Why don’t ASR members laud Neumann speakers?

[LTig]

Everything I could find on these speakers especially the Neumann model KH 420 should make them one of the most accurate sound reproduction devices available. The KH 120 and the KH 310 are no slouches in their own right.

Granted they are low on the WAF scale however the top shelf specs are reproducible and that’s saying a lot. This can’t be said for all of the newer generation of active monitors.[..]

According to the thread title: I do, and I own the predecessor of the Neumann KH 310, the Klein & Hummel O300D (bougth in 2004). Neumann bought Klein&Hummel and therefore the KH as name prefix.

There are probably several reasons why Neumann's are not popular at ASR or in the consumer audio world:

• The price in the US is higher than in good old Europe (designed in Germany, produced in Ireland).
• They are marketed for pro use only. Before I bought the O300D I had a 30 min phone talk with the developer, Markus Wolff. Among other things I asked him why they don't go into the consumer market. AFAIR he saw too much problems in a market with so much FUD and snake oil. Maybe he was afraid that a bad subjective review would also harm the pro business (that's my personal interpretation).
• The looks do not represent the internal values.
• In a direct audition with other speakers they tend to lose because they have no spectacular sound features. That's the price any neutral speaker pays.

 

[LTig]

For that matter, how about Adam studio monitors.

Those I have auditioned (the smaller ones up to the S3H) were not neutral. They had excessive heights. It may impress people not used to neutral speakers, and when switching from a Adam to a Neumann the Neumann sounds dull.

 

[LTig]

As shown by the great research by @Floyd Toole and Sean Olive, a good sounding speaker has a downward tilting steady-state room curve. While there are several posts on this at ASR, including links to AES papers and other references, I am going to link to one of Floyd's responses that explains why the downward tilt. It also explains why Neumann, Genelec and many others don't get as much love with his key statement, "A fundamental problem has been the incorrect assumption, made long, long ago (in the age of RTAs), that the audio rule "flat is beautiful" should apply to steady-state room curves, not the direct sound." Can you dig it?
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No I can't. The frequency responses in the specs of Neumann, Genelec and many other studio monitors are always measured in an anechoic room and do not represent the steady state room curve. Looking at the directivity plots you can conclude that the steady state room curve would be downward tilting and smooth, just as required for good speakers.

 

[Wombat]

According to the thread title: I do, and I own the predecessor of the Neumann KH 310, the Klein & Hummel O300D (bougth in 2004). Neumann bought Klein&Hummel and therefore the KH as name prefix.

There are probably several reasons why Neumann's are not popular at ASR or in the consumer audio world:

• The price in the US is higher than in good old Europe (designed in Germany, produced in Ireland).
• They are marketed for pro use only. Before I bought the O300D I had a 30 min phone talk with the developer, Markus Wolff. Among other things I asked him why they don't go into the consumer market. AFAIR he saw too much problems in a market with so much FUD and snake oil. Maybe he was afraid that a bad subjective review would also harm the pro business (that's my personal interpretation).
• The looks do not represent the internal values.
• In a direct audition with other speakers they tend to lose because they have no spectacular sound features. That's the price any neutral speaker pays.

I think in the pro world, trained sales reps are active in visiting potential customers and providing samples for considered performance assessment. The customers are more discerning and a dud product is quickly known amongst the fraternity.
The tax advantage of depreciation claims on equipment and it being a profit making tool, makes the investment more discerning/palatable than in consumer buying. Let alone the subjective marketing kudos with telling the client "we have the best or most expensive monitors" even if it doesn't make a difference, from an audio viewpoint.

 

[LTig]

What I don't know about the physics of audio would fill a book, but from the manual for my Genelec 8020b speakers:

"Tilt Treble Tilt control (switch 1) attenuates the treble response of the loudspeaker at frequencies above 5 kHz by 2 dB, which can be used for smoothening down an excessively bright sounding system."

Wouldn't this address any perceived brightness built into these speakers, if their flat response does indeed cause it?

It would, although the Genelecs have a flat anechoic FR and smooth directivity which results in a tilted room responce. On the other hand they are made for very close listening distances where the room response is not so strong and then it may make sense to attenuate the treble for personal preferences.

 

[CTRLM]

@CTRLM ideally speaking, if the speaker is properly designed, then one only needs to compensate for room modes below 500 Hz like here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...the-magnepan-30-7-road-tour.8451/#post-216435 My "general" complaint is that most speakers don't seem to be properly designed and based on the available research on what sounds neutral, most to my ears anyway, sound too bright, as mentioned in my post above. But then again, I mainly listen to (unfortunately) highly compressed music that tends to add brightness.

How much tilt depends on the things you mention, plus listening distance, off axis response, constant directivity eq, type of music being listened to, etc., and of course preference I don't know if Dirac can do partial correction, like to 500 Hz or lower only?

