KRK ROKIT 5 Gen 4 Review (Studio Monitor)

[AlexF]

I feel speakers without grilles aren’t practical - even in most controlled environments, accidents happen. I’d prefer future reviews take impact of grills into consideration.

 

[amirm]

I am not going to be a great resource for you all on functionality and features of products. Best to seek out such feedback elsewhere.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I am not going to be a great resource for you all on functionality and features of products. Best to seek out such feedback elsewhere.

Well, I have found myself wishing for at least a mention of driver sizes when I wasn't familiar with the model at hand. That would be nice, it gives you a rough idea of what to expect at least.

 

[PeteL]

Well, I have found myself wishing for at least a mention of driver sizes when I wasn't familiar with the model at hand. That would be nice, it gives you a rough idea of what to expect at least.

Rokit "5" gives a good clue tough, but I get your feeling, we don't always have the time to go and find spec sheets.

 

[hotdogsandwich]

Been lurking for several months obsessively reading the reviews on amplifiers, speakers, etc. trying to figure out a bang for the buck setup for near field listening. I wanted a system I could enjoy when the rest of the family is in bed. Pulled the trigger on the Rokit’s after reading the review and watching the video. Sitting here with a big grin on my face, after listening for an hour hooked up to the topping D10s. Amazing soundstage compared to the home theater front speakers (with sub) I was using. I might get some high pass filters (50hz) and add the sub back into the mix but I don’t know that I need to bother at the levels I’m listening. Very happy camper. Not a big factor for me, but this is a dead simple rig with the D10s being the only other equipment besides some cables.

 

[Xyrium]

More hiss?

Alright, alright..come on... I have the 8030c's, and they're quiet. They aren't silent, but they are better than even my previous Focal Solo 6 be's.

That said, they're flatter, better directivity, and have better THD response overall. Not sure about loudness. I think any 2 way utilizing a 5" driver is going to suffer above 90dB.

 

[astrex342]

That would make the graph impossible to read then. It would be 10 traces on top of each other.

I understand, then can you if possible show the most prominent 2nd and 3rd order distortions?

 

[daftcombo]

Alright, alright..come on... I have the 8030c's, and they're quiet. They aren't silent, but they are better than even my previous Focal Solo 6 be's.

That said, they're flatter, better directivity, and have better THD response overall. Not sure about loudness. I think any 2 way utilizing a 5" driver is going to suffer above 90dB.

I have 8030Cs too.

I love them at 1.50m, but wouldn't use them at 50cm to listen to quiet music like piano sonatas or violin quartets.

There is hiss. Even at 2m when I turn my ear at the tweeter I can hear something.

I have JBL 305p mk2s too, which are worse.

I'm still after a pair of quiet monitors to put right near my PC in the other room.

 

[usern]

I'm still after a pair of quiet monitors to put right near my PC in the other room.

I went from Presonus R65 (very bad), Genelec 8030C (better, but still annoying) to Neumann KH 80 DSP (least annoying hiss). According to Hiss List KH 120 is even more quiet.

 

[hyperplanar]

I went from Presonus R65 (very bad), Genelec 8030C (better, but still annoying) to Neumann KH 80 DSP (least annoying hiss). According to Hiss List KH 120 is even more quiet.

Hmm, my contacts are dry so I can barely read but if I'm reading the list correctly, comparing the KH120 to the KH80, it's 19.9 vs 20.0 dBA... well within the margin of error

 

[thewas]

Mind you just the total level (even if its psychoacoustically normalised at dBA) doesn't tell enough about which someone will find more annoying as that depends also strongly on the spectrum of the noise.

 

[Xyrium]

If one can hear the hiss over music playing, then there's a system problem IMO. Something is sending noise along with the music, greater than the speakers' general noise floor/self noise.

Hiss is Very annoying in general though, I have to admit...and you can't EQ it out...lol.

 

[daftcombo]

If one can hear the hiss over music playing, then there's a system problem IMO. Something is sending noise along with the music, greater than the speakers' general noise floor/self noise.

Hiss is Very annoying in general though, I have to admit...and you can't EQ it out...lol.

In classical music, there are a lot of quiet / silent moments.

 

[Xyrium]

In classical music, there are a lot of quiet / silent moments.

Indeed. Classical can be very demanding of an audio system. I can definitely appreciate where you're coming from! Blame the noise floor of the mics in the recording. kidding.

 

[okok]

KRK flagship has Be tweeters, really expensive

 

[YSC]

In classical music, there are a lot of quiet / silent moments.

Maybe that's why a lot of us don't ever hear any hiss in our Genelecs or Neumanns, I tried once to stream classical music from Tidal and I have to crank almost double the volume compared to normal to hear those quiet passages, even though at those levels I still don't detect at 70cm listening distance. just wondering would that be the 220v mains are cleaner here.

 

[Xyrium]

KRK flagship has Be tweeters, really expensive

All a means to an end. Hopefully they produce low distortion and flat response above their xover frequency.

 

[hotdogsandwich]

All a means to an end. Hopefully they produce low distortion and flat response above their xover frequency.

I’m lucky, I spent 5 years on the flight line as a jet engine mechanic. My noise floor is more of a roof.

 

[PeteL]

For personal curiosity, maybe @amirm knows or anybody else in the know. I wonder about the bandwidth of such hiss when present. do we ear it out of the tweeter simply because of the Fletcher Munson curves, meaning that we need much louder level in the lows to hear it so the woofer reproduces it but we don't hear the band, or does it really only comes out of the tweeter because the level of energy of this noise floor simply can't move a woofer. Basically, if we where to measure this noise, is it full band or limited to the highs? Traditionally we refer to hiss as high frequency, but it's a language that derived from tape hiss that was in the highs. The noise floor of an amp is not frequency dependant but I wonder if it holds past the speaker.

 

[AnalogSteph]

Given an equal level of white noise from the amplifier to begin with, the spectrum and magnitude of audible hiss from each driver is going to be a function of driver sensitivity and the respective "raw" frequency response.

Tweeter sensitivity is rarely below 90 dB/2.83V/m and in a larger waveguide can reach 100 dB by 2-3 kHz.
Woofers are around 85-87 dB/2.83V/m more often than not, and their response tends to take a nosedive past a few kHz.

So everything else being equal, a tweeter will not only emit higher levels of noise but they'll also tend to be in frequency ranges that are more bothersome to the ear (~4-10 kHz or so).