KRK Classic 5 Review (Studio Monitor)

[dasdoing]

it is probably best described as a "mod" of the g3

“At KRK Systems, our goal is to design solutions that provide users with the freedom to create the most accurate and pristine productions, no matter what genre or environment they’re working in,” says Jimmy R. Landry, Global Director of Marketing, Pro Audio Division, Gibson Brands. “With this Classic 5 studio monitor, we took into consideration what people have always loved about creating music on previous KRK monitors. From there, we zoomed in and fine-tuned certain components to make it an incredibly versatile monitor for music creation, mixing and mastering. With the optional +2dB KRK Bass Boost, the new Classic 5 can hold true to the acclaimed KRK sound that music creators around the world have loved for years.”

https://audioxpress.com/news/krk-systems-introduces-classic-5-nearfield-studio-monitor

 

[dasdoing]

I think I'm now seeing a similar pattern in the resonances seen from the front port of my own monitors (and other ported designs):

View attachment 103377

I thought it was just reflection interference from the surface of the back of the horn, but it does seem more likely to be caused by cabinet or port noise.

I try to discuss this stuff further in this topic: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ort-resonances-of-mains-in-a-2-1-setup.19039/

 

[dasdoing]

I wonder if the EQ adjustments available on the back panel would do 90% of the job needed: -1 dB LF and -2 dB HF. The score seems awfully harsh given the subjective comments post-EQ.

I would try HF:-2 and LF:+1....those switches are simple gain controls for the amps afaik, so this would bring everything over 3k(?) down by 3dB

 

[relmu]

el clásico es prácticamente el mismo que el g3. Tiene amplificadores TDA7293 a / b para agudos y graves. El g2 tiene TDA2052 para agudos y TDA7294 para graves. En mi opinión, el sonido de este último es superior al Clásico. Realmente agradezco la revisión de este orador.

 

[Xyrium]

This one is disappointing. I was expecting better, given the popularity of these in non-audiophile circles. That rising response would definitely cause some headaches for me. I'm curious what they've been able to do with DSP in their 3 way model. Then again, it's so cheap, it must be terrible, right?

 

[JIW]

If the previous, third generation of Rokits is anything to go by, the filter characteristics may well be the same as those on the RP10-3. Just looking at it, I would guess Q is around 0.7 and the frequencies are 300 Hz and 3 kHz.

Source: https://www.soundandrecording.de/equipment/studiomonitor-krk-rp-10−3-im-test/

However, looking at the controls of the G3s (see below), the low frequency level changes are different for the Rokit G3 compared to the classic - -2, -1, 0 and +2 dB vs. -1, 0, +1, +2 dB.

Still, setting the HF level adjustment to -2 dB, looks to leave a 1 dB hump between 3 and 8 kHz in the predicted in-room response. Setting the LF level adjustment to +1, may also change the balance more towards neutral if not a bit toward recessed in the midrange. However, all of this still leaves the midrange pretty much untouched - the 2.6 kHz peak will be reduced by maybe one half dB while the mess between it and about 500 Hz remains the same.

 

[sarumbear]

Of course not. It takes me half a day to measure a speaker. I can't keep flipping switches and running everything over and over again.

All due respect @amirm but trying the level controls when you are listening the speakers (not measuring) shouldn't be difficult, nor time consuming. Adjusting of a pot should be simpler than setting a software equaliser. After all, you do not measure with the equaliser on, you listen. It would help us to gage if the default setting of the pots are for pleasing the shop floor listener, like it is the case with almost all TVs.

Thank you for listening.

 

[More Dynamics Please]

Of course it's always easy to suggest more work when others are doing the work. But a quick flip of whatever switch might help correct an issue that shows up during measurements of active studio monitors seems like a reasonable request for the subjective listening portion of the review. A brief comment about how that compares to more optimized manual equalization would be educational.

 

[Ron Texas]

These are very widely available in the US as they are sold by Guitar Center. In this price range my preference would be the JBL LSR 305 II which lacks the elevated highs.

 

[mrmoizy]

Of course not. It takes me half a day to measure a speaker. I can't keep flipping switches and running everything over and over again.

Would be curious if doing so achieved the same subjective results as your PEQ did, I think that's all he's meaning.

 

[JoeKickass]

QUOTE="amirm, post: 623752, member: 2"
Of course not. It takes me half a day to measure a speaker. I can't keep flipping switches and running everything over and over again.
/QUOTE

But this is a crucial measurement for this speaker that will define the purchase decisions of many... Why didn't we bother to optimize the settings before spending all day running the full measurement?

