|
Post by Tbone81 on Jul 6, 2020 13:14:01 GMT -6
Some of you may have seen me talk about this on a recent thread. I just got a pair of 705p's to replace my Adam a7's. Set them up last night and I've spent all morning listening, adjusting, listening some more, adjusting some more, A/B'ing etc. Here are my thoughts so far (as compared to my A7's).
The Good:
- Very wide stereo image - Amazing phantom center - Wide sweet spot - Lots of bass, especially for such a small speaker - Not fatiguing or harsh in the upper mids/highs
The Bad:
- The low end is huge but looses clarity, making it hard to eq bass/kick/sub synths etc - There's a strange lower mid sound, like 300-500hz that makes things sound less defined in that area.
- They are "soft" sounding if that makes any sense. Transients are less pronounced and easier on the ears. There's less snap to drums, snare, pick attack on acoustic guitars etc.
Conclusion so far:
I like my A7's better so far. I'd forgotten how mid-forward they are and I think I've grown to like that sound. It helps when I'm eq'ing and balancing guitars especially. The A7's have way less bass overall, but they're also more defined in the lower mids, making it easier to hear the separation between instruments. I've compared both the A7's and 705ps against each other with and without my sub. I also tweaked the eq on the 705's and got a much better sound using a high shelf at 2k +3.5db, and a low shelf at 80hz - 2db. So basically I made a huge tilt eq and it seemed to tame the bass and add high end clarity in a nice way. Both sound better when used with my sub which crossover at 80hz.
Based on just these two sets of monitors I think I'd love a set of monitors that has the mid-forwardness of the A7's with wide stereo image and huge sweet spot of the 705p's. Basically, I think I want a better version of the Adams.
I normally use IK ARC room correction when I mix but for these tests I left it off. I'll probably do a measurement of the 705p's and then compare again w/ the room correction.
As it stands however, I'm thinking of selling the 705p's. It's still early but that's what my gut is telling me.
|
|
|
Post by EmRR on Jul 6, 2020 13:19:23 GMT -6
Someone once describe the JBL sound as 'muscle car stereo', and I got that.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2020 13:36:14 GMT -6
I say ditch em. Get something like the Hedd 07 or the GoldenEar bookshelves. You’re never going to get a wide sweetspot from AMT tweeters.
If you want to ditch them for wide dispersion soft dome tweeters, consider ATC SCM19 or 20 or Quested H108 because you already have a sub. All the crazy waveguides create unnaturally wide stereo center to me and are mostly detrimental to the sound in decent rooms despite controlling dispersion in poor rooms. The unnaturally huge sweet spot makes panning inaccurate to me too. I hate panning to overheads on waveguide speakers.
The midrange issue is port resonance. The transient issue is because it’s a smaller, boxier monitor with really crappy Crown class d amps that are doing the JBL drivers a disservice. The bass is because it’s a small porter monitor with a heavily boosted bass and digital limiters on it. The JBL 708 is a better speaker but I doubt you’ll like it.
|
|
|
Post by Tbone81 on Jul 6, 2020 13:40:08 GMT -6
I should add that on vocals I could hear much more breath, saliva, lip smacking, with the a7's. The JBL's were probably more "pleasant" to listen to, but not revealing in a way that I want. Could be that the a7's just have an exaggerated upper mid section so I'm noticing those things more.
Also, my room is heavily treated but far from perfect. It's a little on the dry/dull sounding side of the spectrum but the bass response (in my room) has been surprisingly good. I struggle mostly with the high end and upper mids. Reverbs, delays, sibilance etc Are challenging at times. My first round of mixes usually sound "plasticy and sharp" in that region and I have usually have to make adjustments in that region after referring on other speakers/car/headphones etc.
|
|
|
Post by Tbone81 on Jul 6, 2020 13:44:31 GMT -6
I say ditch em. Get something like the Hedd 07 or the GoldenEar bookshelves. You’re never going to get a wide sweetspot from AMT tweeters. If you want to ditch them for wide dispersion soft dome tweeters, consider ATC SCM19 or 20 or Quested H108 because you already have a sub. All the crazy waveguides create unnaturally wide stereo center to me and are mostly detrimental to the sound in decent rooms despite controlling dispersion in poor rooms. The unnaturally huge sweet spot makes panning inaccurate to me too. The midrange issue is port resonance. The transient issue is because it’s a smaller, boxier monitor with really crappy Crown class d amps that are doing the JBL drivers a disservice. The bass is because it’s a small porter monitor with a heavily boosted bass and digital limiters on it. The JBL 708 is a better speaker but I doubt you’ll like it. Thanks! That gives me a lot to consider. I definitely feel like the lows are unnaturally hyped on them, almost like what you get from those TV sound bars w/ sub. The lows sound good, but making mix decisions on them? Yikes...it already has me sweating.
