dcwave
07-22-2009, 11:50 PM
About two maybe three weeks ago, after changing my mLAN setup from a driver based system to a stand alone system routed into a Frontier Dakota Card via ADAT, I had a small clocking issue that put a horrible squelch through my KRK V6 series 2 monitors. Needless to say the tweeters were fried, leaking, and making horrible distortion with anything above about 4kHz when running at a volume louder than 52dBSPL.
Off to the store with very little budget.
I knew I did not want anything with more than a 6in speaker.
So I checked out the following
M-Audio BX5s
Yamaha HS50m
JBL LSR2325P
M-Audio CX5
KRK VXT 6
I took a test CD I made a few years ago of what i think are good songs to listen to, Some bluegrass, rock, metal, electronic, orchestra. A mix of my mixes, Blue Bear mixes, and commercial stuff.
The JBLs were really nice hi fi speakers - seemed to be a smile EQ, mids were lacking. But they were nice to listen to. The rock music was good sounding on them verbs sounded natural but it was not easy to hear the difference between the cheap and good plugs and the hall and room; the country and bluegrass seemed to be missing the mids.
The CX5s - [darn] decent sounding. Clear, articulate in the upper mids without being harsh, the transients were present, nice sweet spot. The lower mids seemed a bit "forced" - could have been the room, nothing that could not be worked around. Lows were tight, although subtle and not as full sounding as the VXT 6s or the JBLs. Kick drums across all the music seemed a bit "shallow". but again, clear, and defined and possible good enough for most mixers in a small space. Deep bass requires a sub on all of these speakers.
The BX5s - decent B set, pretty even across the board, maybe a little too boxy in the mids.
I really wanted to go the KRKs since I have been using KRK for 10 years. I know what to expect. Bigger low end than the others, wide sweet spot, mids were smooth without any honk, but not as forward as some speakers, the highs - well they're KRK and KRK has almost always had highs that are a bit crisp. Rock music and electronic music came across very well, though vocals tend to be push back a small amount. The Classical stuff does not sound like it is coming from a hall, it sounds like a simulation of a hall.
The HS50s - very forward mids, but I do not think they are like the NS10s which, to me, have harsh mids and ear bleeding highs. the HS50s are revealing. I could hear in a couple of my mixes where I did not get the 250-500 area sitting correctly. The highs are a little fatiguing, but mixing at lower levels should solve that. The lows were tight and the imaging while not very wide seemed true - meaning I got a good sense of where everything was. What surprised me was the depth - I could hear into the verbs and could hear the difference between the cheap plugin, a nice plugin, and a real room and hall. My old KRK V6s did not reveal those things very well.
I went with the Yamahas - why, well I won a new on on ebay for $76 and got a killer deal on the other one (about 30% off sale price).
Hooked them up in my control room tonight and am sitting here listening to The Wall. I am pleased so far. I have them running with a KRK sub. My room is sized dimensionally correct, and while I could use about 4 more traps, I am used to the room enough to know when things aren't set up right. I spent about an hour tweaking settings and calibrating things and have a nice blend that should give me a decent monitoring system.
I would recommend these to anyone with a properly treated room. If you have not controlled the low end of your room or have too much high end pinging in your room, the forwardness of the mids and highs will probably drive you nuts and make mixing a chore.
Ah well,, Goodbye Blue Sky is on (one of my favorite PF songs) so I must turn off the lights a just listen.
Cheers.
Off to the store with very little budget.
I knew I did not want anything with more than a 6in speaker.
So I checked out the following
M-Audio BX5s
Yamaha HS50m
JBL LSR2325P
M-Audio CX5
KRK VXT 6
I took a test CD I made a few years ago of what i think are good songs to listen to, Some bluegrass, rock, metal, electronic, orchestra. A mix of my mixes, Blue Bear mixes, and commercial stuff.
The JBLs were really nice hi fi speakers - seemed to be a smile EQ, mids were lacking. But they were nice to listen to. The rock music was good sounding on them verbs sounded natural but it was not easy to hear the difference between the cheap and good plugs and the hall and room; the country and bluegrass seemed to be missing the mids.
The CX5s - [darn] decent sounding. Clear, articulate in the upper mids without being harsh, the transients were present, nice sweet spot. The lower mids seemed a bit "forced" - could have been the room, nothing that could not be worked around. Lows were tight, although subtle and not as full sounding as the VXT 6s or the JBLs. Kick drums across all the music seemed a bit "shallow". but again, clear, and defined and possible good enough for most mixers in a small space. Deep bass requires a sub on all of these speakers.
The BX5s - decent B set, pretty even across the board, maybe a little too boxy in the mids.
I really wanted to go the KRKs since I have been using KRK for 10 years. I know what to expect. Bigger low end than the others, wide sweet spot, mids were smooth without any honk, but not as forward as some speakers, the highs - well they're KRK and KRK has almost always had highs that are a bit crisp. Rock music and electronic music came across very well, though vocals tend to be push back a small amount. The Classical stuff does not sound like it is coming from a hall, it sounds like a simulation of a hall.
The HS50s - very forward mids, but I do not think they are like the NS10s which, to me, have harsh mids and ear bleeding highs. the HS50s are revealing. I could hear in a couple of my mixes where I did not get the 250-500 area sitting correctly. The highs are a little fatiguing, but mixing at lower levels should solve that. The lows were tight and the imaging while not very wide seemed true - meaning I got a good sense of where everything was. What surprised me was the depth - I could hear into the verbs and could hear the difference between the cheap plugin, a nice plugin, and a real room and hall. My old KRK V6s did not reveal those things very well.
I went with the Yamahas - why, well I won a new on on ebay for $76 and got a killer deal on the other one (about 30% off sale price).
Hooked them up in my control room tonight and am sitting here listening to The Wall. I am pleased so far. I have them running with a KRK sub. My room is sized dimensionally correct, and while I could use about 4 more traps, I am used to the room enough to know when things aren't set up right. I spent about an hour tweaking settings and calibrating things and have a nice blend that should give me a decent monitoring system.
I would recommend these to anyone with a properly treated room. If you have not controlled the low end of your room or have too much high end pinging in your room, the forwardness of the mids and highs will probably drive you nuts and make mixing a chore.
Ah well,, Goodbye Blue Sky is on (one of my favorite PF songs) so I must turn off the lights a just listen.
Cheers.