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Post by kcatthedog on Jul 4, 2024 17:04:10 GMT -6
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 4, 2024 17:51:11 GMT -6
Well on paper it actually looks like they have been listening to what people see as the limitations of the 300-310, but the proof will be what they sound like. |
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Post by Dan on Jul 4, 2024 18:32:16 GMT -6
They just updated the old one. They made the crossovers and amps worse on the kh 120 II to bump up the headroom and low end for producers.
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Post by Ward on Jul 9, 2024 7:53:33 GMT -6
I think these are going to be great mid-field monitors . . . but don't think they can replace Nearfields. Which is a problem for me. I'm still using KH120s and there are things that I can't hear with them that show up on other monitors and even consumer audio devices. The mark II doesn't address this issue! |
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Post by svart on Jul 9, 2024 9:13:55 GMT -6
Well on paper it actually looks like they have been listening to what people see as the limitations of the 300-310, but the proof will be what they sound like. What limitations are those? |
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Post by ericn on Jul 9, 2024 10:16:08 GMT -6
Well on paper it actually looks like they have been listening to what people see as the limitations of the 300-310, but the proof will be what they sound like. What limitations are those? The Amps, like most Modern K&H there have been complaints that they don’t play loud and the the limiters on the LF amp come on to quickly screwing up LF balance. |
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Post by svart on Jul 9, 2024 10:38:32 GMT -6
What limitations are those? The Amps, like most Modern K&H there have been complaints that they don’t play loud and the the limiters on the LF amp come on to quickly screwing up LF balance. Well I don't play mine loud. Loudest I've had them is just above normal monitoring level so the deaf singer can hear it better while we check out takes, lol. But I also don't hear a single hint of any of the issues some folks have claimed the KH series have. I do use the digital inputs though, so I don't know if the analog has a different sound. |
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Post by ericn on Jul 9, 2024 11:42:56 GMT -6
The Amps, like most Modern K&H there have been complaints that they don’t play loud and the the limiters on the LF amp come on to quickly screwing up LF balance. Well I don't play mine loud. Loudest I've had them is just above normal monitoring level so the deaf singer can hear it better while we check out takes, lol. But I also don't hear a single hint of any of the issues some folks have claimed the KH series have. I do use the digital inputs though, so I don't know if the analog has a different sound. You haven’t had any problems that’s great for you others have found these limitations to be less than satisfactory. I’ll admit it’s always fun when a K&H owner hears the Questeds. |
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Post by professorplum on Jul 11, 2024 21:37:02 GMT -6
I looked but couldn't find any information about the KH series being updated recently. Anybody got a link? ericn, what pair of Questeds do you have? |
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Post by ericn on Jul 12, 2024 5:46:47 GMT -6
I looked but couldn't find any information about the KH series being updated recently. Anybody got a link? ericn, what pair of Questeds do you have? Older H208’s passives with 2 Volt 8’s Vifa 3in mids Morell Softdome tweeter. |
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Post by Quint on Jul 12, 2024 6:51:57 GMT -6
Well I don't play mine loud. Loudest I've had them is just above normal monitoring level so the deaf singer can hear it better while we check out takes, lol. But I also don't hear a single hint of any of the issues some folks have claimed the KH series have. I do use the digital inputs though, so I don't know if the analog has a different sound. You haven’t had any problems that’s great for you others have found these limitations to be less than satisfactory. I’ll admit it’s always fun when a K&H owner hears the Questeds. At what level of loudness are we talking about, where these issues arise? I don't notice any of these issues either. But I use mine as near fields because, that's what they are, at least as far as I'm concerned. And at near field volume levels, I just don't hear any of these issues. Maybe people are trying to use the 310s at louder volumes than they were really intended? |
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Post by ericn on Jul 12, 2024 6:54:29 GMT -6
The 300 was originally and the 310 as well as midfields. That’s where people seam to have an issue.
