HEDD Type 20 MK2 Monitor Review

[testp]

Very pleased to see the Hedd 20 reviewed and meet with approval. When a mate was setting up the acoustic/eq in my room he brought along a pair of Hedd 20 mk2 that were due to go into another home studio and let me listen to them for a day and I was astounded as to the difference between my KRK G4 Rokit 7/KRK sub (which I thought were brilliant before listening to the Hedds), there was so much “more” detail with the Hedds, my KRK’s just sounded thick n’ flabby but I couldn’t afford such an expense at the time so on his advice I settled on Dynaudio LYD 48’s and saved my pennies to then buy the Dynaudio 18s sub, very happy with them and it’d be nice to see them tested by Amir at some point.

https://flic.kr/p/2mNGE4t

dyns..do they hiss?

 

[Somafunk]

I live in a rural countryside area with no neighbours and have very low background noise apart from the occasional bird outside and wind noise so i can hear the tweeter hiss when sat at the desk with no music playing but when sat in my chair 6ft away there is no measurable hiss, certainly not an issue and much better than my previous KRK setup.

 

[Yasuo]

It looks very nice!

 

[ROOSKIE]

I think Geddes said something similar. There must be some kind of rhyme or reason as to why one speaker, with seemingly higher distortion, sounds perceptibly less distorted than another with what, on the surface, looks like lower distortion measurements. Any insights?

It is all well and good having measurements, but if we can't properly extrapolate from them, then people might end up with the wrong idea.

He did all sorts of testing one that comes to mind now is one with waveguides and perception of HD that was published and I think is still on his site. He also tested cabinet round overs/edge turbulence as it pertains to HD perception.
Heading out for the day so no time to find the links.
Toole is very dismissive of HD's value in general in his book outside of using it for noting obvious flaws.

It is also very difficult to isolate and test, with many variables involved that weave into it that may be the 'reason'.

As one anecdotal, I can tell you this, my Polk ES20's tweeter with very low HD in the full treble range can't hold a candle to my JBL 4309 with notable levels of 2nd order HD in the treble. There is no aspect of sound that I pay attention to or have experienced by where I prefer the ES20 vs the 4309. Nor doe the ES20 sound lower distortion, it actually sounds quite unenjoyable to me when used loudly, it sound both dull and harsh if you can imagine that (though it is an okay speaker for under $400 retail, $250sale).

 

[dananski]

@dananski "I couldn't turn it up that high at the desk, I've only done it when sat the other end of the room, and even then it hurts after a short while."
In my experience when a good sounding speakers 'hurts' it is well past it's limits and is distorting and compressing and emitting loads of non linear distortions.

When a good sounding speaker can handle high SPL and is not producing HD,IMD,compression ECT -----> then there is no hurt, only good and you need an SPL meter to ensure you don't go to loud for to long.
This is a defining moment in a speakers life for me as many speakers simply don't sound good at 90db or more and others are godlike.

Well, the pain threshold for SPL is frequency dependent, so sure, pain could be due to high distortion or a strong resonance that hit an uncomfortable frequency, or the source having a lot of some intolerable frequency in it. But you can't be saying that good sounding speakers can subject you to extreme SPLs but spare you the pain? I would consider that to be quite magical since instruments themselves will be painful at extreme volume - my piano and saxophone can both easily get to painful volume, so can singers. And one person I know with just a ridiculously loud indoor voice.

I haven't measured the SPL at which it starts to get painful to me, but from Amir's distortion graphs, your target 90dB might be fairly clean on these considering you would have two and they'd likely be under 2m away. While distortion is rising from 86-96dB, the frequency response looks unchanged. There are more suitable ones for your sort of thing, to be sure, though perhaps with a sub to take on the bass it could do better. Subjectively, other than the occasional bass problems, I do recall the overall sound quality seemed surprisingly in tact when it got too loud for me, more so than for my relatively piddly 80W Kali LP6 v2 or even my much less piddly Arcam/Spendor hifi setup.

I don't think your scenario would define a good speaker for me though - I mostly like long term listening without excessive hearing damage and the clarity you get when your ears adjust to lower volume. And again there are more suitable speakers for that. But I don't think I've ever had an opportunity to hear something you'd call 'godlike' and I'm curious to know what that's like - can you give an example of some setup you experienced this with?

 

[Triliza]

The following EQs are “anechoic” EQs to get the speaker right before room integration

Not related to this particular speaker, but does that mean it's best practice to apply these first, and then anything UMIK+REW points out related to our room?

And kudos to the company for sending the speakers

 

[uwotm8]

8" 3-way that cannot play loud is a nonsense.

 

[Digby]

8" 3-way that cannot play loud is a nonsense.

