Studio Monitors - 5" vs 8"

A

adam79

New member
I'm planning on buying a pair of studio monitors and I've been doing some research recently. I've narrowed it down to either the JBL LSR's or the Yamaha HS's. The dimensions of my room are: 21' (Length) x 15' (Width) x 8.75 (Height); my ceiling is made up of ceiling tiles. Is my room big enough for 8" monitors? I found a good deal on a pair of used JBL LSR308's.. under $300 for the pair. They've only been used for a few months. Anyone have any experience with these? Good? Bad? I've also read good things on the Yamaha HS series. If I go with those I'll either get the HS7 ot HS8's. If my room isn't big enough for the 8" woofers I'll just go with the 5". If anyone has any suggestions on other monitors I'm all ears. I'm not looking to spend more than $300-400. I've also read mixed reviews on the KRK Rokit 6 G3's. Some people love 'em and some hate 'em.

Thanks,
-Adam
 
The size of your monitors is more about how decent the room is. A bit, poorly treated room is going to be - well, no matter what, it's gonna suck.

Long story short - 8's. At least. 5's can be fine if there are 4 (or 8) of them.

On the speakers themselves -- "Meh" -- But everything in that price range is "meh."

** Small, inexpensive speakers that I didn't want to throw into a tire fire: Equator D5's. I've not had enough time behind the new Focal budget line to make a decision. And put me in the "tire fire" category with the KRK's.
 
I've had equator d5s for over a year. I wish i had the d8s but for close monitoring they are great.. I'm sitting about 2 feet away from them monitoring at conversation levels, and am very pleased.
 
Just a tiny point?
In a PROPERLY designed loudspeaker the size of the cone should not affect the balance of bass to middle and treble, so an 8" monitor should not sound "bassier" than a 5" one.

A bigger overall drive unit should just allow a higher final SPL, a lower LF cutoff or a trade off of both. Cabinet size also affects these parameters.

Trouble is of course a lot of monitors are NOT properly designed and have a "hyped" bass response assisted by a poorly implemented porting system. In fact, ported speakers are often so poor that the experts will not use most of them.

If you want 100dB SPL peaks, trouser flapping bass and clean 30Hz sines you need to spend $1000s.

DO read Mr Massive's Missive about monitor calibration!

Dave.
 
A note about the JBLs: they have rear-firing bass ports. That means they either need to be several feet out from the front wall, or you need bass traps behind them. I have LSR305s with bass traps and I'm happy with them.
 
ecc83 said:
Just a tiny point?
In a PROPERLY designed loudspeaker the size of the cone should not affect the balance of bass to middle and treble, so an 8" monitor should not sound "bassier" than a 5" one.

A bigger overall drive unit should just allow a higher final SPL, a lower LF cutoff or a trade off of both. Cabinet size also affects these parameters.

Trouble is of course a lot of monitors are NOT properly designed and have a "hyped" bass response assisted by a poorly implemented porting system. In fact, ported speakers are often so poor that the experts will not use most of them.

If you want 100dB SPL peaks, trouser flapping bass and clean 30Hz sines you need to spend $1000s.

DO read Mr Massive's Missive about monitor calibration!

Dave.
Click to expand...

I've also read about the negative aspects of ports on monitors. Like you said tho, getting a pair without them can get pricey.
 
mjbphotos said:
A note about the JBLs: they have rear-firing bass ports. That means they either need to be several feet out from the front wall, or you need bass traps behind them. I have LSR305s with bass traps and I'm happy with them.
Click to expand...
Hmm. From what I've gathered that's not the case. (But then I've been wrong too :>)
There is Speaker Boundary Interference Response- that applies to all speakers. (shoot, both walls, the ceiling and the floor if you want to get into it.
Then there's interfering acoustically with the port's air flow. Several inches perhaps?
The SBIR' says the closer the speaker to the walls the higher the reflection freq notch. What you want to avoid (or watch for) are placements out far enough that it gets low enough to mess with freqs down where a speaker is omni. Then the first 'gotchas as you move out, end up being in the upper bass regions.
Here's a handy link. (They don't actually deal with rear port, good none the less :)
Speaker Placement 101: How to Fight Boundary Interference
 
adam79 said:
I've also read about the negative aspects of ports on monitors. Like you said tho, getting a pair without them can get pricey.
Click to expand...
My SPTech's are rear ported, not to worry. (They're exactally (well, one of the reasons :>) I wanted to look into all this.

