I'm fairly new to this but I do need a pair of monitors. My desk is pretty small and there's no room behind it so I'm probably placing them on my desks. My budget is at about $3000. The look matters and that's why I skipped Genelec. How do these three compare? Are there any other options? Another dumb question, I've found a pair of used Focal Trio 3 Be about $1000 above my budget but if it is that much better I am willing to ramp up my budget for that, should I?
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
KH120 II or Barefoot Footprint 03 or PSI A14 or Focal Shape?
- Thread starter uleikw
- Start date
bachatero
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2023
- Messages
- 122
- Likes
- 88
I'm in a similar position to you. With a budget of $3K, you're just out of reach of the KH 150s which would go well as a pair, while the options you mentioned would work better paired with a subwoofer which isn't in your budget. One alternative option that might satisfy you more is to get a couple of more budget monitors like the Kali LP-6v2 and then a subwoofer. For the remainder, spend that on acoustics and a calibration mic to perfect the sound. I did just that and it's like a dream!
Hope this helps
Hope this helps
- Thread Starter
- #3
Thank you! May I ask what is your setup you're having? I might also need a DAC but it can wait.I'm in a similar position to you. With a budget of $3K, you're just out of reach of the KH 150s which would go well as a pair, while the options you mentioned would work better paired with a subwoofer which isn't in your budget. One alternative option that might satisfy you more is to get a couple of more budget monitors like the Kali LP-6v2 and then a subwoofer. For the remainder, spend that on acoustics and a calibration mic to perfect the sound. I did just that and it's like a dream!
Hope this helps
From what I read I guess you can't place the monitors that optimal in the room. If you also will not need very high spl, in my opinion in such a scenario you don't need to spend that much money for the monitors. You won't hear the small differences that much if you equalize the speaker to the same goal. It is more important to decide if you rather like a narrow beaming speaker or a wider beaming speaker. The Neumanns are more narrow and the Focals or Genelecs are wider. And the psi is kind of between. Have a look at the di index of a loudspeaker and you know (to some degree) how wide the speaker beams and in which frequencies. The frequencies from 300Hz to about 4kHz are the most important part to have a look at.
Very important is a good integration like a automated equalizer measurement system or doing some research and doing it by yourself.
Deep bass is also very important and you can only achieve it with a subwoofer given the small space and limited budget. But a very good integration of the subwoofer is needed especially in the near field, which involves a placement of one or more subwoofers which is inconvenient and not very easy to do.
Self noise of the monitors also can be an issue, which you have to consider.
I would recommend to listen to some wider and some narrow monitors and get a feeling for the differences and determine what you like better.
When you compare sound you have to be aware of the psychoacoustics of hearing differences, which es very well described here. www.hifiohr.de
When you know what direction you might like better, we can help you do find the best monitor for you.
- Thread Starter
- #5
Wow thanks this is really helpful. Guess I'll have to look up some of the definitions before moving on. I'm living in a studio so technically the room is not small but most likely I'll be listening to them sitting at the desk 0.7m away or on the couch about 2m away.
PSI is kinda expensive but I really love how it looks, is it worth it?
Also for the subwoofers, is there anything specifically I need to know about them? Typically how much percent of my budget should go to the subwoofers? Neumann's and PSI's are crazy expensive. I guess Genelec 7040 is good enough for me?
Impossible to say, as in the end it's completely subjective. But you being new in the game and lack of measurements of the Focal it's still pretty safe to suggest that it's not and you shouldn't.
The usual suspects recommended here, in your price range, have near perfect frequency response and if you wish you can EQ to your preference. Something like KH120 II with option to add sub later is so perfectly safe option that nothing wrong with just buying them and be done with it.
Of course you will see comments about any of the brands being "practically unlistenable" due to whatever ("metallic highs" etc) but most of those are because of subjective bias, blatant exaggeration or outright lies. You might get occasional listener extraordinaire in the mix, but most likely it's not you. Of course the best course of action is to compare the options, side by side, blind, but that's usually not going to happen.
The directivity index displays the difference of the monitors very good if you can use an equalizer. The KH120II has a specific little jump in the di which some like and some don't. Almost all loudspeaker have a not perfectly linear di and it isn't even clear if a perfectly linear di is the optimum since the head related transfer functions aren't also linear and stereo is artificial and small deviations from linear like the ones from the KH120 or many other speakers might even sound more neutral in the end. The room and integration is the other key part here.
With equalizer a lot of monitors are very close if the directivity index is similar and they don't have major none linear distortions. This also can be seen in the predicted preference score with eq.
www.spinorama.org
It a very good starting point to compare monitors.
bachatero
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2023
- Messages
- 122
- Likes
- 88
My setup right now is simply the Kalis connected to a Motu M2 connected to my desktop. I chose the M2 years ago because I needed a good mic input for zoom calls and music production, but it just so happens to have a completely kickass DAC too!
