New desktop monitors: my shortlist is too long

[Wolf11Man]

Fine, you have audible hiss in very quiet moments, when your ear is very near to the tweeter and you don't care. Exactly what I wrote.
Now, if you would start to argue, the Genelec is a low quality speaker, because of this, you would be the boy without driving license. Argueing about stuff that doesn't have real life meaning.

Excessive hiss of active monitors is in most cases a level missmatch with the driving preamp. If you want to hear the real hiss, ground the monitors input first.

 

[RosalieTheDog]

For what it's worth, RHO, I have just replaced a passive system with Kali LP6 v2 for my desktop. It is not only cheaper than the amplifier and bookshelves combo I had, but it sounds much better without even having applied DSP (I plan on playing around with Dirac on a quiet moment this weekend). Particularly the base is deeper and more controlled. There are switches on the back of the speaker which regulate the internal DSP depending on what position the speakers have (on a desk, on a desk on stands, close to walls etc). See the attached image from the manual.

So far I think they are excellent value. I ordered them via Thomann in Belgium too.

 

[RHO]

Build the balanced cables between DAC and sub and digital noise is gone. System has never been this silent.

Will answers other questions later. (reminder: this is not my main hobby)

 

[unpluggged]

Excessive hiss of active monitors is in most cases a level missmatch with the driving preamp.

In most cases it has nothing to do with that. You apparently are just going on throwing random guesses (like the one about noise gates or about people listening to speakers from an inch distance) that have no base in real-world evidence. Because many cases do not involve any external "preamp" or "drive" at all, the speakers being fed digitally, and the hiss is inherent to their own design.

The aforementioned HEDD MK2 series, for instance, have hiss level that is not affected in any audible way by the speaker's input sensitivity or output volume controls, nor by the input (analog or digital) in use. That's why I eventually relegated them to living room duties, where they shine (in conjunction with miniDSP Flex Digital) and their hiss is not audible at my LP.

 

[Count Arthur]

My twopence, regarding hiss.

I have had three sets of active monitors:

iLoud Micros: https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/iloudmm/, which I still have and are either side of my monitor and approximately 90cm from my ears. They do have some hiss, but I was able to reduce it to a level that I can't hear from my listening position by reducing the volume on the back of the powered monitor.

I had a pair of Dynaudio Core 7s at around 120cm from my ears. These also had some hiss, but once again, I was able to adjust it to a level where it wasn't noticeable using the input gain and output level.

I now have a pair of Nuemann KH 150s, these were the quietest "out of the box" and I was also able to make them inaudible from my listening position, around 120cm from my ears.

Interestingly, of the three, Neumann are the only ones that make any mention of self noise in their specifications:

Over the years, I had several amps and sets of passive speakers and never had any issues with noise or hiss, even when using them near field.

All this is to say, that hiss can be an issue with active monitors, and some are better than others, but you may be able to make it acceptable by altering the settings. Unfortunately, it seems that many manufactures and reviewers don't make any mention of it.

As mentioned before, you either need to be able to try before you buy, or find a seller with a generous returns policy.

 

[AdamG]

You did not write "very near", so let me quote you: "like an ear at the tweeter [bold added] of a monitor, to prove something they believe to understand."

You missed that the thread is about a desktop setup, and if you look at various pictures of desktop setups posted here on ASR you'll see that most have the monitors besides the screen. This will usually give a listening distance of around 70 cm to 100 cm. As I wrote my listening distance is about 70-80 cm, but I'll add it can be around 100 cm when watching a TV show.

And you also assume that people have a high noise floor and pontificates from that, ignoring that many have a low noise floor (even though it might be only part of the day).



A straw man.



But here you are.



So you claim.

Shutter,

First off Welcome Aboard. We are happy to have you as a new member of our community. Please keep in mind that you are new and we are still trying to figure you out. We get many new members who come to our Science, Engineering and Data focused Forum and attempt to Troll and Punk us because they believe we think charts and graphs are more important than listening. They are simply tools we employ to rule out and in devices that we can generally predict how they will perform. We still highly value the listening part of the assessment. But the data does help us narrow down the field of contending products to be auditioned.

