New Monitors & Room Measurements

[EOengineer]

Totally get it! I think a big part of the appeal of the Yamahas is that they are so revealing because there's a bit of a lift in the upper mids. The old NS10's were really skewed tonally but again the people who learned those could translate things well.

I think for my purpose, I'm looking for a set of speakers that is reasonably accurate leaning on the more pleasing sound rather than analytical. Reason being, I don't necessarily want to find a fault in everything I'm doing because that's a distraction. I'm not doing heavy mix work so don't need that feedback.

And the Yamaha HS8's are really damn good speakers, but for the near field setup I want, the Focals seem to be better suited.

Yup this makes sense and is sound practice. It’s always a good idea to have something that gives you the big picture, and then something else you can use to throw a microscope on that ever important midrange.

 

[Jarick]

Today I picked up some bigger Isoacoustics stands, the 155. I had the 130 which are the little ones I used for my Genelecs and after trying a few stands I like the speakers on the desk. But those 130's were small for the Focals and WAY too small for the HS8's.

The 155's are much better for a desktop speaker and should work perfect for 5-8 inch monitors. I added the pieces to angle them up as well. These are also much more stable and I have no concerns about say a cat jumping on top of them.

Sonically they seem a little more open with the bigger stands, maybe a combination of a little more space off the desk and a little less transfer? I dunno, but it sounds good.

I know $120 seems a bit steep but the build quality on both the 130 and 155 are really good and they're pretty well thought out stands.

The only thing is I wish you could get some medium size tubes to change the height between the low and high settings. It goes from about 3" tall to 8" tall, and would be nice to have something in the middle.

Anyways, still undecided on keeping the Focal vs Yamaha. Both have their ups and downs. The Focals sound both punchy and crisp and the size is fantastic, but there's a bit of a hole in the midrange. The Yamahas are warmer sounding with the more forward midrange and less punchy but with deeper bass, however they really need more space for the sound to truly develop so for near listening it's not as good.

 

[Jarick]

Pulled everything out of my room and have been moving speakers on stands around for position just using my laptop on a small table with an audio interface.

I think the winner are the Yamaha HS8's. There's just more clarity with these speakers. Focals sound more impressive for low end but missing midrange frequency so it sounds a bit smeared.

One thing I found that sounds pretty good is to run them really close to the walls but then use the "room control" to lower the bass and low mid frequencies. Before I was finding them to sound a bit muddy, but now they sound clearer.

I thought about downsizing, but nothing else in this price range has the same clarity without hiss. I think I'd have to go up to the $2k range to truly get some improvement. The HS7 and HS5 don't have the same balance in the frequency response (skewed more towards high-mids and treble). And there's a lot of opportunity with my room in terms of treatment.

Even the Genelecs that I tried were disappointing. I keep putting them back up hoping to get blown away and am not. Maybe they are just too small. They have fewer annoying frequencies but they seem to be missing everything under 150 Hz which is a lot of energy. And they just sound kind of bunched up with the rest of the frequencies somehow.

 

[Jarick]

I ended up returning the Focals and ordered a pair of iLoud Precision 5 monitors to try those next. The Precisions are pretty decent quality mid-level monitors that have built-in DSP correction (both internal and room correction with a reference mic), and should be flat down below 40 Hz.
My hope is they will have really good performance with the flexibility of DSP in a fairly compact package. So no need to add a subwoofer, no need for additional hardware, and the overall response can be tweaked with software if needed.

Cost compared to alternatives:

iLoud Precision 5 = $1200 including reference mics
Adam A7V = $1900 with the Sonarworks Reference kit
Genelec 8330A = $2250 with the GLM kit
Neumann KH120 = $2300 with the MA1 kit

 

[la szum]

I highly recommend adding a sub. I really do. Doesn't even need to be something
expensive or huge. I'd prefer a sub and lesser $$ speakers, over no sub and higher
$$ speakers. I just feel the load a sub takes off of your primary monitors and your
room is so worth it.... especially if low-end congestion/build up is an issue with every
different monitor brand.

We all different, though, so I get that, too.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I highly recommend adding a sub. I really do. Doesn't even need to be something
expensive or huge. I'd prefer a sub and lesser $$ speakers, over no sub and higher
$$ speakers. I just feel the load a sub takes off of your primary monitors and your
room is so worth it.

We all different, though, so I get that, too.

I agree. They can help with a lot of issues, and give you more headroom and performance on the monitors. A sub on the floor doesn’t have floor bounce to contend with, you can use them to address certain issues that you are getting from your monitors.

Setting them up and positioning them well is not always easy. Pay careful attention to timing, phase and where the crossover is. A poorly set up sub can cause huge dips (among other issues) around the crossover.

2 subs is almost always even better than one, if you have space and budget for it.

I also agree that they don’t need to be anything too expensive. Just taking the time to get it set up right will go a hell of a long way

 

[la szum]

OMG! I feel like a schoolgirl over here now!