It should really be standard testing protocol to take a single fast on-axis measurement with different filter settings, and then use the best settings for the final extensive time-consuming 360/off-axis measurements.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to decry a speakers elevated HF response when it has a -2db HF switch that was ignored.

Most audiophiles would have heard the brightness and turned down the HF without a second thought, so if we're going to measure the speaker for comparison we should least do our due diligence by optimizing the settings as best as possible.

What's the point of doing so many measurements so quickly if they aren't representative of the real performance? I feel like this is a pretty good example of the danger of blindly following the measurements and making conclusions without critical thinking.

 

[uwotm8]

Different than many of its competitors, the Classic 5 uses class AB amplification

The one and only qusetion: DOES IT HISS? (like typical "$129 monitor grade" D-class)

 

[Robbo99999]

QUOTE="amirm, post: 623752, member: 2"
Of course not. It takes me half a day to measure a speaker. I can't keep flipping switches and running everything over and over again.
/QUOTE

But this is a crucial measurement for this speaker that will define the purchase decisions of many... Why didn't we bother to optimize the settings before spending all day running the full measurement?

It should really be standard testing protocol to take a single fast on-axis measurement with different filter settings, and then use the best settings for the final extensive time-consuming 360/off-axis measurements.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to decry a speakers elevated HF response when it has a -2db HF switch that was ignored.

Most audiophiles would have heard the brightness and turned down the HF without a second thought, so if we're going to measure the speaker for comparison we should least do our due diligence by optimizing the settings as best as possible.

What's the point of doing so many measurements so quickly if they aren't representative of the real performance? I feel like this is a pretty good example of the danger of blindly following the measurements and making conclusions without critical thinking.

It's an interesting point, but for historical comparative reasons Amir has always analyzed speakers at their default settings, which on the face of it is the most logical setting to analyse it. However, if the thrust of reviews is to get the most out of the speaker in question then you'd want to know how best to set it up (re TRIM switches) and then you'd want to know how it measures in that non-default state. It's kinda a double edged sword, are the reviews there to honestly benchmark speakers against each other (which would arguably be at default settings) or are the reviews there to get the best out of each speaker and compare speakers against each other after tweaking adjustment options on the speaker like TRIM Switches? I think it's simpler to stick with default switch positions for the majority of the testing as it's more indicative of the manufacturers intentions, but I wouldn't mind a simple REW sweep showing default vs TRIM Switches in various positions - I worked out the exact effect of the TRIM switches on my JBL 308p's by doing exactly that, and was even able to work out the corresponding filter that was being used within the speaker (in my case it was HF Trim Switch -2dB was equivalent to 3000Hz High Shelf Filter -2dB with 6dB per octave). A quick couple of REW sweeps and the shown graphs, then people could trace the graphs and work out the filter being used, or just easily enough eyeball it to see if the adjustment made a positive improvement or not to the overall tonality.....I think a REW sweep at each TRIM switch position would be quite revealing, although it'd probably have to be limited to HF because the LF will be blurred by the room effects so not as easy to gauge the differences.

What is ridiculous is that the manufacturer provides no clue as to what the switch is supposed to do. I looked in the various brochures, on-line info and manuals. Nowhere do they provide a specification for the effect of the switches. The DSP version of the speaker does provide info, as it provides actual parameters to be tweaked. But this speaker - nothing. So what in the heck do they expect their customers to do? The only advice is to tweak the settings until you like them.
If the settings had sensible documentation one could reason usefully. As it is - all they say is is that "flat" should measure flat. As Amir discovered, it isn't flat. So they get an instant fail there anyway. It would be have been so simple for them to design the high end compensation to provide useful correction. They could have even left a demo setting, just like TVs. It would have added zero to the BOM. Just taken a bit more thought.

Yes, this was true of my JBL 308p too, they don't tell you what the TRIM switches do beyond the Gain Value...there is a little graph on the back of the speaker that might make you think you know what it does, but that doesn't equate to what it actually does when I worked out the effect of the Trim Switches by REW sweeps (3000Hz High Shelf -2dB 6dB per octave).....it wasn't in the manual either. Manufacturers should state the filter used for their Trim Switches and/or put into laymans terms (albeit specific) what the switch is doing.

 

[infinitesymphony]

QUOTE="amirm, post: 623752, member: 2"
Of course not. It takes me half a day to measure a speaker. I can't keep flipping switches and running everything over and over again.
/QUOTE

But this is a crucial measurement for this speaker that will define the purchase decisions of many... Why didn't we bother to optimize the settings before spending all day running the full measurement?

