Why don’t ASR members laud Neumann speakers?

[ernestcarl]

Yeah I was looking at B-Stock 310's for about 3400 per pair. Mostly just trying to determine if the Neumann DSP is a special sauce that I can't live with out or if my current dsp solution would be adequate.

Kinda irritating to have the "lowest" model in the line be technically most advanced haha.

I’m pretty sure they will update the older models... it’s just a question of when (although likely a couple years more of waiting). Neumann isn’t a company like astell&kern that churns out disposable models on a yearly basis. Too many audiophile companies follow that lead.

As for DSP... it’s not necessary to stick with neumann’s own branded solution. minidsp is perfectly fine — which one you choose (digital vs analog models) is up to you ultimately. Most people just mix and match with what they already have.

 

[Sergei]

Yeah I was looking at B-Stock 310's for about 3400 per pair. Mostly just trying to determine if the Neumann DSP is a special sauce that I can't live with out or if my current dsp solution would be adequate.

Kinda irritating to have the "lowest" model in the line be technically most advanced haha.

I’d recommend finding a way to try out both models - pure analog and DSP assisted - in your room, side by side, ideally blindly. There are just too many variables, including your personal audio preferences. Without physical tryouts, it would be kind of like marrying online a mail-order bride: “It could be heaven, or it could be hell”

 

[jhaider]

I just got my KH 80 DSP speakers from zzounds and im also having a problem with (i think) the auto-standby feature. the right speaker sometimes turns off and then back on even when audio is playing. it also happened at least once with the left speaker. switching off auto standby removes the problem, but i dont like the idea of keeping a partially defective pair of speakers, even if they don't use much power with auto standby turned off. do you think i should just contact sennheiser for a repair?

That's terrible. Are you using the app? If so my first suggestion is to turn down the threshold for standby.

If that doesn't work, I've found Sennheiser very responsive and diligent in their troubleshooting. My replacement for the speaker that wouldn't stay in standby arrived within a week. Unfortunately, the replacement has the same issue.

 

[Pio2001]

Hello,
I am using a pair of Neumann KH-120 in my main system.

They stand in an ordinary room, with not even a carpet or curtains, and a large window near the speakers. The decay time measured at the listening position, from the speakers, is 0.45 s at 500 Hz and 0.5 s at 2500 Hz.
The listening distance is 2.1 meters.

I've been listening to them for 3 years and I don't imagine changing for anything else ! Everything sounds good with them.
The user manual says that for an ordinary room, it is better to set the treble control to -1 (and 0 for a well-treated room). I came to the same conclusion by ear.

Unfortunately, the room has very strong low frequencies resonances. So I had to use an equalizer to deal with the low frequency part. Here is a multipoint measurement around the listening position, with VAR smoothing :

Here is my correction :

And here is the result after equalisation, moving microphone measurement, from the listening position, 1/48th octave RTA :

The level of the low frequency target was extremely difficult to find. It took about two years to find something that sounds neutral. As you can see, the resulting curve looks strange. The 200 Hz region is nearly at the same level as the 600 Hz one. Then, starting from 100 downwards, the target level decreases ! It looks strange, but sounds good.

The upper part of the frequency range, from 1 kHz upwards, is uncorrected. It looks a bit uneven. This is probably caused by the fact that the speakers stands are too short. The speakers stand a bit below the listening position. From the listening position, I can see the top side of the speakers.

Here is a windowed measurement taken with the microphone 70 cm from the speaker.
Green : in the tweeter's axis
Red : midway between the woofer and the tweeter
Light blue : in the woofer's axis
Dark blue : midway in height, but off axis, to the left.

Unsurprisingly, the worst curve is the one that is off axis vertically (light blue).

Listening impressions

The overall feeling is that all frequencies are balanced, with just a slight lack of bass (which is done on purpose by my EQ).
I went to an organ concert in the church of my town, and they were selling a CD with recordings of this organ. When I went home, I listened to the CD, and the sound was exactly the same as what I had heard several minutes before in reality, except the lack of low frequencies.

The result is extremely good with choirs, and also with acoustic drums.
Choirs and symphonic music are said to be very demanding, but they are no trouble for the Neumann KH-120. They are even the musical styles that sound best with these speakers !

Here is an example of recording that sounds incredibly good on my system : listen to the last part, with the choir, starting from 22:45 :

The style that is more difficult to reproduce is techno music, because, in spite of a careful equalization, the low frequencies of the electronic drums don't sound very good in my listening room.
There are also some frequency peaks around 200 Hz that depends a lot of the exact listening position, and that are different on the left and right channel. I could not equalize them properly. But they come from my room, not from the speakers.

