paisleywookiee
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Weird, I've got a pair of these, and they're totally silent.
Studio Monitor Choices
- Thread starter PatF
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Someoldqueenorother
Groupie
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I've very much the same with hiss. The Alpha 65s were my first pair of powered speakers, had gone passive and power amp beforehand. They went back, the LSR305s came in and were better but in a better listening environment two years later, I dug out the passives again.
Once I made the decision to dump the 305s, I decided to try out some used Adam F5's based purely on posts from ASR. Absolutely no regrets doing that, it was a hugely positive step. I fancied a second set of monitors, something with more bass so bought some new Mackies and instantly returned them. Hiss was fine, the woofer distortion in one of them was not. Then a pair of Kali IN-5s came up for a great price and that sealed it.
The JC-40 is a really flawed amp in my book. I had one and sent it back. It was noisier than my battered third generation JC-120 was a decade earlier, the chorus didn't sound as good, and the lack of a low input annoys me. I used the low input a lot on the old JC-120.
Curious how this sounds...
...but unlikely to buy as the JC-120 captures Amalgam did last year for Tonex really have satisfied the clean needs. It'd be interesting to know what era of JC-120 they modelled. Much preferred the third series to the earlier ones.
Once I made the decision to dump the 305s, I decided to try out some used Adam F5's based purely on posts from ASR. Absolutely no regrets doing that, it was a hugely positive step. I fancied a second set of monitors, something with more bass so bought some new Mackies and instantly returned them. Hiss was fine, the woofer distortion in one of them was not. Then a pair of Kali IN-5s came up for a great price and that sealed it.
The JC-40 is a really flawed amp in my book. I had one and sent it back. It was noisier than my battered third generation JC-120 was a decade earlier, the chorus didn't sound as good, and the lack of a low input annoys me. I used the low input a lot on the old JC-120.
Curious how this sounds...
...but unlikely to buy as the JC-120 captures Amalgam did last year for Tonex really have satisfied the clean needs. It'd be interesting to know what era of JC-120 they modelled. Much preferred the third series to the earlier ones.
GuitarBilly74
Roadie
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I have JBL 308s. They sound good. The key with studio monitors is to listen to a lot of reference material through them so you understand how it translates to the monitors.
paisleywookiee
Rock Star
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The other key with studio monitors (IMHO) is getting the isopads. Made a MASSIVE difference for me.
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A 10x12 room is not ideal for bass reproduction, and unless you know what you're doing, a sub can often exaggerate the problem instead of cure it. If you have your heart set on new monitors, my first suggestion would be to forget about the sub for now, and put that money toward the near field monitors that appeal most to your ear and budget.
The frequency of A1 is 55 Hz. The Wavelength is 6.42 meters, or 21.06 feet.
Even with well-designed bass traps, a 21 foot wavelength radiating in a room that size is going to present a significant problem, creating room modes that can only be minimized, not cured; the laws of physics are still going to apply.
Even with the best speakers out there, an awful lot of what reaches your ears is the room, with all its reflections, modes, comb filters, doubling, boundary issues, etc.
In any case, if the object of studio monitors is to accurately hear what you're recording, you're still going to have to contend with the room and its physical limitations.
You might consider trying something like Sonarworks' room EQ system to improve the accuracy of what you're hearing in your mix position, just remember that EQ at the mix position can be wrong for the rest of the room, since there will be room modes every few feet that will exaggerate bass, or remove it, hence the peaks and valleys that show up on measurements.
In an anechoic chamber, the Neumanns can give you clean bass down to around 50 Hz, but you're in the real world where room boundaries like walls, floor and ceiling are going to contribute to significant room modes. I doubt you'll hear that bass accurately no matter how accurate the speakers are.
If it was up to me, I'd suggest keeping the monitors you have, and spending the $1000 on a good headphone amplifier (makes a big difference) and a high quality set of headphones.