It should really be standard testing protocol to take a single fast on-axis measurement with different filter settings, and then use the best settings for the final extensive time-consuming 360/off-axis measurements.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to decry a speakers elevated HF response when it has a -2db HF switch that was ignored.

Most audiophiles would have heard the brightness and turned down the HF without a second thought, so if we're going to measure the speaker for comparison we should least do our due diligence by optimizing the settings as best as possible.

What's the point of doing so many measurements so quickly if they aren't representative of the real performance? I feel like this is a pretty good example of the danger of blindly following the measurements and making conclusions without critical thinking.

This wasn't necessary for a number of other speakers. Shouldn't the settings be optimal out of the box? Any changes Amir makes to the default configuration would beg the question of, "Well, what does it sound like flat? Changing the room correction settings to optimize results is cheating."

In any case the knob is there, and based on the measurements we have, we can see that it should help to flatten out the HF response.

---

The waterfall for this one is intriguing. A dip at 1 KHz with a long resonance. Maybe they tried their best to cut it out?

 

[Robbo99999]

This wasn't necessary for a number of other speakers. Shouldn't the settings be optimal out of the box? Any changes Amir makes to the default configuration would beg the question of, "Well, what does it sound like flat? Changing the room correction settings to optimize results is cheating."

In any case the switch is there, and based on the measurements we have, we can see that it should help to flatten out the HF response.

---

The waterfall for this one is intriguing. A dip at 1 KHz with a long resonance. Maybe they tried their best to cut it out?

Interesting observation about the 1kHz frequency response dip and the resonance that still resides.....good call....praps they did try.

 

[amirm]

I think the 1 kHz resonance is out of phase:

If it were in phase it would add up to the direct response. This may be another difference with a front port versus rear. The phase is inverted at that frequency.

 

[amirm]

All due respect @amirm but trying the level controls when you are listening the speakers (not measuring) shouldn't be difficult, nor time consuming.

With all due respect back, there is no such thing. A measurement takes time especially an in-room one which requires me to create an all new setup. Then I have to capture the graph and document it. Then I have post it here and answer challenges or questions about it. One question would be, "did you try this other combination of switches?" "How did the distortion change?" Or a million other questions.

It used to be that I could get started with measuring a speaker with NFS in about 10 minutes. Now it takes me 45 minutes to do all the static, non-NFS measurements such as CSD, driver response, distortion at each level, etc. Now you are asking me to measure the effect of the switch which would compound a bunch of these. These requests become standard demand for all future reviews compounding the time it takes to do these tests.

So no, there is absolutely, positively no such thing as "not time consuming." They are all time consuming and aggravating to deal with.

 

[amirm]

But this is a crucial measurement for this speaker that will define the purchase decisions of many... Why didn't we bother to optimize the settings before spending all day running the full measurement?

It should really be standard testing protocol to take a single fast on-axis measurement with different filter settings, and then use the best settings for the final extensive time-consuming 360/off-axis measurements.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to decry a speakers elevated HF response when it has a -2db HF switch that was ignored.

Disingenuous? Let me tell you what is disingenuous: waiting after I do half day's worth of work, document and post everything I found about this speaker that you can't find anywhere else and you putting down all of that with comments like this.

Then there is the thing about these dumb switches. Why on earth any pro be relying on them rather than digital EQ? Did you not see that I spent quite a bit of time create that equalization which does far more than anything these dip switches can do?

Personally I would never, ever rely on those switches for anything. And I don't want to set expectations that you should too. If you can't EQ and can't be bothered to learn, then you are not my target audience. You are living in a world of flawed sound reproduction given the mass impact of the room on the sound of the speaker.

You disagree? Get one for $140 and measure it yourself with the different dip switches and post them. You don't need me to do this kind of testing. Of if you can't, ask the company to give them to you. I have to move on to test a poor guy's gear that has been sitting here for two months for testing.

 

[More Dynamics Please]

The explanation @amirm gives above for not spending extra time to sample the effect of various dip switches on active studio monitors does fit his consistent philosophy of focusing on digital EQ to get the best sound. From that point of view it does make sense to do measurements with all dip switches in the default position and then optimize with digital EQ. Any additional time he spends on each speaker review ultimately results in fewer speaker reviews. Other review sites often comment on dip switch performance but not on digital EQ. ASR remains unique in this respect and should be valued as such.

 

[paulraphael]

Class AB without a heatsink at the back feels like a time bomb.

It might be. We have the KRK Rokit 8s, and have had to replace an amp module that started making random noises. And now the replacement is developing the same problem. The internet says we're not alone.