Other speakers that I have listened to in the same configuration :

Kef R300 (around 1300 euros) : coloured sound. Annoying peak of about + 5 dB around 700 Hz. Lack of high frequencies. Female vocals sound recessed. Excellent low frequency extension (until around 30 Hz thanks to the awful resonances in my room). I didn't keep them long. They gave me no pleasure listening to music. I always had the feeling that the leading melody was too far away, with the bass in front of it.

Dynaudio Gemini with +1.5 dB tweeter built-in (between 1000 and 1500 euros). Too bright sounding.

Boston A26 (around 400 euros). Nice sounding, but the medium frequencies are not natural.

JBL 305P mkII (220 euros). Too bright, with medium frequencies not sounding natural.
I have then measured the JBL, and, unlike what I have read about them, I found no trace of any resonance in the medium frequencies, but rather a sharp abnormal transition at 1500 Hz, as if the tweeter was playing too loud comparted to the woofer, and also a huge amount of harmonic distorsion (1% for harmonic 3 alone, from 300 to 600 Hz, plainly audible while they are playing the test signal).

The strange thing is that, with my listening position being vertically off-axis, the JBL showed a perfectly consistent behaviour between the anechoic windowed measurement and the MMM measurement from the listening position, while the Neumann did not.

 

[pozz]

First I would like to say hello to everyone, this is my first post. Im a recording engineer ( 25 years) with an EE degree. Just had to add another pro manufacturer that helps advance the science and is conspicuously missing from this thread, Meyer Sound.

Hi @Cbdb2, do you know of any available measurements for the Meyer Bluehorns?

 

[Sprint]

Hello,
I am using a pair of Neumann KH-120 in my main system.

They stand in an ordinary room, with not even a carpet or curtains, and a large window near the speakers. The decay time measured at the listening position, from the speakers, is 0.45 s at 500 Hz and 0.5 s at 2500 Hz.
The listening distance is 2.1 meters.

I've been listening to them for 3 years and I don't imagine changing for anything else ! Everything sounds good with them.
The user manual says that for an ordinary room, it is better to set the treble control to -1 (and 0 for a well-treated room). I came to the same conclusion by ear.

Unfortunately, the room has very strong low frequencies resonances. So I had to use an equalizer to deal with the low frequency part. Here is a multipoint measurement around the listening position, with VAR smoothing :

View attachment 33988

Here is my correction :

View attachment 33989

And here is the result after equalisation, moving microphone measurement, from the listening position, 1/48th octave RTA :

View attachment 33990

The level of the low frequency target was extremely difficult to find. It took about two years to find something that sounds neutral. As you can see, the resulting curve looks strange. The 200 Hz region is nearly at the same level as the 600 Hz one. Then, starting from 100 downwards, the target level decreases ! It looks strange, but sounds good.

The upper part of the frequency range, from 1 kHz upwards, is uncorrected. It looks a bit uneven. This is probably caused by the fact that the speakers stands are too short. The speakers stand a bit below the listening position. From the listening position, I can see the top side of the speakers.

Here is a windowed measurement taken with the microphone 70 cm from the speaker.
Green : in the tweeter's axis
Red : midway between the woofer and the tweeter
Light blue : in the woofer's axis
Dark blue : midway in height, but off axis, to the left.



View attachment 33991

Unsurprisingly, the worst curve is the one that is off axis vertically (light blue).

Listening impressions

The overall feeling is that all frequencies are balanced, with just a slight lack of bass (which is done on purpose by my EQ).
I went to an organ concert in the church of my town, and they were selling a CD with recordings of this organ. When I went home, I listened to the CD, and the sound was exactly the same as what I had heard several minutes before in reality, except the lack of low frequencies.

The result is extremely good with choirs, and also with acoustic drums.
Choirs and symphonic music are said to be very demanding, but they are no trouble for the Neumann KH-120. They are even the musical styles that sound best with these speakers !

Here is an example of recording that sounds incredibly good on my system : listen to the last part, with the choir, starting from 22:45 :

The style that is more difficult to reproduce is techno music, because, in spite of a careful equalization, the low frequencies of the electronic drums don't sound very good in my listening room.
There are also some frequency peaks around 200 Hz that depends a lot of the exact listening position, and that are different on the left and right channel. I could not equalize them properly. But they come from my room, not from the speakers.

Other speakers that I have listened to in the same configuration :

Kef R300 (around 1300 euros) : coloured sound. Annoying peak of about + 5 dB around 700 Hz. Lack of high frequencies. Female vocals sound recessed. Excellent low frequency extension (until around 30 Hz thanks to the awful resonances in my room). I didn't keep them long. They gave me no pleasure listening to music. I always had the feeling that the leading melody was too far away, with the bass in front of it.

