KRK ROKIT 5 Gen 4 Review (Studio Monitor)

[usern]

I wonder if the reports you saw were incorrectly attributing source noise to the KRKs.

More likely that you have relatively high ambient noise that drowns the hiss. Like AC, air purifier, street noise or something like that.

 

[drake5000]

Does it have certain maximum input level, in Vrms/dBU, like we have on headphone amplifiers? The manual only says that default 0.0 dB setting suited for +4dBU and in case of -10dBV one might want to dial +11dB of volume on the monitor. However I would like to know the actual limits of its amp in order to avoid clipping the signal and tune up my DAC properly. Thanks!

 

[vert]

So, after almost 7 years the power stage in one of my KRK Rokit RP6 G3 started to fail a couple of days ago.
The gain went down to almost being non-existent with lots of distortion and crackling added.

While this might be salvageable, I currently lack the time to do proper testing and possibly fix them.
There are numerous reports of issues with the buffer electrolytic capacitors in the trafo of these RP6 G3 (or KRK Gen 3 in general) and replacing all of them has yielded great results for some. I'll definetely put that on my agenda for when I have time, apart from a slight hiss / white noise at idle, which has increased over time, these RP6 G3 are still fine.

After looking around a bit, it came down to either Yamaha HS5 or RP5 G3 based on the budget I was willing to spent for such an unplanned purchase.
Since I am using these on my desk pretty close to the wall I decided the HS5 with rear port might get in quite some trouble and went with the RP5 G4.

A couple of hours ago, the KRK RP5 G4 pair arrived and I could easily swap them out.
The LCD panel on the back is nice, settings are easily configurable and finally there is a DIM setting for the front logo lighting (and even the option to toggle it off completely).

Due to the slightly smaller woofer they are lacking a bit in the bass region compared to the RP6 G3, which is understandable and fine.

I took a look at the RP7 G4 also, but there were many reports with hiss / white noise issue at idle, which is a complete NO-GO for me.
My daily driver workstation is passively cooled without any moving parts and I really dislike hiss / white noise sounds.

The headroom of the power stage on these RP5 G4 is huge again, I've dialed them down to -25dB and have not dared to even push my DAC towards 4V out (which roughly translates to volume ~34 on my SMSL M500, have yet to crank past 30).

Efficiency of the class D power stage is also insanely better compared to the class A/B of the previous gen. They are now drawing around 9-11W at normal listening volume where as the others would never go lower than 25W and with a bit of music where usually around 30W.
(Measured consumption as a pair)

As expected, tonality is just right and while the suggested EQ tweak for that one resonance is only making a slight difference, it is a welcome one and improves it.

Haven't messed with their builtin DSP / App / EQ stuff yet, as I have no need for it.


TL;DR:

They match the expectations I had from this review perfectly and their performance is really nice considering their price.
I have paid 310 EUR for a bundle with 2 speakers and a set of foam pads - can't really argue with that.
(translates to roughly ~360 USD currently)

I hope you enjoyed my new-owners initial impression.

I know you posted this a while ago, but do you still run the RPG 5s at 75%, and how is it different from 100%? I'm asking because I ordered the same speakers which I hope to be able to control via the preamp function of an SMSL DAC, and/or music software. Also because it seems to be common practice in the PA speaker "world" to run speakers at less than full power, while I keep reading how studio monitors are designed to run at 0 dB.

 

[foxxx0]

@vert Yep, I'm stilling running them on -25dB.

There have been some occasions (e.g. rather quiet video/stream volumes) when I've pushed the volume on my SMSL M500 to 30, but not yet above it. They already pack quite a punch at that level and I have a rather small room.

For normal listening I'm usually between volume 5/7/10 on my SMSL M500.

If you want more headroom, you could set the RP5G4 internal amp to -20dB or even -15dB (or higher, how ever much you need at peaks) and then use your DAC as a preamp, if it has volume control.

There will be a slight performance penalty with respect to SNR and SINAD when not running the internal amp and your DAC at full volume, but in most cases this negligable.
I very much prefer to not have the internal amp running at higher gain for pretty much no reason.

