Barefoot Footprint 01 Review (Studio Monitor)

[Matt_Holland]

Nothing particularly good there. That midbass hump and low mid dip screams "box too small". Unsurprising, honestly.

ETA: Barefoot quote it at 12.8L internal. The KH310, which is already notoriously small, is at 16.2L, and it only uses one woofer. I'm not surprised that the bass response is as jacked up as it is.

But with DSP at their disposal, it’s odd that Barefoot didn’t linearise the bass.

 

[dfuller]

But with DSP at their disposal, it’s odd that Barefoot didn’t linearise the bass.

They're already starting to run out of headroom with it as-is, that's my guess.

 

[H3CTIK]

Nothing particularly good there. That midbass hump and low mid dip screams "box too small". Unsurprising, honestly.

ETA: Barefoot quote it at 12.8L internal. The KH310, which is already notoriously small, is at 16.2L, and it only uses one woofer. I'm not surprised that the bass response is as jacked up as it is.

I’m glad I went ahead and got a pair of Neumann KH-150s for less than 3k new. I was considering these Gen 2 as I was really looking for a three way system for production and mixing. Quite honestly, I am super impressed with my purchase. I will get the KH 750 by the summer to make it a full range system.

 

[darna1999]

good performance and vertical lobing is at a minimal, plus a good 3 way frequency allocation but still. kind of over priced? CSD is nothing special but I guess you can go sub-free with these? i saw these in an instagram ad and they looked nice so naturally i was curious but wayyy out of my price range.

 

[Skyhouse]

are the MM26 better then the MM27? Also the way you’re supposed to mount them always confused me, the footers I’ve always seen on the side mounted MM26, are those the same handles you can buy for the MM12? And lastly, could the MM26 be placed vertically?

Very late to reply, but I stumbled across this thread while looking for some technical info...

Yes, the Barefoot MM26 is better than the MM27. I have used and owned both, and currently use and own the MM26.

Both are outstanding speakers for their cost and size, and you cannot go wrong with either one. The MM26 is a bit more precise and detailed in the midrange, which helps in pro-audio applications, because the "translation" is better, when you listen back on other speaker systems. But they overall have a very similar sonic profile: massive and solid low-end, incredible dynamic range, and a very flat, neutral, IMAX-like sound.

The dual-woofer form-factor is inconvenient, especially with the MM26, which really wants to be horizontal. It comes with stands, but unlike the MM27, the MM26 "stands" are too fragile to use as handles, which I consider an annoying downgrade. The $1,500 sound anchors stands are almost mandatory with the MM26, unless you have the skills and tools to DIY something. If you need to put them on a table or on ordinary flat speaker stands, or if you only have the space to mount them vertically, then I would recommend the MM27.

I am also not sure how well either speaker would perform in a room that is not a well-treated studio control room. They put out a LOT of low-end, and the omnidirectional/bidirectional dispersion pattern might not make for a happy experience in a hard-ceiling residential space...I just don't know. Any speaker with a big low end can cause weird phase cancellations across the frequency spectrum in a room that is too small, or too square, or too hard. I'm not an expert, but my sense is that a more-conventional home hi-fi design that puts the woofer closer to the floor, and the tweeter closer to your ears, might work better in a suboptimal room, while the Barefoot design might be best-suited for acoustically-designed listening rooms.