Dynaudio Gemini with +1.5 dB tweeter built-in (between 1000 and 1500 euros). Too bright sounding.

Boston A26 (around 400 euros). Nice sounding, but the medium frequencies are not natural.

JBL 305P mkII (220 euros). Too bright, with medium frequencies not sounding natural.
I have then measured the JBL, and, unlike what I have read about them, I found no trace of any resonance in the medium frequencies, but rather a sharp abnormal transition at 1500 Hz, as if the tweeter was playing too loud comparted to the woofer, and also a huge amount of harmonic distorsion (1% for harmonic 3 alone, from 300 to 600 Hz, plainly audible while they are playing the test signal).

The strange thing is that, with my listening position being vertically off-axis, the JBL showed a perfectly consistent behaviour between the anechoic windowed measurement and the MMM measurement from the listening position, while the Neumann did not.

View attachment 33995View attachment 33996

Great write up!! How will the Neumann 120 sound at 4 meters hearing distance with speakers being 4 meters apart? Have you tried them at this distance?

 

[Pio2001]

Great write up!! How will the Neumann 120 sound at 4 meters hearing distance with speakers being 4 meters apart? Have you tried them at this distance?

I can't. My room is too small :

 

[Vintage57]

First I would like to say hello to everyone, this is my first post. Im a recording engineer ( 25 years) with an EE degree. Just had to add another pro manufacturer that helps advance the science and is conspicuously missing from this thread, Meyer Sound.

I had the pleasure of owning a pair of HD-1’s years ago. They were good but had a hiss at idle that I chose not to put up with. I had them on 24” stands as part of a 2nd system that I seldom used.

 

[ernestcarl]

My replacement for the speaker that wouldn't stay in standby arrived within a week. Unfortunately, the replacement has the same issue.

Have you tried physically swapping the left and right speakers and noticed the same consistent behaviour?

 

[Sergei]

Some consumers, who might be interested in buying Adam and Neumann professional studio monitors, are confused by search engines returning something like this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-w...eek-to-remove-adam-neumann-as-ceo-11569171188

 

[TimVG]

Hello,

JBL 305P mkII (220 euros). Too bright, with medium frequencies not sounding natural.
I have then measured the JBL, and, unlike what I have read about them, I found no trace of any resonance in the medium frequencies, but rather a sharp abnormal transition at 1500 Hz, as if the tweeter was playing too loud comparted to the woofer, and also a huge amount of harmonic distorsion (1% for harmonic 3 alone, from 300 to 600 Hz, plainly audible while they are playing the test signal).

The strange thing is that, with my listening position being vertically off-axis, the JBL showed a perfectly consistent behaviour between the anechoic windowed measurement and the MMM measurement from the listening position, while the Neumann did not.

View attachment 33995View attachment 33996

Seems to correlate with other 3rd party measurements such as S&R



Others such as Noaudiohpile, and Harman's own 'spinorama' show no such anomalies which makes me the question the consistency on these 'budget' speakers.

 

[Vintage57]

Neumann ‘s at their best. My new dream system

 

[ernestcarl]

I re-adjusted the balance, delays, and xo between my desk office speakers (fronts and surrounds) and performed some measurements with REW. Decided to unplug the Neumann's ports (measures better but seems to sound somewhat the same[?] anyway when paired with my sub).

I also used to have a lot more extensive EQ for correction below 200Hz but got rid of it all except for just two PEQ settings. I had Dirac before as well etc. but any more extensive processing caused noticeable, annoying delay with video-audio playback. My desk is essentially a sit-stand type and so I don't exactly have it fixed all the time. Same with the Neumanns... I don't have them in one height position all of the time.

Mind you, my room is still sorely in need of broadband absorbers in all corners, front and rear walls -- yeah, okay, maybe I'll do that project for some other time.

Anyhows, since as of now, even with these less than stellar measurements I'm already pretty much a happy camper.

*oh yeah, there's a huge null below 20Hz in my listening position thus the 20Hz filter.

 

[carlosmante]

Some consumers, who might be interested in buying Adam and Neumann professional studio monitors, are confused by search engines returning something like this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-w...eek-to-remove-adam-neumann-as-ceo-11569171188

Taking mota to Israel ? Not even El Chapo, ha ha.

 

[Ilkless]

I re-adjusted the balance, delays, and xo between my desk office speakers (fronts and surrounds) and performed some measurements with REW. Decided to unplug the Neumann's ports (measures better but seems to sound somewhat the same[?] anyway when paired with my sub).

