Speaker purchase advice for small room (~2500€)

[March Audio]

If you are unable then you have a problem in your audio system. One of them, most likely, in the OS.

It is very easy, you hear it and forget about buying those speakers! Very bad sound. Listen to other videos from that same channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLleWZ74MYiSxG31BkmBnvQ/videos

All I hear is someone has made a recording on their phone which will sound nothing like hearing those speakers in person.

 

[thewas]

Judging the (bass) qualities of loudspeakers from some random youtube recordings and placed randomly in an unknown room just shows that the basics of acoustics are not understood.

 

[maty]

If you listen to more videos from that channel you will notice the difference. There are more with KEF.

When I first heard my KEF Q100 sounded really bad, without bass. I thought about returning them. They needed about two hundred hours to stabilize the sound, a barbarity.

Instead now, after the improvements that I have made (I have not finished experimenting with them) they have me in love. The problem is that they require amplifiers with many watts for the type of recordings I listen to, with very high DR.

 

[jinithin]

I asked this exact question in this thread: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/neumann-kh120a-or-genelec-8030c.11109/
My final choice is Genelec because I feel/think it's made to a higher standard of quality while everything else is almost equal. But if you plan on taking one of these, the matching subwoofers should also be examined: I think the Neumann KH 750 DSP may be better than its Genelec competitor (7350) but a pair of 7040 is the same price as these.

Great advice. I'll have a look.
Getting to the point now where I should just order some speakers home and try to find my preferences.
Still got the room issues to figure out what to do with though.

Electronic music may be very demanding at the 3rd octave, so i suggest that the speakers should be able to reach high enough spl's over there, and maintain some headroom for equalization.

If you desire strictly a 2-channel approach, maybe these krk should be considered:

https://m.thomann.de/gr/krk_rokit_rp10_3_g4.htm

The matching krk sub (10") is quite capable and not highly priced, which means you can get 2 subs and have money for even more...

Another suggestion is the Presonus Sceptre S8:

https://m.thomann.de/gr/presonus_sceptre_s8.htm

Which seems to have a very capable 8" woofer for plenty of punch. Also they are coaxial's.

Anyway,
I would strongly recommend a multichannel setup, at least a 5.1 one with a nad processor (at 1.3k with dirac). In this case, smaller speakers would be more convenient in a small room, and maybe 5pcs of Neumann 120 would be the best choice:

https://m.thomann.de/gr/neumann_kh_120_a.htm

Paired with the Neumann sub.

Thanks for the advice.
I have bad stuff associated with the KRK-brand though so I'll skip those.
Also, multichannel is probably not for me so I'll stick with stereo.

There are too many variables to solidly make an assumption that passive speakers will have greater reliability. Failure rates are going to vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, between design types, and for different reasons. Not to mention that products designed for studio use likely have more robust construction methods in general due to their need for portability and industrial installation.

There’s also an argument to be made that increasing the component count also increases the likelihood of having to repair or replace something. Take two components with a 25% failure rate each over 5 years, and that is a less reliable combination than a single device with a 40% failure rate, just as an example.

Ultimately I can’t predict what is more likely to be reliable for you, but given the high uncertainty involved I would optimize for what will be the best in use rather than what could possibly happen (but most likely not) down the road.

Yeah, I guess I'm a bit paranoid.
The most important thing as you said is just to find a manufacturer and a product with a good reputation.
Then hopefully you'll dodge the worst QA-issues

Active speakers have more parts that can break, and those parts certainly can break, but there are countless old active speakers running around, and there are countless blown passive speakers not running around.

Active, I'd get Neumann 80 or 120 or JBL 705p plus a sub, hoping it fits in your budget. Not sure what Genelec would be best in there, but there's probably a good pair. I don't think Adam are as good a value.

As for break in, I'm sure there's some difference between a speaker at 0 seconds and 5 minutes of play, and I'm sure there's less of a difference between 5 minutes and 1 hour, and I'm sure there's even less of a difference between 1 hour and 1000 hours. There's probably about as much difference between 0 seconds and 1000 hours as there is from unit to unit variation. So burning in your speakers is an utter waste of time.

