Just got a pair of Rokit 5's and they sound like...

R

Rodd1000

New member
Well.....mud basically. No wait, mud in a box would be more accurate. Honestly guys, the bottom and mid ranges are awful on these. Where is the tight bass and open and detailed top end i've read about? They're anything but clear. The mud and rumbling bass just gets worse as i turn them up. I've been through my entire CD collection in search of something that sounds ok, Strokes, Interpol, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Crowded House, Pixies etc...all types of stuff and everthing just sounds so boxed in and muddy.

Granted if i lift them to above head height it's marginally better as the drivers become more aligned with my ears. But for £300 set of speakers i feel gutted.

I don't think there is a problem with them, all the frequencies are there, just in the wrong proportions.

My only question would be, do these take a while to run in? That's the only reason i can think of why they sound so poor.

Very disappointed. :(
 
Rodd1000 said:
Well.....mud basically. No wait, mud in a box would be more accurate. Honestly guys, the bottom and mid ranges are awful on these. Where is the tight bass and open and detailed top end i've read about? They're anything but clear. The mud and rumbling bass just gets worse as i turn them up. I've been through my entire CD collection in search of something that sounds ok, Strokes, Interpol, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Crowded House, Pixies etc...all types of stuff and everthing just sounds so boxed in and muddy.

Granted if i lift them to above head height it's marginally better as the drivers become more aligned with my ears. But for £300 set of speakers i feel gutted.

I don't think there is a problem with them, all the frequencies are there, just in the wrong proportions.

My only question would be, do these take a while to run in? That's the only reason i can think of why they sound so poor.

Very disappointed. :(
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What's your room like? I only ask since I've had exactly the polar opposite experience.
 
Hi, well it's a small room, 13ft x 15 not too many soft furnishings which probably don't help but then im only sitting 2ft from the speakers. This a real mystery to me. I didn't expect them to be so poor. My old 2.1 Philips speaker system that cost £35 four years ago sounds cleaner.
 
Rodd1000 said:
Granted if i lift them to above head height it's marginally better as the drivers become more aligned with my ears. But for £300 set of speakers i feel gutted.
Click to expand...

You actually want them high enough so the drivers are at ear level when you're seated.
 
Yeah, I'd wonder about the room as well.
What do they sound like shit compared to?
In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience with speakers at various price points, they seemed about right for $300. Not anywhere near the quality of much higher end speakers, but miles ahead of PC speakers and the old, beat up set of bookshelf speakers I'd been using before them, and better (to my ears at least, even if only slightly) than similarly priced offerings from M-audio, Behringer and Alesis.
Not sure what you expected for a $300 set of speakers.
 
Are the monitors close to the wall. This can reinforce bass frequencies even more so if you are in a corner..
Are they properly decoupled from the desk or stands? if not you can get increased bass from Vibration passing into the desk/stands
Do you have the HF level adjust changed to -1 or -2. this would make the bass comparatively louder.
Are you plugging like connections (ie balanced outs to balanced ins on the monitors etc)

Do you have any bass trapping in the room if not you'll have all kinds of wierd nulls and nodes in the room which can make the sound unpredictable

Do you have Auralex foam. this would absorb the high frequencies reflections leaving the bass frequencies untouched to build standing waves etc and make your bass problems much worse.

Are the tweeters damaged



KRK Rokits aren't that terrible as far as cheap monitors go. I had some RP6s that have potentially more bass than the RP5s and never experienced what you describe
 
plenty of folks here happy with krk's, plenty of reviews to back those happy users up...in fact the only thing mentioned negatively in here recently was the fact that one member thought they scooped the mids...hardly mud

so Im going to question your judgement...for one they are not "speakers", the are nearfield monitors, secondly they are not meant to make your CD's sound good, they are meant to offer a flat response, and they do to the best of their abilities in a budget price range


having them positioned properly in a treated room would be appropriate

also you did audition these before you bought...it would seem unwise to purchase £300 nearfield monitors without hearing them side to side with other monitors playing the style of music you hope to mix


sorry if that sounds harsh but muddy/boxy? nuh huh, no way
 
Answered before I could post.
Um, I dunno. Try mixing on them for a while and see how they translate.
The speakers you're used to might sound better to you, but it's all about accuracy with studio monitors.
If your mixes end up translating better than with your old monitors, then there you go, that's what the $300 was for.
If they don't, then return them or try and sell them. Any loss you take on them can just be added to the cost of your old system which - if it works better than $300 monitors - you got a crazy good deal on anyway.
 