BTW/FWIW dept. My front room is a bit smaller than yours and one pair I have are 6".
(The other- dual eights :) Sixes' do pretty well in there level wise.
'Within reasonable expectations' is what you want to keep in mind.
 
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Adam 79,
there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the bass reflex principle when applied to SPECIFIC drive units in very carefully designed enclosures and when the port "assistance" is modest and just helps with the lowest octave or so.
The problems arise when small boxes are tuned to 60Hz or so to give an impression of good bass. The "Q" of these systems is also poor and you get ringing at LF (Sound on Sound go on about this a lot! Call it "smearing")

As you say, sealed enclosures will be more expensive for the same bass extension and SPL because the box needs to be bigger and the amplifiers more powerful. It is often stated that a REALLY good monitor does not draw attention to itself but they don't sell well to the kids!

Mixit. Was going to say something similar! It is a good idea to keep speakers away from walls, ported or nay. The wavelengths at which a port is working, say 18feet and more, means that keeping them even a few FEET from a wall is not really going to help.

Basically, speaker boxes in rooms are doomed! We all need soffit mounted jobbies! (but 'er indoors won't 'ave it)

Dave.
 
I have a 10'w x 12'l x 8' high room. I love my LSR5's. I have the room treated with basic 6" Roxul corner bass traps, two 3" first reflection panels, 3 panels on the wall behind me and 2 on the front wall behind the monitors. I also have a 4' x 4' x 3" roxul "cloud over my sitting area. The monitors sit about 6" from the panels. Not a perfect room (the dimensions alone are a strike against me), but very happy with the near field sound. Didn't feel the small fairly square room would do 8" any justice.
 
wmalan said:
I have a 10'w x 12'l x 8' high room. I love my LSR5's. I have the room treated with basic 6" Roxul corner bass traps, two 3" first reflection panels, 3 panels on the wall behind me and 2 on the front wall behind the monitors. I also have a 4' x 4' x 3" roxul "cloud over my sitting area. The monitors sit about 6" from the panels. Not a perfect room (the dimensions alone are a strike against me), but very happy with the near field sound. Didn't feel the small fairly square room would do 8" any justice.
Click to expand...

The 308's are near field as well, right?
 
Massive Master said:
I'll have you know that I just recently "fixed" (???) that part of the website. And thanks for the vote.

Calibrating Your Monitoring Chain | MASSIVE Mastering Blog | The Rants and Ravings of an Audio Mastering Engineer
Click to expand...

Most welcome! I shall go and have a gander again.

You may have noticed (!) I often berate posters for NOT having a basic test meter? I am not so sure if a C weighted SPL meter is more important!

In any case noobs. BOTH will cost less than $40-$50. NO idea how much colonial beer that is but a few days off it cannot hurt!

Dave.
 
mixsit said:
Hmm. From what I've gathered that's not the case. (But then I've been wrong too :>)
There is Speaker Boundary Interference Response- that applies to all speakers. (shoot, both walls, the ceiling and the floor if you want to get into it.
Then there's interfering acoustically with the port's air flow. Several inches perhaps?
The SBIR' says the closer the speaker to the walls the higher the reflection freq notch. What you want to avoid (or watch for) are placements out far enough that it gets low enough to mess with freqs down where a speaker is omni. Then the first 'gotchas as you move out, end up being in the upper bass regions.
Here's a handy link. (They don't actually deal with rear port, good none the less :)
Speaker Placement 101: How to Fight Boundary Interference
Click to expand...