Thanks. I'll make sure to look at your suggestions.
Guess I've got to order a few of them home now to try out

 

[jinithin]

Also, I'll add I'm a bit novice when it comes to interpreting my REW-measurements.
I'm trying to find possibilities to fix my issues with the dips which were shown in my screenshots from REW.
Does it all come down to speaker placement in regards to my nulls?
Are my dips normal, or are they completely nuts?
How much of it is audible (eg. is a window of 20hz at -15db audible, or can it be ignored)?

 

[Koeitje]

Electronic music may be very demanding at the 3rd octave, so i suggest that the speakers should be able to reach high enough spl's over there, and maintain some headroom for equalization.

If you desire strictly a 2-channel approach, maybe these krk should be considered:

https://m.thomann.de/gr/krk_rokit_rp10_3_g4.htm

The matching krk sub (10") is quite capable and not highly priced, which means you can get 2 subs and have money for even more...

Another suggestion is the Presonus Sceptre S8:

https://m.thomann.de/gr/presonus_sceptre_s8.htm

Which seems to have a very capable 8" woofer for plenty of punch. Also they are coaxial's.

Anyway,
I would strongly recommend a multichannel setup, at least a 5.1 one with a nad processor (at 1.3k with dirac). In this case, smaller speakers would be more convenient in a small room, and maybe 5pcs of Neumann 120 would be the best choice:

https://m.thomann.de/gr/neumann_kh_120_a.htm

Paired with the Neumann sub.

Fuck me, these are ugly. I can't see anyone using these in their living room.

 

[Soniclife]

Also, I'll add I'm a bit novice when it comes to interpreting my REW-measurements.
I'm trying to find possibilities to fix my issues with the dips which were shown in my screenshots from REW.
Does it all come down to speaker placement in regards to my nulls?
Are my dips normal, or are they completely nuts?
How much of it is audible (eg. is a window of 20hz at -15db audible, or can it be ignored)?

Your response looks fairly normal, i.e. horrible, you need to apply some smoothing to make some sense of it.
I'm also preferring the moving mic method as both easier to to do, and easier to understand the results of, it's worth a go.

 

[jinithin]

Your response looks fairly normal, i.e. horrible, you need to apply some smoothing to make some sense of it.
I'm also preferring the moving mic method as both easier to to do, and easier to understand the results of, it's worth a go.

Ok, I see
What smoothing do you recommend for seeing the actual measurements, but still getting rid of the jaggedness of the curves?

And with moving mic what do you mean?
My measurements were done at listening position with the microphone pointing between the speakers (with one speaker being measured at a time).

 

[dshreter]

A deep null is best corrected by moving speakers. If you have the ability to EQ, getting speakers very close to the wall or very far from the wall is your best bet.

 

[Soniclife]

What smoothing do you recommend for seeing the actual measurements, but still getting rid of the jaggedness of the curves?

I'm not an expert, still a lot to learn myself.
If you look at people who have done a lot of work on their in room response you usually see them use 1/12, and the will still be a lot of wiggles. So I'd use that or lower, 1/6 will give you detail thought the range without overwhelming you with errors that look like they need fixing.

I don't have a quick explanation of moving mic method, there are videos that show how to do it that are worth watching.

 

[DanGuitarMan]

Ok, I see
What smoothing do you recommend for seeing the actual measurements, but still getting rid of the jaggedness of the curves?

And with moving mic what do you mean?
My measurements were done at listening position with the microphone pointing between the speakers (with one speaker being measured at a time).

I think VAR smoothing is recommended for low frequency equalization.

Here is the best write-up I found so far on MMM: http://www.ohl.to/audio/downloads/MMM-moving-mic-measurement.pdf

The technique has proved very repeatable so far.

 

[napilopez]

With regards to why the S400 sounded bad?/thin in your room @jinithin, I second the idea that you may have to rethink your room treatment. My guess for the S400 is that treating the sidewalls did it no favors. The speaker is already a bit on the narrower directivity side of the spectrum (as most speakers with big ol' waveguides). Can't see how eliminating further reflections would help, though some would argue in such a small room treatment is necessary. I'd just experiment either way. @andreasmaaan's suggestion of extreme toe is definitely worth trying too.

 

[jinithin]

A deep null is best corrected by moving speakers. If you have the ability to EQ, getting speakers very close to the wall or very far from the wall is your best bet.

Great. I'll try to experiment some more.

