Evaluating new studio monitors current Monitors are Yamaha NS40M at least 30 years old

[EERecordist]

Does Vintage King loan for evaluation? Or you could take a vacation to NY or LA. Seems like there would be a network closer than ASR in Nashville. My studio friend not in Nashville who is Grammy successful with that branch of music started out on ProAc, then added, violating your search for passive, ATC 25a, now 45a soffit. They switch back and forth between the ProAc and the ATC, using the ATC to find problems. Several other producer engineer acquaintances in acoustic genres use ATC. I haven't heard but have you listened to Amphion? Most studios have outside producers on occasion, what do they want which makes you money? Bryston is common on gear lists, but there are many great active speakers out there as others mention - a studio can have both.

 

[dfuller]

I found it very enlightening being able to go to fellow engineers' rooms and actually get a handle on speakers in meaningfully similar environments to my studio - showrooms are not that.

ATC are indeed quite good at the acoustic thing, they have a good deal of dynamic capability (big vc and motor structures so short term compression is negligible) and they're what I think most would consider "good enough" w/r/t on axis response and off axis smoothness in a studio with absorbed early reflections.

 

[kyuu]

If you do decide to trial some new ones, an obvious candidate I would think is the Ascend Acoustics ELX Horizon. Very similar form factor to the Yamaha, just better performing.

 

[ZolaIII]

Let's try one more time...

SIERRA-LX PAIR

Our Latest And Greatest Bookshelf Monitor Class-leading bass extension, massive dynamics and midbass punch, high power handling, exceptionally wide and linear dispersion combined with some of the best measurements in the industry, our new LX is truly something quite unique and special. This is...

ascendacoustics.com

 

[Ktacos]

Let's try one more time...

SIERRA-LX PAIR

Our Latest And Greatest Bookshelf Monitor Class-leading bass extension, massive dynamics and midbass punch, high power handling, exceptionally wide and linear dispersion combined with some of the best measurements in the industry, our new LX is truly something quite unique and special. This is...

ascendacoustics.com

They really need to get some actual pictures of the speakers, the renders look terrible.

 

[ZolaIII]

They really need to get some actual pictures of the speakers, the renders look terrible.

Well there is user gallery and some such pictures there.

Customer Gallery

Please Feel Free To Email Us Pictures Of Your System!

ascendacoustics.com

 

[Ktacos]

Well there is user gallery and some such pictures there.

Customer Gallery

Please Feel Free To Email Us Pictures Of Your System!

ascendacoustics.com

Neat, nice to see a good company selling good stuff.

 

[ZolaIII]

Neat, nice to see a good company selling good stuff.

Take a look at dispersion and patern shape from more important measurement pictures. They aren't lookers all that much but they shouldn't be too go with bunch of similarity looking studio equipment. They are quality built to last, rated 8 Ohms and falling to minimum 5 Ohms. And they are made in USA (tho driver's are from Norway).

 

[davidki]

Does Vintage King loan for evaluation? Or you could take a vacation to NY or LA. Seems like there would be a network closer than ASR in Nashville. My studio friend not in Nashville who is Grammy successful with that branch of music started out on ProAc, then added, violating your search for passive, ATC 25a, now 45a soffit. They switch back and forth between the ProAc and the ATC, using the ATC to find problems. Several other producer engineer acquaintances in acoustic genres use ATC. I haven't heard but have you listened to Amphion? Most studios have outside producers on occasion, what to they want which makes you money? Bryston is common on gear lists, but there are many great active speakers out there as others mention - a studio can have both.

Thanks for the suggestions, are you in Nashville? Westlake had a great demo room and very organized.... since Vintage King moved to the new location they do not have an adequate listening room I've brought in some mixes but they really are not set up for it. They had mentioned they were going to rebuild at another location but no word as to when.