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Post by Quint on Jul 12, 2024 6:58:46 GMT -6
What limitations are those? The Amps, like most Modern K&H there have been complaints that they don’t play loud and the the limiters on the LF amp come on to quickly screwing up LF balance. When you refer to the limiters coming on, are you talking about when the red lights come on at high volumes? Or are there some other limiters that come on before you get to the red light warning? If we're talking about the limiters that come on, as indicated by the red lights on the front of the 310s, I've only ever had those red lights come on once, and that's because I intentionally had the 310s turned up beyond where I would normally monitor at. Numerous cocktails and NIN's "The Fragile" were involved. So, lots of alcohol, bass, and a slowly creeping upward volume level. But I wouldn't ever be working at those volumes. But, other than that one time, no issues. And this is in a 650 sq ft room. I guess if people want to use the 310s as midfields, then maybe they'd have issues. I don't know. I've never really had a practical need to turn them up that loud. I have a pair of JBLs that I can use as "mains" if I just need to crank stuff up really loud for the sake of being really loud. |
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Post by svart on Jul 12, 2024 7:04:44 GMT -6
You haven’t had any problems that’s great for you others have found these limitations to be less than satisfactory. I’ll admit it’s always fun when a K&H owner hears the Questeds. At what level of loudness are we talking about, where these issues arise? I don't notice any of these issues either. But I use mine as near fields because, that's what they are, at least as far as I'm concerned. And at near field volume levels, I just don't hear any of these issues. Maybe people are trying to use the 310s at louder volumes than they were really intended? I don't hear any of this stuff either. Dan keeps going on and on about how terrible they are and I haven't heard a single problem that he says these have. Again, I use mine with the digital inputs, so maybe that's why. I did have an issue with distortion once, but it turned out that I had my audio send to the speakers turned up too high and the digital audio was distorted on the SPDIF stream. The speakers will dutifully play whatever you send them and there is NO indication that the SPDIF stream is overrange unlike the analog inputs. It's very possible that people have run into this as well but didn't know what they were hearing and assumed it was the speaker limiting the audio.. But otherwise, I've played them loud enough to be uncomfortable sitting in front of them and haven't heard any issues other than my ears ringing. |
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Post by Quint on Jul 12, 2024 7:20:08 GMT -6
At what level of loudness are we talking about, where these issues arise? I don't notice any of these issues either. But I use mine as near fields because, that's what they are, at least as far as I'm concerned. And at near field volume levels, I just don't hear any of these issues. Maybe people are trying to use the 310s at louder volumes than they were really intended? I don't hear any of this stuff either. Dan keeps going on and on about how terrible they are and I haven't heard a single problem that he says these have. Again, I use mine with the digital inputs, so maybe that's why. I did have an issue with distortion once, but it turned out that I had my audio send to the speakers turned up too high and the digital audio was distorted on the SPDIF stream. The speakers will dutifully play whatever you send them and there is NO indication that the SPDIF stream is overrange unlike the analog inputs. It's very possible that people have run into this as well but didn't know what they were hearing and assumed it was the speaker limiting the audio.. But otherwise, I've played them loud enough to be uncomfortable sitting in front of them and haven't heard any issues other than my ears ringing. Mine are all analog. No digital inputs. I still don't encounter these issues either. It sounds like it's maybe a fault of certain users wanting these to be something they're not, rather than this being a fault of the 310s. If you want "mains" speakers, go buy mains speakers. But for nearfield use, I just don't have an issue with the 310s. I think they're great, and I don't have any desire to upgrade. Maybe it's the use of the term "midfields"? Neumann calls the 310s nearfields, but some people have taken to referring to them as midfields. The term "midfields" has always seemed like a bit of a weird term to me. Nearfields are nearfields for a reason. You sit relatively close to them to help reduce some of the room problems you encounter when sitting further away in a "mains" situation. In a midfield situation, what does that mean? 10 feet away? 15? 20? The term "midfield" seems to exist moreso in aspirationally subjective gray territory than it does in any sort of objectively distinct monitoring scenario. Get nearfields for nearfields monitoring, and then accordingly get bigger more powerful monitors as your room gets bigger and/or as you need/want more volume or your monitoring distance increasess. But for a nearfield monitoring scenario, the 310s seem to be plenty loud without any compromise coming from built in limiters. |
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Post by thehightenor on Jul 12, 2024 7:39:51 GMT -6
I had my finger burnt with speakers from this company - never again (changed to ATC)
But I'm sure these will sound quite good - the 0410's were always a step up from the 0300's.