I'm not an expert, still a lot to learn myself.
If you look at people who have done a lot of work on their in room response you usually see them use 1/12, and the will still be a lot of wiggles. So I'd use that or lower, 1/6 will give you detail thought the range without overwhelming you with errors that look like they need fixing.

I don't have a quick explanation of moving mic method, there are videos that show how to do it that are worth watching.

Ok, I'll play around the scales to find something that works.
Will also watch some videos about moving mic.

I think VAR smoothing is recommended for low frequency equalization.

Here is the best write-up I found so far on MMM: http://www.ohl.to/audio/downloads/MMM-moving-mic-measurement.pdf

The technique has proved very repeatable so far.

Awesome. Thanks for the resource.
Will read it thoroughly

With regards to why the S400 sounded bad?/thin in your room @jinithin, I second the idea that you may have to rethink your room treatment. My guess for the S400 is that treating the sidewalls did it no favors. The speaker is already a bit on the narrower directivity side of the spectrum (as most speakers with big ol' waveguides). Can't see how eliminating further reflections would help, though some would argue in such a small room treatment is necessary. I'd just experiment either way. @andreasmaaan's suggestion of extreme toe is definitely worth trying too.

Unfortunately I do not own them anymore, so it'll be hard to try out.
In regards to the room treatment, most of my testing with the S400's was done without any treatment to the room (in exception to the rug).
I'm therefore fairly sure that the treatment did not have a massive impact on the speakers.
Great input anyways.

 

[jinithin]

Also, with people recommending the KEF R3's, I've done a bit of research.
Like the Buchardt's, they want at least 50cm away from side walls, which pushes the speakers VERY far in to the center of my room.
Will this be a factor to them sounding as bad as the S400's?
I figured there was a reason for them to set those specifications to begin with :/

 

[maty]

It is clear that the sound recorded in a room and YouTube sound compression we all know.

To my knowledge, the rest of the drivers, whether KEF or not, do not suffer from it. Coaxial or not. Or in a short time if they have been unemployed for a long time.


Updated:

If you want to listen to a very good sound open baffle loudspeakers recording in YouTube:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...measurements-by-danny-richie.8840/post-334054

 

[thewas]

Like the Buchardt's, they want at least 50cm away from side walls, which pushes the speakers VERY far in to the center of my room.

Almost every loudspeaker should be placed with some distance to the side walls, except maybe huge extremely beaming ones.

 

[QMuse]

And with moving mic what do you mean?

It's explained pretty well in this video.

 

[maty]

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...50-bookshelf-speaker-review.11144/post-315944

KEF R3 distances, from manual

 

[Soniclife]

If your still have your speakers pointing straight ahead try them toeing them in a lot, this will sent less energy to the side walls.

 

[Ilkless]

Currently looking at speakers for my new (tiny) room, and was looking for a few suggestions as small rooms are a bit problematic.
My budget is around 2500€, but can spend more if it makes a big difference.
I'd prefer for the speakers to be passive, as I'd hate to buy expensive speakers that will break outside of warranty and become pieces of scrap.
Am mostly listening to electronic music (eg. Aphex Twin, Autechre).
A sub will be purchased as seating position is inside a bass null.

The speakers I'm currently looking at are:
- Buchardt S300
- ATC SCM11
- KEF R3
- Ascend Acoustics 2EX (hard to demo as I'm located in Europe)

The room in question is as said, very small.
Dimensions are 2.68m x 4.5m, and the room has been treated with basstraps, and absorbers/thick curtains at first reflection points.
Absorbers have also been installed on the wall behind the speakers.
Listening position is about ~1.8m (6ft for americans) away from speakers (with the speakers about the same distance away from each other).
Speakers are placed ~45cm from side walls, and ~70cm from the back wall.
Also, there is only one seat in the room, so no need for a super-wide dispersion for multiple listeners.

I've tried the Buchardt S400's in my room, but they did not work at all.
Probably because of the waveguide requiring quite a bit of space to work correctly.
The Buchardt S200's I have sounded way better, but is still missing a bit in the lower-mids.

Thanks.

ATC is way overpriced compared to the sophistication of the KEF and Ascend, which are much more modern. Consider a small floorstander with the same footprint as these speakers on stands, like the Focal Aria 926/936.