New Speakers Advice

[LTig]

Guys can you care to comment on this: https://www.popsonguniversity.com/are-studio-monitors-good-for-music-movies-gaming-stereo/

The best speakers - as has been found out by a lot of testing in the Harman lab - are those with a flat on axis and a smooth off axis frequency response. The tested speakers were of both pro and consumer oriented target market. The idea to use separate speakers for different kinds of music is in my view a bad one. If you want to hear the sounds as the mastering engineer has mixed them you have to use speakers with similar neutral characteristics.

i know that @q3cpma already commented on the yamaha and previously there was a talk about the Adam. Im i going overkill with Genelec or Neumann if i just want some good speakers for music listening, watching movies or play a few games (PS4/PC)?

It won't be overkill but IMV it would be almost end game, meaning it can't get much better than this (except when adding a sub).

Genelec or Neumann sounds good stuff but im feeling that im going for surgical instruments for precise listening, audio critical production, im afraid of getting a to flat/neutral sound for the purposes.

No need to be afraid of the truth in SQ. IME speakers which are not neutral are those you will start to dislike first. And then there are still tone controls one can use if a recording sounds bad.

 

[daftcombo]

Guys can you care to comment on this: https://www.popsonguniversity.com/are-studio-monitors-good-for-music-movies-gaming-stereo/
i know that @q3cpma already commented on the yamaha and previously there was a talk about the Adam. Im i going overkill with Genelec or Neumann if i just want some good speakers for music listening, watching movies or play a few games (PS4/PC)? Genelec or Neumann sounds good stuff but im feeling that im going for surgical instruments for precise listening, audio critical production, im afraid of getting a to flat/neutral sound for the purposes. No i dont mean i have to go logitech but something in the middle no, something that can give me a pleasurable/fairly/harmonious accurate music listening but also media entertainment? Do i make sense? And above all i apologize for the indecisiveness.

PS: Also the JBL´s were mentioned before

That is bullshit. But yes, some people are used to a bass-inflated sound and don't like instruments to sound as they should.

If you want a "flavored" sound, you can still use the DSP in the Neumann speakers to boost bass or anything else

 

[altamira]

Fair enough. I will take the "leap" If you dont hear from me the following days its because im wating for the speakers to arrive Anyway I´ll come back to you for any feedback or help setting up the speakers. And once more thank you for the comments, suggestions, critics.

 

[Willem]

I want to make two points:
1 a subwoofer makes no sense at your budget and in a small room like this. Concentrate on getting the best mid range for your budget. Subwoofers in a room like this will probably also produce more room modes than you bargained for.
2 with two way systems the driver integration can be problematic at near field distances. My Harbeth P3ESRs are excellent, but the Wharfedale Diamond 9.0s from another system were not very good in the near field. My new bedroom system's Q Acoustics 3010s are fine.

 

[altamira]

Thank you. Its done... Neumann... I hope its worth it hahahaha

 

[Willem]

Should be excellent.

 

[daftcombo]

Don't forget to provide us with a picture of your desk once updated.

 

[altamira]

Surely i will. Anyway i did not ask but for the curiosity is this mainly a European people forum or people all over the world?

 

[Willem]

Originally American but increasingly international with a large European contingent.

 

[daftcombo]

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/poll-where-are-you-guys-from.9924/

 

[direstraitsfan98]

why, no space or just the wrong space setup? or just because you are offended by those tiny Cambridge Soundsworks old speakers?

This is just my subjective opinion but with that very small space, which looks to be under 1 meter accross, you are absolutely wasting money by buying pro monitors and using them upon that desk. Unless you could wallmount them behind the desk on the wall and point them down towards your head and space them an extra 1 foot to the sides of the desk, I would say no, no no!

Do you plan on getting a new desk later on? Can you wall mount them or put them on stands? Can you pull out your desk from the wall and put the speakers behind the desk on stands? Or just move the desk to another part of the room with more space? I don't know how large your room is but ideally this is what you'd want to do with your space:

Your desk would go in the space inbetween. It's still not ideal but it's a lot better then putting them on the desk. There's nothing wrong with the cambridge soundworks speakers, most of the speakers are going to sound almost exactly the same when setup properly like in this pic.

