Mesanovic CDM65 Studio Monitor Review

[phoenixdogfan]

Off topic...Awesome! Detroit is a great city!

Would be so awesome to get these and pair them up with SVS subs which are made in Youngstown, Ohio. Viva Rust Belt!

 

[Blockader]

I did and showed that the Mesanovic has a more continuous PIR and sound power due to its wider directivity and better vertical radiation:

Mesanovic CDM65 Studio Monitor Review

Here is my take on the EQ. Please report your findings, positive or negative! For the score rational your journey starts here Explanation for the sub score The following EQs are “anechoic” EQs to get the speaker right before room integration. If you able to implement these EQs you must add EQ...

www.audiosciencereview.com

So I repeat my question to you on which data concretely do you base your statement that "the KH150 are significantly better"?

Based on the Predicted Pleasure Listening Response, KH 150's are worse than CDM65. That means they are better for studio use. Predicted pleasure listening response consists of
44% confirmation bias
44% nonsense
12% copium.

That aside, KH 150's sound power response is horrible compared to its competitors. All the audio science research we reference here was developed for far-field listening. This is why the predicted in-room response consists of:

44% early reflections
44% listening window response
12% sound power response.

As the listener moves farther from the speakers, the impact of early reflections and the listening window response on the predicted in-room response diminishes. The sound power response becomes a more influential determining factor of the in room response.

 

[5150]

Good lord this forum sometimes...

Great speaker for a good price. But it would be nice to see one of these cardioid speakers achieve lower distortion in the bass. For this price it's acceptable.. at the 8C/Kii price point, not at all.

 

[Ktacos]

What a joyful thread to be in.

 

[AudioJester]

Whoa, people are still saying this backwards stuff?

I know right. The problem is he keeps saying the same thing across multiple threads, despite people pointing it out. Pretty sure in the end someone started a separate thread discussing monitors for farfield.

For farfield would pick these over KH150. Cardioid makes a difference to me.

 

[kemmler3D]

I am just very picky with value ever since picking up day trading

Take it from me, if you want good ROI in the audio world, sell overpriced cables or just forget it.

 

[kemmler3D]

it would be nice to see one of these cardioid speakers achieve lower distortion in the bass.

Hard to do, since cardioid response depends on intentionally cancelling out a significant amount of bass output, I think you're starting at something like a 6dB disadvantage. (pulled from ear.) As @deni mentioned, there are a handful of drivers on the market that make sense to use in a speaker like this... Purifi makes some that would presumably deliver lower distortion, but they are NOT CHEAP.

6x Purifi 6.5" aluminum drivers already costs as much as one finished CDM65. ($439 ea at Madisound)

So I'd imagine you'd have to pay double (give or take) to get that low distortion, even with OEM discounts and everything.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Good lord this forum sometimes...

Great speaker for a good price. But it would be nice to see one of these cardioid speakers achieve lower distortion in the bass. For this price it's acceptable.. at the 8C/Kii price point, not at all.

I did that. But it's not small and it's not cheap.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Hard to do, since cardioid response depends on intentionally cancelling out a significant amount of bass output, I think you're starting at something like a 6dB disadvantage. (pulled from ear.) As @deni mentioned, there are a handful of drivers on the market that make sense to use in a speaker like this... Purifi makes some that would presumably deliver lower distortion, but they are NOT CHEAP.

6x Purifi 6.5" aluminum drivers already costs as much as one finished CDM65. ($439 ea at Madisound)

So I'd imagine you'd have to pay double (give or take) to get that low distortion, even with OEM discounts and everything.

One area we are not discussing a lot is the audibility of distortion, particularly bass distortion. I have re-read Erin's review of the Dutch & Dutch 8C's which also suffer from high levels of bass distortion like the Mesanovic's, only more so, and he says he's can't hear it at all. Likewise, there's a fair bit of literature indicating that humans don't hear distortion even at extremely high levels (like 40 percent) below 200 hz. So I think it might be useful to have more discussion on the actual import of 1 or 2 percent distortion at 100-200 hz, and actually ask if it's really worth undertaking heroic and expensive measures to alleviate something most people probably can't hear anyway, and would not even know about but for our measurements.

 

[END WAY]

Sometimes we let ourselves be guided and even manipulated by technically correct results. In this case, a flat frequency response tells us that the system will sound good. The problem is that when you achieve this forced response by correcting with DSP, you can also alter the phase and a flat response may end up sounding absurdly bad to our ears.

 

[kemmler3D]

when you achieve this forced response by correcting with DSP, you can also alter the phase and

Yes, true, but look at the step response. Not the best I have ever seen but not bad.

a flat response may end up sounding absurdly bad to our ears.

That happens, but AFAIK it's almost always because on-axis is flat at the expense of making off-axis look insane. This is why directivity matters in a nutshell. I think it's very rarely because of excess phase distortion.

 

[GWolfman]

Digital option would be over WISA.