 

[Querkle]

ive owned a pair of these for 2 years now

before i bought them i tested in store between T5V, HS5, and A5X, the soundstage on the Rokit 5 G4 was immediately noticed as being superior along with basically everything else. the A5X still blew the Rokit 5 G4 out of the water, but over the comarably priced T5V and HS5 there is no question.

the hiss on this monitors is extremely low, and i can not notice it at my typical 0.5M - 1M listening position

it took me a while to find Amirs review and was delighted to see the results matched up with what i heard, and i can say 2 is WAYY better than 1

i listen to music with extreme sub bass, and have found these monitors exceptionally good when listening at lower volumes, however turning it up seems to give distortion on the sub, so so close to levels im looking for but just not quite there.

i was able to find a good price for KRK V6S4 and have got a pair but the hiss is unbearable for having on my desk at same listening position as Rokit 5 G4

my personal suggestion would be running these with a KRK S8.4 Sub, this will apply a HPF at 80hz to the tops and allow them to actually reach higher levels without distortion, while also sounding more full at lower levels.

i always run them at 0db setting and recently with this PEQ

KRK 5 Gen 4 APO EQ Score 96000Hz
February252021-174520

Preamp: -0 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 40 Hz Gain 0 dB Q 0.97
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 85 Hz Gain -2.36 dB Q 1.15
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 367 Hz Gain -1.13 dB Q 1.87
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 646 Hz Gain -3.75 dB Q 2.5
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1363 Hz Gain -2.28 dB Q 6.85
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 4425 Hz Gain -1.79 dB Q 1.46
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 8362 Hz Gain -3.7 dB Q 1.41
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 10158 Hz Gain 2.68 dB Q 5.62
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 13000 Hz Gain -1.06 dB Q 3.44

i dont understand why preamp is set to -0 so i set to -3dB and i moved my HPF to 38hz because the added 2hz of overly distorted sub really makes the sound feel warmer to me

 

[Weeb Labs]

before i bought them i tested in store between T5V, HS5, and A5X, the soundstage on the Rokit 5 G4 was immediately noticed as being superior along with basically everything else. the A5X still blew the Rokit 5 G4 out of the water, but over the comarably priced T5V and HS5 there is no question.

The Rokit 5s exhibit significantly wider horizontal directivity than either the T5V or HS5, which is likely what you are hearing. They are very similar to the A5X in that respect, while also being slightly more uniform.

At the same time, we're talking about sighted comparisons without correction here and everybody knows what I think of those.

 

[Scrivs]

I've owned, and have disassembled/reassembled inside of a year or so:

JBL305MKII (very nice what was achieved on what must have been a small budget, and with inexpensive electonic bits. Gave these to my brother.

Adam T7V sounded nice. A bit overrated (said my ears/gray matter. The amplification solution they went with was the reason it went on a return car ride that evening

KALI IN-8 v1 (nicely engineered/specced on the inside, but for the hiss). Also butt hurt as I found out about the v2s that evening, which apparently mitigates the hiss somewhat. Kali wasn't willing to help-- I even offered to pay for the revised pcb and fit them. Kali: sorry, no. Back to GC they went. Too bad, I really liked these. The amplifier IC they went with is objectively quite good, and unless a design/implementation decision error was made, I dont believe that the I.C is the source of the hiss. In fact this I.C (and its cohorts) have objectively shown to exhibit good performance, especially wrt low thd and self-noise.

Monitors I kept: a single Mackie MR524, and a pair of Rokit 7 G4.

I was pleasantly surprised at what I found inside: especially the electronics, but even more so, the quality, thought, and care put into the cabinet/enclosure would thouroughly embarrass competitors asking asking 3-5 the price for what these can be had for.

Subjectively speaking, they sound neutral to my ears, what some may describe as flat. When level matched (within .01vrms- best my DMM can do), the Rokit7 sound a bit more "laid back" than my Homebrew NC252Mp/DBR62 I use as reference. The results of a few quick and dirty REW suggest the data dovetail with what I was hearing.

