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Neumann KH80 DSP Monitor Measurements #3

temps

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@temps
Fair enough. There are dozens of forums where only subjective impressions matter. If it bothers you that ASR is mostly about science this is obviously not the right place for you.

The site and its users are two different things. I measured, listened, tweaked then measured again because I was making damn sure the speakers cleared every bar, objective and subjective, and that I wasn't being swayed by anything else -- because the LYDs look amazing and I wanted to love them, I knew some bias was creeping in. The measurement mic wasn't going to be affected by that though. I found the spectogram very clearly showed "spikes" in the response of my old monitors that were absent in my measure of the Dynaudios. What did I get?

Correlation isn't causation. There's already much data pointing to resonances being at most minor if they don't show up in the power response.
:facepalm:

edit: and it's totally understandable that my opinion is being discounted because hey, I'm a totally random guy with no track record. It's my bad that I expect to be taken seriously when I do the exact same to most other people.

Huh? Did you ignore what i do in the review? I listen and those listening impressions are consistent with what I read in your last few pages. I noted lack of power in both Neumann and Genelec and scored them down appropriately. The preference scores are not part of my reviews either.

If you think there is a better speaker either objectively or subjectively, send it in for testing. Until then, you are offering an opinion which has far, far less value than what we do here. You may think your opinion is correct but they are dime a dozen online. Everyone seemingly likes everything online -- good or bad.
Wasn't talking about you, you are setting the standard we all should be striving for. I stuck to the facts wherever possible and made no outlandish claims. Trying to help a guy out who had a tight timeframe, who wasn't entirely happy with his options, by making a simple recommendation of a speaker he'll probably be able to find on short notice because Dyn enjoys pretty good distribution.

It brought out a squadron of naysayers who had nothing else to offer. 20 posts later we finally got one (Kali IN-8). My mistake for trying to help - won't be making that mistake again. I'm in Canada and need the LYDs for work so I won't be able to send them in.
 
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Lbstyling

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I have been frustrated lately by a pattern I've noticed on this forum, where people chime in without accounting for someone's application, budget, too much importance is placed on preference scores, too little on other elements of a speakers performance, so on. Generally I think you could sum it up, the forum generally places too much on theory and measurement, and has discounted subjective opinions to a fault. Yes, there are very bad subjective reviewers out there and this site has done good work to highlight that, but there are some guys with honest ears and long track records that I trust quite a bit, for instance, Phil Ward from Sound on Sound, who said the speakers have no cons unless you get the LYD-8 .

But take this situation - guy has said: he wants a "big box" sound; he is sitting nearfield with proper speaker placement; he has already tried other 7" monitors. He apparently either has a budget or space limitations. I suggest LYD 7s; why is this suggestion rejected by other members because of poor off-axis performance? Why is a waveguide required for a nearfield application, where I presume he is going to take the trouble to align everything correctly? Why is a design rejected due to an unusually high crossover without even listening the speaker? I mention the long and quite positive track record of the company & driver - no good. Oddities warrant investigation, not being dismissed out of hand. And so on.


The guy I initially replied to wants a big box sound, hence, big woofers. I don't particularly like 8" class monitors. At that point, too many compromises are being made because the woofer is being asked to do too much.


True, but the measurements that get the most attention don't paint a full picture of the speaker's sound at all. Neumann's measurements show lots of bass distortion; it is very clearly audible, and I wouldn't run KH 80s as monitors because of it.


True, because my LYD-7s had noise problems I've never had with any other monitor. Solved those at the source though - it was the VRM section of my motherboard and some BIOS tweaks cured it. Very happy now.

If we take a step back, I feel what we are battling with here is a progress point.

The forum has grown very quickly (great!:)) but as a consequence is reaching more of the masses who don't spend every night reading and researching every little detail.:D

We have a surprisingly large group of professionals/engineers etc who don't give even a second thought to 5inch or 8 inch driver output differences/listener distance or SPL requirements because that's so 'obvious' to them.
We have sections that cover this in detail, but we live in an age of excess information where a person learns that excluding your brain from processing excess information is really a necessity, so we get good at filtering.

(From my armchair of power :D )I would suggest a small change to start with.

Group the reviews into finer catergories: low, medium and high SPL speakers in the title of the review or in some clear way at the beginning. Yes, it's up to the individual to read it properly...yada yada, but as a teacher, I can tell you with reasonable certainty, that thinking that way just doesn't describe the real world. I teach classes for 1 hour 20. If that lesson is all theory, I can expect students to retain only 3 things from that lesson. Those 3 things will be the 3 most interesting things to the student, not the 3 things that I want them to remember, or the 3 most important things. That's life, that's humans.

When the reader queries (and clicks on) what defines the term 'high SPL', they could be sent to a comprehensive page explaining what SPL range is typical and at what distance for the average listener, and a simple table showing what theoretical power is needed to get there with different efficiency ratings.

Later on, symbols can be added to show short hand information for characteristics of a design that are contentious for design such as narrow pattern control or wide pattern control, which again link to pages discussing the theory behind the arguements on the topic.

This would improve the quality of conversation for some, reduce frustration for more knowledgeable members answering questions that have been covered in detail before, and avoid disappointment for those who haven't had the time to investigate the finer details fully by being as obsessed as the rest of us.:D

Just a thought.
 
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wwenze

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Funny thing is the whole 40 years and track record and professionals in the industry thing can also be said about PMC and ATC
 

d3ft

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This seemed like the best place to ask this - am I going to be happy with the KH80s in a 2.1 (SB1000 sub) mixed use system in a 3m x 4m lounge room at a listening distance of ~3m? I understand there will be SPL limitations but I never listen at anywhere near reference volume.

