Help needed choosing studio monitors (BM5 mkIII, A5X/A7X, HS7, Alpha 65 Evo, ...)

The Lounge Other Gear
#21

Alright, a quick update. So with my BM5 mkIII’s (7" driver) hooked up I loaded a track into Live and dropped an EQ with a low cut at 50Hz on it to try to simulate what a smaller (4-5") driver with a cutoff around that point would sound like. Don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner to run this little test, given that I have at my disposal monitors that can reach into the low end easily.

Yeah, I’d miss the sub frequencies for sure on a smaller monitor. The track I listened to is Ultraviolet by Deas (great track btw). There is almost an entire secondary groove/pump/gallop happening in the sub frequencies, and it pretty much vanishes when you apply the EQ cut. Tried to hear the sub frequencies with headphones but they do not reproduce this low end in the same way at all. With the monitors it’s much more visceral, on headphones it’s more of a “suggestion”.

That said, the 7" isn’t shy with the bass and all that low frequency stuff will probably show up as problems in production. So, @darenager, you are absolutely right about room treatment. I am way overthinking the monitor choice and not thinking enough about acoustics.

@maxoche, they really are great! It’s just a shame that they hiss so loud. I think they are not intended for people to sit so close to them. And yeah, I am almost 100% sure that the hissing is inherent to the speakers themselves. They hiss when on without anything plugged in, they hiss when my internet router and any LED lights are off (interference), and they hiss in another room on a different outlet. I can record the hissing sound, but I don’t know how useful that would be. The little iOS app Decibel X reads -30dB right against the tweeter grill. I can hear the hissing at 1.3m. At <1m it’s very noticeable. But if I zone out I kind of forget about it… But I feel like it would contribute to ear fatigue over time.

All that said, if they didn’t hiss I’d keep the BM5 mkIII’s. But since I will most likely be returning them, I am now thinking that maybe 7" is a tad too much sub for my room and I should go for something in the 5.5-6.5" range. Maybe, just maybe, the A5X will be enough (goes down to 50Hz according to the specs), and the future sound treatment will help it out with the low end. But, like @Ciaba said, they are an old model and yet their price still feels premium. The 8030C’s are newer, compact, but also 390 EUR more expensive and don’t go as low…

I wish the HS7’s were more flat or that ADAM released A5V’s as part of their new lineup instead of the 4". They would be just perfect.

Or maybe I just keep the the BM5 mkIII’s, learn to live with the hiss. Returning monitors is a PITA.

Tiny tangent: why do people use subs and/or 8"+ monitors? Is there really that much more usable information below 40Hz? Don’t most people cut into that with EQs anyway?

Back on topic: I promise I will make a decision, guys! It’s so easy to get OCD about this stuff. It’s like a big fat balancing puzzle where you juggle budget, features, specs, available space, acoustics, looks, reviews, tests, etc, etc… But I will decide one day! (Preferably by the end of the weekend so I can move on with my life haha) :slight_smile:

Thanks for all the comments and participation! It’s helpful and I am learning things.

#22

They can go down to 40hz but the volume has to stay pretty low to not push the bass port in the distorting from pushing too much air. So you can hear a lot of information in the low end, but you’re not going to feel it.

#23

I was going to mention these - I didn’t get a chance to experience them (yet), but I’ve heard great things.
I recently got a pair of iLoud Micros, and they made me interested in the MTMs. I’m in an untreated room as well, and although I love my older monitors (Yamaha HS80) I hear so much frequency cancellation issues now… plus, I love having my Micros so close to me! and quiet as well… it’s almost like mixing with “external headphones”. They’re probably not as good as Genelecs (the Micros, I mean) but they’re very nice for the price. I might give those MTMs a chance in the future.

