I believe you the Dynaudio BM5 mkIII are great monitors but I’m afraid 7" inch woofer is too much for my small room…

Yeah, I’m not suggesting you get those specifically, just relaying my experience. The smaller Dynaudios are also really nice. As are any of the other brands mentioned.

Frankly, based on your needs you probably don’t even need to spend this much. The JBL 305’s are excellent for the price if all you want to do is hear what you’re playing more clearly and listen to music.

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I have a pair of Neumann KH 310 which I love.

Some years ago I had the chance to listen to them (and their other speakers) at Neumann’s own showroom, which was the best speaker listening experience I ever had before and after.
Their room is well treated and measured to the centimeter, so it also made me realize what an important role the room itself plays.

Recently, Neumann released a new sub, the KH 750 DSP, which comes with an iPad app and detailed room correction. The cool thing is: Since the room correction and bass management all happens in the sub, you can connect the older analog speakers and still benefit from the room correction on the whole system… :raised_hands:

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Just recently got some stands for my nearfields to replace the hutch shelf (made with a board on a second tier keyboard stand) I had my monitors sitting on, and I just wanted to say the difference is HUGE. The stereo image is much tighter and there is so much more bass. I really did not change the overall positioning of the speakers that much. they were in an equilateral triangle with my listening position (albeit smaller) and tweeters were at similar height.

I had started thinking about how wobbly and precarious the makeshift hutch I had made was, and how that’s probably not the most effective thing to place something that works by making very accurate vibrations, hah. Also been reading more about positioning and wanted to have an easier way to explore widening my listening position triangle.

I got these and I’ve been impressed, especially for the price. It is nice that the base is not much larger than the monitor, as I have a closet door to the right of me, and something more bulky would block the door from being able to open enough. But thinking more generally, having something sturdy for the monitor to sit on, decoupled from the other one (and other things) probably really helps it perform more ideally!

I have a pair of original JBL LSR305s. Unfortunately my cat punctured the surround on one of them… :heart_eyes_cat:

I see that the originals have been replaced by the MKIIs. Does anyone think it would be weird to have one of the MKIIs and one of the originals from an aural perspective? I know it might drive me crazy aesthetically not having matching finishes, but that doesn’t really matter. Would rather avoid buying two speakers when I still have one good one but idk if it makes sense to use two monitors that aren’t the same model (even though they are the same series).

You can get the surround repaired far cheaper than buying a new monitor. Talk to JBL about authorized repair shops in your area.

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Unless it’s been meant to match specifically and have some sort of backward compatibility with MKI, I think it’s really not advertized to have two speakers not meant to have the exact same frequency response, matching curves etc. I dont know. Doesn’t feel ok to me though.

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Never done a studio monitor but replacing the surround in a hifi speaker is dead easy. Like tying a shoe easy.

Can confirm. Replaced the surround in a 10" sub a while back. I was scared to do it, but the repair was easy and the speaker is still going strong after years of daily use.

Yeah, it’s super simple, except some of the studio monitors use really crazy materials (silicone, etc, which needs heat sealing instead of glue, and sometimes special forming jigs to help shape it properly as it’s aligned), plus the certified shops are able to guarantee original performance, which you won’t get if it’s a DIY repair on precision drivers.

I’m usually all for DIY, and highly recommend it for simple (paper/board woofers with rubber or “accordion” surrounds) repairs but for something like a high quality pair of studio monitors I’d be more interested in the precision of the repair ensuring a return to proper specs than in the cost of it. And I do believe that skilled technicians are worth paying for good work.

Agreed that techs are going to be worth it. But I’m looking at my LSR305 and the surround looks stunningly similar to the Paradigms I repaired a couple of years ago. If it were me, I’d give it a shot.

I used to design loudspeaker enclosures professionally and still own LEAP, having originally purchased it in 1993 or so. Before that, in the late 80s, I used the original AES papers from Neville Thiele and Richard Small to write my own CAE tools for enclosure design.

I see a lot of opinions expressed in this thread about the merits and drawbacks of various enclosure designs and their interaction with the space they are placed in. Without questioning the sincerity of the people having these opinions, I have to say a good deal of the folklore surrounding discussions about e.g. vented vs. acoustic suspension enclosures isn’t very useful for making a decision. There are a lot of reasons why an engineer chooses one design over the other, and the average consumer isn’t able to make an engineering conclusion about the effects of those decisions. In other words: if you don’t like the bass response, there’s no way for you to tell why you don’t like it without some test gear and a fair bit of math. (Obvious cases like feeding large 25Hz signals into a vented design tuned to 40Hz aren’t what I mean–but as a consumer, do you know why I say “obvious”?)

