Poor Man's Neumann KH120II

[Scrivs]

Thanks for following up dude

 

[rirelien]

Once you had a chance to set them up, EQ, etc, let us know.

 

[Steve Dallas]

First impressions... These sound like a boombox from the 80s the way I have them set up. How are they set up? Like this:

The room is in transition, so don't be too critical. And excuse the cord mess, as I am testing feasibility of several things.

These are the initial measurements with all DIP switches set flat at my listening position, which is above the tweeter, as you can judge from the photo:

Boom, WOOF, tizz!

Placement is obviously an issue. I see a lot of SBIR, likely from desk bounce, and a mid scoop from being above the tweeter, which is predictable from the vertical directivity measurements. I did a lot of listening in different positions and took a lot of measurements trying to find a sweet spot, and moving back 2 feet and leaning back in my chair to be closer to tweeter height (or measuring what that headspace would be) with the low mids switch set to -4dB yielded this:

Much better above ~170Hz! And worse below. Still too much tizz. Being that I am over 50, I don't mind a little help above 12KHz, but starting at 6KHz is too much. I can likely adjust that with the treble switch, which I have not yet attempted.

It is clear I need to raise the monitors to the recommended height to achieve usable results. Unfortunately, that blocks the KEF R3s (Dirac'd) I use for farfield mixing. The next thing I will try is a more extreme upward tilt to see if I can keep them low and get better results above the room modes.

It isn't worth running the DSP correction until I get closer to ideal placement, so I am not focused on what is happening below 200Hz yet.

Circling back the KEF Q150 idea... They are less fussy about placement, generally speaker-ing. And the treble 'rise' I see in these speakers is similar to what we see in non-feedback desktop amps. It can also be EQ'd out. I am still thinking of testing that solution, but I do not currently own a balanced power amp, so I need to purchase one to test the theory.

More to come...

 

[AnalogSteph]

Placement is obviously an issue. I see a lot of SBIR, likely from desk bounce

And maybe not just from that. Your listening position (distance to wall behind you) may be another contributing factor. This stuff doesn't just apply to speakers, and your absorbers will do precious little down there.

It is clear I need to raise the monitors to the recommended height to achieve usable results. Unfortunately, that blocks the KEF R3s (Dirac'd) I use for farfield mixing.

There's gotta be some way of separating them in terms of angle? If push comes to shove, hang the R3s like 2' higher angled down like some studios do with main monitors.

Also, are you sure both setups absolutely have to be in line? I would contemplate rotating the desk by 180° and placing it at the wall. You have a swivel chair, so you might as well make use of that. It wouldn't even change your listening position all that much, plus the other benefits of freeing up the middle of your room.

 

[psykano]

Also looks like your speakers might be 1-2 meters from your wall which can cause issues! See https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...rs-make-things-sound-small.36089/post-1267346

 

[Steve Dallas]

And maybe not just from that. Your listening position (distance to wall behind you) may be another contributing factor. This stuff doesn't just apply to speakers, and your absorbers will do precious little down there.


There's gotta be some way of separating them in terms of angle? If push comes to shove, hang the R3s like 2' higher angled down like some studios do with main monitors.

Also, are you sure both setups absolutely have to be in line? I would contemplate rotating the desk by 180° and placing it at the wall. You have a swivel chair, so you might as well make use of that. It wouldn't even change your listening position all that much, plus the other benefits of freeing up the middle of your room.

The absorbers behind me are there for flutter echo. I have no illusions about them functioning as bass traps. This room has terrible dimensions for audio, measuring a near perfect cube at 13 x 13 x 12', making flutter echo a significant problem. The absorbers behind the R3s are there to help with SBIR. As you go closer to the front wall, the SBIR center frequency increases. Close enough, and you can control it with a 5 or 6" absorber. That plus DRC can yield excellent results.

Yes, I can move the R3s higher and angle them down, but I really don't want to. They are on expensive custom stands and they just work. So I'm trying to find a nearfield solution for tracking and initial mixing that more or less matches them without obstructing them. We all have our secret weapons, and the DRC'd R3s are mine: where they sit.

 

[AnalogSteph]

This room has terrible dimensions for audio, measuring a near perfect cube at 13 x 13 x 12', making flutter echo a significant problem.

Mind you, that goes for any room with lots of directly opposing bare wall area and nothing much to absorb inside. Its squareness is mainly a problem due to the modes being fewer but more severe, but above the modal range it shouldn't behave much differently than any other room. The height just makes it tricky to fill up with absorbers of the classic furniture kind, so your approach of mounting a bunch of absorbers is exactly right. (Which isn't to say that you couldn't still mount some curtains / drapes or whatnot. The space is hardly super stuffed as-is. I've found that every bit of clutter in a room makes a difference.) On the plus side, about 4 x 4 x 3.7 m fundamentally is a decent size, so it could definitely be worse still.

What do you think of relocating the desk as suggested (which would put the KH120s close to the wall, a better position post-EQ IMHO)? Now it may already have been like that at some point, but the longer I look at the current position the less I like it. Even running power to it in a way that looks remotely clean and doesn't pose a trip hazard seems like a challenge, and long-term it would likely be leaving some nice foot impressions in the carpet if that is as thick as it should be.

 

[SivKiv]

There's the new Topping MA4 if you're still looking for options. It looks real solid, and I believe Amir has a set, or is gonna receive one, to measure and review. I'd definitely have a look at these

 

[DSJR]

Please don't flame me for this suggestion as regards the Neumanns, but to try to 'improve' listening axis without raising them up, what about turning them upside down but still tilted back on those foam isolators? That's lift the bass-mid drivers further off the desk level and still tilted back, the listening axis may be a little more preferable.

Sorry for the cack-handed suggestion, but it's easily tried if the Neumanns are still available and easily put back to 'normal' if it doesn't work...

 

[ehabheikal]

I suppose I should update this with the resolution. Thank you all for your valuable input.

I found a pair of KH120 II with the measurement mic for $1800 shipped from an authorized dealer and pulled the trigger. They should arrive tomorrow. Hopefully they truly are my end-game small monitors.

I do plan to test them against my KEF Q100s EQ'd to match FR as closely as possible. That should prove very enlightenin

I hope you enjoy them