Will the real mans's studio monitor please stand up ...
- Thread starter fas42
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Well, no-one's mentioned better than 133dB peak, and my gut feeling is that's as far as reasonable brands go. I am not going to try for that in the first round, 113dB is the region that I'll be aiming at. Down the track I could double up on the number of boxes per each side, giving me an extra 6dB, with some nice DSP thrown in to manage and fine tune the range each driver has to handle: I think a genuine 120dB max should do quite well for most occasions ...
BTW, if you really want to move some air in your room these might be the people to speak to:
http://www.makeitlouder.com/loudspeakers.html
and
http://www.makeitlouder.com/suspension.html
Frank
BTW, if you really want to move some air in your room these might be the people to speak to:
http://www.makeitlouder.com/loudspeakers.html
and
http://www.makeitlouder.com/suspension.html
Frank
I'm well aware of Basspig's setup, Bob: he runs it up to order of 130+ dBs on a regular bassis (
), but that's not the point for me. Rather, I aim to be able to hit a transient peak cleanly; as Mark points out, dropping a hard object on a hard floor can create sound level peaks of around 135dB. Also, if a snare drum is hit the right way a mic mounted to pick up its sound has to be able to handle a similar SPL. These are extremely short in duration, so don't do major damage to hearing, provided you give the ear time to recover.The thing is, also as Mark and others have pointed out, that you can quite comfortably listen to sound peaking at 120dB, provided it is relatively clean. When I did the rounds of monitors in stores I was frequently running them into overload, red lights flashing constantly, and going by their spec's this meant sound levels peaking close to 120dB. But this was not apparent in the sound: compared to conventional hifi systems driving normal speakers, these didn't collapse at these levels -- sound was quite clean, like standing next to good quality PA speakers (which is what they are, essentially!).
Frank
Righto, a new toy to play with, luckily not shiny at all, a boring black in fact! The studio monitors have landed, not yet fired up, just need to organise something to drive them. There are about half a dozen CD playing mechanisms around the place, need to bring back to life one of those with an effective volume control -- not going to cripple the sound straight off the mark with a normal preamp setup! Probably need to revive the battleship Yamaha -- what's quite laughable is that the DAC chips in it are worth a fortune, relatively speaking, these days if you want to buy them new!
And these monitors are also indulging in the FR "fantasy": according to the supplied material they do 40 - 20k within +- 2dB, peak SPL of 113dB, peak tweeter power of 80W, woofer up to 320W. Therefore, according to the best authorities, they should give me close to perfect sound. My goodness, I can hardly contain my excitement, at last something worthy of mentioning on WBF without major embarassment ....
EDIT: Of course, I'm deeply devastated that they don't do 20 - 40Hz perfectly, the sound will be almost unlistenable to because of that, probably half of the orchestral performances will be lost. Regardless, I'll plow on making the best of what I've got ... :b
Frank
And these monitors are also indulging in the FR "fantasy": according to the supplied material they do 40 - 20k within +- 2dB, peak SPL of 113dB, peak tweeter power of 80W, woofer up to 320W. Therefore, according to the best authorities, they should give me close to perfect sound. My goodness, I can hardly contain my excitement, at last something worthy of mentioning on WBF without major embarassment ....
EDIT: Of course, I'm deeply devastated that they don't do 20 - 40Hz perfectly, the sound will be almost unlistenable to because of that, probably half of the orchestral performances will be lost. Regardless, I'll plow on making the best of what I've got ... :b
Frank
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We're live! The big Yamaha, a CDX-1100, 26 years old, is now directly driving the monitors, the CD player has a digital volume control, probably one of the first domestic units to do such back then.
The Yamaha needed a little TLC, one "weakness" is the rubber, err, drive band for the in/out sled -- this is a big, solid unit, heavy metal rails and a strong magnetic latch for the disc clamp, and it requires major grunt to lift the clamp up and slide out. The drive band needs to be good condition, otherwise it slips, uselessly on the pulley: this is about the fourth bit of rubber I've used for the job.
