, and regardless of their size they are also directional, although the human ear has a harder time orienting itself with them, that hinder the fidelity of the composition.This is accentuated in smaller rooms, with the small desk, which is necessary to attach the speaker to the wall.Here it is best to avoid the speakers with bass reflex back, which is my case.
Therefore, it is not the same to place the bass reflex in front of it as in the back. Behind, the first trip that makes the back wave is towards the back wall and then rebounds (and expect the back wall to be vertical, not tilted). If you do not have your speakers well placed, you create a problem. This is as simple as picking up the speakers and placing them one meter from your head or almost on the ceiling. You will notice that basses are heard in a different way, and even depending on the room, they can get lost behind you or bounce and generate a bass ball, depending on the power at any given time. I am sure, because I have tried it myself, that speakers with bass reflex in front well designed are best solution for studio monitors in small rooms, not forgetting that it is necessary that the room is well conditioned.
So, ideal for studio monitors is to have all the waves frequencies being born in the same direction, oriented towards the composer, because it is in the interest of all, even the low frequencies, to travel as far as possible without bouncing up to their ears, and then Try the room or room so that the rebound waves do not reach the ears and generate redundant waves.
If you have a large room, and your desk separated by a few inches from the wall, you will be able to place speakers with bass refles back to 40 or 50cm from the wall, facing the composer, and you will receive low waves bounced off walls in a more centralized way, provided it is well acoustically conditioned. But these waves will bounce behind the composer in the same way. The theme is to keep the low waves from bouncing first on the back wall to bring it back to the composer, and this is difficult to resolve in the small rooms.So, it is not the same a small or large room, or it is not the same bass reflex behind that in front.
On the other hand, I wonder why this subject is still discussed in many forums. And the conclusion seems simple. Each room is a world, and every speaker is also. In the end, the experience in the same room is the best solution. Even if you go to a store to listen to some speakers, then in your room they may sound different, depending on their size and their acoustic conditioning.But hey, I’m no expert, I rely more on my own experience than on what a scientist says.More than anything, because the scientist can not enter my room :lol:.
Peace guys. Renoise is great !!! 
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You seem rather reasonable, but you have a few misconceptions which could cause you problems when selecting speakers, room treatment etc.
First, be careful about relying solely on your experience in regards to audio. When your experience is in conflict with science (which in this case means acoustics and psychoacoustics), it doesn’t mean that you’re deaf of course, but it in most cases means that there is some factor causing it that you don’t know about. Also, a large part of what you hear is happening in your brain, not in your ears, and your brain is notoriously bad at correctly identifying and remembering differences unless you have two pairs of speakers side by side and you’re doing a blind test (that’s why blind tests were invented). This has been proven again and again - scientists don’t rely just on experience, they have controlled and reliable tests. So the most reliable course of action would be to assume that science is correct in general and then use your ears to decide the details (if you like the speaker’s sound signature, which “neutral” monitors still have, particular placement in your room etc.).
Second, you were talking about directivity. Directivity is based on three things: driver size, frequency and waveguides. In general, the larger the driver, the sooner it starts being directive. In high frequencies you can affect directivity with waveguides, with bass frequencies this does not happen because the waveguides would have to be larger than your room.
In other words, bass and subbas really (measurably) almost always is omnidirective, and the only way to make it directive is paradoxically to for example have another woofer firing backwards with negative phase, so that the waves cancel towards the back (there are speakers which do this, but they’re way beyond your budget). Because of the large wavelength, the fact that the driver/bassreflex is at the front doesn’t really matter; this can be easily measured. The way bass frequencies work pretty much is that unless you have a huge room, your whole room is a resonator that immediately starts to resonate, and that hugely affects the frequency response. It’s not about the back wall, it’s about all walls at once, and while you can positively affect it by speaker placement/listening spot placement, it will never be flat. Even if for some reason a loudspeaker with front-firing bass reflex sounds better to you in your listening spot, your bass frequency response will still be extremely bumpy until you measure it at your listening spot and equalize the huge peaks and nulls. This will make the frequency response worse at other parts in the room, but flat at the spot where you’re sitting. There has been a lot written about this for a long time, to study more google “room modes” or “modal region”. Also, technically you will get most precise and neutral bass with a closed box without any bass reflex. This however needs a larger box and a larger woofer and still has nothing to do with reflections, you will still get room modes.
