Advice on New Monitor Speakers Please

A

asimmd

New member
Hi All
I have had a pair of Soundcraft Spirit Absolute 2's since they were first released many years ago.

I think its about time I upgraded them to something more up to date.

I am looking at Adam A7X or Adam A5X.
My problem is the Spirits have a 6.5 inch woofer so if I went for the A5X would I notice
a big difference in bass response.

Then there are the Adam F7 series that I know nothing about.

Out of the speakers I mention which would be the best ones to go for.

Thanks

Alan
 
asimmd said:
Hi All
I have had a pair of Soundcraft Spirit Absolute 2's since they were first released many years ago.

I think its about time I upgraded them to something more up to date.

I am looking at Adam A7X or Adam A5X.
My problem is the Spirits have a 6.5 inch woofer so if I went for the A5X would I notice
a big difference in bass response.

Then there are the Adam F7 series that I know nothing about.

Out of the speakers I mention which would be the best ones to go for.

Thanks

Alan
Click to expand...

Contrary to popular myth, the low frequency performance of a properly designed loudspeaker system does NOT depend upon cone size. It is instead a very complex trade off between, box size*, cone size and magnet power, voice coil size and design and LF extension gets traded for ultimate power handling and max SPL. Basically, if you want to rattle windows at 30Hz you need to go a lot bigger all round or get a sub (but that opens cans of worms!) Most folks I think cope very well with 5-6" cones in modest cabs for near field work?

*and of course whether the design is ported or closed box.

In the absence of any way to audition them, the best you can do is garner as much opinion (for tis all it be) from the great&good here and read as many reviews in as many places as possible.

Dave.
 
Thanks Dave
For every review I read about the A5/7X being good I also read another that says I don't
need to spend that much I will get very good results from the F5/7.

It's a bit of a minefield and as no-one close to me stocks them it's going to be mail order.

That's why I wanted to get some owners views before committing myself.

Alan
 
i think 6.5 is about the limit for nearfield. If you are nearfield (sitting on the desktop), I'd want 5-inch. My desk is 4-foot deep and my 5-inch are about 10 inches off the wall. My 8-inch acoustic suspension boxes are way too much bass for this space. Many of these, today, are ported boxes, so you are kinda stuck with West Coast bass character - mostly a steep bass roll-off.
 
asimmd said:
Thanks Dave
For every review I read about the A5/7X being good I also read another that says I don't
need to spend that much I will get very good results from the F5/7.

It's a bit of a minefield and as no-one close to me stocks them it's going to be mail order.

That's why I wanted to get some owners views before committing myself.

Alan
Click to expand...
If you stick to the "big" names, Adam, Quest, Genlec then the "exotics" Focal, Neumann you really can't go wrong IMHO. I went for a very old respected company some years ago, Tannoy.

Dave.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I think it fair to say that because I have had the Absolute 2's for so long any modern monitor will
sound better because technology has moved on.

I think from what has been said I don't need the Adam A7X so it's a toss up between the Adam F5
and the A5X.
What the difference is I do not know.

Alan
 
garww said:
i think 6.5 is about the limit for nearfield. If you are nearfield (sitting on the desktop), I'd want 5-inch. My desk is 4-foot deep and my 5-inch are about 10 inches off the wall. My 8-inch acoustic suspension boxes are way too much bass for this space.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily.

I have 3-way nearfields with an 8" bass. They go down to 35Hz and the recommended listening distance is 1 - 2.6 metres.

So they are definitely nearfields.

But thay are cardioid in design, so don't throw bass out of the rear to reflect and muddy the sound (ie: although they have ports, they are *not* bass reflex and the ports are only there to get the cardioid response).
 
But, the normal issue is how far the tweet is away from the woofer cone. A fullrange, or, a co-ax will hold the imaging better. It either works for that, or, it don't. I can't imagine most home studios having a meter deep desk. My 8--inch are designed for that open space on the meter bridge, which is fine. But, the closer one is, the more that distance between the drivers is going to matter

PIC of old school imaging
 

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The imaging part of my 8-inch in a horizontal position. 1-inch and 4.5-inch close together. I can have the tweeter in, or out and high, or, low in any position. Hardly the last word in imaging, but they did what they could. Web image
 

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gecko zzed said:
I can't imagine that either. But that need not be a limitation. It's easy enough to put the speakers on stands behind the desk. I speak form experience.
Click to expand...

If it was easy, they'd be doin' it. True many people do, and are even clever enough to put a stack of books(or another cinder block) on top of the box/s to clean up the imaging. As many monitors don't seem to be shipping with bolts, anymore.

But, there has been no end of photos exposing the state of affairs

It seems the last couple years, the MFG have included some EQ switches for right up against the wall on that Ikea Student Desk. Its; "Up against the wall, MF". hah

I know I don't have a lot of placement options. 4 x 6 desk in the corner of a 10 x 12 room crammed with gear. I might of put one speaker in the half toilet and one speaker in the half closet.

Anyway, the F5 is an affordable Adam. If the poster can afford the A5x, then that is now the affordable model. Likely, nearly the same everyday performance, but one has to pay for improvements
 
garww said:
It seems the last couple years, the MFG have included some EQ switches for right up against the wall on that Ikea Student Desk. Its; "Up against the wall, MF". hah
Click to expand...

I "recently" replaced my passive Tannoy Reveals with a pair of PreSonus Eris E66 due to a power amp dying.......kinda made a good excuse to get new speakers ;). The Reveals are rear ported which always was a concern whereas the E66's are front ported and have controls to "tune" them to their position and although initially sceptical, I have found it to be very useful as my LH monitor is close to a corner.