First impressions were excellent: the monitors are already run in to a fair degree, and the Yamaha always sounded good at startup, with its current state of tweaking. And guess what? The test CD initially sounded just like the HT: how strange, the recording sounded just like I've been hearing it sound, on a completely different setup -- will wonders never cease?!!:b
But then I was taken back 26 years, the intervening time melted away as if it were nought: slowly but surely the sound started to gunk up, the clear and well defined staging started to dwindle, sink down and reduce, to shrink down into the speakers: Tim would be pleased, we now had degenerated into classic nearfield monitor sound ...
Volume is good, it has the characteristic of sounding good at a distance but gets worse the closer you approach the speaker. Bass is also good, have on some Bach choral organ work at the moment, nice and authorative...
In one sense I'm being extremely unfair to the setup, absolutely nothing has been done to optimise anything, it's hooked up just as anyone would normally do so, so only to be expected that typical behaviours would be experienced.
The good news is that the intrinsic sound quality is there in the monitors; the bad news is that now the steps have to be taken to pinpoint and weed out the weaknesses -- but that's exactly what I was expecting to do in this exercise ...
Frank
The Yamaha needed a little TLC, one "weakness" is the rubber, err, drive band for the in/out sled -- this is a big, solid unit, heavy metal rails and a strong magnetic latch for the disc clamp, and it requires major grunt to lift the clamp up and slide out. The drive band needs to be good condition, otherwise it slips, uselessly on the pulley: this is about the fourth bit of rubber I've used for the job.
First impressions were excellent: the monitors are already run in to a fair degree, and the Yamaha always sounded good at startup, with its current state of tweaking. And guess what? The test CD initially sounded just like the HT: how strange, the recording sounded just like I've been hearing it sound, on a completely different setup -- will wonders never cease?!!
:bBut then I was taken back 26 years, the intervening time melted away as if it were nought: slowly but surely the sound started to gunk up, the clear and well defined staging started to dwindle, sink down and reduce, to shrink down into the speakers: Tim would be pleased, we now had degenerated into classic nearfield monitor sound ...
Volume is good, it has the characteristic of sounding good at a distance but gets worse the closer you approach the speaker. Bass is also good, have on some Bach choral organ work at the moment, nice and authorative...
In one sense I'm being extremely unfair to the setup, absolutely nothing has been done to optimise anything, it's hooked up just as anyone would normally do so, so only to be expected that typical behaviours would be experienced.
The good news is that the intrinsic sound quality is there in the monitors; the bad news is that now the steps have to be taken to pinpoint and weed out the weaknesses -- but that's exactly what I was expecting to do in this exercise ...
Frank
Yes, it's certainly settling into a pattern, a very familiar pattern. At the moment I haven't taken all the normal measures I need to, to clean up the power going into the Yamaha, and the monitors will have the usual trouble areas. The end result is, dreary treble, a somewhat lifeless, small sound, which only gets worse the longer it runs: irrespective of volume, the sound doesn't turn you on ...
The CD player has enough drive to push the monitors into the red, and they run clean up to that level. But very little power supply reserves, which is only to be expected: pull the power plug and they die very, very quickly -- my previous DIY efforts could run for a few minutes with no mains power.
I'll need to let everything settle in for a few days, better supports under everything, before making major moves ...
Frank
The CD player has enough drive to push the monitors into the red, and they run clean up to that level. But very little power supply reserves, which is only to be expected: pull the power plug and they die very, very quickly -- my previous DIY efforts could run for a few minutes with no mains power.
I'll need to let everything settle in for a few days, better supports under everything, before making major moves ...
Frank
Thanks, Bob -- though it's really more for the mothers this time 'round ...
Real burst of chilly weather through, had to fire up the wood heater this morning, looks like the last round of warm weather for the year has gone ...