#24

…just saw some people recommend 2 way speakers with the bigger low end membranes…
there’s no bigger is better here…

since that’s nothing but a first impression and felt truuth issue right there…

no standard 2 way speaker will deliver u truu big sub low end…

and the bigger ur ur physical driver membrane for providing the lower frequency spectrum is, the better might be ur first impression but that’s all fake…

ur mixes will tend to boom and the for a good mix most essential low and hi mids will never translate for real…

so don’t think, ooof and cool, this pair with those bigger membranes has such a nice bass response, i’ll take it…like many many people do…

not truu…it’s just an industry that wants u to sell on first good impression, while knowing better…cause ur private studio with near filed monitoring will never sound like a disco…

u really gotto learn the lesson of interpolation and and how ur room translates if u really wanna enjoy any big room boom experiences with ur ur mixes later…

as long u don’t realize that, ur trapped and fooled and stay hobby level…

and if u can, don’t go cheap on monitoring…it’s one of those things where u can safe heaps of money, frustration and time, if u spent good money right form the get go…

so yes…yamaha might be most common…but that’s not because of the quality of their actual models…but for the fact that they once made the ns 10…which was a disgusting but super neutral “thin” sounding passive speaker, which is exactly why they became a global studio standard through out the late 80ies and 90ies…because any pro knew, i can hear all the essential details on those and if my mix finally translates well on these, it translates anywhere else…the classic nearfild box placed right on the mixing desk…but those days are over…

the actual near field standard is the neumann kh 120…not very impressive if u listen to them in a store…but by now, maybe u already know better…

dynaudio and focal also do good job…

and no matter what u end up with…stick to the basic triangle rules for placing them while setting up and ur listening position in relation and ratio…since half of all u hear is going to be the room ur sitting in anyways…
which leads to another argument for the neumann kh120, since they’re also famous for their mathematical mechanical sonic beauty, neutrality rules, if set up right and not that much affected by the room they have to work in…so if u can, pick some with with full metal chassis designs, the only option where u can be sure that all selffrequency wheeps and rumble DON’T happen in the box but in ur room…

and if u don’t wanna spent heaps of money into room treatment, a good pair of reference headphones is ur best friend anyways…

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#25

The lowend will be heavily influenced by the room, no matter what.
The typical solutions for this are:

Room physical acoustic correction (bass traps in particular)
Cardiod type monitor (say Kii Three)
Active response correction (REW, Sonarworks, GLM, MiniDSP… you name it)

And with one or more of that solutions you still have to accept compromises.
Putting just a couple monitors into a room and calling it a day it’s like tossing a dice. Maybe you’re lucky and get something acceptable, most probably not and you have to fight with room modes, reflections, and so on.

In my point of view would better to have too much bass to cut away with DSP/Dip Switches and be able to hear something anyway, than lacking in that spectrum region and mixing blind.

I didn’t want to spend a lot of money for a Genelec/Neumann setup with their “built in” room correction mic/software, and given my setup works without including a PC sonarworks wasn’t an option, but these could have been ideal solutions.

I was on a budget and I bought a pair of Kalis, extended their LF with an Hi-Fi subwoofer laying around and make some adjustments on monitors/sub with a cheap Behringer Ecm8000 and Rew. But I could have also easily put a DSP/acrive crossover like MiniDSP/DEQ2496 to finetuning crossover point and do room correction, but I found to be relatively lucky with frequency response, and so I was set.

All this to say, that monitors are important but also is all the rest of the environment/signal processing, and so don’t go buy something thinking that would be a silver bullet, but try to use the budget in every department of monitoring, not only for the monitors themself.

8030/kh80 are great but needs a sub
MTM iLoud are punchy and got room correction but lacks ooomph if you want to crank them (distortion is just around the corner)

All the other 6,5/7" monitors are still a compromise, but if you don’t intend to upgrade the system with sub and DSP down the road, they can make mixing possible, but you have to accept compromises.

The other important thing is knowing your monitors and how they translate on other systems. Once you get comfortable with them, you’ll know how to make a mixing decision, and if you hear too much of this or that you’ll have an idea if it’s the sound in itself or the room/monitor coloring it.

I read about that topic for months, I can see how that could lead to analysis paralysis or OCD… So don’t loose your sleep on it. Buy something that “speaks” to you and learn/adapt to work around its limitations

#26

Low frequencies are not easy to handle and room treatment takes a lot of space to solve those low frequency issues.

Maybe you need to avoid monitor speakers with bass reflex ports?

#27

I am a big fan of Adam Audio, loved their P11A in the early 2000s. I can’t recommend a speaker nowadays because that is a very personal choice. But: Think about getting a Sub + 2 smaller (5") speakers. I have the T5V with the T10S. The Sub is switchable to bypass, so I can deactivate it at night with a simple footswitch. I love that setup.