I've been to a few studios here in Nashville over the years and most of them had NS10 on the desk But in the last 10 years or so and the introduction of Class D electronics it seems like everyday a new player comes on the market and watching most reviews on youtube I really don't need to watch an unboxing section... I"m 72 I've unboxed plenty of equipment over the years LOL! I wonder what the marketing budget of KALI is, there has to be 100 videos of people pushing them and of course they all have "Purchase Links" What I noticed they push the product out, let their customers do the testing and next day... they come out with a new model.

Bottom line, there are so many monitors and manufactures in the market. I did Amphion a couple of years ago but it was at Vintage King and they were pretty small ... then the big hype for years was Focal and before that the ADAM line... I do have a friend that had proAc 100 with a Bryston amp he said at at best they were OK, but he sold them. I have and love ATC but not until you get to the 25's and now run about $14,000 after tax. I know a guy that is proably in about every studios over the last 40 years as a tech... His comment to me when I asked him about the ATC line he said that quite a few studios removed them and he sighted they didn't think the mix translated as well . Yep they sound great in the studio the mix is done on. Thais not my comment but his comment to me!

Fortunately I've scaled back our projects to maybe 2 or 3 a year and I've moved more to projects have their favorite engineer to work with and they have too deal with how the mix's sound and fortunately the 2 engineers we have coming in on most of the projects are good with the Yamaha and Mackies... Maybe I am over thinking this and use the money for another Neve 1073 OPX set of pre''s

Thanks again for the suggestions and comments Getting some demo's in to the studio to try is my best option. Usually you have to buy the monitors and have typically a 30 day window to return them ( those are probably discounted demo's you see on their website).... I"m 70% finished with the project I have right now... .Once we finish up this project I will have time to look it to getting some demo's in.

Have a great day

 

[davidki]

Well there is user gallery and some such pictures there.

Customer Gallery

Please Feel Free To Email Us Pictures Of Your System!

ascendacoustics.com

I just checked out the photos it seems like their market is consumer Home Theater market vs a studio customer base.

 

[ZolaIII]

I just checked out the photos it seems like their market is consumer Home Theater market vs a studio customer base.

They are studio monitors as marketed. I like Yamaha especially their home integrated amplifiers but they speakers don't stand out today. Kali had a cheap standing out of the rest LP 6 V2 which is probably a best seller and sounds pretty good but you don't want that. There is no much of a purpose to recommend you older JBL's which were quality as you won't find them and Yamaha HS8 is just average tho it will last for long. I really like KH750 sub's for their DSP tuning but they are expensive and don't make sense without their monitors also supporting with KH750 full calibration and correction on their own. Get rid of Mackie.
If you know how to correctly interpret measurements be my guest and head to Spinorama to search what might be interesting to you.

A collection of loudspeakers measurements

www.spinorama.org

If not watch the hosts video about how to do it.
I wont bother you with boutique and very expensive ones.

 

[davidki]

They are studio monitors as marketed. I like Yamaha especially their home integrated amplifiers but they speakers don't stand out today. Kali had a cheap standing out of the rest LP 6 V2 which is probably a best seller and sounds pretty good but you don't want that. There is no much of a purpose to recommend you older JBL's which were quality as you won't find them and Yamaha HS8 is just average tho it will last for long. I really like KH750 sub's for their DSP tuning but they are expensive and don't make sense without their monitors also supporting with KH750 full calibration and correction on their own. Get rid of Mackie.
If you know how to correctly interpret measurements be my guest and head to Spinorama to search what might be interesting to you.

A collection of loudspeakers measurements

www.spinorama.org

If not watch the hosts video about how to do it.
I wont bother you with boutique and very expensive ones.

Funny... but in 1995 when I purchased my first set of NS40's I had met a Mastering engineer and he brought over a set of Yamaha's with him... wow he really new the speaker and when he would mix and master a song I could take it anywhere to play and it sounded great so, I bought a pair from him back then....

I don''t mean to me negative on "Active Monitors" other than the Mackies all of my monitors have been passive and over the years I've probably tried 4 or 6 different models. Heck if I get something else I'd probably put the Mackies up in my bonus room in the house I don't mind them but they are OK for comparison of sound when mixing or listening. I forgot all together about that Spinorama site I''ll have to check it out again but the bottom line is specs can give you an idea of what to listen to but the real test is what does it sound like in the studio and how do they translate... and can you mix n them for hours with out feeling beat to death.