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Post by svart on Jul 12, 2024 8:32:05 GMT -6
I don't hear any of this stuff either. Dan keeps going on and on about how terrible they are and I haven't heard a single problem that he says these have. Again, I use mine with the digital inputs, so maybe that's why. I did have an issue with distortion once, but it turned out that I had my audio send to the speakers turned up too high and the digital audio was distorted on the SPDIF stream. The speakers will dutifully play whatever you send them and there is NO indication that the SPDIF stream is overrange unlike the analog inputs. It's very possible that people have run into this as well but didn't know what they were hearing and assumed it was the speaker limiting the audio.. But otherwise, I've played them loud enough to be uncomfortable sitting in front of them and haven't heard any issues other than my ears ringing. Mine are all analog. No digital inputs. I still don't encounter these issues either. It sounds like it's maybe a fault of certain users wanting these to be something they're not, rather than this being a fault of the 310s. If you want "mains" speakers, go buy mains speakers. But for nearfield use, I just don't have an issue with the 310s. I think they're great, and I don't have any desire to upgrade. Maybe it's the use of the term "midfields"? Neumann calls the 310s nearfields, but some people have taken to referring to them as midfields. The term "midfields" has always seemed like a bit of a weird term to me. Nearfields are nearfields for a reason. You sit relatively close to them to help reduce some of the room problems you encounter when sitting further away in a "mains" situation. In a midfield situation, what does that mean? 10 feet away? 15? 20? The term "midfield" seems to exist moreso in aspirationally subjective gray territory than it does in any sort of objectively distinct monitoring scenario. Get nearfields for nearfields monitoring, and then accordingly get bigger more powerful monitors as your room gets bigger and/or as you need/want more volume or your monitoring distance increasess. But for a nearfield monitoring scenario, the 310s seem to be plenty loud without any compromise coming from built in limiters. I think the xxxfield definition has more to do with the overlap pattern of the driver emissions. Small drivers are typically placed close enough together that their emissions will mix relatively close to the speaker face, and can therefore be placed a lot closer to the ear. But the 310 has such good waveguides that I listen as close as 1.5ft and don't hear much beaming from the drivers at all unless I'm closer than that. At 2-3ft away, it's perfect. I would functionally call these nearfields in that regard. Sealed boxes of such a small size will become inefficient at louder volumes, so I could see how someone would distort the woofers by pumping up the volume to levels much higher than intended to be used. But then again, people have been burning out tweeters in NS10's for decades doing the same things.. So it's a human error rather than a design one. The audio world has always been filled with folks misusing equipment and then proclaiming the equipment sucks. |
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Post by Quint on Jul 12, 2024 9:07:39 GMT -6
Mine are all analog. No digital inputs. I still don't encounter these issues either. It sounds like it's maybe a fault of certain users wanting these to be something they're not, rather than this being a fault of the 310s. If you want "mains" speakers, go buy mains speakers. But for nearfield use, I just don't have an issue with the 310s. I think they're great, and I don't have any desire to upgrade. Maybe it's the use of the term "midfields"? Neumann calls the 310s nearfields, but some people have taken to referring to them as midfields. The term "midfields" has always seemed like a bit of a weird term to me. Nearfields are nearfields for a reason. You sit relatively close to them to help reduce some of the room problems you encounter when sitting further away in a "mains" situation. In a midfield situation, what does that mean? 10 feet away? 15? 20? The term "midfield" seems to exist moreso in aspirationally subjective gray territory than it does in any sort of objectively distinct monitoring scenario. Get nearfields for nearfields monitoring, and then accordingly get bigger more powerful monitors as your room gets bigger and/or as you need/want more volume or your monitoring distance increasess. But for a nearfield monitoring scenario, the 310s seem to be plenty loud without any compromise coming from built in limiters. I think the xxxfield definition has more to do with the overlap pattern of the driver emissions. Small drivers are typically placed close enough together that their emissions will mix relatively close to the speaker face, and can therefore be placed a lot closer to the ear. But the 310 has such good waveguides that I listen as close as 1.5ft and don't hear much beaming from the drivers at all unless I'm closer than that. At 2-3ft away, it's perfect. I would functionally call these nearfields in that regard. Sealed boxes of such a small size will become inefficient at louder volumes, so I could see how someone would distort the woofers by pumping up the volume to levels much higher than intended to be used. But then again, people have been burning out tweeters in NS10's for decades doing the same things.. So it's a human error rather than a design one. The audio world has always been filled with folks misusing equipment and then proclaiming the equipment sucks. At my monitoring position, which is about 6 or 7 feet from each monitor, I never turn up the volume on my monitor controller past about 12 or 1 o'clock, at the loudest. Anything over that is painfully loud. At that distance and volume, the limiters aren't kicking in at all, as far as I'm aware. In that nearfield scenario, I don't have any complaints. That's all I can say about it. So I'd agree that I think a lot of these complaints about the 310s stem from misapplication, rather than any fault of the 310 itself. |
