Why don’t ASR members laud Neumann speakers?

[JJB70]

I really do think it most probably comes down to the fact that Neumann themselves have decided what market they are selling into and haven't tried to penetrate the consumer audiophile segment. My guess is if they do then Sennheiser will add some eye candy and tick a few audiophile boxes to gain brownie points, and maybe sell them under the Sennheiser name. After all, this is the company who has just released a $2500 soundbar.

And don't underestimate WAF, it's not just WAF even. I like audio and like performance but I have to say I also like speakers that look reasonably nice and have a nice quality feel.

 

[Krunok]

And don't underestimate WAF, it's not just WAF even. I like audio and like performance but I have to say I also like speakers that look reasonably nice and have a nice quality feel.

As my main speakers are sitting in my living room and not in some professional studio I wanted them not only to sound good but to look like a nice piece of furniture.

 

[JJB70]

Professional monitors are working tools so it is understandable they put the money into the stuff that really matters for pro use, but for consumer use I think many people do want good looking gear and tactile quality. I have to admit I've been sorely tempted by some of the nice Harbeth speakers, their retro look and nice feel is rather lovely (I also think they sound great, the P3ESR is a lovely little compact speaker).

 

[Sergei]

That might explain we I find tons of second hand speakers of audiophile brands on the internet, and there are really few KH, Genelec, ADAM,etc. Probably the market for the pro speakers is much smaller.

It helps taking into account: quality pro speakers are sold much quicker on used market. I went through quite a few of them before my setup stabilized. After my audiophile experiences, I was amazed by how little the good pro speakers depreciate. And how many starving musicians are out there, looking for $20-$40 break on a mixing-worthy speaker.

Still regret selling my first surround set of Adam A7s. They were shipped straight from Beijing after the Olympics was over. One of the temporary Olympic broadcast studios leased them, reportedly for less than a month, and then they were liquidated in bulk.

I can't be sure the Adams were specially-tuned or factory-selected, yet they were very nice, ridiculously uniform, and bullet-proof. Sold in one go on eBay, for a price basically meaning I used them virtually for free during two years.

 

[audiophool]

Research at Harmann produced statistically significant preference. That's what a manufacturer wants, happy customers in the long run. Of course there will be those with minority tastes and manufacturers who voice bright for a quick comparison in the showroom followed by listening fatigue at home.

It was sizable minority. Around 35% IIRC.

 

[GrimSurfer]

It would be interesting to scratch at the Harman curve a bit...

For example, do many ppl audition loudspeakers at stereo shops? Which ones predominate (big box stores, medium shops, boutiques)? What are their acoustic properties (open, controlled/flat, lively, etc)? Did Harman account for this... if so, how?

I'm coming at this at another direction of course. Not how ppl hear loudspeakers in a highly prepared acoustic environment like Harman likely used (as part of their scientific approach)... but how ppl typically audition speakers for their homes.

 

[Ron Texas]

It was sizable minority. Around 35% IIRC.

In an election 65% would be called a landslide. I realize there are speaker designs which fall into the minority class with respect to some of Harmann's research, most notably panels. As it happens Martin Logan electrostatic speakers enjoy an unusually widespread distribution in the US due to their inclusion at Magnolia Design in Best Buy.

Obviously, Harmann wanted to know which designs would make the 65% happy. Just because you like something else doesn't mean you have a tin ear.

 

[Sergei]

Some older ADAMs (SX and AX series) certainly qualify as bright and crisp, even ear-bleeding, notably the very popular A7X. Those are great for EDM but fail with eg electric guitars or brass sections and this impression is shared by many people.
There are reasons for this and of course it can and has been measured. It's a combination of significant tweeter distortion, midwoofer cone breakup, directivity mismatch (no waveguide) and the overall "bathtub" EQ.

At one point, Adam made unfortunate switch from a very high quality class AB amps to less than stellar class D amps in many of its speakers. The A7 had a classic sweet-sounding AB. A7X tweeter class D amp sounded somewhat harsh to my ears.