I've probably beat this to death, I will look over the different monitors folks have mentioned, some I already know and some I don't then I'll probably see if I can get some demo's to try out and have the guys that work out of our studio in for their comments... We do a lot of tracking and then the tracks are taken from us and mixed and mastered at different places (which is fine with me)... I'm getting to the point that I will probably back away even more but since we own the studio and all the equipment I can still have an ability to take on a project if I like the music and the players... so far it's worked for us.

My main work history has been in the computer business and we sold the company in 97 to a very large international company and so at 45 I decided to retire and bulld my first studio... .it's been a lot of fun .... I am seeing quite a few local studio's closing up and folks selling off their equipment so makes me wonder if they are actually making money at it anymore or are they just getting tired f doing it

Do you own a commercial Studio? If so where is it?

 

[ZolaIII]

Nope I don't. Worked or local radio long time ago and did some mixing. Worked on NS10's. Did a lot of development in IT, got tired of it and moved back to this, might still jump back to development when I see no one else will do it. I have my first serious audio card when they appeard a Creative SB Pro Platinum back at the beginning of millennium, still have it for sentimental reasons. I don't have NS10's, even though about getting CLA10's but I didn't as they messed them up. I have my home 2.2 system which is nothing much, my A/V room and so on. This day's this is a hobby for me.
So it it only US blue grass and country or you do and little bit abroad too? Like Latino, Spanish in similar manners. I like that stuff but it's usually tied more to live clubs than studio. Like divas in sense of female vocal capabilities and prefer local. Always whose more of R'N'R guy.

Back to speakers; you will have hard time today finding commercial closed enclosure speakers today and even more so monitor's. Luckily with sub's that's not the case and then you plug the port's and cross them with such sub's. What you can get today and more on the active side is speaker which will from main bass have a nice wide dispersion patern accros the frequency range which by patern will reassemble to a patern of cardioid mic. That helps them to minimise impact of room mods while better keaping what should be neutral in reference room (as such thing in real world doesn't exist) response and relatively wide coverage and sweat spot. So I recommend you best such that I know which are pasive and come with plugs and even their name goes good with what you do.
Told you how pair of KH750 with pair of their mid sized monitors at least 6.5" woofer will do wonders preserving surce fidelity including low and main bass peaks in 2.2 setup and that's a turn key with a very little fus solution and they will also do time domain properly. You can get there with a lot of effort and digital signal processing and with average equipment (like I do and as physics are physics) but I guess you don't want to spend that much time learning how to do it, you jest need a good work horse that will serve you for a long time. From actives Neumann also hold the achievement of leading manufacturer when it comes to low self noise (or at least it did) and that's what you won't get with cheap class D one's like mentioned Kali's.
Never had a fetish towards Yamaha when it comes to drivers, that whose more in my case reserved for some paper full range and headphone Foster ones but that will wait if one day I jump into DIY club.

 

[Ktacos]

His comment to me when I asked him about the ATC line he said that quite a few studios removed them and he sighted they didn't think the mix translated as well .

I bet they offloaded them to make a good chunk of change to get better speakers. ATC is majorly behind the times and have missed what I would consider several milestones in the world of speaker development. The Neumann KH420 kind of makes the larger ATC 3 ways look like a joke. Granted it's hard to compare on paper as ATC wants to keep performance data on their speakers a secret which is about the biggest red flag these days. I struggle to understand why someone would choose their speakers over the myriad of amazing options today.

But they did release a subwoofer a year or two ago that has no DSP and costs $5k+. Really cutting edge stuff there ATC lol.