The monitor setup has all the usual problems of sensitivity to mains power interference, just a quick play with reorganising where the power feed was coming from, which house circuit was used demonstrated that easily. Running at very low volumes shows good tonal clarity, some more experimenting to do, tracking down the Achilles Heels of the monitors. The Yamaha has the characteristics of a very "smooth" sound even when not performing at a good quality level, there is more a thickening rather than a sharpening of its sound, as a distortion signature for it ...
Frank
Real burst of chilly weather through, had to fire up the wood heater this morning, looks like the last round of warm weather for the year has gone ...
The monitor setup has all the usual problems of sensitivity to mains power interference, just a quick play with reorganising where the power feed was coming from, which house circuit was used demonstrated that easily. Running at very low volumes shows good tonal clarity, some more experimenting to do, tracking down the Achilles Heels of the monitors. The Yamaha has the characteristics of a very "smooth" sound even when not performing at a good quality level, there is more a thickening rather than a sharpening of its sound, as a distortion signature for it ...
Frank
The monitors are shaping up quite nicely: power supply deficiencies are fairly clearly the biggest factor, manifested by the treble turning ragged once past a certain volume. Most systems have this in various degrees, but the active nature of the drive conceals the problem to a much greater degree than usual. Tightness of bass is impressive, considering that the speakers have just been plonked on a sofa at the moment. Piano is sort of heading in the right direction, but sounds off kilter at any reasonable volume.
Imaging at this stage is quite impressive, all considering: they hold a mono image well even now while moving one's head sideways.
My wife is pleased at how they're starting to pick up, last night and this morning it was "Oh dear!!" and "Well, it's going to need a bit of sorting out, isn't it?!" -- in some key areas the innate superiority of the drivers to that of the HT is becoming more evident.
Frank
Imaging at this stage is quite impressive, all considering: they hold a mono image well even now while moving one's head sideways.
My wife is pleased at how they're starting to pick up, last night and this morning it was "Oh dear!!" and "Well, it's going to need a bit of sorting out, isn't it?!" -- in some key areas the innate superiority of the drivers to that of the HT is becoming more evident.
Frank
Yes ... but, and the big but, is that extended playing is now even more clearly highlighting that pernicious dilemma that has troubled and disturbed people for the last 25 years: digititus. Fatigue to listening starts to build slowly over the playing of a track at reasonable volume, as that "inaudible distortion" that Tim is fond of guffawing at steadily rears its ugly head ...
Which is, either the CD player is affecting the speakers, or the speakers are affecting the CD player, or it is wholly internal to one or both of the mechanisms. The Yamaha has not been optimised at all, compared to how it was hooked up before when running seriously, so it is to be expected that this would occur. So, now I have to start getting serious at tweaking the system setup, without actually getting inside the monitors just yet. The key thing is to isolate, or locate where the distorting factors are that infecting the sound in this way ...
Frank
Which is, either the CD player is affecting the speakers, or the speakers are affecting the CD player, or it is wholly internal to one or both of the mechanisms. The Yamaha has not been optimised at all, compared to how it was hooked up before when running seriously, so it is to be expected that this would occur. So, now I have to start getting serious at tweaking the system setup, without actually getting inside the monitors just yet. The key thing is to isolate, or locate where the distorting factors are that infecting the sound in this way ...
Frank
Thanks for that thought, Bob, but don't worry, I been down this road many, many times. It's the same old, weary story that I been playing out over and over again, throughout the years: no matter which equipment is being used, a level of sound "sludge" starts to build as you use it, SS and digital is particularly prone to it. Which is why people steer to tubes and vinyl, etc.
It normally gets worse the harder you run the gear, which is why people frequently don't listen at good, or natural sound levels. One solution is to turn everything off, let all the power supplies discharge and switch on again. Once you tune into the signature distortion that creeps up when you have this problem it is easy to pick the symptoms, and have a handle as to how well you've got it under control. I've got an old cheapie CD player here, a basic Marantz, that I always used to reset many years ago by powering off and on at the end of every CD ...