The 708's I think would be too big for my room. I have bad experiences with 8" drivers in small rooms like mine. They tend to be over powering.
I'll check out those suggestions though.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
JBL 705p
Jul 6, 2020 13:49:22 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2020 13:49:22 GMT -6
There’s a tonal difference but it’s also just the good Adam X-Art AMT and meh class ab amps being much more detailed than the PA system like compression driver tweeters and Crown class d amps to me. The JBL crazy waveguide monitors all have boosted treble due to the hornflare too. I typically hate everything but soft domes but like the Adam X-ART tweeter. I despise what’s in the cheapo Adams.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
JBL 705p
Jul 6, 2020 13:54:47 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2020 13:54:47 GMT -6
I say ditch em. Get something like the Hedd 07 or the GoldenEar bookshelves. You’re never going to get a wide sweetspot from AMT tweeters. If you want to ditch them for wide dispersion soft dome tweeters, consider ATC SCM19 or 20 or Quested H108 because you already have a sub. All the crazy waveguides create unnaturally wide stereo center to me and are mostly detrimental to the sound in decent rooms despite controlling dispersion in poor rooms. The unnaturally huge sweet spot makes panning inaccurate to me too. The midrange issue is port resonance. The transient issue is because it’s a smaller, boxier monitor with really crappy Crown class d amps that are doing the JBL drivers a disservice. The bass is because it’s a small porter monitor with a heavily boosted bass and digital limiters on it. The JBL 708 is a better speaker but I doubt you’ll like it. Thanks! That gives me a lot to consider. I definitely feel like the lows are unnaturally hyped on them, almost like what you get from those TV sound bars w/ sub. The lows sound good, but making mix decisions on them? Yikes...it already has me sweating.
The 708's I think would be too big for my room. I have bad experiences with 8" drivers in small rooms like mine. They tend to be over powering.
I'll check out those suggestions though.
Great tv sound bar analogy. That’s how I feel about all the 5” active monitors with bass I’ve used (mostly JBL 305s, KRK Rokit 5s, and Neumann KH120s but I’ve heard most of them) in any room.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jul 6, 2020 14:33:22 GMT -6
I always found the JBLs to be soft, and I'd agree that the things you describe are almost exactly what I found with my LSR4238p's. I really appreciated how easy they were to listen to though. I could work all day and not even think about taking an ear rest.
Give them a couple weeks flat without EQ and see how your ears like them then. it's hard to break habits of expecting things to sound a certain way. just listen to music on them and let them break in a little and then do a mix after a while and you might be surprised.
Remember, it's not how they sound in comparison to other speakers, it's how your mix translates to other speakers when using these as your monitors. I found my JBLs to translate pretty well.
I still say that the Burchardt S400 is probably the best small monitor I've listened to. I wish I had kept mine.
|
|
|
Post by EmRR on Jul 6, 2020 14:42:11 GMT -6
The JBL 708 is a better speaker but I doubt you’ll like it. The 708's I think would be too big for my room. I have bad experiences with 8" drivers in small rooms like mine. They tend to be over powering. I'll add 705P's are my mains, they replaced LSR28P's with 8's. The 705's pretty much beat the LSR28P's in the low mids and bass in my room. My room is essentially an LPF so bass is much hotter than reality, and the 28P's in hindsight did seem to overpower it. Put both speakers in another room, the 28's still sound much boxier in the low mids, and the extreme bottom is tighter in the 705's. Haven't heard a 708. Haven't heard an a7. Rough in is always the 705's, with rotations to old Monitor One's, and a Wohler AMP1A boradcast monitor with 1.5" speakers. Critical mix level and EQ decisions either on the Wohler or headphones. Corroboration on Klipsch La Scala's and Advent 2002's at home, then car check. Not a system I own would be considered sufficient for critical imaging decisions, esp given the high percentage of headphone listening. I've never owned a sub, or mixed with one other than PA systems.
|
|
|
Post by Tbone81 on Jul 6, 2020 14:43:21 GMT -6
I say ditch em. Get something like the Hedd 07 or the GoldenEar bookshelves. You’re never going to get a wide sweetspot from AMT tweeters. I forgot about Hedd's, how would you compare them to the Adams? Also, have you used the Eve's? Never having heard either, it seems like they're from the same family of sound as the Adams. They both seem super affordable.