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#28

Here a great yt channel about room treatment: https://m.youtube.com/c/AcousticsInsider/videos

#29

:upside_down_face:
That’s bs, IMO.

My current monitors are:

  • Adam A77x
  • Adam T7v
  • Dynaudio BM6a
  • Yamaha HS7

I mainly use the Adam’s. The Yamaha HS7’s I have on my ‘mess around’ desk where I drop things in and out on a whim and don’t feel critical about.

A77x’s are my main studio monitors.
These replaced the T7v’s which have always blown me away… the quality for the price is stupidly good.

BM6a’s need servicing and predate all my others… I used these as my main monitors from ‘99-‘16, and always found them to be bass heavy. I had them paired with Yamaha NS10s that I sold in 2016 when I swapped the Dynaudios.

For your size room (without knowing the specifics of treatment though), I’d go 7” driver for sure.
So A7x’s, or if you want the best bang for buck, T7v’s.
Also, this thing about ‘x speakers are old now’, don’t buy into the marketing spiel/hype, good monitors are good monitors, you’re not buying a cpu processor.

#30

I kinda wanna feel it, though! :sunglasses:

Yeah, it’s a giant rabbit hole. It’s fun to go down it, but I suspect that it reaches a point of diminishing returns quickly, especially in an untreated room.

I like your pragmatic and practical approach, which got me thinking that maybe… I should keep the Dynaudios and just accept that they hiss. So what? Maybe I can run them a touch louder to make it less noticeable. They have a sleep function so they could be set to automatically shut off when not in use. Or I could buy a pair of stands and place them behind the desk to increase the listening distance. At the end of the day, I bought the Dynaudios for a reason – they fit my functionality/budget/size/look requirements, and all the reviews I saw were positive. Besides, I already have them. I might as well start learning them, start figuring out how they interact with the room, how I can tame them, etc. It would be an anticlimactic finish to this hunt, but maybe the wisest one. (I reserve the right to feel different tomorrow, or in an hour! :slight_smile: )

Perhaps. I am not very knowledgeable in acoustics and don’t know all the pros and cons of each design. I know that Focal Shape 50/65/80’s have passive radiators. Are there other options without ports? However, I’ve also heard that bass frequencies radiate in all directions, ports or not.

This will help me treat my room, thanks!

Yes, I think that maybe since I already have 7" BM5 mkIII’s, I don’t need to “sidegrade” as it simply won’t make that much of a difference, and going down to 5" is a bit of a gamble as that low end might thin out too much. I just don’t have enough experience with different monitors/acoustics to know, but online sentiment seems to support your claim that 7" would be better for techno and such.

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#31

Those feet on the Genelecs act as isolation stands so you don’t actually need any extra isolation stands for them. It’s a relatively soft rubber on top of a wire frame that suspends them in the air. You can slide the rubber part forward or backwards for tilt.

Mine don’t hiss at all. They are silent unless I’m using them of course. I also like how they can automatically power themselves off after not getting any input for a while. I never have to turn off my speakers because they do it themselves.

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#32

Just to clarify on this. I said that because that kind of money can buy better speakers now.
I’ve had A3X as my first ever monitor, and I do love Adam stuff, just can’t justify the price point of the (now discontinued) AnX series.
When was time to upgrade, I felt that 500 bucks/euro for a pair of used A5X were too much in a world where you can buy JBL/Kalis or the T7V for less money, and brand new.

#33

Ive got Yamaha HS7. Ive had them for quite a few years now. Used them in three different studios. Current studio for 2 years.

Ive played mixes made on these speakers on all sorts of systems, big, small, high end low end, small clubs out door festivals.

Ive learned how to mix with them. So I’m not changing. If my mix sounds good in the studio, it sounds good on anything. That’s ideally what you want from studio monitors.

Sure there are probably reasons why X speaker is “better” . I bought the HS7 as that was the best choice at the time I bought them, from what was available in the shop.

Toptip- go to a shop and test in person with a mix you know inside out. That will let you cut through all the bullshit instantly. Dont buy speakers online blind. Trust your ears.