 

[uwotm8]

"The heft and size of the monitor makes you think it can play very loud but it cannot. Its main woofer is not that large and other drivers are also not too happy to play along"

 

[ROOSKIE]

Well, the pain threshold for SPL is frequency dependent, so sure, pain could be due to high distortion or a strong resonance that hit an uncomfortable frequency, or the source having a lot of some intolerable frequency in it. But you can't be saying that good sounding speakers can subject you to extreme SPLs but spare you the pain? I would consider that to be quite magical since instruments themselves will be painful at extreme volume - my piano and saxophone can both easily get to painful volume, so can singers. And one person I know with just a ridiculously loud indoor voice.

I haven't measured the SPL at which it starts to get painful to me, but from Amir's distortion graphs, your target 90dB might be fairly clean on these considering you would have two and they'd likely be under 2m away. While distortion is rising from 86-96dB, the frequency response looks unchanged. There are more suitable ones for your sort of thing, to be sure, though perhaps with a sub to take on the bass it could do better. Subjectively, other than the occasional bass problems, I do recall the overall sound quality seemed surprisingly in tact when it got too loud for me, more so than for my relatively piddly 80W Kali LP6 v2 or even my much less piddly Arcam/Spendor hifi setup.

I don't think your scenario would define a good speaker for me though - I mostly like long term listening without excessive hearing damage and the clarity you get when your ears adjust to lower volume. And again there are more suitable speakers for that. But I don't think I've ever had an opportunity to hear something you'd call 'godlike' and I'm curious to know what that's like - can you give an example of some setup you experienced this with?

Well yes, I see that what I wrote sounded a bit overly Black and White and was not the most complete comment.

My normal, average, non-background listening SPL is 80db to 90. In terms of 90db (or higher) that is definitely something I do regularly enough to want that ability but is not how I always listen and I can certainly enjoy more modest SPL.
Keep in mind that in my case that is @12feet away from the speakers so it does require significantly more raw output than vs 1-1.5meter in the nearfield(which these HEDD speakers seem aimed toward)
Obviously total room size will be factor as well particularly in the bass..

In terms of listening at 90+db I really enjoy the life sized sound that you are talking about with a real piano and sax and loud humans. Therefore at times the system must be cranked up pretty far. I am careful not to overdo it, no 120db. I do want that sense of realism though and yes many things can be quite a shock when played back well above 90db - that is fun.
I wear my ear protection around any loud equipment that I run, and I am not in a band or heavy industry and don't work or spend that much time in loud environments outside of my audio systems. I basically save it for audio. Fingers crossed these ears will lose whatever they lose doing something fun so I am very lucky as realize many people have to be around very loud things daily.

I would not expect this smallish set (7" woofer)of HEDD speakers to handle true bass duties at high SPL in a farfield system, nor really any speaker with smaller woofers. I use high pass filtering to subs with most any speaker, especially smaller ones. This definitely helps in many cases but it will not always fix an SPL limitation.

Godlike is a bit dramatic on my part, I am trying to stress the sheer level of enjoyment that I get when I am in the right mood and a system can do near to life like sound with realism, dynamics and attack and 'no subjective sense of overload' on the part of the system and no sense of things being strained or becoming harsher than the recording is or starting to change. That they sound as good @ 95db as they do @80 with no sense that turning them up is a downgrade in sound quality of any kind - in fact it is an upgrade, they sound even better.(due in my case to the more life like 'size/amount')

By the way I do interpret the data here and the subjective comments in a way that leads me to give these speakers a thumb's up. They seem very well engineered for their intended use case. I don't think for my typical farfield use, they are quite right but I would love to try them and play with the various settings and the port. It would be an easy way to test a few things out in a blind test that would be reasonably easy to rig up.

 

[uwotm8]

Very pleased to see the Hedd 20 reviewed and meet with approval. When a mate was setting up the acoustic/eq in my room he brought along a pair of Hedd 20 mk2 that were due to go into another home studio and let me listen to them for a day and I was astounded as to the difference between my KRK G4 Rokit 7/KRK sub (which I thought were brilliant before listening to the Hedds), there was so much “more” detail with the Hedds, my KRK’s just sounded thick n’ flabby but I couldn’t afford such an expense at the time so on his advice I settled on Dynaudio LYD 48’s and saved my pennies to then buy the Dynaudio 18s sub, very happy with them and it’d be nice to see them tested by Amir at some point.

https://flic.kr/p/2mNGE4t

Dyns are the best anyway. Cheers

 

[prerich]

Thanks Amir

Nice to see those reviewed.
I didnt know them.

They are acrually quite small, with a 7" (18cm) woofer...

Did they offer the type 30 for testing as well ?

Ditto!!! Thanks for the review of these! A new brand for me ...very interesting possibility for a small room.