I also used to have a lot more extensive EQ for correction below 200Hz but got rid of it all except for just two PEQ settings. I had Dirac before as well etc. but any more extensive processing caused noticeable, annoying delay with video-audio playback. My desk is essentially a sit-stand type and so I don't exactly have it fixed all the time. Same with the Neumanns... I don't have them in one height position all of the time.

Mind you, my room is still sorely in need of broadband absorbers in all corners, front and rear walls -- yeah, okay, maybe I'll do that project for some other time.

Anyhows, since as of now, even with these less than stellar measurements I'm already pretty much a happy camper.

*oh yeah, there's a huge null below 20Hz in my listening position thus the 20Hz filter.

Great job. That sort of linearity in the bass still puts many boutique sub-less, tune-by-ear-in-room setups to shame. See for instance the in-room measurement of speakers in Stereophile. Much wilder swings even after spatial averaging most of the time.

 

[Juhazi]

Seems to correlate with other 3rd party measurements such as S&R
Others such as Noaudiohpile, and Harman's own 'spinorama' show no such anomalies which makes me the question the consistency on these 'budget' speakers.

LSRs have switches for bass and treble tilt +/- 2dB How was your speaker set?
And so does KH120: Equalization: Bass0; -2.5; -5; -7.5 dB Equalization: Low-Mid0; -1.5; -3; -4.5 dB Equalization: Treble+1; 0; -1; -2 dB

ps. wrong reply - this question was for Pio2001!

 

[TimVG]

LSRs have switches for bass and treble tilt +/- 2dB How was your speaker set?
And so does KH120: Equalization: Bass0; -2.5; -5; -7.5 dB Equalization: Low-Mid0; -1.5; -3; -4.5 dB Equalization: Treble+1; 0; -1; -2 dB

You'd have to ask an owner, I don't own the 305 nor the Neumann.

 

[ernestcarl]

LSRs have switches for bass and treble tilt +/- 2dB How was your speaker set?
And so does KH120: Equalization: Bass0; -2.5; -5; -7.5 dB Equalization: Low-Mid0; -1.5; -3; -4.5 dB Equalization: Treble+1; 0; -1; -2 dB

Neumanns are set flat. I used to shelve the treble a bit and even EQ to follow a curve but have stopped that after a while. Same with the bass. I prefer the default flat settings 95% of the time. It’s easier to just lower the volume and switch JRiver’s “loudness” DSP off when I need to concentrate or want to get some relief from the treble. Having it “flat” makes it pretty obvious which types of music simply have too much bass or are too compressed. A lot of modern music can be fatiguing due to a lack of dynamic range anyway. So I often find myself going back to classical music just to get some ear relief. Modern Rap music too, and even Billie Elish I feel has just too much bass energy boosted at times.

By pulling fronts closer to me and away from the walls I’ve been able to get flatter sounding bass — certainly better I think than just using the dip switches on the back of the monitors.

The JBLs ports I’ve kept plugged. Bass switch is flat but -2dB treble shelving is on. I put its xo higher at 120Hz as I don’t particularly like the quality of it’s bass and would rather have the Rythmik sub take over from there. I have symmetrically placed black-out curtains in the left and right walls of this space (perhaps balancing out the treble and making it so unusually linear(?), and also have a large L-shaped couch in the back which helps absorb a tiny bit of the bass energy in the room.

 

[ernestcarl]

Great job. That sort of linearity in the bass still puts many boutique sub-less, tune-by-ear-in-room setups to shame. See for instance the in-room measurement of speakers in Stereophile. Much wilder swings even after spatial averaging most of the time.

Thanks! When the monitors were closer to the corners and walls, I had a lot problems with the bass. Even with EQ I couldn’t get it to sound exactly right until finally pulling them a lot closer to the LP. Having the surrounds turned on most of the the time with music helps my fronts sound much, much larger than they really are in this room.

 

[Pio2001]

Have you tried physically swapping the left and right speakers and noticed the same consistent behaviour?

Hi,
No, I've not made any other measurements.

LSRs have switches for bass and treble tilt +/- 2dB How was your speaker set?
And so does KH120: Equalization: Bass0; -2.5; -5; -7.5 dB Equalization: Low-Mid0; -1.5; -3; -4.5 dB Equalization: Treble+1; 0; -1; -2 dB

The JBL had all their settings at 0 dB.
The Neumann had their bass and mid-bass switches at 0 dB, and, as far as I remember, their treble switch set to -1. That's the way I use them.