 

[davidki]

Nope I don't. Worked or local radio long time ago and did some mixing. Worked on NS10's. Did a lot of development in IT, got tired of it and moved back to this, might still jump back to development when I see no one else will do it. I have my first serious audio card when they appeard a Creative SB Pro Platinum back at the beginning of millennium, still have it for sentimental reasons. I don't have NS10's, even though about getting CLA10's but I didn't as they messed them up. I have my home 2.2 system which is nothing much, my A/V room and so on. This day's this is a hobby for me.
So it it only US blue grass and country or you do and little bit abroad too? Like Latino, Spanish in similar manners. I like that stuff but it's usually tied more to live clubs than studio. Like divas in sense of female vocal capabilities and prefer local. Always whose more of R'N'R guy.

Back to speakers; you will have hard time today finding commercial closed enclosure speakers today and even more so monitor's. Luckily with sub's that's not the case and then you plug the port's and cross them with such sub's. What you can get today and more on the active side is speaker which will from main bass have a nice wide dispersion patern accros the frequency range which by patern will reassemble to a patern of cardioid mic. That helps them to minimise impact of room mods while better keaping what should be neutral in reference room (as such thing in real world doesn't exist) response and relatively wide coverage and sweat spot. So I recommend you best such that I know which are pasive and come with plugs and even their name goes good with what you do.
Told you how pair of KH750 with pair of their mid sized monitors at least 6.5" woofer will do wonders preserving surce fidelity including low and main bass peaks in 2.2 setup and that's a turn key with a very little fus solution and they will also do time domain properly. You can get there with a lot of effort and digital signal processing and with average equipment (like I do and as physics are physics) but I guess you don't want to spend that much time learning how to do it, you jest need a good work horse that will serve you for a long time. From actives Neumann also hold the achievement of leading manufacturer when it comes to low self noise (or at least it did) and that's what you won't get with cheap class D one's like mentioned Kali's.
Never had a fetish towards Yamaha when it comes to drivers, that whose more in my case reserved for some paper full range and headphone Foster ones but that will wait if one day I jump into DIY club.

So, with all the information provided I may take another direction... since I do like my Yamaha's and I own the new Bryston amp I could perhaps see if there is a pair of active monitors and replace the Mackies with a new set of Active more up to date monitors. I'll check out the Neumann's . I'm ok with my Yamaha's for now and it give me time to bring in others to check out...

I think I still have that sound card you had... since then I"ve had several sound cards but right now I use a RAYDAT card because of the interface to my console is ADAT just makes things easy.... Are you in the USA?

 

[ZolaIII]

So, with all the information provided I may take another direction... since I do like my Yamaha's and I own the new Bryston amp I could perhaps see if there is a pair of active monitors and replace the Mackies with a new set of Active more up to date monitors. I'll check out the Neumann's . I'm ok with my Yamaha's for now and it give me time to bring in others to check out...

I think I still have that sound card you had... since then I"ve had several sound cards but right now I use a RAYDAT card because of the interface to my console is ADAT just makes things easy.... Are you in the USA?

No I am from Bosnia, Sarajevo. There are people with restored and improved (DSP crossovers) NS1000 speakers hire talking about their glory days. Also a lot of great and famous people in the audio industry so stick around and commute. Have fun and enjoy!

 

[davidki]

No I am from Bosnia, Sarajevo. There are people with restored and improved (DSP crossovers) NS1000 speakers hire talking about their glory days. Also a lot of great and famous people in the audio industry so stick around and commute. Have fun and enjoy!

It is amazing the broad reach of the internet and how easy it is to communicate around the world.... my only drawback is I only speak English but so many on here from other countries speak English so well.

I took a little time to look in to the KM310a, I know you mentioned the KH- 410 but that may be a little more than I want to spend. I found a reveiw on the 310 on here that's pretty detailed so I'll have t d a little more reading n them. I am interested more in "True Sounds"" Not hyped up playbacks... the 310a may be a good one to demo. But honestly there are so many choices it is easy to drive youself nuts trying to find the perfect one at a reasonable cost...

 

[ZolaIII]

It is amazing the broad reach of the internet and how easy it is to communicate around the world.... my only drawback is I only speak English but so many on here from other countries speak English so well.

