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M-Audio BX3 Monitor Review

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 158 87.3%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 13 7.2%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 7 3.9%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 3 1.7%

  • Total voters
    181

TonyJZX

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i would be questioning how a western company like m-audio can do the BX series of 'reference' speakers at this price... they have a a 3, 4, 5 and 8 inch unit and really, i question why a 3 and 4 inch unit exist at all... are you that tight on space you cant go to a 5 inch which would offer a reasonable size vs. price vs. performance ratio

think about the truncated frequency range without a subwoofer on a 3/4 inch?

the 5 and 8 could be useful but 8 is probably too big for many and really, given the lack of engineering in this line would you risk it on the 5 and 8?

i feel like these are very low effort products passed off onto a China OEM. I also wonder why they went with class a/b with the usual heat issues as shown in other reviews.

The counter to this is that the JBL line have underpowered amps on the low end.

So I guess for the various music professionals the hunt goes on...
 

heflys20

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Sure, but they are about 50$ cheaper than those.
I meant performance wise, the BX3 has more features, so the slight price increase is not surprising. It's really more of a $30 difference, depending on where you buy them. (T40 $104 vs $130 for BX-3 average price).
 

PeteL

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I meant performance wise, the BX3 has more features, so the slight price increase is not surprising. It's really more of a $30 difference, depending on where you buy them. (T40 $104 vs $130 for BX-3 average price).
OK, In Canada it's the other way around. The Pair of T40 is 150$ CAD, and The pair of BX3 Is 100$ CAD. I didn't google the US prices.
 

pablolie

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Might as well use the loudspeaker on your smartphone - I wonder how those test wth the same protocol. :)
 

PeteL

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Might as well use the loudspeaker on your smartphone - I wonder how those test wth the same protocol. :)
I am going to assume you are joking...

 

PeteL

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That's actually pretty funny.
Maybe, but when looking at street prices, even in the US. They are quite on par.
That's creative US site:
1677980584599.png

List price appears to be 129$ or so for BX3 but Amir mentioned buying it for 90$ on the first page of this thread. It does appear to me to be a better purchase in this segment. Bottom line, this is what it should be compared to. I have seen some in this thread trying to compare it to alternative around 500$ a pair and complain that it doesn't compete...
 

ROOSKIE

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From 3 cheap speakers I had in the past there was a noticeable difference in tonality in mids between left and right speakers. The ones I had were - Bose companion 3, micro lab b77 and Samson mediaone BT3. All three had different tonality in the left and right channels, Bose sounded the least different, but still playing the same sound as mono through both the channels, it was obviously noticeable. After that experience no matter how good the reviews are I was no longer interested in getting one with amp in one side.

On a large speaker the electronics may take very less space of the overall volume of the cabinet, but on smaller ones like this the one with the amp has significantly lower volume. Again, when you say, it only affects bass, it must be taken into consideration that none of these speakers produce any Lower notes instead the roll off from them is somewhere where the vocals still have parts of signals, which means can have an audible tonality in human voice. DSP built in speakers like the JBL BT 104 may have some tricks to fix it but the ones I mentioned except the Bose had none!
Cabinet size has very minimal effect at all above 200hrz.
Are you sure your speakers just don't sound different on the L and R positions in your set-up.
I think there is some other explanation that makes more sense than having the electronics inside.
Take some measurements and see what you find & put the speakers on the same side.
Whatever is causing the difference you perceive I'd wager it is not a change in cabinet enclosure volume due to the electronics.
Could even just be plain old sample variation or plain old human biases ---->which happen within the best of us.

Having the electronics inside would make almost no difference in tonality above bass, even if 1/4 of the airspace was available.

Those are some crappy speakers you compared, did you survive the experience :)
Aren't the Bose speakers sub/sats? Why are the electronics not in the sub there?
The amp in the Micro Lab 77 I am familiar with there is hardly anything to it. It takes up very little inside that case.
Really I think if you saw how small the amp and electronics are in the Samson set you might be shocked.
 

ROOSKIE

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M-Audio BX3 is $99 right now at B&H in the USA if you clip the $30 coupon.

Get 'em while they are hot.
 

oversky

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Can someone explain why monitors, such as JBL 305 MKII and 8030C, have hiss problem,
but cheaper speakers like T20, JBL 104 don't have hiss.
Smaller power?
 

oversky

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In UK speak, this is a *powered passive* speaker (2 x 25W if you look at the specs) and the slave speaker is driven by a 3.5mm TS connector by the looks of it, the full range amps driving the main and slave speakers in a traditional 'passive speaker' fashion, despite the stereo amp pack being in the back of one box only!


*Active* as I was brought up to understand the term, is a proper active powered electronic crossover BEFORE the amps, which then look directly at the speaker drivers, said amps only being given the bandwidth needed by the drovers and no more.

Nowhere for DSP to go as the amps just power a seemingly very simple 'passive crossover (I'd guess a cap for the tweeter), hence the massive issues in th elower kHz region where the drivers overlap too much?
Neumann general-product-answers

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OP
amirm

amirm

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Can someone explain why monitors, such as JBL 305 MKII and 8030C, have hiss problem,
but cheaper speakers like T20, JBL 104 don't have hiss.
Smaller power?
It depends on the sensitivity of the tweeter they are using. And also the platform itself.
 

DSJR

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Sprint

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I did a AB listening of this one with JBL LSR305 together with my wife. Definitely JBL was the winner for both of us.
 

bigjacko

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I think the r&d team already did whatever they could do. The directivity is not bad, although bad for vertical as the low pass is too slow. The port is exceptionally clean. I would want to buy the speaker, just to disassemble the port and take a look how they did it!
 

Weeb Labs

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Huang Jerry

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As much as we loathe these things and as terrible as they are, they fulfilled a market demand that's clearly not from us.

Yes the website for it is questionable and it is probably more suited as a background music speaker at the barbers than a studio monitor, but it apparently is something that lots of people buy into, thinking it is "professional" audio for the price of your Bluetooth gubbins.

The fact is, despite how we at ASR shat all over it, making a cheap, disposable product is (unfortunately) a wise financial move for the company - you don't see Klein+Hummel or Genelec raking in huge sales for their extensive effort in engineering.

Unfortunate, but inevitable.
 

CD13

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the 5 and 8 could be useful but 8 is probably too big for many and really, given the lack of engineering in this line would you risk it on the 5 and 8?
I had the 8s originally with the sub until one amp blew in less than two years. Support was responsive but couldn’t repair as they didn’t have the part. It was out of warranty at that point and wasn’t interested in replacing it. They really are quite big for a desktop. I replaced them with the 5s and have been pretty solid since.
 

fineMen

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Thank you, amirm.
Can you be more specific about "platform"?
Imagine a horn speaker coupled with a bass/mid in a small box, hence in need to boost the bass-- within the range of the DSP's output. Horn makes 110dB easily, bass is at 76dB at 30Hz to give some quite common numbers. The power amp is well designed at -96dB of noise referring to, say 200 watts of output. If the level matching of horn versus bass is done before the power amp, digital or linear, the noise raises to a mere -62dB. The most sensitive part, regarding noise, of the spectrum is situated around 6kHz. If you listen to the speakers at about 1 watt, the noise margin would decrease by an additional 26dB.

In short, it can be calculated.
 
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