Hello Audio Friends!
What a pleasure to find this lovely discussion-based website. Big thanks to all the members and the creator of the site.
I am looking to upgrade my monitoring system and am hoping for some insight on this big decision.
*A little background:
I begin as a music producer in 2015, working primarily on headphones and jbl305 very budget oriented. As my love for creation continued, I found myself more and more fascinated with tone, dynamics and space. I began feeling more connected to the mixing and mastering process, eventually allowing writing music to fall to the side as I focused on training my ears and improving the acoustic response of my room. Fast forward nine years and I am currently working full time freelance in the broadcast and live-concert world(as well as some mixing, mastering and recording). This puts me in a very special position to be able to fuel my love for music post-production work with the earnings.
Now on to my current setup. Right now, I work in a medium sized room (21ft x 17ft x 9ft) with plans to move up to a slightly larger (30ft x20ft x16ft)ish room. Currently treated fairly extensively with rockwool giving a relatively flat +/- 5db frequency response (not to shabby in the time domain either). But with the new room I plan on building a non-environment space with panel traps etc. In the mean time I am quite eager to upgrade my monitoring system. My first upgrade was to the Adam T7V+Adam T10S sub, roughly 5 years ago. I had mixed feelings about the system at first, which grew to a strong dislike. The whole system sounded cheap, somewhat hollow and not at all accurate. Regardless of placement, room eq, etc. I believe this is to be expected from a system in the budget range.
Eager to find better sound I became fascinated with the work happening with a Texas based DIY company called GR Research. They offer fantastic quality to price considering they ship you parts and you build the speakers at home. This produced my current setup, GR Research NX Studio 6.5" monitors (open baffle tweeter with closed cabinet woofer) with what they call the double trouble open baffle sub (two 12" drivers wired to a rhythmik amp). The setup is awesome. The high end is pristine and open, the space is very nice and "3D". The ONLY reason I'm craving an upgrade is this: The overall tonal balance of the system. Because this DIY company focuses on HI-FI listening, the whole system has a smiley face curve. Of course, I can compensate by turning down the sub but then it feels too thin. Especially for the work I end up doing with Hip Hop and EDM. The open baffle sub as well is very cool, but I find it beginning to give pretty intense distortion at higher SPL (90-95db). For these reasons and more I am looking at upgrading to a professionally built speaker that I can grow with and rely on for the years to come.
*end of background
This brings me to the thread topic. I spent many nights reading threads on this site and on Gear Space looking for an "end-game speaker" in my budget around $10,000-$14,000 USD. I began a deep dive on the thread by Audiovisjon called "high end nearfield". It began as his quest to listen to all the high-end nearfield monitors he could get his hands on and turned into him falling in love with and eventually upgrading his whole system to Geithain. Prior to reading this forum I had my heart set on the Neumann KH420. It has the low end, the great measurement and high spl I'm looking for. But after reading this forum, I became eager to find out more about Geithain. The phase relationship of that speaker seems brilliant in design. The cardioid bass I'm sure would be instrumental in low frequency management, BUT the struggle many of us find with this company is accessibility. I have a trip to Germany (already planned for other reasons) near end of year. So, I could wait and have a listen for myself, hit Neumann while I'm at it and call it a day, BUT I found a GREAT deal on some Geithain RL 901K's (used for 5k less MSRP). This has tempted me to pull the trigger and have them shipped before they are unavailable!
I also looked into PSI but I hear they can be analytical and overpriced (as well as inaccessible in the USA), so these two speakers are the front runners in my consideration.
I know the main rule of thumb is to listen to speakers in my environment before making a large purchase, which may be possible with the Neumann's but I doubt will be possible with Geithain(I am USA based). So, any help in this decision would be greatly valued.
Summary Questions:
-Differences between Neumann's KH420 and Geithain RL 901K
-Importance of hearing a speaker before purchasing. (will I be blown away be Geithain no matter what??)
-Is there any difference between 2011 built RL901K and what I would get from a RL 901K built today?
Current listening position 2 meters from speakers.