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#34

I have a regular desk (1-tier, not one of those 2-level music production desks) so I need to raise the tweeters to be some 40cm from the surface for them to be at near ear-height. My current monitors sit on IsoAcoustic stands with the longest legs deployed and the Dynaudios are pretty tall themselves, so it works out perfectly. With Genelecs I keep scratching my head because those stands that they come preinstalled on aren’t flat like the bottoms of other monitors and might partially fall through the hollow-center IsoAcoustic stands. I suppose I could place a small sheet of MDF or plywood on the iso-stands and then put the Genelecs on top of that?

Two new developments are influencing my decision-making process:

(1) I am realizing that I am quite limited in terms of how much room treatment I can realistically do. My room is asymmetrical and my desk placement is not ideal. The best I can do is treat first reflections. I will not be able to install bass traps. This situation won’t change for the next year or two. So I think that having more bass rather than less could be problematic. What do you guys think? Because of this I am considering going for a pair of A5X’s because they are front-ported, small and I can push them back further on my desk and increase the listening distance which will help with convergence (?) and push any hiss (which should be lower than on the current Dynaudios) further from my ears. This will enable me to mix at lower volumes, thus further reducing the effect of the imperfect room. To feel sub from 7" requires a decent amount of volume anyway, and more volume will only accentuate room problems. This ties in nicely into the next point.

(2) The easiest way for me to return/exchange the Dynaudios would be to swap them out for a pair of A5X’s (or similar) at the store. This will save me a couple of hundred bucks versus the current setup, which I will be able to reinvest into a room calibration mic and/or panels for early reflections.

If my plan is sound then for the same budget it should give me greater monitoring accuracy and less hiss at the expense of some low end. Would you guys say that this is a sensible way to look at the situation?

#35

I mean, I did try to tell you this right back at the start… :wink:

#36

Never buy EVE, very bad build.

#37

Raising them 40cm sounds a lot. The Genelec/rebranded K&M stands I linked to raise them up about 17cm and it’s enough to get the tweeters ear height for me in a normal sitting position (I’m 6’).

The Genelecs have a mic thread in the bottom so I just removed the iso-pods and screwed the speakers in directly. The stands are cast iron with a good thick rubber in the base so I doubt they’ll be vibrating all that much, you can always add the mounting plates which will let you keep the iso-pods attached though.

#38

You sure did ahah! :slight_smile:

I mean so the total distance from desk surface to tweeter is 40cm. This depends on how high one likes their desk, I suppose. Thanks for explaining how you’re mounting the Genelecs. That makes it clearer.

#39

Guys, could you help me make sense of these specs?

Genelec 8030C stated frequency response:
47 Hz - 25 kHz (-6 dB)

ADAM Audio A7X stated frequency response:
42 Hz - 50 kHz (-10 dB)

Do I understand correctly that the (-6 dB) and (-10 dB) indications mean that the minimum/maximum FR values were read at those levels when making measurements for the spec?

In other words:

The 8030C’s can reproduce all the way down to 47 Hz before the level falls to -6 dB and below.
The A7X’s can reproduce all the way down to 42 Hz before the level falls to -10 dB and below.

I understand that these are not hard limits, i.e. the monitors continue to reproduce lower frequencies beyond this range but at increasingly lower levels. Does this mean that, depending on the steepness of the falloff slopes of the Genelecs vs the ADAMs, the Genelecs might in reality reproduce 42 Hz louder than the ADAMs?

So we would have to be able to compare them using the same standard, for example -10 dB, and see their frequency response curves, to be able to have an accurate comparison?

If, indeed, the 8030C’s boast such good low end specs, they might be worth consideration because they are compact yet with bass comparable to the A7X’s, they are newer than the A7X’s, supposedly without hiss, can be placed near a wall, have a lot of switches on the back for adapting them to the room, etc.

#40

I have the KH310 & KH80. The KH80 are exceptional monitors.

I had the A5X, sound nice but useless for mixing and sound design, actually even for sample selection I found them not clear enough at all. Listening to music on them though, they were very enjoyable.

It’s not all about driver size, quality is more important. I would still go with the KH80 in your shoes, they have a much better bass response than many cheaper 5 inch monitors anyway.