speakers for orchestral music in small room.

[rapidtransit]

I am amateur music composer, mainly orchestral music but hybrid as also electronic, use a DAW and need speakers. I mainly used headset till now. I am in small room 2.5 x 3.5m. I can afford up to $1000 AU ($650 US). I understand that puts me in 'budget' speaker territory. I understand I should get active speaker good in near field and no rear ports and be honest with sound. I assume will get stands and put speakers on beside my desk. I do not need to to play music loud. Three names seem to come up, Focal Alpha 65 Evo, Kali Audio LP-6 V2 and Adam Audio T7V. I have not a clue. Any ideas on a speaker that might fit the bill?

 

[JeremyFife]

Those sound like reasonable choices and I don't think you would go wrong. The JBL 306 MkII are often included in selections like this too.
Second hand might be worth considering too: Genelec 8030 can come up at that sort of price.

It probably makes sense to budget for a subwoofer, as you'll miss out on the low end of what an orchestra can deliver. That also allows you to choose the main speakers without adding in a requirement for them to go low.

 

[AnalogSteph]

It probably makes sense to budget for a subwoofer, as you'll miss out on the low end of what an orchestra can deliver.

I wouldn't be overly worried about deep bass with orchestra (it's not like they typically sport a big ol' church organ)... the electronic side may be more of an issue.

If you're not listening loud yet still need good coverage of orchestral dynamics, hiss levels may be an issue. If so, the T7V is known to be quite hissy, while the LP6v2 should be unconcerning. The Focals have no input gain control whatsoever, so if you find plugging in your interface reveals an increased noise floor you may need a monitor controller.

+1 for looking at the used market as well. I know Neumann has pretty competitive pricing down under so in addition to the aforementioned Genelec 8030s, some KH120s or even the old K+H O110s may be worth looking out for. The driver quality in that class (alongside general build quality) is just in a different league.

 

[rapidtransit]

great tips. Much appreciated.

 

[Alexei]

Hi fellow Aussie, if you can tolerate an additional small box on your DAW desk, may I make a suggestion? Rather than only considering price-premium active speakers, how about a small class-D amp with appropriate input types, or even better, something like the $499AUD Wiim Amp with all its accessible equalisation options and input types. I’d suspect they’d be quieter too in their hiss performance.
That opens you up to a huge selection of 2nd hand or modestly priced passive speakers. Please also consider older Wharfedale Diamonds (VI,8,9,10 series) as they are brilliant with rich cello voicing and lively, dynamic percussion within their volume limits.
The eq of the amp can help you tame room modes and boom at your listening position. It will also let you tailor the sound to what you feels natural, unless your desired actives have extensive eq on-board. I can’t tolerate extended listening sessions with my original Kef LS50s without eq, but with it, they’re magic! Eq can be done automatically or manually. Wiim’s 60W/ch->8ohms, 120W/ch->4ohms should be hearing-damage potential near-field in a small room. I don’t have a Wiim but think that kind of thing is brilliant.
Even the flattest, best measuring speakers may sound bad to you after the room dimensions, desk cavity boom and seating position add their detrimental small-room bass modes and frequency response effects. Just a thought…

 

[Mr. Reeee]

I wouldn't be overly worried about deep bass with orchestra (it's not like they typically sport a big ol' church organ)... the electronic side may be more of an issue.

Hardly.

With orchestral music, especially Romantic music (Berlioz, Bruckner, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Wagner) and 20th century (Bartók, Sibelius, Hindemith, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, etc.) there’s a plethora of extremely complex orchestral writing with plenty of deep bass with lots of percussion, not just a few tympani like in a classical period orchestra of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert.

You definitely want to be able to reproduce it as much as possible!

 

[Waxx]

You need speakers with a big dynamic range, so when you play your volume they got 20dB headroom to catch the peaks. This mostly means big speakers, but as you are sitting close a normal size monitor speaker may do it. I would recommend the Nuemann KH150 if budget was not restricting. Kef LS50 could do the job alo if you got a sub (but you don't ). But don't buy the tiny kind of monitor, they can't handle the dynamics of orchestral music and will compress/distort on loud passages. Even if you only listen at 75dB many will.

 

[Mr. Reeee]

You need speakers with a big dynamic range, so when you play your volume they got 20dB headroom to catch the peaks. This mostly means big speakers, but as you are sitting close a normal size monitor speaker may do it. I would recommend the Nuemann KH150 if budget was not restricting. Kef LS50 could do the job alo if you got a sub (but you don't ). But don't buy the tiny kind of monitor, they can't handle the dynamics of orchestral music and will compress/distort on loud passages. Even if you only listen at 75dB many will.

Some small speakers should be able to handle orchestral music and opera.
A subwoofer, ideally two, would be ideal, of course.

Just plan to add a subwoofer at some point.

I bought KEF LSX for my small bedroom to stream music to and use for video streaming connected to a 32” IPS computer monitor to use as a TV with an Apple TV 4K, plus Sony region-free Blu-ray player.
It worked fine with orchestral music (all periods), but I wanted a bit more depth.
I like organ music, too. Buxtehude to Messiaen.

After a few months, I decided to add a subwoofer and settled on a KEF KUBE 10b.
It’s a great little system. The sub was a really good addition, but was fine without.