Rodd1000 said:
Well.....mud basically. No wait, mud in a box would be more accurate. Honestly guys, the bottom and mid ranges are awful on these. Where is the tight bass and open and detailed top end i've read about? They're anything but clear. The mud and rumbling bass just gets worse as i turn them up. I've been through my entire CD collection in search of something that sounds ok, Strokes, Interpol, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Crowded House, Pixies etc...all types of stuff and everthing just sounds so boxed in and muddy.

Granted if i lift them to above head height it's marginally better as the drivers become more aligned with my ears. But for £300 set of speakers i feel gutted.

I don't think there is a problem with them, all the frequencies are there, just in the wrong proportions.

My only question would be, do these take a while to run in? That's the only reason i can think of why they sound so poor.

Very disappointed. :(
Click to expand...

i always thought the same thing about mine.

after about 2 years of doing mixes on them and having nothing translate accurately i'm pretty ready to try something else...

however i got much better response from them by measuring my room and finding a symetrical position for them at least 2ft from the wall.

that coupled with raising them to ear level and making sure they were decoupled from the mix desk have helped to improve their response greatly.

which is to say they still suck but at least it's tolerable :)
 
Also only 2 feet away from the speakers seems like you may not be in the sweet spot. ideally the monitors should be set up to form an imaginary equalateral triangle with the speakers angled so that if you drew a line from each one they ould cross at a point the same distance away from them as they are appart from each other. the sweet spot is then a few inches in front (toward the speakers) of that crossing point.
If you're only 2 feet away from the speakers you may not be in the sweet spot.

The speakers should also be about 38% of the length of the room (from front wall to back wall) off the wall, with the drivers at ear levell

Who knew listening to music could be so tricky
 
The monitors are very close to the wall and about 6 ft from either corner of the room. This is why i purchase front ported speakers, and besides i've been in studios where the speakers are just as close, but they didn't sound this muddy.

Theres just no "air" about them. If you stick your fingers in your ears slightly, enough to muffle the sound but not cut the high frequencies out all together you'd be about there. There's no punch at all, not even with rock music.

It does sound like the speakers are in a corner, but at the same time the tweeters arent exactly jumping out at me either, sounding dull infact. But the notes are all there. They're just not projected at all.

They sound flat, but not in a good way. There's no energy in the music, almost as if a thick blanket was covering them, infact that's a pretty good way to describe it.
 
Rodd1000 said:
The monitors are very close to the wall and about 6 ft from either corner of the room. This is why i purchase front ported speakers, and besides i've been in studios where the speakers are just as close, but they didn't sound this muddy.

Theres just no "air" about them. If you stick your fingers in your ears slightly, enough to muffle the sound but not cut the high frequencies out all together you'd be about there. There's no punch at all, not even with rock music.

It does sound like the speakers are in a corner, but at the same time the tweeters arent exactly jumping out at me either, sounding dull infact. But the notes are all there. They're just not projected at all.

They sound flat, but not in a good way. There's no energy in the music, almost as if a thick blanket was covering them, infact that's a pretty good way to describe it.
Click to expand...

well there's no arguing your opinion of them, thats your opinion

all Ill say is that KRK's are the most popular brand on this website for good reason...and when taking into account their price, there are very few complaints about them...in fact its all mostly praise


dunno what else to say

But anyone considering buying a set, maybe heed this posters complaint/bad review and TRY BEFORE YOU BUY
 
Rodd1000 said:
Theres just no "air" about them. If you stick your fingers in your ears slightly, enough to muffle the sound but not cut the high frequencies out all together you'd be about there.
Click to expand...




HEY .....That's exactly how I hear all of the time!!!

They would be a great match up for me. :rolleyes:







:cool:
 
Kingofpain678 said:
Treat your room, set up your monitors.
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Easier said than done, besides it's more than just the room. Don't get me wrong these speakers seem very well built and look the part, there's even detail in the upper frequencies I don't always hear on standard speakers, it's the mid and bottom end that mushes the overall sound. Simple music, with nothing much going on in the mids and lows such as acoustic stuff isn't to bad, but as soon as things get busy, they can't handle it.


I'm going to ask the shop if they will allow me to return them.

Wish me good luck, I think I'll need it.

Thanks for trying to help guys, much appreciated.
 
I doubt anything is wrong. They suck. Bad.




IMO/E, YMMV, etc., etc., yada, yada.


I hope the guy in the thread I was posting in earlier sees this (I think he was talking about getting the same speakers).
 
what do you recommend for three hundred bucks then?



ah thats right they should save for two years before they start recording...I forgot lol
 
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