There was yet another interim design with class D amps in between these two models. I tried to find end-user reviews for that, yet the best I could find started with "I accidentally found Adam ... in a pawn shop ...". It got that bad - class D teething pains.

I don't quite agree regarding the "bathtub" EQ on A7. As far as I could tell, it was OK for near-field monitoring. However, the air transformer was beaming in a more pronounced way than a typical dome tweeter - that's pure geometry - so at mid-distances the A7 wouldn't "attenuate" high frequencies the way more traditional speakers do, which was subjectively perceived as unwelcome brightness.

As to the lower part of the "bathtub", there was a huge difference between how the A7, A7x, A8x etc. sounded with and without lower 80 Hz taken out. While technically capable of extending quite low, port huffing and puffing issues (A7 was notorious for that) and woofer suspension non-linearity was quite noticeable below 60 Hz. These distortions contributed energy, and thus made the speaker sound bassier.

To summarize: the Adam models with class AB amps, crossed over to a subwoofer, in near-field == sweet puppies; models with early class D amps, used full-frequency-range, in mid-field == ugly dogs.

 

[Sergei]

I really do think it most probably comes down to the fact that Neumann themselves have decided what market they are selling into and haven't tried to penetrate the consumer audiophile segment. My guess is if they do then Sennheiser will add some eye candy and tick a few audiophile boxes to gain brownie points, and maybe sell them under the Sennheiser name. After all, this is the company who has just released a $2500 soundbar.

I think fundamentally this is about real cost to subjective value ratio. How many consumers will be ready to pay about the same money for a soundbar as for a huge TV set, which already includes rudimentary speakers?

Yes, the Sennheiser soundbar will get a consumer much closer to a studio sound quality, but how many movies have such sound quality? My guess is that for too many consumers it goes like this: I can discern the dialogs in Game of Thrones, therefore my TV sound is good enough.

 

[Juhazi]

At one point, Adam made unfortunate switch from a very high quality class AB amps to less than stellar class D amps in many of its speakers. The A7 had a classic sweet-sounding AB. A7X tweeter class D amp sounded somewhat harsh to my ears.

There was yet another interim design with class D amps in between these two models. I tried to find end-user reviews for that, yet the best I could find started with "I accidentally found Adam ... in a pawn shop ...". It got that bad - class D teething pains.

I don't quite agree regarding the "bathtub" EQ on A7. As far as I could tell, it was OK for near-field monitoring. However, the air transformer was beaming in a more pronounced way than a typical dome tweeter - that's pure geometry - so at mid-distances the A7 wouldn't "attenuate" high frequencies the way more traditional speakers do, which was subjectively perceived as unwelcome brightness.

As to the lower part of the "bathtub", there was a huge difference between how the A7, A7x, A8x etc. sounded with and without lower 80 Hz taken out. While technically capable of extending quite low, port huffing and puffing issues (A7 was notorious for that) and woofer suspension non-linearity was quite noticeable below 60 Hz. These distortions contributed energy, and thus made the speaker sound bassier.

To summarize: the Adam models with class AB amps, crossed over to a subwoofer, in near-field == sweet puppies; models with early class D amps, used full-frequency-range, in mid-field == ugly dogs.

Wow, pretty many ifs and buts! Adam doesn't sound like a trustworthy brand to me.

 

[Sergei]

Wow, pretty many ifs and buts! Adam doesn't sound like a trustworthy brand to me.

Can't comment on their latest products. Switched to Neumann about five years ago. Adam went through bankruptcy at the end of 2014, and supposedly things changed since then.

 

[JJB70]

I think fundamentally this is about real cost to subjective value ratio. How many consumers will be ready to pay about the same money for a soundbar as for a huge TV set, which already includes rudimentary speakers?

Yes, the Sennheiser soundbar will get a consumer much closer to a studio sound quality, but how many movies have such sound quality? My guess is that for too many consumers it goes like this: I can discern the dialogs in Game of Thrones, therefore my TV sound is good enough.