I took a little time to look in to the KM310a, I know you mentioned the KH- 410 but that may be a little more than I want to spend. I found a reveiw on the 310 on here that's pretty detailed so I'll have t d a little more reading n them. I am interested more in "True Sounds"" Not hyped up playbacks... the 310a may be a good one to demo. But honestly there are so many choices it is easy to drive youself nuts trying to find the perfect one at a reasonable cost...

Well English is the only and official language regarding forum (for simplicity).
I didn't told you which Neumann monitors, just that the woofer is not smaller than 6.5" so that it can do with nice dynamic capacity mid bass peaks. I only mentioned KH750 sub (sub's) for tuning and SPL capacity in the mid 30's to which low bass peaks reach (in electronic, orchestral music and cetera).
KH 310A are rather nice and closed enclosure and might even do job for you solo as you won't do music with such low bass peaks or at least less of them. They will be very nice to work at near field and can pass far field calibration so suitable and for costumer presentation. They have small quirks but nothing really to complain about. They have increased distortion below 100 Hz and do the rest butter smooth. Nice catch there.

Neumann KH 310A Review (Powered Monitor)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Neumann KH 310A active monitor (speaker). It was kindly sent to me by the company for testing. I see it discounted to US $2,200 (each) as of this writing. This is one dense and heavy 3-way speaker: I was relieved to find "rack mount" ears...

www.audiosciencereview.com

What you demo it will pretty much sound the same in your studio or elsewhere as they take very little influence from room refractions (only some from celling). The scoring panther is very rare to see here and that alone tells a lot.

 

[davidki]

Well English is the only and official language regarding forum (for simplicity).
I didn't told you which Neumann monitors, just that the woofer is not smaller than 6.5" so that it can do with nice dynamic capacity mid bass peaks. I only mentioned KH750 sub (sub's) for tuning and SPL capacity in the mid 30's to which low bass peaks reach (in electronic, orchestral music and cetera).
KH 310A are rather nice and closed enclosure and might even do job for you solo as you won't do music with such low bass peaks or at least less of them. They will be very nice to work at near field and can pass far field calibration so suitable and for costumer presentation. They have small quirks but nothing really to complain about. They have increased distortion below 100 Hz and do the rest butter smooth. Nice catch there.

Neumann KH 310A Review (Powered Monitor)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Neumann KH 310A active monitor (speaker). It was kindly sent to me by the company for testing. I see it discounted to US $2,200 (each) as of this writing. This is one dense and heavy 3-way speaker: I was relieved to find "rack mount" ears...

www.audiosciencereview.com

What you demo it will pretty much sound the same in your studio or elsewhere as they take very little influence from room refractions (only some from celling). The scoring panther is very rare to see here and that alone tells a lot.

Sorry about mentioning the KH 310A monitors that perhaps I thought you had mentioned so much going on here... but Yes I do recall the KH750. I'd probably demo the KH310a first just because it would be easy to do to just swap out our Mackies. Since the main focus on the music we do is Acoustic I"m not sure if below 40 is even important but good to know there is an option if needed. I like the fact that its a Class A/B amp not Class D and I like the woofer and mid construction.... Perhaps this is a good option to demo first.

 

[ZolaIII]

Sorry about mentioning the KH 310A monitors that perhaps I thought you had mentioned so much going on here... but Yes I do recall the KH750. I'd probably demo the KH310a first just because it would be easy to do to just swap out our Mackies. Since the main focus on the music we do is Acoustic I"m not sure if below 40 is even important but good to know there is an option if needed. I like the fact that its a Class A/B amp not Class D and I like the woofer and mid construction.... Perhaps this is a good option to demo first.

Reason whi KH 310A reaches so low for woofer it has and enclosure of course it's because it's a bit too much far-fatch with the use of Linkwitz transform in order to extend it, it's also reason for increased distortion there. They did it less with KH750.

Amp class is reason why they are low self noise and no hissing (it can be done and with modern class D - H with filters).