I'm always interested in learning how manufacturers are implementating/integrating PSU/AMP/DSP the choices made, and most importantly (for me)- where the bean counters have left their mark. From my humble perspective and experience and years, I really think KRK shows what engineering excellence can look like, even on a modest budget.

One last thing. Thank you so much to everyone on this forum. Ive learned so much here by keeping my mouth shut, being open to healthy, discourse (helps keep my mind open), and am truly humbled by the wisdom and knowledge that is offered up here daily. Thank you ladies and gents

 

[Querkle]

just wanted to say that i have lowered by noise floor by removing a 100w 240v to 120v converter which always had a slight hum in the background, now that i have removed it at a listening distance of 0.5 meters i can here the hiss from my Rokit 5 G4, and i measured it at about 30db at 10cm. so its there but its nothing crazy.

 

[dasdoing]

by removing a 100w 240v to 120v converter

why did you use it in the first place?

 

[Querkle]

why did you use it in the first place?

because i am a DJ, and i was using CDJ800MK2 from north america, and they only support 120V, but 2 days ago i upgraded to XDJ700's

 

[pk3]

Has anybody measured latency of this studio monitor?
I would like to buy it, but I intend to use it for real time MIDI keyboard playing. I bought external sound card to reduce latency, but with DSP used in KRK Rokit 5 G4 I am afraid of increased latency. Does anybody of you use it for real time playing?

 

[madmalkav]

Amir mentions an application available for these, but I don't see anything about that on the manual provided on KRK website. Was that finally released?

 

[dasdoing]

Amir mentions an application available for these, but I don't see anything about that on the manual provided on KRK website. Was that finally released?

krk – Apps Android no Google Play

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play.google.com

 

[daftcombo]

Is anybody using EQ to remove the "desk bounce" on these?

 

[ernestcarl]

Is anybody using EQ to remove the "desk bounce" on these?

One might be able to partially “correct” or compensate for the desk’s effect on the measured transfer function, but it’s going to be very much position dependent and any generic EQ solution simply won’t be good enough, IMO. Whether one “hears” the correction actually as sounding better really needs to be confirmed with repeated A/B (or better yet ABX) listening — though sometimes it isn’t really clear even with critical listening whether the outcome is truly perceptually better, per se — rather than just being slightly “different”. In the latter case, at least no apparent obvious harm is done to the sound. Could even be just the brain tricking itself… Nevertheless, I’d use multiple measurements and/or a spatial average to to avoid over doing it.

 

[daftcombo]

One might be able to partially “correct” or compensate for the desk’s effect on the measured transfer function, but it’s going to be very much position dependent and any generic EQ solution simply won’t be good enough, IMO. Whether one “hears” the correction actually as sounding better really needs to be confirmed with repeated A/B (or better yet ABX) listening — though sometimes it isn’t really clear even with critical listening whether the outcome is truly perceptually better, per se — rather than just being slightly “different”. In the latter case, at least no apparent obvious harm is done to the sound. Could even be just the brain tricking itself… Nevertheless, I’d use multiple measurements and/or a spatial average to to avoid over doing it.

Genelec speakers have embedded EQ correction for desk bounce. It should be better than nothing?
I thought about applying the same dip around 120Hz on the KRK.

 

[ernestcarl]

Genelec speakers have embedded EQ correction for desk bounce. It should be better than nothing?
I thought about applying the same dip around 120Hz on the KRK.

Whether one needs it or not depends on how well that generic EQ actually applies to the objectively measured response as well as subjective evaluation. If I'm not mistaken, the latest KRK monitors can be programmed with manual PEQs -- maybe those could be customized to provide a "desk bounce" EQ that fits more closely to the actual situation rather than just based on a generic desk reflection theoretical model.

 

[ernestcarl]

Genelec speakers have embedded EQ correction for desk bounce. It should be better than nothing?