 

[TJVA]

Unsuprising results as these well-engineered speakers are meant to operate at 83-85dB for near- and midfield listening. They offer amazing performance and aren't insanely priced either. I've heard them a couple of times and owned the smaller 05 and 07's and I gotta say, that AMT driver is wonderful. Fast, detailed, great tonality and non-fatiguing at all. And great customer support, even for random inquiries are answered.

 

[dfuller]

8" 3-way that cannot play loud is a nonsense.

First, it's a 6.5" woofer going down into the mid-30s of hz. Hoffman's Iron Law applies. You have LFX, SPL, and size; pick two at the cost of the third.

Second, remember this is a single speaker. It will have no issues playing clean at 86dB per pair at 1m, which is its intended use case.

 

[kongwee]

8" 3-way that cannot play loud is a nonsense.

They are not design to place 12 feet away. Generally so to other studio monitors.

 

[PeteL]

They are not design to place 12 feet away. Generally so to other studio monitors.

They are not measured 12 feet away neither tough.

 

[norman bates]

I agree.

I'm not happy with 96db distortion , especially for a 3-way, especially for 2.5k each.

There are 2-ways 6" with less distortion, and for less money.

I assume intermod distortion is good.

Flat db response doesn't mean much to me as I eq for my taste, distance, listening levels.
But for mixing, it looks nice and flat

And people like the "speed" of high crossed ribbons.
I can't read into to the waterfall response due to the 20ms delay.
Probably can't used without video delay for those using active monitors for home theater.
Probably harmonic distortion sitting 3' away is not a problem.

"Level of detail and presence..... Extra resolution......"

Can there be extra resolution ?
I don't think so.
That would safely imply other tweeters less resolving.
Perhaps energy storage plots could show a tweeters resolution.

Stored energy-Part 2

And/or there is good diffraction control for the highs.

Maybe the ribbons are better at tracking detail that it trumps its harmonic distortion.

I don't dare vote on rating this speaker.
I sit far field at 10-15', that is how my opinion on sound in my room
This was designed as a near field monitor.
I would think a small 3-way monitor would be for 4-6' listening distance.

Ug, I really don't want to buy and play with some emotiva ribbon speakers........

 

[ozonepaul]

Amir says at the beginning of the review:
"I guess at the reference point (from memory, a point between the three drivers). I tested the speaker twice: once in open configuration and then closed. The former is complete measurements and latter is limited to frequency response and directivity."

I just checked the Type 20s manual "Speaker Setup" section. It says the following:
"To achieve the best possible sound and unfold the full potential of the HEDD MK2 monitors, the correct speaker placement is very important...Height Positioning: Place the speaker in a position so that the tweeter matches the height of your ears when you are on your listening position. If this is not possible, tilt the speaker so that the tweeter aims at your ears. Try to avoid that the tweeter is placed too low or too high, as this may result in a muffled or less defined sound."

So if I'm correct, the measurements should not have been done with the measurement microphone at "a point between the three drivers", but the measurement microphone should have been placed a bit higher, at the height where the tweeter is. Am I wrong on this?

+ Amir also says: "the Speaker is incredibly heavy and stout for its size, imparting a feeling of quality."
My KH310 (which is a bit smaller than the HEDD Type 20) is only 2.4kg lighter while the KS Digital A200 (which is a little bit bigger than the Type 20) is at 17.2 kg nearly 2kg heavier. So I'm not sure I would describe the Type 20 as "incredibly heavy", it's weight is pretty much in line with it's size/with the competition.
For me something like the EVE audio SC3070 is surprisingly light, while something like the KRK Expose E8B or (as Amir mentioned it in his test) the Genelec 8361 (with it's +30kg) is "extremely heavy". These Type 20s are what I would expect. + I'm sure a huge chunk of the weight of the Type 20 is down to the 3x300W drivers.

Anyway, thanks for the review. I think for it's intended use (nearfield mixing/audio editing) these are great monitors. I've only heard the first gen. Type 07s and type 20s, they were already very good. I really like how room adaptable/tunable these 2nd gen. Type 07s/Type 20's are. With it's closed/open bass port plug, with it's built in EQ/phase linearizer it gives a lot of "tuning" options. This "room adaptability" can be very important for a lot of home studios, where there is an upper limit to how far one can push the acoustic treatment.

 

[tktran303]

It’s just some subjectivism.

You gotta read between the lines.
Sometimes even between the pixels.

We’re all human.

 

[amirm]

So if I'm correct, the measurements should not have been done with the measurement microphone at "a point between the three drivers", but the measurement microphone should have been placed a bit higher, at the height where the tweeter is. Am I wrong on this?

In recent test, I go through a pre-scan testing to more accurately set the reference point. I adjust the microphone position to get the best balance between the drivers. As you see from the very flat response (on-axis), I achieved that. We are talking about an inch difference anyway which you are not going to care about one way or the other (but does show up in my near-field measurements at 1/3 meter).