 

[musicaddict]

Anything regarding how 'revealing' the NS10 are can almost certainly be attributed to frequency response and listening to a recording through a YouTube video.

Edit: don't mean to come off rude, and this video is better done than most. Just that more often than not I've found whether a product sounds more detailed than another can be attributed to frequency response. Here the frequency response of the NS-10:

The irregularities in the frrequency response have a purpose and one purpose that can be archieve is the revealing character across all the frequency range ideally. Most of the voicing happens at crossover stage. The NS-10 is known for this revealing character,a speaker does not need to sound bad to be revealing but everything has a trade off. In the end it is all subjective how you like your speakers . I surely would love if the Neumann theater reverbation was more evident without souding overall bad like the Yamaha.

 

[daftcombo]

This is just my subjective opinion but with that very small space, which looks to be under 1 meter accross, you are absolutely wasting money by buying pro monitors and using them upon that desk. Unless you could wallmount them behind the desk on the wall and point them down towards your head and space them an extra 1 foot to the sides of the desk, I would say no, no no!

Do you plan on getting a new desk later on? Can you wall mount them or put them on stands? Can you pull out your desk from the wall and put the speakers behind the desk on stands? Or just move the desk to another part of the room with more space? I don't know how large your room is but ideally this is what you'd want to do with your space:

Your desk would go in the space inbetween. It's still not ideal but it's a lot better then putting them on the desk. There's nothing wrong with the cambridge soundworks speakers, most of the speakers are going to sound almost exactly the same when setup properly like in this pic.

Ok he will not get the best out of the Neumann if those are not properly positionned, but sound quality is going to be better than now, there's no doubt about it.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

If this is going to be his space to work with for the foreseeable future, I'd honestly recommend a headphone setup. I've stated this multiple times, but, you want to work the space with your speakers, not the other way around. What I'm getting at is, first, and foremost, you want to figure out how you're going to arrange your pc system around your speakers. Where you will put them, how far you will sit from them and how far apart they will from room boundaries, as well as how far apart the speakers will sit. In a nearfield situation, I recommend a minimum of 5-6 feet apart for enjoyable music listening. If you're sitting an equal distance distance from the speakers as the distance between them is, ie, you have your system setup in an equilateral triangle, you're going to get an accurate, and natural soundstage, and an awesome phantom center for movie dialogue. 3 feet and under is gimped. Sure it sounds better then bose and pc speakers but it's still gimped, and a waste of money, just in my honest opinion based on having tried desktop setups in this manner a dozen times or so.

The honest answer is you can take pretty much any well designed speaker and set them up properly and they're going to blow you away with their sound quality. Yes, even those Yamaha NS-10. If you follow my positioning advice, you'll get better sound out of anything, even some logitech pc speakers will sound oodles better.

 

[altamira]

Jesus, relax, im not dying tomorrow It took me 20 years to change my speakers and it seems like im giving birth to twins hahahahaha. Jokes aside yes i have room to do some changes that would not be a problem. I can center the desk in the room, bring it forward and give more space sideways. From wall to wall is around 4 meters. Actually my desk is 1,2 meters. Wall mount is an option, i could try that (as last option) or standmount also, no problem. Thank you for the suggestions @direstraitsfan98 .

 

[direstraitsfan98]

glad to hear. personally I would get the kh80s and set them up optimally and then get two subs later on. you'll want subs but it's fun to go from not having them to having them and hear the difference. you'll probably want to spend as much on your subs as you did on your mains.