I think that the calculation behind the Sennheiser Ambeo soundbar is similar to the audiophile market in that there are enough people willing to buy one and the assumption that more expensive = better is a powerful one. The soundbar segment has been seeing more premium models and the market does seem to be there. I actually think a big reason for the apparent stagnation of AVRs is that most of the home AV segment has moved to soundbars. A few years ago people used to say that AVRs could leverage economies of scale to offer much better value than niche two channel products but I don't see that as being true anymore (assuming it ever was).
I like soundbars and think they offer a clean and tidy solution, and some of them do perform very well. I also think that it is just as true in the realm of soundbars as other audio that price cannot be taken as a proxy for quality and performance.
One of the things that I do wonder about is the size of some soundbars. To me they make sense as an unobtrusive and simple AV solution to stick under a TV to make TV and movies sound good and provide pretty good music reproduction. Now some of them are huge and anything but the sort of simple unobtrusive product they once were. And if music is important you can buy a pretty decent soundbar for $500 to give your TV sound a boost and use the other $2000 to buy a very good pair of active speakers or amplifier and passive speakers. You can get a terrific two channel set up for that price which will sound tremendous with music.

 

[KSTR]

To summarize: the Adam models with class AB amps, crossed over to a subwoofer, in near-field == sweet puppies; models with early class D amps, used full-frequency-range, in mid-field == ugly dogs.

Yeah, that sums it up, my impressions at well. All the A*X models except A3X had not so stellar early class D on the bass (TDA8920, later replaced by even worse TDA895x when 8920 obsoleted), whereas older A series, late Artist series (Artist3/5/6) and F series where all A/B chipamps.

 

[matt3421]

Unfortunately I have not had much seat time with them, for two reasons.
First, strike one for the "pro stuff is more reliable" hypothesis, unfortunately. One had an issue with the on/standby circuit. It wouldn’t stay in standby. Any slight vibration would trigger it back on. So it was sent back to Sennheiser for warranty service last week. I chose repair to exchange because Neumann sent me a shipping label for warranty. There's no need to burden Sweetwater with a defect return when the manufacturer will handle it reasonably.

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?

 

[JJB70]

Yes, if there is an issue get it sorted out now.

 

[Mawclaw]

This might be a bad place to ask but hopefully some Neumann users can weigh in.

I am trying out a few setups in the 3.5K range. For Neumann's product line does it make sense to go KH310's or KH80 DSP with a subwoofer or two? I already own a dirac MiniDSP for room correction- how would that interact with the built in dsp system (if at all)?

 

[ernestcarl]

This might be a bad place to ask but hopefully some Neumann users can weigh in.

I am trying out a few setups in the 3.5K range. For Neumann's product line does it make sense to go KH310's or KH80 DSP with a subwoofer or two? I already own a dirac MiniDSP for room correction- how would that interact with the built in dsp system (if at all)?

I use the KH120 with a Rythmik F12 sub and minidsp... Cost, I think, should be under 3.5k

Some people have been having problems with KH80 dsp (mainly the app)... IMO, unless you want to use multiple speakers/subs for a surround system, you’re probably better with the 120 and using minidsp for your XO and EQ. Seems to me the simpler KH120 would be more robust as well with less complex internal components to possibly break. The KH310 comes in a nicer sealed cabinet design, but would be clearly over budget.

*oh, and I think KH80 DSP would probably make more sense if you are going to pair it specifically with the neumann KH750 DSP.

 

[Vintage57]

I’m a Neumann owner and fan with KH 420’s.
I would take a serious look at KH 310 in the used market. This speaker has the same tweeter and midrange as it’s larger brother and are amazing for their clarity and flat frequency response.

 

[Mawclaw]

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.

 

[Vintage57]

I bought a pair of B stock KH-420's and they are like new.

I contacted Neumann and was assured they had full 2 year warranty.

I also have miniDSP, mine is DDCR-22D, it does the job of leveling the bass response at the lp. I don't know what else a DSP should do.