But not a brilliant technique overall, I would say! No, the real solution is all the things I've been mentioning over the months, sorting out all the weaknesses: once you've nailed the key ones then the sound quality stabilises, and you can run it at high volume continuously. When things aren't good enough the quality drops off with time, when past the barrier of knocking over sufficient problems areas then the sound quality improves the longer and harder you play the system ...
This is why the conventional way of measuring distortion is useless for understanding what's going on: the distortion, and the testing for it, are rarely around at the same time.
Frank
It normally gets worse the harder you run the gear, which is why people frequently don't listen at good, or natural sound levels. One solution is to turn everything off, let all the power supplies discharge and switch on again. Once you tune into the signature distortion that creeps up when you have this problem it is easy to pick the symptoms, and have a handle as to how well you've got it under control. I've got an old cheapie CD player here, a basic Marantz, that I always used to reset many years ago by powering off and on at the end of every CD ...
But not a brilliant technique overall, I would say!
No, the real solution is all the things I've been mentioning over the months, sorting out all the weaknesses: once you've nailed the key ones then the sound quality stabilises, and you can run it at high volume continuously. When things aren't good enough the quality drops off with time, when past the barrier of knocking over sufficient problems areas then the sound quality improves the longer and harder you play the system ...This is why the conventional way of measuring distortion is useless for understanding what's going on: the distortion, and the testing for it, are rarely around at the same time.
Frank
I should bloody well hope so
! I remember listening to the top of line MBL gear, years ago, and lo and behold there were the symptoms, so familiar to me: first track fine, but by the middle of the second track the saxophone had started developing a rough edge ...So, price is no guarantee of freedom from the problem.
Frank
Frank, what about turntables? ...They do turn OFF when the arm returns to its resting post right?
Is that good, because like you mentioned in your post just above (#37),
it's like an automatic 'reset' switch?
Is that good, because like you mentioned in your post just above (#37),
it's like an automatic 'reset' switch?
Bob, this is why vinyl is so far ahead in many people's minds, and systems: there is essentially no electronics in that pathway to the amp, apart from the possibly separate phono stage. Apart from worrying about conventional noise levels, the electronics in that phono stage can be relatively easily given lots of TLC in terms of power supplies, and isolation: using batteries, transformers, etc. So there are far less opportunities for the sound quality to be "poisoned", to to speak.
So, in one sense TTs are always off, because it is in essense a mechanical process recovering the audio signal. But of course the amp, and receiver is normally always on, so will still suffer these symptoms, possibly. A relatively easy way to test for this in your own system is to run the system until it's fully stabilised for the day, then get a track that's known to be difficult in terms of sweetness in the treble area, one that makes you internally flinch as you listen to it, and now play it at a good volume. If it sounds harsh, unpleasant, as you remember it sounding off kilter, then you're ready to roll: switch off all your gear in one go, leave for a minute or so, and then switch it all back on again. Then, immediately play that same track again, at the same volume, and particularly pay attention to the quality of the treble: if it sounds significantly or even dramatically better, much improved tonality, even sweet, then that "poisoning" problem exists in the system. If you are aware of the improvement initally doing this test, see how long it hangs around, it may start disappearing within minutes; depending upon just about everything ...
Frank
So, in one sense TTs are always off, because it is in essense a mechanical process recovering the audio signal. But of course the amp, and receiver is normally always on, so will still suffer these symptoms, possibly. A relatively easy way to test for this in your own system is to run the system until it's fully stabilised for the day, then get a track that's known to be difficult in terms of sweetness in the treble area, one that makes you internally flinch as you listen to it, and now play it at a good volume. If it sounds harsh, unpleasant, as you remember it sounding off kilter, then you're ready to roll: switch off all your gear in one go, leave for a minute or so, and then switch it all back on again. Then, immediately play that same track again, at the same volume, and particularly pay attention to the quality of the treble: if it sounds significantly or even dramatically better, much improved tonality, even sweet, then that "poisoning" problem exists in the system. If you are aware of the improvement initally doing this test, see how long it hangs around, it may start disappearing within minutes; depending upon just about everything ...
Frank
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