Neumann KH120 II Monitor Review

[isabido]

Hi guys!.

I don't understand this graph @amirm
where it says that it is not suitable for near field listening?

Do you mean that if I replace my Genelec 8020 that I listen to at 0.6meters, I will have this response with this slope?

Sorry, I'm sure I'm misinterpreting something. Neumman recommends listening from 1 meter for this model, but it is hard to believe that at 0.6 meter it does not sound correctly.

 

[staticV3]

where it says that it is not suitable for near field listening?

Nowhere does it say that the KH120II is not suitable for near field listening.

It just says that the speaker's Estimated In-room Response shown in the graph is not valid for near field listening.

That's because Klippel assumes far field conditions to calculate it.

Amir's comment is directed at the Klippel software, not at the speaker.

 

[isabido]

Nowhere does it say that the KH120II is not suitable for near field listening.

It just says that the speaker's Estimated In-room Response shown in the graph is not valid for near field listening.

That's because Klippel assumes far field conditions to calculate it.

Amir's comment is directed at the Klippel software, not at the speaker.

I stay calmer. Although I still don't quite understand the meaning of that graph, I understand that it is a simulation that Kliper makes of how the sound would be perceived in near-field listening, right? What distance is near field on that graph?

 

[quattro98]

I stay calmer. Although I still don't quite understand the meaning of that graph, I understand that it is a simulation that Kliper makes of how the sound would be perceived in near-field listening, right? What distance is near field on that graph?

It is a calculation of how the speaker will sound in the far field, based on assumptions about a standard room and the response of the speaker along with its directivity.

In the near field, you’ll hear something closer to the anechoic response if you’re far from room boundaries and close to the speakers.

 

[staticV3]

I still don't quite understand the meaning of that graph, I understand that it is a simulation that Kliper makes of how the sound would be perceived in near-field listening, right?

The graph shows the estimated in-room response of the KH120II in a typically reflective room, at a considerable listening distance of probably 2+ meters.

If you were to use the KH120II as HiFi speakers, for example beside your TV, and measure the response at your couch, then you would measure roughly what is shown in the graph.

What distance is near field on that graph?

It's a frequency response graph for far field conditions. Nothing in that graph is applicable to near field.

 

[Ellebob]

In the near field it will have a more flat response, and that is fine.

A lot of this comes from the research that was done on listener preferences. In the past, people would boost the frequencies so that they would have a flat frequency response at the listening position. Similar to what it would be in the near field. The sloping of the high frequencies is what naturally happens as you move further away from the speakers. The further you go, the further the higher frequencies will be decreased. This is because higher frequencies have smaller wavelengths and don't travel as far easily.

When we equalize something to be flat at the listening position it often sounds bright to us, or not natural. What the research has shown is that people prefer the more natural sound whether listening close in the near field or in the mid field even with a slight down slope that happens naturally.

The best example I can give is someone would say a sore throat that sounds horse or maybe a stuffy nose and they sound a little nasal. You might not have ever spoken to this person before, but if you're listening to them you immediately notice this whether you are right in front of them or across the room. When you are across the room because the higher frequencies are somewhat decreased it might not be as pronounced but you still notice it. If we were to equalize their voice so that it was flat across the room, all of a sudden it would no longer sound natural to us. That is what the research has shown is that we prefer accurate sound from the source whether we are in the near field or the midfield. Farfield can have some serious drop offs so that's a different matter.

The Klippel calculates the room response and of course shows the near field response. If the speaker has a very accurate near field response and very good dispersion, it's room response will have that downslope. I don't know what distance this instead is calculated for, but in real rooms there are other factors like the amount of absorption on the wall and other objects in the room. But this is a good guideline of how a speaker will likely sound in a room in the midfield.

 

[Blockader]

I stay calmer. Although I still don't quite understand the meaning of that graph, I understand that it is a simulation that Kliper makes of how the sound would be perceived in near-field listening, right? What distance is near field on that graph?

Estimated in room response is far field estimation. The KH 120II's likely won't sound anything similar from nearfield to what the in-room response estimations suggest.