I know the old saw is, 'don't mix on cans'. That was then. Today, people mix, and even master, on cans all the time with excellent results. During Covid I did music and postproduction mixes for clients like Ford for national ads with headphones, so that the clients could listen in real-time while I mixed, using the excellent platform Evercast, with good headphones I sent them. So yes, it can be done.
Glenn Schick is a very well known mastering engineer who hasn't worked with speakers since 2011. As he says, it does take an adjustment period to learn to use cans correctly, but let's face it, it will be a LOT more work learning monitors and putting together bass traps for your room that still won't really fix all that much, especially if you're doing it without the help of an acoustician. Then there's the whole problem of where to put the speakers in your treated room, doing all that experimenting. It can take months. I know, I've done it with some excellent professionally created bass traps, and once the acoustical problems were improved in my 17' x 33' room - not solved, merely minimized - I spent weeks on end moving the monitors around until the mix position sounded like some of the big studios I've worked in over the years.
All of my work gets checked and re-checked using a pair of Audeze LCD-X headphones through an SPL headphone amplifier. I've got my monitors and room sounding to the point where what I hear in the room finally sounds like the headphones, but move one foot in the room, and what I hear changes. This is not because of dispersion or sound staging from the speakers, it's because the low end bumps up against room modes at various frequencies depending on where you're listening in the room.
It never changes with the cans.
Choose wisely and you can get accurate mixes, just don't expect miracles with low frequencies in a room that isn't purpose-designed for audio (mine is treated but in the end it's just a room like most folks have). Hopefully all this blah-blah-blah from me helps rather than confuses!
The frequency of A1 is 55 Hz. The Wavelength is 6.42 meters, or 21.06 feet.
Even with well-designed bass traps, a 21 foot wavelength radiating in a room that size is going to present a significant problem, creating room modes that can only be minimized, not cured; the laws of physics are still going to apply.
Even with the best speakers out there, an awful lot of what reaches your ears is the room, with all its reflections, modes, comb filters, doubling, boundary issues, etc.
In any case, if the object of studio monitors is to accurately hear what you're recording, you're still going to have to contend with the room and its physical limitations.
You might consider trying something like Sonarworks' room EQ system to improve the accuracy of what you're hearing in your mix position, just remember that EQ at the mix position can be wrong for the rest of the room, since there will be room modes every few feet that will exaggerate bass, or remove it, hence the peaks and valleys that show up on measurements.
In an anechoic chamber, the Neumanns can give you clean bass down to around 50 Hz, but you're in the real world where room boundaries like walls, floor and ceiling are going to contribute to significant room modes. I doubt you'll hear that bass accurately no matter how accurate the speakers are.
If it was up to me, I'd suggest keeping the monitors you have, and spending the $1000 on a good headphone amplifier (makes a big difference) and a high quality set of headphones.
I know the old saw is, 'don't mix on cans'. That was then. Today, people mix, and even master, on cans all the time with excellent results. During Covid I did music and postproduction mixes for clients like Ford for national ads with headphones, so that the clients could listen in real-time while I mixed, using the excellent platform Evercast, with good headphones I sent them. So yes, it can be done.
Glenn Schick is a very well known mastering engineer who hasn't worked with speakers since 2011. As he says, it does take an adjustment period to learn to use cans correctly, but let's face it, it will be a LOT more work learning monitors and putting together bass traps for your room that still won't really fix all that much, especially if you're doing it without the help of an acoustician. Then there's the whole problem of where to put the speakers in your treated room, doing all that experimenting. It can take months. I know, I've done it with some excellent professionally created bass traps, and once the acoustical problems were improved in my 17' x 33' room - not solved, merely minimized - I spent weeks on end moving the monitors around until the mix position sounded like some of the big studios I've worked in over the years.
All of my work gets checked and re-checked using a pair of Audeze LCD-X headphones through an SPL headphone amplifier. I've got my monitors and room sounding to the point where what I hear in the room finally sounds like the headphones, but move one foot in the room, and what I hear changes. This is not because of dispersion or sound staging from the speakers, it's because the low end bumps up against room modes at various frequencies depending on where you're listening in the room.