In general, I suggest that lay people use the the very sensitive test equipment on the sides of their head and to train that equipment on as many top flight systems as possible. Ignore the design choices made to arrive at the solution, and to a certain extent I also recommend that people ignore the specifications since there are so many ways to game them without being the least bit inaccurate.

As miraculously good as speakers have gotten these days, I think most people are better off choosing one of the workhorse standards (Dynaudio, which I have, though I don’t know about the post-acquisition gear; Neumann, Genelec, and few others), a good pair of cans as a backup check (Sennheiser HD600 or better), and then devoting their attention to room treatment. A visit to an audiologist for a hearing check is a good idea too.

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Since this is going to be rather difficult for most non-wealthy people to accomplish, I think this advice is pretty top notch:

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I’m solidly middle class but have heard some of the best audio systems around. Hit your local high end audio store and listen to the best they have. I’ve listened to a full-up Krell rig powering Wilson Audio speakers in a well-treated room, for instance, and it struck me how incremental the differences were from what I had at home.

A local speaker designer at long-gone Soundsmith had a gorgeous prototype speaker design called the “Timelord” in the back of the shop that I got a long listen to when I was just out of high school in the mid 80s. He didn’t care that I was 100% not a customer–like many artist/engineers, he just wanted to share his work with a fellow enthusiast. I was inspired to get into loudspeaker design as a result, though I never got anywhere near his level.

There are lots of opportunities. I think most people who make a career in hi-fi or pro audio are in the business because they love the gear and love music, and they tend to be eager to let people listen.

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None local. But I’m glad you have access.

My last word here, and mainly directed at those who might think they are in a similar position … it appears you’re in the Santa Cruz area, so you have at least a few within a half hour driving distance:

http://theanalogroom.net/


http://www.nekoaudio.com/

Even Guitar Center in Santa Cruz is worth a visit: they might carry some higher end monitors in the production A/V room. Best Buy Magnolia dealers like the one in Santa Cruz have some surprisingly posh gear also, I heard some spendy Sonus Faber speakers in a fairly nice room at the San Diego Best Buy not too long ago. Sales pressure is rarely an issue IME.

I’m sure there are many others, and I’ve been known to check out places when I’m in unfamiliar cities. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I used to ride my bicycle further than half an hour to go listen to stereo gear I couldn’t remotely afford when I was in high school and college. I made friends with a sales guy at a hi-fi dealer when I was in college in Phoenix, and I’ll never forget him firing up the 4(!) Klipschorns they inexplicably had in the demo room at the same time, powered by a pair of hulking Harman-Kardon 200W amps … test tracks included the Telarc 1812 Overture with “Digital Cannons”, of course! Once this stuff gets in your blood you won’t get it out. :slight_smile:

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Bay area traffic is quite a bit worse than that but I get your point.

I never did buy additional monitors to make a quad setup (what started this thread) by the way. Ended up deciding my Focal CMS 40s (in stereo) were totally sufficient for my purposes.

My father made custom HiFi speakers in the 70s. I know what you mean. Still have his design book. It’s been something of an obsession from time to time. Ultimately where I arrive is more or less astonishment at what has been achieved in small lower power near field monitors. As much as I still kind of miss those giant cabinets my dad built, the drivers were nothin compared to what you get (affordably!) today.

I’ve been recently looking around at Harbeth and Spendor on eBay, beautiful speakers. I use KH-120s for writing on and some really old Tannoy Reveal passives in another room with a cyrus 1 amp.

Re the C7ES-3 could I run them ok with my trusty old Cyrus1 amp, it’s only 25w which is spec’d as the minimum on their website? Just wondering if I’d need to spend a chunk on a power amp too at the same time.

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Bose does bass a little different
often great found these bookshelf speakers on the street in Venice

Does anyone have experience with the JBL 305p mkII monitors? They seem to be available for a pretty crazy low price ($99 USD each) just lately, and I’ve seen a lot of praise for the JBL LSR305 (mkI) and a lot of info saying the two models are basically the same, but I’ve also seen a few reviews/complaints online about “hiss” from the mkII that may or may not have been present in the mkI.

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