BTW, I recall seeing this video by Jesco on this topic before:

I have used broadband acoustic treatment on my desk at times, but the improvement mainly is between 400Hz and up, and it only had a relatively small psychoacoustic effect in my own setup. Peakiness/boominess below 200Hz (if problematic) is easy enough to EQ manually.

 

[djvanluk]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the KRK ROKIT 5 Gen 4 active studio monitor (speaker). It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $176 each from Amazon including Prime shipping.

I think these yellow drivers look cute :

View attachment 114730

Nice to see the cabinet sides curved to reduce diffraction. A small waveguide is provided another tweeter:
View attachment 114731

Given the small woofer, it is probably sufficient.

You can't see it here since the unit is not powered up but despite being a cheap black and white LCD, I was surprised at its usability (JBL, are you listening?):

View attachment 114732

There is an App that lets you pair with it and apply equalization. I did not test that. On that note, all measurements and listening tests were performed at factory setting.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of around 1%.

Measurement temperature was 63 degrees. Left the heater on overnight by accident. Probably cost me $5 in heating bill!

Reference axis was center of the tweeter.

Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.

KRK ROKIT 5 Gen 4 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 114733

The on-axis may look a bit messy to the eye but really, if you zoom out a bit, it is more or less flat. We do have a port interference around 680 Hz which is common with front ports:
View attachment 114734

Back to spin graph, directivity is good. Tweeter has some ups and downs as we also see in the drive response.

Early window shows a drop in mid-range but also a droop in highs which is not bad a thing:

View attachment 114735

As noted, floor (and ceiling) reflection are the issue here so put some absorber there or keep that path length long.

Predicted in-room response in far field shows what we already know:

View attachment 114736

Beamwidth is surprisingly good:
View attachment 114737

This small woofer is mating well with that wave-guided tweeter. The sharp narrowing toward the end is probably not a bad thing to take away extra sharpness.

We see the same in our contour plot:
View attachment 114738

Vertical response is typical of these two-way speakers so stay at or slightly above tweeter axis to avoid the holes at 2 to 3 kHz:

View attachment 114739

Waterfall shows some resonances:

View attachment 114740

We see the prominent one around 680 Hz which we observed in spin graph just as well.

Distortion is quite good actually at 86 dBSPL, and horrible at 96, the latter of which I could hear during testing:
View attachment 114741

I am going to show the 96 dB graph in absolute form as I always do. Question: should I switch to using 86 dB in the future for smaller speakers? It will make it harder to then compare all speakers together.

View attachment 114742

KRK ROKIT 5 Gen 4 Speaker Listening Tests and EQ
I only needed 10 seconds of listening to my standard first reference track to know the sound was right. Very nice tonality which continued to deliver just the same through the rest of my tracks. I took a shot at correcting the resonance at 680 Hz:

View attachment 114743

I thought the effect was positive. Paradoxically, the sound became a bit warmer. Given the high "Q" of the correction, I don't trust my ears fully to be correct in this regard so do your own testing.

Once there, I could not stop listening to the ROKIT 5! I played track after track while preparing this review.

Pushing the volume up caused the woofer to gradually get distorted. Distortion level would then scale with volume which I prefer to speakers that play and all of a sudden break up badly. Despite only testing one speaker, I could get reasonable loudness so a pair should be very much sufficient in workstation/desktop environment.

There is almost no hiss coming out of the tweeter! I could barely hear it at 1 inch. Past that my PC noise would dwarf it. I expect noise to be a non-issue.

Conclusion
I don't know why but I went into this review thinking this speaker would not do well. But it did, both objectively (if you zoom out a bit) and subjectively. Despite its budget price, it delivers.

Overall, I am happy to recommend the KRK ROKIT 5 Gen 4 monitor. If it could handle more power and was a bit cleaner, I would rate it even a step higher!

Edit: Video review posted to youtube:

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8 thx for this mazing work I'm wondering if this work also on Krk 7 g4 !!

i

 

[JayGilb]

i

djvanluk,

Welcome to ASR ! Glad you found us.