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Post by Dan on Jul 12, 2024 9:27:38 GMT -6
I don't hear any of this stuff either. Dan keeps going on and on about how terrible they are and I haven't heard a single problem that he says these have. Again, I use mine with the digital inputs, so maybe that's why. I did have an issue with distortion once, but it turned out that I had my audio send to the speakers turned up too high and the digital audio was distorted on the SPDIF stream. The speakers will dutifully play whatever you send them and there is NO indication that the SPDIF stream is overrange unlike the analog inputs. It's very possible that people have run into this as well but didn't know what they were hearing and assumed it was the speaker limiting the audio.. But otherwise, I've played them loud enough to be uncomfortable sitting in front of them and haven't heard any issues other than my ears ringing. Mine are all analog. No digital inputs. I still don't encounter these issues either. It sounds like it's maybe a fault of certain users wanting these to be something they're not, rather than this being a fault of the 310s. If you want "mains" speakers, go buy mains speakers. But for nearfield use, I just don't have an issue with the 310s. I think they're great, and I don't have any desire to upgrade. Maybe it's the use of the term "midfields"? Neumann calls the 310s nearfields, but some people have taken to referring to them as midfields. The term "midfields" has always seemed like a bit of a weird term to me. Nearfields are nearfields for a reason. You sit relatively close to them to help reduce some of the room problems you encounter when sitting further away in a "mains" situation. In a midfield situation, what does that mean? 10 feet away? 15? 20? The term "midfield" seems to exist moreso in aspirationally subjective gray territory than it does in any sort of objectively distinct monitoring scenario. Get nearfields for nearfields monitoring, and then accordingly get bigger more powerful monitors as your room gets bigger and/or as you need/want more volume or your monitoring distance increasess. But for a nearfield monitoring scenario, the 310s seem to be plenty loud without any compromise coming from built in limiters. They have valid complaints.
The woofer cannot handle the volume of raw instruments in the low end and gets wooly, the midrange driver is your typical overdamped mid dome that can suffer thermal issues, and the tweeter is a damped metal dome.
In the real world? They don't get loud, they don't have the detail, and they're overdamped and still have a color regardless of how flat Sennheiser has eqed them. If you compare them to ATC SL and newer Focal the detail and headroom is just not there. Sennheiser has also been cheaping out the amps (there's a lot of glue and cheap caps in the dsp ones. When those burst and the monitors are discontinued and boards gone, repair will be a nightmare), raising prices, and adjusting crossovers for loudness for producers on their near field monitors recently. They will come for the 310 eventually.
Genelec also raised prices a lot and their real world marketshare declined. Sennheiser came in with the Neumann branded Klein and Hummel monitors that didn't have as drastic dips as the box and egg shaped Genelecs and they were cheap. Then Genelec came out with the wildly overpriced "The Ones" that use better amps than the Neumanns but have 1 note bass like a Bose (they have the weird resonant chamber thing) without a sub (you have to spend 20k to get the DSP Genelec subs to use the GLM... Why not just build out a room at that point?) and no headroom in the more detailed than Neumann co-ax mid/tweeter assembly. They limit the crap out of that thing with a multiband limiter. Raw recordings and cleans, the air can disappear because it just gets louder but more limited. The same with the Neumanns but the Genelec limiter is multiband on the same driver. Then the balance is off in the real world versus the monitors. Quested and Adams totally disappeared. The only people I see going for Adams now are cheapskates who think they're too good for the decent, dirt cheap, but resonant JBL 305 or Kali LP6 and they buy some cheap Adam think that's godawful and far worse than the old colored A7X.
Good thing about the Neumanns (along with Yamahas, Focal / KRK, and those newer JBLs / Kalis is that they do not sound very off, they're kinda warm, and they do not fool you into making pointless fraction of a db small boosts and cuts like Genelecs, ATCs, and Barefoots do that simply DO NOT MATTER AT ALL in the real world for mixing where driver tolerances very a ton, rooms vary a ton, crossovers vary a ton, and often the resonance you're making or the distortion are far more audible. If you do some .5 db midrange cut on an instrument to "open things up", it might not even do anything and hurt the instrument you did it on if a listener is focused on it. You can hear this in all the mixes done on ATCs/Genelecs with very offensive balances, pumping, or distortion but they they scrubbed all the character out of that drum or vocal! Mastering, you often want to do that .5 db cut to minimize the resonance without affecting everything else too much while some 2 db move sucks the life out of things.