It never changes with the cans.
Choose wisely and you can get accurate mixes, just don't expect miracles with low frequencies in a room that isn't purpose-designed for audio (mine is treated but in the end it's just a room like most folks have). Hopefully all this blah-blah-blah from me helps rather than confuses!
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ChordInversion
Roadie
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I have cheap monitors specifically because of this. Whenever we finish the basement, I'll make a treated room and get accurate monitors. For now, anything that sounds decent with my modeler is adequate.
Thank you for the detailed explanation Laszlo. I do plan on making some acoustic panels and corner traps. I am going to try the cotton batts from ATS or Acoustimac and make some triangular frames for the corners and 2' x 4' frames for reflection points. The back wall is completely diffused with amps and guitars. Does that count?
I think it is awesome how many of you have the Neumann KH120's.
I think it is awesome how many of you have the Neumann KH120's.
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Anything you do is better than not doing anything at all. That's a good start. Doing the corners and first reflection points will help, but remember that bass is omnidirctional; high frequencies - with their short wavelengths - are very directional. So while you only need absorbers at the first reflection points on the side walls for the most part, the front walls and rear walls will reflect a TON of low frequency energy, and corner traps are not enough for effective bass trapping.
This becomes even worse in a small, nearly square room, where sound waves will bounce around in nearly even multiples.
Diffusion counts, and depending how close they are together, may be enough for that purpose, but you still have to do something about the low frequency energy pointing toward that back wall and reflecting back to your ears, to the front wall to bounce yet again, etc.
So it counts, but it isn't nearly enough. The smaller the room, of course, the more low frequencies will be bouncing off that wall. You can't escape the laws of physics with diffusion alone.
All that bouncing around is what causes the acoustical problems as the sound waves collide, build up, cancel each other out, etc. Speakers that show up perfectly flat in an anechoic chamber will have as many peaks and valleys in frequency response as lesser speakers.
In other words, the place to begin is to trap bass in the front walls, the back walls, the corners, and often, at the wall-ceiling intersection in other areas.
I would consider professionally designed panels that also incorporate a little diffusion so your room doesn't sound 'dead' since bass traps will also absorb high frequencies you do want to hear. Companies like RealTraps, ASC and others understand this and their bass traps include this.
I realize this is more expensive, but to make that room sound reasonably listenable, you will need quite a bit of bass trapping. Therefore, you don't want all the highs to be absorbed and have the room sound dead. At the very least, explore how to accomplish this with home-made panels.
On the first reflection points along the side walls, however, you DO want complete absorption of high frequencies.
I don't use them, but they're very good speakers, especially for the investment required.I think it is awesome how many of you have the Neumann KH120's.
When Sennheiser (Neumann's parent company for years) bought Klein & Hummel, a very highly regarded, higher end studio monitor brand, they inherited some very good speaker designs, and all they had to do was change the badging. The original KH120s are from that K&H legacy.
Neumann sells very good transducers and electronics. I love their mics and use them.
You don't need a ton of amplifier power in a 10 x 12 space, so the amps built into the KH120s will adequately fill your room.
I'll post a pic of my no-big-deal, but reasonably good-sounding space below. It may help with some ideas of how what you want to do can be accomplished.
MirrorProfiles
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Big disagree with absorbers on the front wall. Porous absorption won’t do anything meaningful below 100hz or so, resonance based panels are required for the low end (where most modal problems will be). Better to put the panels where they’re most effective, and use a reflective front wall to your advantage.
I would also heed caution to diffusion, especially in a small room. Diffusers only tend to work over a narrow band and you can get similar results with regular hard reflective surfaces in areas you want to liven up. Diffusers are essentially distortion, IMO it’s not good to have them anywhere near the monitors unless you want to purposefully mess with the imaging.