My fear is that in the <$2000/pair price range I'm not going to get better, only different.
|
|
|
Post by EmRR on Jul 6, 2020 14:43:48 GMT -6
I always found the JBLs to be soft, and I'd agree that the things you describe are almost exactly what I found with my LSR4238p's. I really appreciated how easy they were to listen to though. I could work all day and not even think about taking an ear rest. Give them a couple weeks flat without EQ and see how your ears like them then. it's hard to break habits of expecting things to sound a certain way. just listen to music on them and let them break in a little and then do a mix after a while and you might be surprised. Remember, it's not how they sound in comparison to other speakers, it's how your mix translates to other speakers when using these as your monitors. I found my JBLs to translate pretty well. This ^ I have always appreciated the lack of ear fatigue. Most other speakers leave me feeling pretty burnt within a couple of hours, and I don't mix loud.
|
|
|
Post by Tbone81 on Jul 6, 2020 14:48:59 GMT -6
Remember, it's not how they sound in comparison to other speakers, it's how your mix translates to other speakers when using these as your monitors. I found my JBLs to translate pretty well. I'm trying to keep that in mind. I haven't mixed anything on them yet but I can already tell I'm probably going to over emphasis the upper mids on the 705's.
I fully realize its as much to do with how I like to hear things as it is with over all quality. Not to mention room acoustics. I've heard amazing sounding monitors that sound awful in my room... Goddamn I wish this wasn't so hard.
|
|
|
Post by guitfiddler on Jul 6, 2020 17:33:01 GMT -6
Tbone- I feel your pain, still tweaking my room, my room sounds good, but I have never been happy with any monitor I’ve come across Sub $2000. I’ve had several in and out of my place, and the same ones tested in other rooms that I’ve let go. I liked the Adam A7X because it complimented my 1030 Genelecs very well. I haven’t heard the new JBL’s 700’s, but I would definitely like to hear them in my room
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Jul 7, 2020 4:21:09 GMT -6
Hmm, sounds like you would like the amphion one 15’s, for the natural high end and mid forward sound and your sub would compliment them?
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jul 7, 2020 10:43:13 GMT -6
Reading your comments, I don’t feel great recommending this because it’s like inviting someone to torture. But if it were me, I’d keep your original setup and seriously consider the CLA10s, $699 pair, and get a cheap fanless PA amp or Jim Williams. They aren’t perfect for today’s bass and highs heavy music. However the 1k-5k is the one area on NS10s that always work perfectly, while most monitors have giant dips in response, esp around 2.5k. I don’t know how many times I’m on Ns10s and not sure if I placed the vocal and snare properly.. should I bring it up or down 2dB? Then I go to other speakers... I’m shocked to find the vocal and snare is sitting perfectly, it’s just the lows that are a mess. And sometimes the highs. However my tweeters are like 30 years old, so I wonder.. seems the CLA10s are slightly more trebly on the spec sheet. Maybe they improved them in that area? If so you might get high mids and top end solved. Reviews say they sound terrible as usual, and expect 3 months of break in, but do their job as usual from the start. Of course, you might just be happier without them as many are LoL
|
|
ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,014
Member is Online
|
Post by ericn on Jul 7, 2020 19:19:32 GMT -6
All speakers are a compromise, the smaller the more compromised. 20 years ago nobody would have considered a 5in woofer to be a serious monitor, now everybody’s selling 3in! To an extent you get what you paid for with speakers, good drivers cost money as do amps. That said a good engineer can learn to work on a Bose sound bar, you just need to learn the speakers.