So with digital inputs such as WISA and AES/EBU, does that mean each speaker would have a DAC built in to convert to analog? I’ve always wondered that about my Genelec’s and if using AES would actually lower my performance as I have a top-of-the line Topping DAC (no pun intended, though a bit funny) already sending (state-of-the-art low distortion) analog.

 

[deni]

Yes, true, but look at the step response. Not the best I have ever seen but not bad.

That happens, but AFAIK it's almost always because on-axis is flat at the expense of making off-axis look insane. This is why directivity matters in a nutshell. I think it's very rarely because of excess phase distortion.

We would significantly increase latency in order to achieve a perfect step response which is usually not desired and detrimental in studio environment/workflow. If there is enough interest we'll be happy to provide a new tuning which can be uploaded with increased latency and prettier step response.

 

[5150]

One area we are not discussing a lot is the audibility of distortion, particularly bass distortion. I have re-read Erin's review of the Dutch & Dutch 8C's which also suffer from high levels of bass distortion like the Mesanovic's, only more so, and he says he's can't hear it at all. Likewise, there's a fair bit of literature indicating that humans don't hear distortion even at extremely high levels (like 40 percent) below 200 hz. So I think it might be useful to have more discussion on the actual import of 1 or 2 percent distortion at 100-200 hz, and actually ask if it's really worth undertaking heroic and expensive measures to alleviate something most people probably can't hear anyway, and would not even know about but for our measurements.

If we are seeing very high distortion numbers in a simple sweep, it stands to reason multi tone performance will be much worse and probably a lot easier to hear. Cdm65 is closer to 10% THD in the low bass, not 1 or 2%, and reaches 10% in a multi tone measurement above 100hz.

Also a trained listener (ie. Mix engineer) will be able to pick out distortion quite easily because working with harmonics is basically the whole job. A newbie will probably wonder why their mixes have some translation issues.. natural response to more distortion in the bass will be to thin out the low end quite a bit.

It's too bad Erin didn't test the multi tone with the high pass filter on as that may solve the entire issue just like that but no way to know for sure.

 

[staticV3]

So with digital inputs such as WISA and AES/EBU, does that mean each speaker would have a DAC built in to convert to analog?

Correct.

I’ve always wondered that about my Genelec’s and if using AES would actually lower my performance as I have a top-of-the line Topping DAC (no pun intended, though a bit funny) already sending (state-of-the-art low distortion) analog.

With both the Genelec and Mesanovic reviewed here, the internal DACs are always active and cannot be bypassed.

With digital input, the signal chain is

Source->[DSP->DAC->Amp->Drivers]

whereas with Analog in it's

Source->DAC->[ADC->DSP->DAC->Amp->Drivers].

[ ] being the speaker

As you can see, all that using an external DAC is achieving is adding an unnecessary D->A and A->D conversion to the chain.

These may well be audibly transparent, but objectively, those additional conversions will degrade signal fidelity somewhat.

 

[deni]

One area we are not discussing a lot is the audibility of distortion, particularly bass distortion. I have re-read Erin's review of the Dutch & Dutch 8C's which also suffer from high levels of bass distortion like the Mesanovic's, only more so, and he says he's can't hear it at all. Likewise, there's a fair bit of literature indicating that humans don't hear distortion even at extremely high levels (like 40 percent) below 200 hz. So I think it might be useful to have more discussion on the actual import of 1 or 2 percent distortion at 100-200 hz, and actually ask if it's really worth undertaking heroic and expensive measures to alleviate something most people probably can't hear anyway, and would not even know about but for our measurements.

I can vouch for this having heard cardioid speakers from both the studio/hifi markets and PA/pro audio types. Our ears are most sensitive in the 1-2k area when it comes to distortion and its critical to keep distortion as low as possible there. In an upcoming product we utilize 4x pro audio type drivers for midrange duties and are able to keep THD down -60/70dB from the fundamental at 106dB.

 

[kemmler3D]

able to keep THD down -60/70dB from the fundamental at 106dB.

Dang. Really approaching what you could (from a certain point of view) call "no distortion".

 

[MAB]

These are supposed to be monitors - not pleasure listening speakers.

This is a complete fallacy.

Farfield is irrelevant. The real issue for studio use as monitors is nearfield performance.

This is also incorrect.

The KH150 are significantly better, but these are rather nice.

This may be your preference.

 

[amirm]

One area we are not discussing a lot is the audibility of distortion, particularly bass distortion. I have re-read Erin's review of the Dutch & Dutch 8C's which also suffer from high levels of bass distortion like the Mesanovic's, only more so, and he says he's can't hear it at all.

As I noted in my review, deep bass distortion is audible but requires special test track that reveals it. Typical content doesn't go that low, or if it does, it is not revealing due to masking.

 

[Postlan]

It looks too plain and doesn't have much visual character, so unfortunately, I think it's a speaker that's hard to sell even for ’professional’ use. Many of today's self claimed professionals are just a bunch of uneducated snobs.