Thanks for the reply. I also have very little toe-in so I am quite some way off axis which might explain why a shallower slope is preferred.

 

[audiophool]

The only real improvements over them are with the new generation of DSP speakers like the Kii and DD that control midbass dispersion, and even then improvements are marginal. I would still consider their designs (albeit just barely) state-of-the-art.

This anti-intellectualism also means mediocre antiquated designs that are contemporaries of the Neumanns from the likes of ATC and PMC are romanticized

Have you A/B'd all of these speakers? I thought the ATC SCM25A sounded slightly better than the Dutch 8C. The mids had a smooth sound signature that made them very pleasing to listen to with acoustic music.

Difference between all the speakers I tested was marginal. They were all well into the performance category where the room will dominate the sound quality.

 

[Wombat]

Ah, Neumann not Newmann. Thank you Google.

 

[Ilkless]

Have you A/B'd all of these speakers? I thought the ATC SCM25A sounded slightly better than the Dutch 8C. The mids had a smooth sound signature that made them very pleasing to listen to with acoustic music.

I've heard the latest ATC stuff with the in-house tweeter at length (and measurements of these from Stereophile exist - totally unremarkable), as well as the previous active series. My non-blinded impressions are arbitrary and immaterial. ATC designs are objectively antiquated and fail to cohere with empirical evidence that favour smooth response on and off-axis through effective directivity control. For example, SCM25 ASL Pro measurements:

There is no magic to be had in mediocrity.

 

[mitchco]

@jhaider wow man. I am indeed coming at it from an in-room measurement perspective, as a consumer and sometimes reviewer of loudspeakers. But there is a reason I bring it up. The ANSI/CEA 2034-A I referenced is a measurement system and a predictor of the in-room fr response of what a neutral speaker sounds like in a typical living room. It's a transfer function.

Harman have performed numerous studies on subjective listening and objective measurements correlating listener preference to both anechoic spins and in-room measurements. Olive has studies on headphones, that directly correlate with loudspeakers with the same tilted in-room or on-ear (translated to headphone) measurement. There is a specific in-room measured response from a variety of Harman products that matches the research results.

What I am saying is unless the speaker designer/manufacturer is using ANSI/CEA 2034-A Standard Method of Measurement for In-Home loudspeakers, then all bets are off, as the traditional methods of designing a speaker in an anechoic chamber using a single on axis measurement or limited number of off axis measurements, (spinorama uses +70) is not a good predictor of how it will sound in a "typical" living room environment (too bright according to Harmans research and my ears).

Several other speaker manufacturers that I have measured are obviously using a different anechoic measurement technique as each one is about +5 dB above 3 kHz and trend towards a flat to 20 kHz response "in-room" as compared to Harman's research. So who's right? Have we been listening to overly bright speakers all this time and got used to it. What does neutral even sound like? ;-)

Or they fit the Harman model. Its either or. Both with some speakers and DSP the "default" target is flat in room response when we know and have the research to back it up, that is not the preferred response. If all of these manufactures know what they are doing, then why are there two distinct groups of in-room measurements, from a variety of loudspeaker manufacturers, all claiming to sound neutral? Whose right? Well, it matters when you are trying to translate a mix or master.
Are Genelec, Neuman using ANSI/CEA 2034-A?

It's still an issue

 

[mitchco]

Thanks for the reply. I also have very little toe-in so I am quite some way off axis which might explain why a shallower slope is preferred.

Ah, I just reread and missed " There is also a minimum of 2 meters between the speakers and side walls" There is a range of expectation around the mix of direct versus reflected sound, so this and your comment above, depending on the directivity of your loudspeakers, could make the difference for a shallower slope. If you happen to have a REW .mdat measure with the filter in place, you could PM me the file and I could take a look as we can see the balance of direct versus reflected sound in few of REW's displays like ETC for example and compare to the range.

 

[CRKebschull]

Everything I could find on these speakers especially the Neumann model KH 420 should make them one of the most accurate sound reproduction devices available. The KH 120 and the KH 310 are no slouches in their own right.

Granted they are low on the WAF scale however the top shelf specs are reproducible and that’s saying a lot. This can’t be said for all of the newer generation of active monitors.

I’ve offered as have many other to support Amir’s speaker testing venture. I hope we’re collectively going to move forward with the project. The interesting fact is the outcome we’re aspiring to find is already available, at least one company is putting their money into audio science.

I’m going to pick up a pair and will find out what if anything i’ve been missing.

Will share my findings.

The KH 420 looks like a really excellent speaker. Here are the measurements from a detailed Sound & Recording review from October 2014.