I’ll say it again we don’t listen to monitors we listen through monitors. Personally I don’t know how anybody can track without being able to hear at least a real 30HZ ! No wait I do know it’s that stuff I can’t stand listening to because the lowend is either nonexistent or sucks.
|
|
|
Post by EmRR on Jul 7, 2020 20:51:44 GMT -6
. Personally I don’t know how anybody can track without being able to hear at least a real 30HZ ! No wait I do know it’s that stuff I can’t stand listening to because the lowend is either nonexistent or sucks. How many people are in a ROOM that 30 can be heard properly in? Very very few, if nearly none. It does amaze me the 705’s beat the lsr28p’s in many regards. I had to hear it to believe it. Very hard to think I could step down in driver size without losing something; really I gained more in my space.
|
|
ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,014
Member is Online
|
Post by ericn on Jul 7, 2020 21:11:00 GMT -6
. Personally I don’t know how anybody can track without being able to hear at least a real 30HZ ! No wait I do know it’s that stuff I can’t stand listening to because the lowend is either nonexistent or sucks. How many people are in a ROOM that 30 can be heard properly in? Very very few, if nearly none. It does amaze me the 705’s beat the lsr28p’s in many regards. I had to hear it to believe it. Very hard to think I could step down in driver size without losing something; really I gained more in my space. First I do! I do! Second I have heard your recordings, what ever the monitors your using you know how to listen through them my friend!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2020 21:23:07 GMT -6
. Personally I don’t know how anybody can track without being able to hear at least a real 30HZ ! No wait I do know it’s that stuff I can’t stand listening to because the lowend is either nonexistent or sucks. How many people are in a ROOM that 30 can be heard properly in? Very very few, if nearly none. It does amaze me the 705’s beat the lsr28p’s in many regards. I had to hear it to believe it. Very hard to think I could step down in driver size without losing something; really I gained more in my space. The new JBL woofers are excellent. I can often hear a too high hpf on low tuned kicks even on 6.5” two way hifi speakers in a domestic room. Some guys will slap one on a 65hz tuned kick to match the rolloff of their small monitors. They deprive it of weight to avoid low end issues to slam everything into limiters after weakening it even more so with 10 bad plugins in a row.
|
|
ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,014
Member is Online
|
JBL 705p
Jul 7, 2020 21:47:03 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by ericn on Jul 7, 2020 21:47:03 GMT -6
How many people are in a ROOM that 30 can be heard properly in? Very very few, if nearly none. It does amaze me the 705’s beat the lsr28p’s in many regards. I had to hear it to believe it. Very hard to think I could step down in driver size without losing something; really I gained more in my space. The new JBL woofers are excellent. I can often hear a too high hpf on low tuned kicks even on 6.5” two way hifi speakers in a domestic room. Some guys will slap one on a 65hz tuned kick to match the rolloff of their small monitors. They deprive it of weight to avoid low end issues to slam everything into limiters after weakening it even more so with 10 bad plugins in a row. JBL has always known how to build a Driver, though I fear Samsung will forget.
|
|
|
Post by EmRR on Jul 7, 2020 21:51:14 GMT -6
Very hard to think I could step down in driver size without losing something; really I gained more in my space. Tangent/polar opposite. Most people haven’t heard horn speakers or quality home systems with a 15 so this may be hard to grok: The La Scala at home are horn loaded 15’s with a horn corner freq of 104hz, with much lower level non-horn response down maybe another octave. Know what they do uniquely? Barely a watt or two makes you feel bass transients inductively through the floor through your feet. 10 watts will deafen you and get the neighbors calling the police. They sound enormous at levels you can whisper over. It’s really obvious when something is off in a mix, including overly mashed dynamic range. I’ve never gotten that out of any speaker in my control room, and at 2x2x3 feet each they won’t fit in. Learn to hear through, and use as many filter types (speakers) as you need!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2020 22:17:25 GMT -6
The new JBL woofers are excellent. I can often hear a too high hpf on low tuned kicks even on 6.5” two way hifi speakers in a domestic room. Some guys will slap one on a 65hz tuned kick to match the rolloff of their small monitors. They deprive it of weight to avoid low end issues to slam everything into limiters after weakening it even more so with 10 bad plugins in a row. JBL has always known how to build a Driver, though I fear Samsung will forget. They’ve already gutted the service departments and the engineering talent has left. Kali Audio is ex JBL and instantly ditched the nasty horn flared high end of the current cheap JBL monitors. Those crappy class d crown amps need repairs a lot. Very hard to think I could step down in driver size without losing something; really I gained more in my space. Tangent/polar opposite. Most people haven’t heard horn speakers or quality home systems with a 15 so this may be hard to grok: The La Scala at home are horn loaded 15’s with a horn corner freq of 104hz, with much lower level non-horn response down maybe another octave. Know what they do uniquely? Barely a watt or two makes you feel bass transients inductively through the floor through your feet. They sound enormous at levels you can whisper over. It’s really obvious when something is off in a mix, including overly mashed dynamic range. I’ve never gotten that out of any speaker in my control room, and at 2x2x3 feet each they won’t fit in. Learn to hear through, and use as many filter types (speakers) as you need! Klipsch are great bs detectors. Horns and mains in general are just gone from smaller studios. I don’t know how the larger ones that still have horns or good fuller range three ways (no small dsp bs) could produce contemporary commercial mixes and masters and not have the engineers clench. some tiny limited sine wave current pop might that sound thickening on a low detail 3-5” woofer but isn’t a kick drum with a larger than life resonating high pass. It almost sounds like the music was mixed for farting subs and headphones with serious cup resonances.