Diffusers are quite costly and heavy and take up room that can be better used to treat more problematic issues. With a hard front wall it’s likely you won’t need diffusion - with absorbers on the front wall and everywhere else, a room can suddenly feel overly dead and uncomfortable to be in, and all the big modal bass problems will be just as bad.
I would also heed caution to diffusion, especially in a small room. Diffusers only tend to work over a narrow band and you can get similar results with regular hard reflective surfaces in areas you want to liven up. Diffusers are essentially distortion, IMO it’s not good to have them anywhere near the monitors unless you want to purposefully mess with the imaging.
Diffusers are quite costly and heavy and take up room that can be better used to treat more problematic issues. With a hard front wall it’s likely you won’t need diffusion - with absorbers on the front wall and everywhere else, a room can suddenly feel overly dead and uncomfortable to be in, and all the big modal bass problems will be just as bad.
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Here’s a couple of shots of my space. It has some advantages and some drawbacks, but I do mix music and post for national ads and indie films successfully here, and the tracks translate to large audio post mixing rooms without unpleasant surprises.
The main advantage is that the room is 33 feet long, I was able to pull the listening position close to 30% into the room to get the speakers away from the front wall far enough to minimize half-space boundary reflections. It’s also long enough that low frequency wavelengths can propagate.
The acoustical treatment is from RealTraps, whose owner provided much-appreciated help with placement.
The first pic is the front of the room that’s the workstation area;
This is the rear of the room for live musicians and my amps, etc.
If you want to check out some of the work I’ve created here, my website is www.leslieschefman.com.
I mention this because I always wonder if people handing out free advice on the internet have ever done Jack Sh!t. You can decide for yourself!
There are pages with film and video -some of my ads, though the ads on the video page (just below a PBS short I scored) starts out with the opening video intro done for one of Carrie Underwood’s tours; however, there's also a page of orchestral work and a page of electronic music.
The main advantage is that the room is 33 feet long, I was able to pull the listening position close to 30% into the room to get the speakers away from the front wall far enough to minimize half-space boundary reflections. It’s also long enough that low frequency wavelengths can propagate.
The acoustical treatment is from RealTraps, whose owner provided much-appreciated help with placement.
The first pic is the front of the room that’s the workstation area;
This is the rear of the room for live musicians and my amps, etc.
If you want to check out some of the work I’ve created here, my website is www.leslieschefman.com.
I mention this because I always wonder if people handing out free advice on the internet have ever done Jack Sh!t. You can decide for yourself!
There are pages with film and video -some of my ads, though the ads on the video page (just below a PBS short I scored) starts out with the opening video intro done for one of Carrie Underwood’s tours; however, there's also a page of orchestral work and a page of electronic music.
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No worries. There's plenty of room for fair and open disagreement. The panels on my front wall are limp mass bass traps with diffusion strips under the fabric.
No two rooms are alike. The bass traps on the front wall helped solve a significant problem that may have been unique to my room, or not. In any case, the room sounds right. Adding the front wall panels definitely made the imaging and audio clearer.
What's best is to determine what one's room needs. The room I work in isn't a big deal, and I don't claim it is. One thing it does not do is sound dead, however.
Many Russ Berger rooms, such as one I've worked a ton in, Cutters, as well as rooms like Record Plant LA, Plus XXX in Paris, and Polygram's studio Wisselloord in the Netherlands, where I've also worked, have absorption on the front walls beneath the mains, BTW.
Other rooms have not. They worked well, too, and all were indeed different shapes and sizes.
My room works for me, and my clients like the results. But as I said, every room and situation is different.
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Beautiful room Laszlo! I would have regained respect from my wife and dogs if mine were that clean. Your mixes sounded really good.
For my front wall I'm probably going to hang a set of piano keys glued together at varying heights above dual 32" screens. Under my desk I have combo amps and small cabinets. I'm going to do a 4" thick panel for under the desk behind the amps. I'm also going to try to wrap the whole room with String Swing rail guitar hangers and hang the bass traps from them.
I appreciate the advice from everyone.
