This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the M-Audio BX8 D3 studio reference (active speaker). I purchased it new from Amazon June of last year for $503. It seems discontinued now.
Look and feel is excellent. There is rubberized paint around the drivers which gives the unit a luxury feel. The cabinet is quite large and sturdy. Back panel is simplicity in itself:
Amplification is class AB (80 watts for woofer, 70 watts for tweeter) which is surprising. Good news is that this brings silence to the tweeter as I could barely hear a hiss with my ear next to it.
Nicely formed waveguides should produce good directivity.
Testing was performed using Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). Temperature was around 57 degrees F. Reference axis was the center of the tweeter.
M-Audio BX8D3 Measurements
As usual, we start with our anechoic frequency responses per CEA-2034/ANSI standard:
That sudden resonance at 590 Hz stands out well in addition to somewhat wavy response above it. On the positive front, bass extension is quite good especially given the size and cost of this speaker. There is usable bass down to some 40 Hz! Near-field measurements show that the kink at 590 Hz is the property of the woofer:
I expected it to be port resonances but those are quite subdued until you get to about 1 kHz. If someone has a better guess, please chime in.
Early reflections and predicted in-room simulations are for far field use so likely not very applicable in this application:
I was very impressed with the low distortion, especially in bass at 86 dBSPL:
As predicted, directivity and hence beamwidth uniformity is very good in horizontal axis:
Vertical suffers from typical issues with 2-way speakers but there seems to be good control even in that axis:
Here is our waterfall and step responses:
M-Audio BX8 D3 Listening Tests
The uneven frequency response had pre-biased me negatively going into the listening tests. But 5 seconds of listening to my standard test tracks changed my mind and quickly! That deep bass and clean output at that, brings a ton to the table. Speaker sounds like a much bigger one. Frankly I could have lived with the out of box response but still, took a shot at correcting the response with EQ:
The correction for the bass resonance should be self-explanatory. I then attempted to fill in the gap between 1 and 2 kHz but that resulted in extra brightness. Instead, I opted to pull down the hills in the next two regions. With all the filters in place, the difference was small but I thought it was more balanced and less brilliant/brittle.
The excellent bass response translated to my "speaker killer" tracks with sub-bass response down to 20 Hz. Many bookshelf speakers fall apart and produce distorted sound there (or none at all). The BX8D3 was different. It simply played those at lower volume but still clean. No doubt this contributed to my impression of the speaker sounding so clean.
While listening to only one speaker, I could easily fill my massive space with plenty of volume withy nary a hint of distortion or speaker/amp funning out of breath. The sound had authority and was quite enjoyable.
Conclusions
I was pretty depressed going into this review with first finding out the BX8 D3 is now discontinued. And then seeing response anomalies. Then I listened to the speaker and that changed my perspective. Not that the subjective impression was different from objective. It was not. You just had to go back and look again, noticing the bass extension and very low distortion. Research shows that 1/3 of our impression of a speaker sound comes from bass and boy was that true in this case. With a bit of EQ you have one impressive sounding studio monitor here which would be good at $500 but far better at the discount prices I see on clearance (as low as $118 on one site!!!).
Note that the extra bass means is that the BX8D3 will charge the room modes so you better have EQ especially if your room is small. Other monitors in its size which lack bass won't be similarly situated.
I am going to put the M-Audio BX8D3 on my recommended list. It is a shame that it is discontinued.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Look and feel is excellent. There is rubberized paint around the drivers which gives the unit a luxury feel. The cabinet is quite large and sturdy. Back panel is simplicity in itself:
Amplification is class AB (80 watts for woofer, 70 watts for tweeter) which is surprising. Good news is that this brings silence to the tweeter as I could barely hear a hiss with my ear next to it.
Nicely formed waveguides should produce good directivity.
Testing was performed using Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). Temperature was around 57 degrees F. Reference axis was the center of the tweeter.
M-Audio BX8D3 Measurements
As usual, we start with our anechoic frequency responses per CEA-2034/ANSI standard:
That sudden resonance at 590 Hz stands out well in addition to somewhat wavy response above it. On the positive front, bass extension is quite good especially given the size and cost of this speaker. There is usable bass down to some 40 Hz! Near-field measurements show that the kink at 590 Hz is the property of the woofer:
I expected it to be port resonances but those are quite subdued until you get to about 1 kHz. If someone has a better guess, please chime in.
Early reflections and predicted in-room simulations are for far field use so likely not very applicable in this application:
I was very impressed with the low distortion, especially in bass at 86 dBSPL:
As predicted, directivity and hence beamwidth uniformity is very good in horizontal axis:
Vertical suffers from typical issues with 2-way speakers but there seems to be good control even in that axis:
Here is our waterfall and step responses:
M-Audio BX8 D3 Listening Tests
The uneven frequency response had pre-biased me negatively going into the listening tests. But 5 seconds of listening to my standard test tracks changed my mind and quickly! That deep bass and clean output at that, brings a ton to the table. Speaker sounds like a much bigger one. Frankly I could have lived with the out of box response but still, took a shot at correcting the response with EQ:
The correction for the bass resonance should be self-explanatory. I then attempted to fill in the gap between 1 and 2 kHz but that resulted in extra brightness. Instead, I opted to pull down the hills in the next two regions. With all the filters in place, the difference was small but I thought it was more balanced and less brilliant/brittle.
The excellent bass response translated to my "speaker killer" tracks with sub-bass response down to 20 Hz. Many bookshelf speakers fall apart and produce distorted sound there (or none at all). The BX8D3 was different. It simply played those at lower volume but still clean. No doubt this contributed to my impression of the speaker sounding so clean.
While listening to only one speaker, I could easily fill my massive space with plenty of volume withy nary a hint of distortion or speaker/amp funning out of breath. The sound had authority and was quite enjoyable.
Conclusions
I was pretty depressed going into this review with first finding out the BX8 D3 is now discontinued. And then seeing response anomalies. Then I listened to the speaker and that changed my perspective. Not that the subjective impression was different from objective. It was not. You just had to go back and look again, noticing the bass extension and very low distortion. Research shows that 1/3 of our impression of a speaker sound comes from bass and boy was that true in this case. With a bit of EQ you have one impressive sounding studio monitor here which would be good at $500 but far better at the discount prices I see on clearance (as low as $118 on one site!!!).
Note that the extra bass means is that the BX8D3 will charge the room modes so you better have EQ especially if your room is small. Other monitors in its size which lack bass won't be similarly situated.
I am going to put the M-Audio BX8D3 on my recommended list. It is a shame that it is discontinued.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