 

[daftcombo]

If this is going to be his space to work with for the foreseeable future, I'd honestly recommend a headphone setup. I've stated this multiple times, but, you want to work the space with your speakers, not the other way around. What I'm getting at is, first, and foremost, you want to figure out how you're going to arrange your pc system around your speakers. Where you will put them, how far you will sit from them and how far apart they will from room boundaries, as well as how far apart the speakers will sit. In a nearfield situation, I recommend a minimum of 5-6 feet apart for enjoyable music listening. If you're sitting an equal distance distance from the speakers as the distance between them is, ie, you have your system setup in an equilateral triangle, you're going to get an accurate, and natural soundstage, and an awesome phantom center for movie dialogue. 3 feet and under is gimped. Sure it sounds better then bose and pc speakers but it's still gimped, and a waste of money, just in my honest opinion based on having tried desktop setups in this manner a dozen times or so.

The honest answer is you can take pretty much any well designed speaker and set them up properly and they're going to blow you away with their sound quality. Yes, even those Yamaha NS-10. If you follow my positioning advice, you'll get better sound out of anything, even some logitech pc speakers will sound oodles better.

I have an Altec Lansing 2.1 kit on my computer desk (CS21). I've been using it for 14 years.
Before I started buying Hi-Fi stuff, the friends coming at my place kept saying that the sound was good (these speakers can actually throw a dance party in a flat) but that the main speakers looked ridiculously small and that I needed to get a proper setup.
I've since bought 5 paris of speakers. More expansive. Better soundstage, yes. More accurate, yes.
But which do I listen to the most? The Altec CS21 because they sit well on my desk, where I spend a lot of time to browse this site, seek for music, etc. Fun sound, and I'm used to them.

So you can correlate good sound to THD, FFT, etc. But fun and enjoyment, you can't measure.

(Those Altec were a huge improvement over my former Logitech speakers though!!)

 

[altamira]

glad to hear. personally I would get the kh80s and set them up optimally and then get two subs later on. you'll want subs but it's fun to go from not having them to having them and hear the difference. you'll probably want to spend as much on your subs as you did on your mains.

Wait you mean 2 subwoofers? not 1?

 

[musicaddict]

Initially it was between 500-600 Euros as you can see by the first post. Then i increased around more 100 Euros because it seems that it was worth it to acomodate other options, like the neumann mentioned. For that you could say 700 Euros is my budget right now. Bare in mind that are some stores wich i can get discounts/sales/outlet or VAT exemption so a pair that costs 800 Euros I could get for 700 Euros or a bit less.

@LTig yes indeed it is for desktop use. Like you said going to bigger neumann´s or genelec its out of my budget.

As i said im talking about a 12 square meter basement room.

Is the Dynaudio BM5 MKIII or LYD´S mentioned by @musicaddict an alternative with more bass and good sound quality? Anyone has experience with them? Otherwise you can suggest one or two besides Neumann and maybe tomorrow i can see if any shop have those to listen too.

My priorities are 1: Movies/TV series (wide genres), 2: Music (Jazz, funk/motown, classical rock, classical, sometimes electronic). Last games. I not always have time for games and im not a big gamer but it as its place.

Anyway for what its worth i send you a pic of my work place/Desk.
View attachment 44662

The Dyna BM5 goes down to 42hz -3b, You can`t get that with a smaller monitor, but you can with a lower priced one if you want so.
LYD 5 down to 50hz -3b which is better than most 5" speakers(maybe all?).

The Newmann down to 52hz at -6db and 57hz at -3b. Other comparable 4" speakers are the KRK VXT4 and the KRK V4S4 that replaced the VXT4. 58hz -3db, same price as the Neumann.

The Dynaudio BM5 is certainly a better deal in all regards except size and the subjective variable, if you could listen to it and the others in person that would great for you.

Dynaudio brand is a classic in professional studios, you can`t go wrong regarding sound quality. you don`t hear much about Dyna because it is expensive and so not many people owns one. The LYD is a new release which the sonic difference is due to different a crossover point.

Here is a review from a respectable source, it is the previous generation MKII but there is a lot of talk about the bass https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/dynaudio-bm5a-mkii

The MKIII only improved

 

[altamira]

Actually i already ordered the Neumann´s. No turning back now...it is forward and hard!