 

[mitchco]

No I can't. The frequency responses in the specs of Neumann, Genelec and many other studio monitors are always measured in an anechoic room and do not represent the steady state room curve. Looking at the directivity plots you can conclude that the steady state room curve would be downward tilting and smooth, just as required for good speakers.

If using ANSI/CEA 2034-A Standard Method of Measurement for In-Home loudspeakers, I would agree, one can predict the in-room response. But as I suggest in post 51, not all anechoic measurements techniques are equal. That's my point, based on real "in-room" measurements from a variety of loudspeaker designers/manufacturers, all claiming to be neutral sounding. But as it turns out in reality, it just ain't so.

 

[LTig]

For that matter, how about Adam studio monitors.

Those I have auditioned (the smaller ones up to the S3H) were not neutral. They had excessive heights. It may impress people not used to neutral speakers, and when switching from a Adam to a Neumann the Neumann sounds dull.

Let me tell another story. When my wife wanted to replace her passive B&W DM601 by active speakers we went into the local pro shop for musicians and listened to a lot of small active 2-way monitors (Adam, Genelec, Focal, JBL, KRK, Tannoy, ...), using classical opera with sopran. She could not make up her mind since most of them were too bright/agressive for her taste (mine often as well).

There was also a big Klein&Hummel O410 3-way and we finally decided to use it as reference for tonality since it would be very close to my own O300D which my wife likes. This worked fine, we switched between each possible candidate and the O410 to find the speaker which comes closest to the O410. The astounding result was that we went home with a relatively cheap pair of JBL LSR2325P.

 

[Juhazi]

I believe that the only problem really are hifi listeners, who don't care to touch tone controls - or those are missing from their high-end amps!

Studios should use measurements and EQ as standard regimen.

 

[CRKebschull]

I believe that the only problem really are hifi listeners, who don't care to touch tone controls - or those are missing from their high-end amps!

Studios should use measurements and EQ as standard regimen.

Amir has already pointed out the basics of making your equipment (whatever it is) sound good: Speaker positioning and Room Correction below 200Hz (or at most 500Hz).

 

[LTig]

If using ANSI/CEA 2034-A Standard Method of Measurement for In-Home loudspeakers, I would agree, one can predict the in-room response. But as I suggest in post 51, not all anechoic measurements techniques are equal. That's my point, based on real "in-room" measurements from a variety of loudspeaker designers/manufacturers, all claiming to be neutral sounding. But as it turns out in reality, it just ain't so.

I'm not familiar with ANSI/CEA 2034-A, but an in room response depends not only on the speaker's on- and off axis behaviour, but also on the room dimensions, reflection index, and listening distance relative to the room dimensions.

Studio monitors are often designed for a specific listening distance (or range):

• Small nearfield monitors for close listening have a broad dispersion angle so that the mixing engineer sitting at the mixing console can move left or right without leaving the sweet spot. This broad angle means that such a monitor throws more high frequency energy off axis which may result in a less tilted in room response at longer listening distances.
• Bigger monitors designed for longer listening distances have a smaller dispersion angle (due to the longer listening distance a broad angle is not required to stay in the sweet spot) to reduce reflections so that the engineer hears more direct sound (relative to reflected sound) despite sitting farther away. This would also result in a more tilted in room response.

For example the KH-310 has a dispersion angle of about +/- 50 degree, the KH-420 about +/- 40 degree.

 

[LTig]

I ordered a pair of their mini-est minimonitor (KH 80 DSP) recently after rediscovering them through a thread here. They should arrive soon. I picked them over KH 120 because of the setup app.

Please report when you got them.

 

[LTig]

I'm hoping the 120, 310 and 420 get a DSP revision to complement the KH80.

I'm sure these will come but maybe not as fast as you wish. The production life time of most K&H monitors was closer to 15 than to 10 years (may change with Neumann though). And the successors of both O200 and O500C (which had a DSP crossover in 2000!) have not yet shown up in the Neumann range, so maybe we see a KH-210 DSP and KH-510 DSP first, followed by KH-130 DSP, KH-320 DSP and KH-430 DSP. Just speculating, I'm not an industry insider.

 

[Biblob]

If using ANSI/CEA 2034-A Standard Method of Measurement for In-Home loudspeakers, I would agree, one can predict the in-room response. But as I suggest in post 51, not all anechoic measurements techniques are equal. That's my point, based on real "in-room" measurements from a variety of loudspeaker designers/manufacturers, all claiming to be neutral sounding. But as it turns out in reality, it just ain't so.

Could software EQ suffice to make a downward sloping response, even if a speaker has a flat in-room response?
If I remember correctly, room-EQ should only be used up to 300 Hz, otherwise it would sound unnatural. But is there a correct way to correct a speaker slope? Or can it only be done by designing a speaker in such way a downward in-room slope is already achieved?