Only early reflections + direct sound matter for near field listening.
Far-field estimation, also known as estimated in-room response, consists of:

44% direct sound,
44% early reflections,
and 12% sound power.

Estimated in-room response assumes the listener is beyond the far-field point. Then, we have to define what far field is, right?

What is far field?

A commonly referenced guideline for the start of the far-field region is when the listener is at a distance where the direct sound and reflected sounds integrate smoothly. This is often considered to be a distance of at least 2 to 3 times the longest dimension of the speaker.
Before the far-field point, the perceived response is a combination of direct sound and early reflections. The closer the listener is to the speaker, the higher the percentage of the direct sound's influence.
After the far-field point, the sound power response of the speakers becomes an increasingly significant part of the perceived response. At the point where there is no influence of direct sound anymore, that's where sound power has the maximum influence on the perceived response.

Basically, there is no ONE response that can tell you how speakers can sound. You have to derive your own opinions based on your listening distance using the sum of early reflections, sound power and direct sound.

Feel free to ask more questions, if you still have confusions. I know these are not easy concepts to wrap the head around.

 

[Ellebob]

Is this the definition for far field for the Klippel system?

In the Pro world we usually consider less than 2 meters near field, 2 to 4 meters midfield and over 4 meters farfield.

 

[Blockader]

Is this the definition for far field for the Klippel system?

In the Pro world we usually consider less than 2 meters near field, 2 to 4 meters midfield and over 4 meters farfield.

The definition of the far field I mentioned is based on Floyd Toole's research. It is not a static value; it depends on the size of the speakers.

 

[IamJF]

What is far field?

A commonly referenced guideline for the start of the far-field region is when the listener is at a distance where the direct sound and reflected sounds integrate smoothly. This is often considered to be a distance of at least 2 to 3 times the longest dimension of the speaker.

Sorry but regardless who spreads this - it's totally nonsense.
Farfield and nearfield in a listeners perspective goes back to the reverberation radius. When you do the math ... this is often less than 1meter (3 foot) in a normal living room!

What's missing in this simplified equation is the radiation of the speaker - when it narrows radiation you have less reverb and the distance rises. Speakers are VERY uneven in their radiation, many HiFi speakers are made for wide radiation.
For speakers you have the DI - directivity index, often in dB. Sound Power DI in the Klippel measurements, it should be a 10 x log? So for an AVERAGE DI of 6dB (KH120?) you get an increase of x2 (sqwrt of 10^(6/10)) - 2m reverberation radius when you are lucky!

When you have a 1,5m high slim speaker without wavegudie farfield should be 3-4,5m? That's SO FAR off ...


Btw - TECHNICAL near field of a driver is something completely different. It would be a few cm max.

 

[IamJF]

I made a few rough calculations here: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...nn-kh120-ii-monitor-review.46362/post-1688247

30qm room with RT60 of 1s (modern architecture) - 0,5m!
More "lifefriendly" 0,5s - 0,7m!
You would need to go down to 0,25s AVERAGE to get 1m reverberation radius. That's very well controlled, studio room territory.


Using the size of a speaker for the DI of it ... is nonsense, sorry. A KH150 will have a higher DI as most HiFi speakers, even very big ones.
A wide and big baffle will help to get better DI at lower frequencies (200-700Hz), you get about 3-5dB from the big baffle according to the measurements here of big speakers. Not bad but not boosting far field to 4m ...

 

[Blockader]

Sorry but regardless who spreads this - it's totally nonsense.
Farfield and nearfield in a listeners perspective goes back to the reverberation radius. When you do the math ... this is often less than 1meter (3 foot) in a normal living room!
View attachment 362590
What's missing in this simplified equation is the radiation of the speaker - when it narrows radiation you have less reverb and the distance rises. Speakers are VERY uneven in their radiation, many HiFi speakers are made for wide radiation.
For speakers you have the DI - directivity index, often in dB. Sound Power DI in the Klippel measurements, it should be a 10 x log? So for an AVERAGE DI of 6dB (KH120?) you get an increase of x2 (sqwrt of 10^(6/10)) - 2m reverberation radius when you are lucky!