Kind Regards,
Drdredd
What a pleasure to find this lovely discussion-based website. Big thanks to all the members and the creator of the site.
I am looking to upgrade my monitoring system and am hoping for some insight on this big decision.
*A little background:
I begin as a music producer in 2015, working primarily on headphones and jbl305 very budget oriented. As my love for creation continued, I found myself more and more fascinated with tone, dynamics and space. I began feeling more connected to the mixing and mastering process, eventually allowing writing music to fall to the side as I focused on training my ears and improving the acoustic response of my room. Fast forward nine years and I am currently working full time freelance in the broadcast and live-concert world(as well as some mixing, mastering and recording). This puts me in a very special position to be able to fuel my love for music post-production work with the earnings.
Now on to my current setup. Right now, I work in a medium sized room (21ft x 17ft x 9ft) with plans to move up to a slightly larger (30ft x20ft x16ft)ish room. Currently treated fairly extensively with rockwool giving a relatively flat +/- 5db frequency response (not to shabby in the time domain either). But with the new room I plan on building a non-environment space with panel traps etc. In the mean time I am quite eager to upgrade my monitoring system. My first upgrade was to the Adam T7V+Adam T10S sub, roughly 5 years ago. I had mixed feelings about the system at first, which grew to a strong dislike. The whole system sounded cheap, somewhat hollow and not at all accurate. Regardless of placement, room eq, etc. I believe this is to be expected from a system in the budget range.
Eager to find better sound I became fascinated with the work happening with a Texas based DIY company called GR Research. They offer fantastic quality to price considering they ship you parts and you build the speakers at home. This produced my current setup, GR Research NX Studio 6.5" monitors (open baffle tweeter with closed cabinet woofer) with what they call the double trouble open baffle sub (two 12" drivers wired to a rhythmik amp). The setup is awesome. The high end is pristine and open, the space is very nice and "3D". The ONLY reason I'm craving an upgrade is this: The overall tonal balance of the system. Because this DIY company focuses on HI-FI listening, the whole system has a smiley face curve. Of course, I can compensate by turning down the sub but then it feels too thin. Especially for the work I end up doing with Hip Hop and EDM. The open baffle sub as well is very cool, but I find it beginning to give pretty intense distortion at higher SPL (90-95db). For these reasons and more I am looking at upgrading to a professionally built speaker that I can grow with and rely on for the years to come.
*end of background
This brings me to the thread topic. I spent many nights reading threads on this site and on Gear Space looking for an "end-game speaker" in my budget around $10,000-$14,000 USD. I began a deep dive on the thread by Audiovisjon called "high end nearfield". It began as his quest to listen to all the high-end nearfield monitors he could get his hands on and turned into him falling in love with and eventually upgrading his whole system to Geithain. Prior to reading this forum I had my heart set on the Neumann KH420. It has the low end, the great measurement and high spl I'm looking for. But after reading this forum, I became eager to find out more about Geithain. The phase relationship of that speaker seems brilliant in design. The cardioid bass I'm sure would be instrumental in low frequency management, BUT the struggle many of us find with this company is accessibility. I have a trip to Germany (already planned for other reasons) near end of year. So, I could wait and have a listen for myself, hit Neumann while I'm at it and call it a day, BUT I found a GREAT deal on some Geithain RL 901K's (used for 5k less MSRP). This has tempted me to pull the trigger and have them shipped before they are unavailable!
I also looked into PSI but I hear they can be analytical and overpriced (as well as inaccessible in the USA), so these two speakers are the front runners in my consideration.
I know the main rule of thumb is to listen to speakers in my environment before making a large purchase, which may be possible with the Neumann's but I doubt will be possible with Geithain(I am USA based). So, any help in this decision would be greatly valued.
Summary Questions:
-Differences between Neumann's KH420 and Geithain RL 901K
-Importance of hearing a speaker before purchasing. (will I be blown away be Geithain no matter what??
)-Is there any difference between 2011 built RL901K and what I would get from a RL 901K built today?
Current listening position 2 meters from speakers.
Kind Regards,
Drdredd