Unfortunately I have no capability to audition and Australian retailers are pretty lame about returns.
 

q3cpma

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This seemed like the best place to ask this - am I going to be happy with the KH80s in a 2.1 (SB1000 sub) mixed use system in a 3m x 4m lounge room at a listening distance of ~3m? I understand there will be SPL limitations but I never listen at anywhere near reference volume.

Unfortunately I have no capability to audition and Australian retailers are pretty lame about returns.
Would consider the bigger KH120A for this.
 

Vintage57

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Would consider the bigger KH120A for this.

I agree, I have the KH120’s with 1 KH805 sub as a 2nd system. In my opinion on most music, they sound as good and as loud as the KH420’s that are my mains. I stop turning them up before the overload lights come on as it’s loud. On RS meter I measure 95Db on slow C at a distance of 2.5 meters.

Highly recommended
 
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napilopez

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This seemed like the best place to ask this - am I going to be happy with the KH80s in a 2.1 (SB1000 sub) mixed use system in a 3m x 4m lounge room at a listening distance of ~3m? I understand there will be SPL limitations but I never listen at anywhere near reference volume.

Unfortunately I have no capability to audition and Australian retailers are pretty lame about returns.

I was personally happy with a very similar setup for some time. If you don't listen loud I think you'll be fine, though yes, you should go for the KH120 if you can afford it.
 

temps

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This seemed like the best place to ask this - am I going to be happy with the KH80s in a 2.1 (SB1000 sub) mixed use system in a 3m x 4m lounge room at a listening distance of ~3m? I understand there will be SPL limitations but I never listen at anywhere near reference volume.

Unfortunately I have no capability to audition and Australian retailers are pretty lame about returns.

just chiming in to agree with everyone else, KH120s > KH80s. Or KH80s with two subs, with speakers and subs stacked up together and a 48db/oct crossover on the mains.
 

CJH

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Has anyone tried the KH80 crossed over to subs at 150Hz.? As long as there sitting on top of the subs, shouldn't have phase problems, could greatly lower distortion and increase overall output capability.
CJH
 

nat1

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How trustworthy is the built in protection/excursion limiters etc in these monitors? I have my KH 80's set to 108 db, - 15 input gain plugged directly into my PCs onboard audio via XLR to 3.5mm. Sometimes when I play "bassy" music I can see an insane amount of excursion from the woofer if I shine my phone light through the grill, have not managed to see the red light yet which would indicate clipping so it should be fine right?
 

hyperplanar

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How trustworthy is the built in protection/excursion limiters etc in these monitors? I have my KH 80's set to 108 db, - 15 input gain plugged directly into my PCs onboard audio via XLR to 3.5mm. Sometimes when I play "bassy" music I can see an insane amount of excursion from the woofer if I shine my phone light through the grill, have not managed to see the red light yet which would indicate clipping so it should be fine right?
I don't think one can say for sure unless someone who's managed to blow a woofer or tweeter in their KH80 can chime in. However, these are built to take the abuse of studio use, where unexpectedly loud/uncompressed sounds often occur. Hence, I wouldn't expect damage to happen unless the logo is constantly flashing red for an extended period of time. There's excursion and thermal limiting on the voice coil and the amplifier has thermal protection as well. In my experience with my KH120s they've handled everything I've thrown at them without skipping a beat.
 

TimVG

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Has anyone tried the KH80 crossed over to subs at 150Hz.? As long as there sitting on top of the subs, shouldn't have phase problems, could greatly lower distortion and increase overall output capability.
CJH

They'll go louder for sure. One thing you can't get around however is that that due it physically being a small, narrow loudspeaker, it will go from controlled beamwidth to omni quite high in frequency. For far field listening I don't find this to be a desirable quality, in fact (and this is my personal opinion) for far field listening, the lower pattern control can be maintained the better, preferably down to (approximately) the modal region.

If size is an issue however, these are as good as anything.
 

thewas

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Even with blinking logo for long times (which most people anyway wouldn't do as at those distortion levels all loudspeakers start sounding "shouty") I wouldn't expect any damage to happen as the Neumann monitor limiters are quite high tech and well matched considering both short displacement peaks and long term voice coil temperature:

Separate fast acting thermo limiters for woofer and tweeter to protect the voice coils and power amplifiers

Woofer soft clip and excursion limiters
Fast acting and highly reliable
Allows extraction of the maximum performance


Source: https://en-de.neumann.com/kh-80-dsp-a-g
 

hmt

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Actually I think they would limit even before they sound bad as they state with their 1% THD measurements of the amps that those are conducted with limiters disabled.
 

Vintage57

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THD is not everything, especially 2-ways get quite "shouty" at high SPL levels due to IMD, even my very good KH120.
THD is not everything, especially 2-ways get quite "shouty" at high SPL levels due to IMD, even my very good KH120.

‘Curious, are you using a sub with you KH120’s?
 

thewas

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‘Curious, are you using a sub with you KH120’s?
No, as I just use them as a desktop system for nearfield listening and not too high SPL and thanks to nearby rear wall and room gain I get them linearly down to approx. 35 Hz with no positive gains EQ which is sufficient for me and my usage.
 

HooStat

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Has anyone tried the KH80 crossed over to subs at 150Hz.? As long as there sitting on top of the subs, shouldn't have phase problems, could greatly lower distortion and increase overall output capability.
CJH

Not sure anyone has answered this, but it is an interesting question. But I believe there is a loudness vs. frequency graph for the KH80 somewhere on the forum.
 

HooStat

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Actually, I found it. If you cross at 150 or so, I imagine it could play pretty loudly. But it is some work to get the cross-over right, and get the phase right, from what I understand. I may go down this path myself.
screenshot.png
 
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