When you have a 1,5m high slim speaker without wavegudie farfield should be 3-4,5m? That's SO FAR off ...


Btw - TECHNICAL near field of a driver is something completely different. It would be a few cm max.

this is the math, roughly you can see that farfield is like x3 distance of the longest dimension of the source up to x10.

 

[IamJF]

View attachment 362613
this is the math, roughly you can see that farfield is like x3 distance of the longest dimension of the source up to x10.

View attachment 362614

That's the TECHNICAL far field! It's about phase relation of sound pressure and particle velocity. That's the distance you should measure your speaker for a true far field response (and it's pretty hard to do so for big speakers, most are simply measured at 1m distance)

That has nothing to do with the terms nearfield/farfield in a listening and room context.
It's a pitty they use the same terms for both ...

 

[Blockader]

That's the TECHNICAL far field! It's about phase relation of sound pressure and particle velocity. That's the distance you should measure your speaker for a true far field response (and it's pretty hard to do so for big speakers, most are simply measured at 1m distance)

That has nothing to do with the terms nearfield/farfield in a listening and room context.
It's a pitty they use the same terms for both ...

Can you elaborate more on that?

 

[Ellebob]

For measuring speakers using something like REW they do have to be done further away if the speaker is larger. That way you are getting the combination of all the drivers. Usually the data is then calculated for one meter for things like sensitivity. For smaller bookshelf size speakers they can be measured at 1 m but most towers are probably measured about 2 m and some even further.

The Klippel system is different and everything on it is done near field and calculated.

Anyway, near field and farfield can be different definitions if you're talking about measuring speakers versus listening distances in studios.

 

[IamJF]

Can you elaborate more on that?

I didn't find a good englisch explanation, here is the German WiKi page: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahfeld_und_Fernfeld_(Akustik)

In the farfield spund pressure and particle velocity is in phase. You have the real part of these values and real power.
Nearfield gives 90° phase shift, it's mostly imaginary part of the equation. (Not sure if I translated that correctly)

Only in the farfield you have your 6dB SPL fall off per doubling distance, when you get close to the speaker this changes!


(btw you don't have 6dB fall off in a room ...)

 

[IamJF]

Found some good, englisch description!

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/DirectFieldAndReverberantField.pdf

The correct names for the listening stuff would be direct field and reverberant field!
But nobody sells a direct field monitor ... and listening in the "reverberant field" sounds so bad ...

 

[Blockader]

Found some good, englisch description!

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/DirectFieldAndReverberantField.pdf

The correct names for the listening stuff would be direct field and reverberant field!
But nobody sells a direct field monitor ... and listening in the "reverberant field" sounds so bad ...

Thanks a lot!

It is incredibly confusing that there are two different definitions for the same term, far-field.

 

[thewas]

Full Sound & Recording review and measurement is now freely available (in German language):

Neumann KH 120 II: 2-Wege-Nahfeldmonitor im Test

Als drittes Modell im Reigen der 2-Wege Nahfeldmonitore stellt Neumann den KH 120 II in einer komplett überarbeiteten Version des Vorgängermodells KH 120 vor. Der Typ II des seit 2010 auf dem Markt befindlichen KH 120 schließt damit die kleine Lücke zwischen dem KH 80 DSP und dem KH 150, die...

www.soundandrecording.de

 

[isabido]

Full Sound & Recording review and measurement is now freely available (in German language):

Neumann KH 120 II: 2-Wege-Nahfeldmonitor im Test

Als drittes Modell im Reigen der 2-Wege Nahfeldmonitore stellt Neumann den KH 120 II in einer komplett überarbeiteten Version des Vorgängermodells KH 120 vor. Der Typ II des seit 2010 auf dem Markt befindlichen KH 120 schließt damit die kleine Lücke zwischen dem KH 80 DSP und dem KH 150, die...

www.soundandrecording.de

Thanks for sharing the review, unbeatable results, I think there is no monitor on the market that offers this performance for €1600.

I'm going to have to retire my genelec 8020!