Small, cute, but good sounding desktop speakers

[NeoY2k]

Thank you very much for all your recommendation and great reads. I don't understand how I could miss the linked topic, thank you again.
Yes just seen about these MR3. They also are limited to 70Hz down low, which is the same that some satellites speaker go.
I also found some recommendations for Dali Spektor 1 which were not that warmly reviewed here.
In France we have Davis Acoustics that makes speakers like the Eva or Ariane 1 which are on the smallest end of bookshelf speakers.
Will be looking at all that. Thank you

EDIT: They go down to 52Hz not 70Hz. Not wanting to mislead anyone.

 

[rirelien]

Abacus c-box 3 (or 4)

The 3s are great for this use case, very low to non-existent hiss in my experience. And amazing bass, within their SPL limits (fine for nearfield.).

Because I’m using mine somewhere else, I have Wharfedale Diamond 10.1s on my desk at the moment. With Dirac correction, completely bely their price point. But too big.

 

[AnalogSteph]

Measurement of unknown sourcing seems to have been posted in this thread:

I suppose you could realistically flatten these out to ~75 Hz (f3 ~65 Hz) and push f10 to maybe 45 Hz (being closed, they don't drop like a rock). Level handling at this point is anyone's guess, it's not like coaxes are very suited to high excursion and this one is only a 4.5"... I wouldn't expect any miracles. Those CMS40s are likely to be a good bit more capable.

 

[EERecordist]

Thank you. I could not find spinoramas for these on the spinorama website nor on the master review index. I just seen a post here with a 3 points frequency response which seemed to indicate around a +/- 2.5dB accuracy. Do you remember where you seen them?

Do you think that with EQ to extend their bass they could fit the bill as desktop speakers without a sub, or is the sub mandatory with them?

The Desktop Egg is derived from the lower series E301 and its electronics aren't very well regarded, and they're not priced really any better used, so it would not make much sense to go with these instead of the better 3001SE. They also made the Picoforte 3 which are 3001SE with a small desktop amp ala FOSI/SMSL. Which led me to think they might not be bad desktop speakers. But their bass extension seems quite short from the spec sheet, though some reviews seem to say otherwise.

Thank you,
Nicolas

I would add a sub to the 3001 eggs.

 

[NeoY2k]

Thank you. Part of me wants to play with these Kef 3001SE...

I went to see Focal Birds. Well they were defective. Which didn't bother me too much since I realized they were huge (for the intended use).
I realized I had been looking at speakers way too large for my desktop. Photos can be misleading and a couple centimers don't seem huge on paper, but make all the difference in real life.

So, if that is of help to anyone, here is a small table of some of the smallest speakers I could find, if it can help anybody.

In the desktop category, I was shocked at how small the ORA actually were, but they only go down to 70Hz. The ORA4 is bigger but still small and goes down to 60Hz. But the Ruark MR1 and the Edifier M60 are smaller and go lower.

In the HT Speakers category, the KEF 3001SE and the B&W M1 MK2 go head to head as class leading. I tried the M1 MK1 but it lacked bass extension and clarity. But some speakers in the desktop category better them in the extension to volume ratio.

Bookshelves well most are too big. The Polk ES10 is none about that bass. The Tangent Evo 4 is promising, reviews say that they only sound good if you EQ them, I am intrigued, they are dirt cheap.

In the Studio Monitor category, Genelec, Focal, Neumann, Kali, may not be that big but are all wide. Edifier MR3 are of interesting size and specs. The iLoud and Adam D3V are kings of the mini. The D3V being the ugliest speaker I ever seen. The iLoud looking meh. But in the grand scheme of things I think they are unsurpassed, and reviews are rather good. Some people complain of hiss, I need to investigate this further.

 

[HeadDoc12]

Has anyone mentioned Vanatoo? I love my Zeros.

 

[NTK]

Has anyone mentioned Vanatoo? I love my Zeros.

Post #16

 

[ex audiophile]

James Larson really liked the Small British Monitor

AudioSmile Little British Monitor (LBM) Loudspeaker Review

AudioSmile's LBM compact desktop powered speakers pack a lot of technology and craftsmanship into a small package. Read our in-depth review to see how they measure up and sound against our high standards.

www.audioholics.com

 

[NeoY2k]

James Larson really liked the Small British Monitor

AudioSmile Little British Monitor (LBM) Loudspeaker Review

AudioSmile's LBM compact desktop powered speakers pack a lot of technology and craftsmanship into a small package. Read our in-depth review to see how they measure up and sound against our high standards.

www.audioholics.com

Impressive tech. Nowhere to be found unfortunately but impressive.

 

[ex audiophile]

Impressive tech. Nowhere to be found unfortunately but impressive.