As for monitors being more directive: this is also a misconception, monitors are not in any way special in this regard, they’re just usually tuned to be more flat. The most important thing about directivity is for it to by constant (above the bass region, where it is alway omnidirectional) - which means that the speaker has the same beamwidth at most frequencies and doesn’t suddenly get narrow at some points - that sounds unnatural and makes the imaging worse. If the whole speaker’s directivity is narrower (say 90°), it’s a bonus in small rooms because you get fewer reflections. JBL LSR305 is very good in this regard. ADAM Audio monitors for example are problematic because their tweeters start to have very narrow dispersion around 10 kHz, while the rest of the spectrum is usually wide-directivity.
As for treating the room to manage the bass resonances, I’m not saying it’s useless, but to get a flat frequency response you would literally have to fill your whole room with rockwool, which is not advised. Bass reflections/resonances are extremely difficult to absorb, so don’t count on it, you will have to equalize your frequency response in the modal region anyway (up to say 200 Hz) or use headphones if you want accurate response.
@Vozka… Thanks, for all comments, and for being polite, this is what I like about these forums…The short summary of what I have tried to explain before, is that it is not the same to put the bass reflex in front of the back, because behind is conditioned by the wall behind, or furniture or whatever. The wall is a condition.I have a desk attached to the wall with a shelf above it, which covers the entire wall. Placing a speaker with rear bass reflex causes me problems with the bass precisely because of what is behind.If the low reflex is oriented forward, there is no immediate obstacle before the low-frequency sound reaches the ears (it is obvious that it is the brain that processes, but if the channel does not work, the ears, the brain will not be able to process anything).Referring to the ear is a way of speaking.
All your explanations are fine, but do not forget that every room is a world (a layout, a few obstacles (not an ideal room) which conditions the experience with low frequencies differently, comparing speakers with bass reflex front or rear, placed in the same place and same orientation, and if the room is very small, like mine, with things that can not be moved, and that the seat can not move, I can not adjust it to install any type of speaker, and a woofer is not the same place in the center of the room as in a corner.Well, if I test one speaker, and then another, and experiment with both, and results that with one I get better results than with another, I will not care what science says, I’m going to rely on my experience.Unfortunately, I can not go to an expert in the field to come to my room to study it to condition it or to advise me a model of speaker and make this as a professional affair.But at least, I have your comments and your experience, of all of you, to choose or discard or comment.
Anyway this forum is diverting from the main topic.Which was to compare models of loudspeakers that there are in the market to choose, and not to discuss deeply about these things and start to comment things that are a little out of place in a mix things up, because then people get hooked…Anyway I already have more or less clear what is available in the market, and the best for my room within my budget.On the other hand, there are some things that you have commented that I do not agree. But I will not discuss them.
To continue with the thread. HS7 of YamahaI like its construction and design. JBL LKSR305 the opposite happens to me, I do not like your design, but I read very good reviews.Both have bass reflex behind. I have both discarded them.The speakers that I like the most are the Focal Alpha 65 (they do not bring volume control) and the Adam F7 (the most complete).Preferred the Alpha 65 with volume control. I do not know why they did not include it.A shame. In a Spanish store they are very well priced.
Finally, I acquired a pair of M-Audio BX8 D3 for several reasons:
- They had just been released, they were a new version.
- Price-quality. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much budget. I wanted some Adam.
- I bought them in limited offer.
- Size and location I wanted some monitors that I could install in a larger, more powerful room, in addition to using them in my room.
- I didn’t want to depend on an additional subwoofer.
My experience with them: They are beautiful, they take up a lot of table space, I would need to have them a little further behind my image monitor, but my desk space is limited. Decent audio quality as neutral studio monitors, without coloring any frequency. Curiously, I don’t use them for a long time, because I also use headphones at times where I can’t make much noise.
So now I have my HI-FI equipment and my studio monitors, in addition to the headphones. When I want to compose and mix seriously, I use these monitors.
These monitors are low-end, decent within the low cost (monitors between € 100 and € 200 per unit).
Am i happy with them? Yes.
Would I buy them again? No. When I start climbing in audio quality, I always want more. If I buy studio monitors again, I will spend more money. I will not buy any pair of monitors until these monitors die.