For the acoustics and calibration part, I made my own fiberglass wall panels and also covered my walls with felt squares. My desktop runs Linux so I can use EasyEffects to apply EQ to reduce room modes.
Last edited:
The FP03s have reportedly had severe issues with high self-noise. Subjective reviews are that they do sound quite good, though... Being that they're 3 ways, they may need more integration distance than small 2-ways. I suspect given the ring radiator tweeter they'll have a very narrow dispersion in the top end.
KH120 IIs are good. Very good, in fact. That said I'm less thrilled with the 2-way Neumanns than with the 3-ways. I have heard of issues with the newer Neumanns having random failures - in fact a friend of mine had the standby circuit on one of his KH150s just up and die the other day.
The PSI A14 is fine, but nothing special. I wouldn't say it's bad, but it's got lots of little resonances, which may or not be readily audible as resonances (but might be audible as a bit of muddiness). It doesn't extend as low as the KH120, nor does it get as loud. I'm not sure I'd bother. Build might better than the Neumanns though.
KH120 IIs are good. Very good, in fact. That said I'm less thrilled with the 2-way Neumanns than with the 3-ways. I have heard of issues with the newer Neumanns having random failures - in fact a friend of mine had the standby circuit on one of his KH150s just up and die the other day.
The PSI A14 is fine, but nothing special. I wouldn't say it's bad, but it's got lots of little resonances, which may or not be readily audible as resonances (but might be audible as a bit of muddiness). It doesn't extend as low as the KH120, nor does it get as loud. I'm not sure I'd bother. Build might better than the Neumanns though.
Last edited:
They are good but expensive. The sound signature is more "relaxed" similar to some adam monitors. The di has a constant slope.
The maximum sound pressure level and how deep you want the subwoofers to play are two very important factors to determine what you need. In general the subwoofers from psi neumann Genelec didn't provide the best price performance. Some home/ cinema subwoofers provide deeper bass with more spl for the same price.
But on the other hand the integration with Genelecs gml or similar all in one software and speakers is easier to set-up everything correctly and quickly change settings and so on.
Multiple subwoofers are generally better since you can avoid severe bass nulls. The room an placement are very important for the bass performance.
In the nearfield the subwoofers also should be placed not to far away from the monitors if you have a short distance between the subwoofer and the listening position, since you can feel the position of the subwoofer by the vibration on you body caused by the subwoofer.
With you budget I would have a look for two monitors and two subwoofer and a measurement device and a software which equalizer (which didn't need to cost anything). But even all this depends on your priorities.
I give you two example set-ups to understand what I am talking about.
Example set-ups 1
Two cheap Swissonic V7 monitor with a bass array with 8 cheaper subwoofer a measurement microphone and equalizer apo as software. You get very good bass at all listening positions. The monitors are good and not so fare away from very good monitors but there are better monitors out there. They can't play very loud have most likely a slight hiss which you can hear at your listening position.
Example set-up 2:
Two Genelecs 8330 with gml and a small subwoofer. You got a very good monitor and a very good integration with gml and it provides most likely almost no hiss and good lifetime service. But the bass and maximum spl will not be very high. The overall bass performance will be much worse compared with a bass array example.
You have to determine what your priorities are. You can get a lot with your budget but not everything.
- Thread Starter
- #13
I guess I'm going for a pair of kh120ii given all the comments are stating they are really good and the fact that I have no room treatments and MA1 could help a lot. I will be adding a kh750 later. As for the DAC, I'm most likely going for smsl, still hesitating between their SUX and D2R but I guess I couldn't go wrong with either of them.
I would highly recommend to listen to some different speakers with more or less beaming before buying anything since this makes a bigger difference compared to the difference of speakers with a similar di (given the same eq target and excluding the bass extension). Neumann KH120II, JBL LSR 305 mk2, Swissonic A305 and some others are very similar. In a blind test I would bett that everyone will have a hard time to detect the differences. A different placement of the speakers, room acoustics or a different eq target will be a huge difference in comparison.
The less beaming speakers like Genelec 8330 or Yamaha HS5 and others sound different and speakers with a very wide radiation like the Devialete Phantom sound very different compared to an KH120ii.
Most people like a wider radiation especially with nearfield monitors. But there are pros and cons for both and you can only get the difference by listing to some monitors in the nearfield.
I would highly recommend to listen to some monitors before buying them. For example I don't like the KH120 A but am happy with the very inexpensive JBL 104 as a second system even if I sometimes hear the shortcomings of the speaker. A lot of JBL speakers are very good and I think you can hear that they did scientific blind testing against their competitors. Here at ASR a lot of people are biased towards speakers which "measure" good. In the end speakers, which perform best in blind listening tests should be praised the most...
Similar threads