You can order directly from the maker; they are on back order currently.

LBM Product — AudioSmile

www.audiosmile.com

 

[NeoY2k]

Yup. Not cheap though especially when you add the ridiculous import tax we have on uk stuff .

On spinoramas website something puzzles me. The Kanto Ora is displayed as having a 48Hz extension. While the spec sheet says 70Hz. Flatness is registered as 1.8dB. Are these measurements post someone’s added dsp?

 

[kyuu]

Yup. Not cheap though especially when you add the ridiculous import tax we have on uk stuff .

On spinoramas website something puzzles me. The Kanto Ora is displayed as having a 48Hz extension. While the spec sheet says 70Hz. Flatness is registered as 1.8dB. Are these measurements post someone’s added dsp?

It's just due to different definitions of "bass extension". They don't specify it on the website, but I suspect Kanto is defining the bottom of the frequency response as the F3. However, Spinorama defines the bass extension a little differently:

Bass extension: this is low frequency extension (LFX in short) from a research paper from Olive. It is computed as here. Lower is better. Note that it is slighlty different from the frequency of the -3dB point. The rational for using it is: The low frequency extension (LFX) LFX = log10(xSP-6dB.re:y _ LW(300Hz-10kHz) (7) where LFX is the log10 of the first frequency x_SP below 300 Hz in the sound power curve, that is -6 dB relative to the mean level y_LW measured in listening window (LW) between 300 Hz-10 kHz. LFX is log-transformed to produce a linear relationship between the variable LFX and preference rating. The sound power curve (SP) is used for the calculation because it better defines the true bass output of the loudspeaker, particularly speakers that have rear-firing ports..

IOW, I'd say the Spinorama definition is probably more meaningful, although I wouldn't expect the speaker to be able to produce high SPLs at the lower end of its extension. We can just look at the actual FR graph:

Just looking at that, we can see that the bass extends down to about 60Hz before it starts to drop off a cliff.

 

[AnalogSteph]

It is very easy to compare apples and oranges as different manufacturers use varying (and at times multiple different) metrics of bass extension. You might see -1 dB, -3 dB, -6 dB or -10 dB levels, and occasionally others in between. (F10 is a pretty good approximation for the subjective lower limit, but of the region above that is filled out better, bass won't seem as soft.) As per the above graph, the ORA has an F3 of about 51 Hz, F6 of 48 Hz and F10 of 43 Hz, all roughly on par with the D3V.

 

[NeoY2k]

Yes sure. That table of mine was mainly for size comparison and extension is subject to the way the manufacturer measures it (and it’s a shame most don’t care to publish at which attenuation). Plus extension is only one thing for sure.

Still uncommon for a manufacturer especially non pro audio to publish a less flattering figure than even -3dB.

That ora speaker seems impressive I got to find a pair to listen to.

That and the iloud, and the Edifier mr3.

 

[NeoY2k]

Curiosity will kill the cat one day.
Found a very cheap pair of Kef 3001 SE used (80€ for the pair with an SMSL SA100 amp). White and with some scratches. Well it was mainly for curiosity.
Plugged them in. Without EQ they lack a bit of mid bass and a lot of bass and bass extensions.
So I pulled the EQ.
These take EQ at any frequency like a charm, it is pretty disturbing.
I have been very heavy handed with the low shelf (+19dB @ 90Hz). And given the low volumes I listen to there is no problem.
And I really like what I am hearing.
Will let you know more about this.

 

[MadMaxx]

iLoud Micro Monitors and their new Micro Monitor Pro are outstanding small desktop monitors/speakers.

 

[holdingpants01]

iLoud Micro Monitors and their new Micro Monitor Pro are outstanding small desktop monitors/speakers.

I don't know about MMP but original Micro Monitors were noisy to a degree I sold mine

 

[MadMaxx]

I don't know about MMP but original Micro Monitors were noisy to a degree I sold mine

I don't know what you mean by "noisy." My Micros sound excellent connected to my MacBook Air.

 

[holdingpants01]

I don't know what you mean by "noisy." My Micros sound excellent connected to my MacBook Air.

There's just one way of understanding it IMO, as in their self noise level is high. I'm not saying it will bother everyone, it's quite subjective what can be tolerated, I'm just saying their noise level was too high for me to use them as a desktop speakers. The same goes for Genelec 8010 and quite a lot of other small speakers though

 

[NeoY2k]

I think I read it applied to their micro and mtm but that the micro pro had been improved but to be further researched.

Anyone tried the Edifier m60? Erin made a very positive review of mr3 but every comparison I found online for the m60 vs the mr3 had the mr3 clearly winning, and are about the same size as kanto ora. No waveguided tweeter though. But less than half the price in Europe where Kanto speakers are expensive.