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jul 8, 2020 0:07:12 GMT -6
I had a real epiphany earlier this year. The Few times that both wife and kids were gone, I had made a cart for my board and I finally was able to try the console to Kef 105 as monitors, in my living room which has a massive airspace (2 story open floor plan loft style track home). The KEFs go pretty deep. They’ve been hooked to my TV for couple years now, so I’m very used to hearing details on them. Anyway.. using those as “mains” and massive airspace I’m totally satisfied, I don’t want for anything. But I do have the NS10s as well, and I’d flip to those every so often. God it’s no fun to use those when the KEFs are right there. Then wife comes home, I have to stash everything back in the garage where I’ll be stuck on NS10s over there until she leaves again. (Which now means there’s no leaving ever)While in the garage though, I have close neighbors and have to use the NS10s very quietly ..and it seems to work.
What I realized is, I started mixing in my mind with the memory of how it will sound on the KEFs, but I’m using the NS10s. It’s like by when I was flipping from KEFs to Ns10, I learned how they sound vs when KEFs sound a certain way. None of this rendering and checking mixes, going back and remix, I could make adjustments on the fly and switch between pairs, actually hearing 30hz etc. And that taught my ears where they compare to each other in a weird way. The 10s were still best in figuring out the 2k range, so I did quite a bit of mixing back/forth.
It got me thinking about nearfields: the engineers who started using only near fields most likely learned how they worked versus the far fields so well that they didn’t really need to turn on the far fields so much anymore. Instead they could work quietly for many hours, with the speaker up close to their face where they could hear the detail= less fatigue and hearing damage, longer hours. It’s not that they were using the nearfeild to represent the whole spectrum. The NS10 was most likely another auratone, a small speaker you could bring close and work quietly. But instead of the single woofer like all car stereos and TVs had, the NS10 happens to have a tweeter like the boom boxes of the day. Makes sense to me this way. Especially quietly.. there’s zero NS10 fatigue when really quiet. It’s when I try to turn them up to ‘boombox level’ they kill me. Which in a big room with a client, you’d just switch to better sounding speakers for that.
So somewhere along the way the industry decided to turn the nearfield into a one stop shop...and now its expected the 2 way nearfeild to be at 80dB all day, and boost up to 105dB when we want, and fill every hole in the sprectrum. The reality is, that’s a whole lot to ask for a low price. The more expensive ones are certainly better, and tech may exceed my KEFs, but I can’t think of an affordable one that will beat the KEFs I have. That’s why I’m kind of in a conundrum.. the speakers that will improve my situation are likely very pricey.
Well, maybe this theory of mine is BS.. thought I’d share.
