Upgrade from Neumann KH310 for home listening?

[Ype]

Update: I finally bought the Ascilab C8C. Without listening, based on measurement data only. And accepting the Hypex Fusion amps.

Now this might be positive bias after investing so much money, however, I like the C8C very much. (Upper) bass / (lower) midrange clarity in my untreated asymmetrical room with close-to-wall placement is subjectively notably better than with the KH310. Neutrality is superb. Bass is sufficiently deep (down to 20Hz) and loud and I do no longer use my subwoofers.

Very nice!
The in room response at listening position is close enough to flat to you without bass management now?
A microphone will show what we hear below the transition zone so I'd love to see it

 

[markstein]

Hi Ype,

Find some measurements at my MLP below. All with REW variable smoothing.

C8C raw: no correction

C8C eq: slight correction of modal peaks only.

C8C with subs: 2xKH810 subs, mono, crossed at 80Hz with a LR 24dB/oct x-over

I am still not sure which setup I prefer (without subs and stereo bass or with mono subs). They certainly do sound different (stereo bass is leaner, subs have more impact and "punch" but sometimes sound slightly "thick" - not sure yet about spaciousness differences of both solutions).

SPL up to 1kHz does not look so good as there are many reflections from the large listening distance (3.7m) and furniture. This setup is not for critical listening, more for pleasure. Sounds better than the graphs might suggest

 

[Ype]

I see, interesting!
Looks pretty good and above the transition zone my ears and brain don't register what a microphone does so no worries
Edit: running all channels and setting up the bass correction in mono has always worked great for me with a crossover at 80Hz, at that frequency I've had no localization issues.
Also using LR 24dB/oct xo here

Will share some of mine in an L shaped room.
Main listening location, I use the correction up to 300Hz.
So far so good minus the suck-out and sounds great!

...until I try to do the same for two listening positions and my lack of subwoofers is showing, as I am only using 1

Nothing to do as I only have 1 sub so I simply took an average of this as this is definitely to much bass, put the target a bit higher as to much bass in an acceptable sin but to little bass in not and ended up with this:

Quick and dirty and I just took two single point measurements to make sure there was no unexpected behavior.
Still an improvement at least, only used for movies so I am not to worried about it.

 

[829]

Hi all,

What do you do when you have 2 days off? Right - test some speakers at home!

I am currently thinking about replacing my Neumann KH310 as I feel they are not designed for my irregularly shaped, asymmetric, non treated living room and the relatively long listening distance (2.5 m for critical listening and 3.5 - 4 m on my sofa in the back of the room).

Candidates so far:
- Neumann KH420
- Dutch & Dutch 8C

What do you think?

Edit:
- Below 80Hz 2x Neumann KH810 subwoofers help out (1× front left, 1x back right)
- The KH420 are only placed upside down as I do not have appropriate stand for testing

While I believe you found your AsciLab C8C in the meantime, it's impressive! Which dealer gave you all these to try? (Sorry I have not read through all the thread, in case it was answered before.)

 

[markstein]

While I believe you found your AsciLab C8C in the meantime, it's impressive! Which dealer gave you all these to try? (Sorry I have not read through all the thread, in case it was answered before.)

Hi, while I could have bought all speakers online at Thomann and then have returned them after the test, I decided to contact a local dealer (https://digitalaudioservice.de/) and ask them for customer test samples. I picked the speakers up and returned them myself to the store to keep the handling cost low.
The D.A.S. team is extremely supportive and kind, and I can recommend this dealer to any customer near Hamburg, Germany.

 

[829]

Oh nice, thank you! I'm not from near Hamburg but it's always nice to know where to find great dealers, much appreciated.