:cool:
 
garww said:
I can't imagine most home studios having a meter deep desk.
Click to expand...

gecko zzed said:
I can't imagine that either. But that need not be a limitation. It's easy enough to put the speakers on stands behind the desk. I speak form experience.
Click to expand...

I've never seen the actual reasoning for putting them behind desk on stand to avoid desk/console reflections...if that's what's being discussed here...?
If you have them on the meter bridge, and the desk surface is in front/below them...moving them up behind the desk to remove the desk surface doesn't really help. If anything, you end up with an even larger surface out in front of the speakers.
However...that's something you could do to decouple them from the desk surface, though there are other ways to decouple.
There's also another reason for putting them behind the desk.

I think the bigger issue with most home monitor setups is their L/R distance and toe-in.
I see most people have them way to close...and it's because they don't have a mixing console. Instead, they position them relative to their computer monitor(s)...which is probably only in the 3-4' range.
For good stereo imaging, you need about 5-6' spread with a 30 degree toe-in...and then adjust your seated position to that....which then gives a better reason to place the monitors on stands so you can push them back....because at 5-6' spread means your seated positions is also 5-6' feet from each monitor, diagonally. For most home setups...that's a lot to be seated back that far...so by moving the monitors behind...you can achieve that spread and seated position.

My mixing console is not reel deep...the current one is actually smaller in depth than my previous, but it's longer in it's width.
I have a couple of racks on each side, and then a piece that connects the racks and goes over the console's meter bridge.
The monitors are kinda straddling the are where the rack and the over-bridge connecting piece are joined...so in respect to the actual console surface they are at the outer corners and beyond a bit.
I have them sitting on a custom "sandwich" of thick 1/4" neoprene rubber/1" marble stone/1/4" neoprene rubber....which completely decouples the monitors.
Having just gotten new monitors which are going to probably sit in their horizontal position, where the previous ones were vertical...I will most likely need to elevate them about an inch or two for optimum position...so I'll just add another 1" piece of marble stone/1/4" rubber to the existing "sandwich"...rubber/stone/rubber/stone/rubber.
Also, the wide console makes it easy to achieve the 5-6' spread, and the console depth puts me just inside the apex of that 30 degree triangle.

That said...for the recording newbs, it's enough for them to just get some decent monitors and toss up some room treatment as a good start...and then evolve from there as needed.
 
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Well, coupling, acoustic and physical, should be addressed to varying degrees. A moPad will probably smear your imaging more with lightweight boxes. Now, if you actually bolted the boxes to the 1-inch marble, you'll have more mass to stabilize the imaging - otherwise, they're still twittering away like a canary . Nice monitors have been machined out of aluminum block creating 1/2-inch walls to keep vibration down. So, that's the "first" level : ) hahah Cheaper that good marble can be the sand table. Small desk with stands out from the wall ? Bolt the stands down, bolt the sand table to the top of the stands, insert box, and put some weight on top of the box. You can insert some membrane on the sand to help contain it.
 
miroslav said:
I've never seen the actual reasoning for putting them behind desk on stand to avoid desk/console reflections...if that's what's being discussed here...?
Click to expand...

That's not what was being discussed.

You nailed it on the head below:


miroslav said:
I see most people have them way to close...and it's because they don't have a mixing console. Instead, they position them relative to their computer monitor(s)...which is probably only in the 3-4' range.
For good stereo imaging, you need about 5-6' spread with a 30 degree toe-in...and then adjust your seated position to that....which then gives a better reason to place the monitors on stands so you can push them back....because at 5-6' spread means your seated positions is also 5-6' feet from each monitor, diagonally. For most home setups...that's a lot to be seated back that far...so by moving the monitors behind...you can achieve that spread and seated position..
Click to expand...

And I also did exactly the same as you plan to do below when I went from vertical Truths to horizontal KH310s.

miroslav said:
Having just gotten new monitors which are going to probably sit in their horizontal position, where the previous ones were vertical...I will most likely need to elevate them about an inch or two for optimum position...so I'll just add another 1" piece of marble stone/1/4" rubber to the existing "sandwich"...rubber/stone/rubber/stone/rubber.
Click to expand...
 
RFR said:
Miro, you need to throw up a current picture of your desk with those new bad boys!
:D
Click to expand...

Mmm...when I settle in on their position. I'm still exploring horizontal over vertical, though I'm leaning to horizontal at the moment...and because of that, it brings their center in closer...less space between the each monitor than what I had with the Mackies. So I can spread them more...and/or tweak the toe-in angle. 30 degrees is the recommended, but, it's not the end of the world if you go say +/- 5-10 degrees. It's just a matter of really dialing them in relative to the mix position and room.
I use to have the Mackies at 5' 6" on-center...with the Focals in horizontal, they sit at 5'...which is about as close as I would want them.
Anyway...as soon as I sort that out...I'll be happy to post the pic. :)



garww said:
Well, coupling, acoustic and physical, should be addressed to varying degrees. A moPad will probably smear your imaging more with lightweight boxes. Now, if you actually bolted the boxes to the 1-inch marble, you'll have more mass to stabilize the imaging - otherwise, they're still twittering away like a canary .
Click to expand...

Naaa...at about 31 lbs each, they're not moving. :D
Plus, the dense neoprene rubber is more very firm, more than any foam...it has no real give AFA any lateral movement, and it also has a real adhesive property...I mean they stick like crazy to my wood desk tops, to the marble and to the monitors. With the monitors in horizontal, they actually sit across two sets of 10"x12' rubber/marble sandwiches...so with that much surface area in contact, there's no movement. I think if you bolted everything down, you then deal with transmission, since you've in-effect coupled them to whatever they are bolted to.
I had more "smear" issue with the Mackies rear, passive radiator, since they were less than a couple of feet from the front wall. With the new monitors...I can't believe how super tight the low end is now...very tight.
 
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