Dan
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Post by Quint on Jul 12, 2024 10:25:25 GMT -6
Mine are all analog. No digital inputs. I still don't encounter these issues either. It sounds like it's maybe a fault of certain users wanting these to be something they're not, rather than this being a fault of the 310s. If you want "mains" speakers, go buy mains speakers. But for nearfield use, I just don't have an issue with the 310s. I think they're great, and I don't have any desire to upgrade. Maybe it's the use of the term "midfields"? Neumann calls the 310s nearfields, but some people have taken to referring to them as midfields. The term "midfields" has always seemed like a bit of a weird term to me. Nearfields are nearfields for a reason. You sit relatively close to them to help reduce some of the room problems you encounter when sitting further away in a "mains" situation. In a midfield situation, what does that mean? 10 feet away? 15? 20? The term "midfield" seems to exist moreso in aspirationally subjective gray territory than it does in any sort of objectively distinct monitoring scenario. Get nearfields for nearfields monitoring, and then accordingly get bigger more powerful monitors as your room gets bigger and/or as you need/want more volume or your monitoring distance increasess. But for a nearfield monitoring scenario, the 310s seem to be plenty loud without any compromise coming from built in limiters. They have valid complaints.
The woofer cannot handle the volume of raw instruments in the low end and gets wooly, the midrange driver is your typical overdamped mid dome that can suffer thermal issues, and the tweeter is a damped metal dome.
In the real world? They don't get loud, they don't have the detail, and they're overdamped and still have a color regardless of how flat Sennheiser has eqed them. If you compare them to ATC SL and newer Focal the detail and headroom is just not there. Sennheiser has also been cheaping out the amps (there's a lot of glue and cheap caps in the dsp ones. When those burst and the monitors are discontinued and boards gone, repair will be a nightmare), raising prices, and adjusting crossovers for loudness for producers on their near field monitors recently. They will come for the 310 eventually.
Genelec also raised prices a lot and their real world marketshare declined. Sennheiser came in with the Neumann branded Klein and Hummel monitors that didn't have as drastic dips as the box and egg shaped Genelecs and they were cheap. Then Genelec came out with the wildly overpriced "The Ones" that use better amps than the Neumanns but have 1 note bass like a Bose (they have the weird resonant chamber thing) without a sub (you have to spend 20k to get the DSP Genelec subs to use the GLM... Why not just build out a room at that point?) and no headroom in the more detailed than Neumann co-ax mid/tweeter assembly. They limit the crap out of that thing with a multiband limiter. Raw recordings and cleans, the air can disappear because it just gets louder but more limited. The same with the Neumanns but the Genelec limiter is multiband on the same driver. Then the balance is off in the real world versus the monitors. Quested and Adams totally disappeared. The only people I see going for Adams now are cheapskates who think they're too good for the decent, dirt cheap, but resonant JBL 305 or Kali LP6 and they buy some cheap Adam think that's godawful and far worse than the old colored A7X.
Good thing about the Neumanns (along with Yamahas, Focal / KRK, and those newer JBLs / Kalis is that they do not sound very off, they're kinda warm, and they do not fool you into making pointless fraction of a db small boosts and cuts like Genelecs, ATCs, and Barefoots do that simply DO NOT MATTER AT ALL in the real world for mixing where driver tolerances very a ton, rooms vary a ton, crossovers vary a ton, and often the resonance you're making or the distortion are far more audible. If you do some .5 db midrange cut on an instrument to "open things up", it might not even do anything and hurt the instrument you did it on if a listener is focused on it. You can hear this in all the mixes done on ATCs/Genelecs with very offensive balances, pumping, or distortion but they they scrubbed all the character out of that drum or vocal! Mastering, you often want to do that .5 db cut to minimize the resonance without affecting everything else too much while some 2 db move sucks the life out of things.
Dan
But again, we are talking about the 310s NOW. Speculating on what you think Sennheiser will do with with the 310s in the future is irrelevant. What matters is how they are designed and built TODAY, because we're walking about the sound and behavior of the 310s today. All of the other comments you're making about the 310 are subjective, and ones that I disagree with. I think the 310s are great monitors. And it's fine if we disagree on the sound or accuracy of the 310s versus whichever monitors you think are the best. But it's just opinions at that point, not facts. However, one fact that I personally can attest to is that the limiters are NOT kicking in at normal monitoring volume, when using the 310s in a nearfield monitoring scenario, and that's all that really matters when discussing whether or not the limiters kick in when using the 310s within their intended use range. So I think those specific complaints you're making about the limiters on the 310s are incorrect. Honest question. Have you used the 310s for any reasonable amount of time, in order to make these kind of judgements? If so, how long did you use them? |
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Post by Quint on Jul 13, 2024 16:09:00 GMT -6
So, how about the KH420? Things got derailed there. I'm kind of curious to find out more about them.
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