For my front wall I'm probably going to hang a set of piano keys glued together at varying heights above dual 32" screens. Under my desk I have combo amps and small cabinets. I'm going to do a 4" thick panel for under the desk behind the amps. I'm also going to try to wrap the whole room with String Swing rail guitar hangers and hang the bass traps from them.
I appreciate the advice from everyone.
MirrorProfiles
Rock Star
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Totally agree, and as you say the main thing is for it to feel comfortable and give the user good results. The main thing is that you are very happy with it all, so I absolutely welcome anyone to disagree with my suggestions/comments.
(This is more for others reading it just so they don't get confused) Limp mass membrane traps are VERY different to broadband absorbers. They are an excellent solution for dealing with low modal issues, but are a very different thing to putting broadband panels up. Limp mass membrane traps require careful design and positioning to be effective and should only really be undertaken with professional guidance. They are tuned to specific frequencies with a narrower Q and you design the panel specifically for the room in question. Every room has different dimensions and issues, so they can't really be sold off the shelf. Likewise, for modal resonance based traps the positioning is somewhat forgiving because they are below the Schroeder frequency. The studio designer I used recommended to put limp mass panels across the entirety of my rear wall, with porous absorption in front of them (approx 1m deep of treatment).
I like the RFZ approach used by Northward Acoustics (and others), For soffit or infinite baffle designs, the front wall is going to be solid otherwise the concept doesn't work properly. The hard wall will help the efficiency and headroom of the speakers too, vs having panels behind. I had panels on my front wall for many years and moving them to other positions in the room helped massively. My room is about as bog standard construction and dimensions as you can get, and I know many very well regarded studio designers who insist on this approach (aside from very specific mitigating circumstances).
Absolutely. Ultimately you have to make it right for yourself, not for idiots online like me. Ultimately you did the best thing by using professionals to help you achieve your goals.
Ed DeGenaro
Shredder
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Of the ones you mention I have experience with Adam’s A7, Eris and Kali IN.
I still use Kali but their low midrange is very pronounced.
The Adam I never dug and I would rather mix on iLouds than Eris.
If you want low A on bass that’s 27,5 Hz, ain’t gonna translate without a sub.
Ed DeGenaro
Shredder
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but in a 5 string bass tuned down a whole step that frequency would 27,5 Hz (A0)
MirrorProfiles
Rock Star
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I’d actually say 10ft x 12ft with an average ceiling height isn’t too bad at all, the modes are spread quite evenly. The worst problems are when modes land on the same frequency, then the peaks and dips can be very pronounced and hard to deal with. The ideal is spreading them out as much as possible (especially for the axial modes which have the most energy).
A pair of subs is almost always going to be better than one. The room modes at 46Hz, 56Hz, 72Hz etc are going to be there regardless of whether you use a sub or not.
A pair of subs is almost always going to be better than one. The room modes at 46Hz, 56Hz, 72Hz etc are going to be there regardless of whether you use a sub or not.
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Jarick
Rock Star
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On paper the JC-40 was KILLER. In reality the hiss was so annoying. The clean tone with the chorus and reverb was amazing. Probably not the same as a good vintage JC-120 but still really good.
I wish they just some damn thought and effort into it. Make a real fully analog Jazz Chorus that fixes the amp issues. It shouldn't be that expensive right? Just a good tank reverb, a CE-1 circuit, etc.
I did a lot of measurements and there were for sure benefits to isolation. I like the Iso Stands...got bigger and smaller ones. For me the biggest difference was height, getting them well above the desk to avoid reflections.
Perfect world I'd have a bigger room with a better layout so I could get my desk several feet off the wall instead of the 18" or so it is now. Then monitors on good stands with a small/low desk. But I like a big desk for work and that's more important so I compromise with the smaller monitors, that right now are on desk mounted stands.
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You clearly know your stuff and I welcome your advice and comments!
A problem in my room is the small nook on the front wall that makes it uneven. Might be why the bass traps help?
I forgot to mention that I refer to my room as Studio Craptastic!
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