The JBLs impress me, and I’ve been curious so thanks for sharing your experience!
|
|
ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,014
Member is Online
|
JBL 705p
Jul 8, 2020 9:03:20 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by ericn on Jul 8, 2020 9:03:20 GMT -6
JBL has always known how to build a Driver, though I fear Samsung will forget. They’ve already gutted the service departments and the engineering talent has left. Kali Audio is ex JBL and instantly ditched the nasty horn flared high end of the current cheap JBL monitors. Those crappy class d crown amps need repairs a lot. Tangent/polar opposite. Most people haven’t heard horn speakers or quality home systems with a 15 so this may be hard to grok: The La Scala at home are horn loaded 15’s with a horn corner freq of 104hz, with much lower level non-horn response down maybe another octave. Know what they do uniquely? Barely a watt or two makes you feel bass transients inductively through the floor through your feet. They sound enormous at levels you can whisper over. It’s really obvious when something is off in a mix, including overly mashed dynamic range. I’ve never gotten that out of any speaker in my control room, and at 2x2x3 feet each they won’t fit in. Learn to hear through, and use as many filter types (speakers) as you need! Klipsch are great bs detectors. Horns and mains in general are just gone from smaller studios. I don’t know how the larger ones that still have horns or good fuller range three ways (no small dsp bs) could produce contemporary commercial mixes and masters and not have the engineers clench. some tiny limited sine wave current pop might that sound thickening on a low detail 3-5” woofer but isn’t a kick drum with a larger than life resonating high pass. It almost sounds like the music was mixed for farting subs and headphones with serious cup resonances. Big Kilpsch are fun, but they are even better if you upgrade the drivers and dampen the horns! There are a couple of companies specializing in Klipsch upgrades, but simply screwing in a stock Radian one inch can make a huge difference!
|
|
ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,014
Member is Online
|
JBL 705p
Jul 8, 2020 9:09:39 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by ericn on Jul 8, 2020 9:09:39 GMT -6
I had a real epiphany earlier this year. The Few times that both wife and kids were gone, I had made a cart for my board and I finally was able to try the console to Kef 105 as monitors, in my living room which has a massive airspace (2 story open floor plan loft style track home). The KEFs go pretty deep. They’ve been hooked to my TV for couple years now, so I’m very used to hearing details on them. Anyway.. using those as “mains” and massive airspace I’m totally satisfied, I don’t want for anything. But I do have the NS10s as well, and I’d flip to those every so often. God it’s no fun to use those when the KEFs are right there. Then wife comes home, I have to stash everything back in the garage where I’ll be stuck on NS10s over there until she leaves again. (Which now means there’s no leaving ever)While in the garage though, I have close neighbors and have to use the NS10s very quietly ..and it seems to work. What I realized is, I started mixing in my mind with the memory of how it will sound on the KEFs, but I’m using the NS10s. It’s like by when I was flipping from KEFs to Ns10, I learned how they sound vs when KEFs sound a certain way. None of this rendering and checking mixes, going back and remix, I could make adjustments on the fly and switch between pairs, actually hearing 30hz etc. And that taught my ears where they compare to each other in a weird way. The 10s were still best in figuring out the 2k range, so I did quite a bit of mixing back/forth. It got me thinking about nearfields: the engineers who started using only near fields most likely learned how they worked versus the far fields so well that they didn’t really need to turn on the far fields so much anymore. Instead they could work quietly for many hours, with the speaker up close to their face where they could hear the detail= less fatigue and hearing damage, longer hours. It’s not that they were using the nearfeild to represent the whole spectrum. The NS10 was most likely another auratone, a small speaker you could bring close and work quietly. But instead of the single woofer like all car stereos and TVs had, the NS10 happens to have a tweeter like the boom boxes of the day. Makes sense to me this way. Especially quietly.. there’s zero NS10 fatigue when really quiet. It’s when I try to turn them up to ‘boombox level’ they kill me. Which in a big room with a client, you’d just switch to better sounding speakers for that. So somewhere along the way the industry decided to turn the nearfield into a one stop shop...and now its expected the 2 way nearfeild to be at 80dB all day, and boost up to 105dB when we want, and fill every hole in the sprectrum. The reality is, that’s a whole lot to ask for a low price. The more expensive ones are certainly better, and tech may exceed my KEFs, but I can’t think of an affordable one that will beat the KEFs I have. That’s why I’m kind of in a conundrum.. the speakers that will improve my situation are likely very pricey. Well, maybe this theory of mine is BS.. thought I’d share. The JBLs impress me, and I’ve been curious so thanks for sharing your experience! Those little KEF’s are an amazing little speaker for the money, if you can live with their limitations. While I wouldn’t call the lowend thunderous, for the size it’s impressive and doable. Always wanted to hear them with a pair of REL or JL Labs subs ! One of the biggest problems today is that everybody wants to use the near fields as mini mains as well and don’t have a second very different sounding pair to do a check.
|
|