Many here will engage in good faith and invest their time and energy trying to help others. We just don’t want to waste our time if the new member is not here in good faith. With that in mind. Let’s all dial back the snark and backhanded insults. Please treat everyone with respect and dignity and you will be treated the same way.

Please and thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

 

[RHO]

No feeling too well today. So I'll answer some question in short.
Bromo:
1) the speakers were never intended to be used in this room. They are now in the living room. That's what I build them for. I doubt they will ever return to this room.
2) The initial building instructions were not clear about the length of the BR port, so I did some simulating in BoxSim. The newer instructions have a clear length indicated for the BR port. Mine is too long. This could cause the boomy/muddy nature of the bass reproduction. Placing them on my desk surely didn't help in that regard. I will fix this in the near future.
Active monitors:
1) I was set on trying active monitors from the moment I build this home office. I just tried some other stuff in the meantime.
2) I want to de-clutter the desk a little and I think using active monitors instead of a separate amp and passive speakers will help.
3) The short list is now: Adam Audio T5V ...and maybe Kali LP6 mk2... but I think it's just too bulky on my desk. The T5V is much nicer in that way.
Measurements and EQ:
I have the mic. and REW installed but never took the time to measure anything. Why? I didn't care enough. I build this room because working from home became available and I wanted to have a nice system to listen to music while working. I was going to update the initial system and room in the very near future. So I didn't see the point in applying room correction in a system and room that was going to change soon. The very near future became the near future (some updates were done, but not in the right direction). The near future became the future ... and that is maybe where we are now.
In the meantime I picked up other hobbies and lost some interest in the accuracy of the system. So I never got to the point where perfecting it became some sort of priority.
Due to circumstances I have some more time to occupy myself with the system again. So it's time to finally get myself those active monitors I was always interested in to try out.
I need to do some more cleaning up in the room so that it gets to a point where room correction actually makes sense. But I think I'll be using an automatic system for that. I just don't want to spend all that time on it. The cleaning up/out the room will take some time. I need to sell stuff. That can take some time. So it can take some time before I get to the ARC thing. But maybe I buy the IK Multimedia Studio ARC thingy when I buy the monitors. Not sure yet. I'll get back to you guys when I need help with the thing.

 

[RHO]

For what it's worth, RHO, I have just replaced a passive system with Kali LP6 v2 for my desktop. It is not only cheaper than the amplifier and bookshelves combo I had, but it sounds much better without even having applied DSP (I plan on playing around with Dirac on a quiet moment this weekend). Particularly the base is deeper and more controlled. There are switches on the back of the speaker which regulate the internal DSP depending on what position the speakers have (on a desk, on a desk on stands, close to walls etc). See the attached image from the manual.

So far I think they are excellent value. I ordered them via Thomann in Belgium too.

View attachment 423668

It seems I missed your post the last time I looked at my topic. Sorry for that.
Can you tell me what the passive system consisted of? (speakers + amp)

 

[RosalieTheDog]

It seems I missed your post the last time I looked at my topic. Sorry for that.
Can you tell me what the passive system consisted of? (speakers + amp)

I had the Triangle BR03 and Denon pma600ne, a system I had moved from the living room.

 

[RHO]

I had the Triangle BR03 and Denon pma600ne, a system I had moved from the living room.

The Triangle seems to have some issues according to Erin. So maybe not surprising that you like the Kali's more.
If I had more space on my desk I would certainly consider the Kali LP6 v2 too.

 

[thunderchicken]

I had some Genelec 8030s at work and was really happy with them. Then I had some not really comparable M Audio BX4s.

I used them mostly for video editing and music.

I don’t do the video part for work anymore but am also interested in a new desktop setup. I have an ancient LM3886 amp and micro monitor speakers I bought as a set in 2005-ish. Definitely due for an update and want to go active with XLR input to take advantage of my balanced DAC.

I could also be convinced to get a Wiim Amp Pro and some Kef bookshelf speakers to be done with it. Upside is no need for software based room correction.