Good article, but it does not address rear bass ports at all, and does say this:
At very close distances, 4 inch thick absorptive acoustic panels behind the speakers may help tame the cancellation notch. Broadband bass traps would be better. As speaker-wall distance increases, treatment becomes less practical.
 
Keeping speakers away from walls is desirable in every case*. Whether a port is on front or back of the cabinet does seem a factor to me since the radiation in both cases is virtually purely Omni-directional as indeed it is for any loudspeaker of movable dimensions at LF.

*You might want to put a bass cab by a wall or a corner for ultimate thud!

Dave.
 
Not that they're junk, but avoid the KRKs. Gen 3s were a huge step up for them, but not to the Yamaha/JBL/Presonus/M-Audio/Mackie at the meh level. Looking for 8" monitors on a budget. You can do what I did (I actually overspent my budget and about killed my ears doing it...long story), but I went to the local (Raleigh, NC) Guitar Center and reserved myself some time in the vault with 12 different sets of 8" speakers.

I took an SPL meter and a disk with a sweep and seven test tones (at different Hz), a file (song) I use when A/Bing some of my mixes, and a two of my mixes that I knew very well. I listened to each set of speakers with the following set of criteria. Calibrated to 95 dB @ 1 meter @ 1000Hz, then, while watched the SPL meter through the sweep to see where dips and peaks were (and same with the 7 test tones (don't remember the exact frequencies and the disc is long since lost)). Then I listened to the songs and recalibrated to 60dB @ 1000Hz @ 1 meter and listened to the songs again. Process took about 20 minutes per set of speakers for a total of just over 3 hours. I'm pretty sure I was suffering ear fatigue by the end and my listening results were skewed, so I would recommend doing a few (maybe 3) at a time and taking notes.

Anyway, you have two very respectable candidates in your line-up. I would recommend adding Eris E8s and M-Audio BX8s to the list and (just to see if it was just me) I'd personally love it if you'd throw the Behringer Truth B2031As into the mix (they were my #2 behind the M-Audio M3-8s (great speakers, btw) I ended up getting).
 
Thanks, both of you -ecc83, mjb' :) And so as to sort of probe' this a bit further; There's also 'quite close to the wall, = a notch higher in freq, = easier to 'trap with an absorber- to mitigate the effect.
However, I've tried this before and I just went through it again, now I'm more confused than before.
I'm trying to use the wall bounce calculator on that page to 'simulate' speaker wall distance effect-- but see the result clearly -independent- of the listener distance effect.
http://arqen.com/wp-content/media/Wall_Bounce_Calculator_2D.xls
Just ran some more (and saved- maybe they can be useful) another set..

I'm really hoping one of you can steer me right here.
Between comparing various -but the same- speaker 'front and side wall distances (i.e. simplify to 'one notch' for speaker distance, that works, ..converting back and forth from inch to CM.. :facepalm: I think my brain just exploded. Again ;)

Maybe, what I need.. should be looking for, is a simple SBIR calc?
 
Sorry can't help you, man. I just go by what sounds good to my ears and what seems to translate reasonably well to other systems.
 
mixsit said:
Thanks, both of you -ecc83, mjb' :) And so as to sort of probe' this a bit further; There's also 'quite close to the wall, = a notch higher in freq, = easier to 'trap with an absorber- to mitigate the effect.
However, I've tried this before and I just went through it again, now I'm more confused than before.
I'm trying to use the wall bounce calculator on that page to 'simulate' speaker wall distance effect-- but see the result clearly -independent- of the listener distance effect.
http://arqen.com/wp-content/media/Wall_Bounce_Calculator_2D.xls
Just ran some more (and saved- maybe they can be useful) another set..

I'm really hoping one of you can steer me right here.
Between comparing various -but the same- speaker 'front and side wall distances (i.e. simplify to 'one notch' for speaker distance, that works, ..converting back and forth from inch to CM.. :facepalm: I think my brain just exploded. Again ;)

Maybe, what I need.. should be looking for, is a simple SBIR calc?
Click to expand...


Man, that's just gonna make my head explode......probably everyone else's as well, with the exception of the technical legally insane types. :D
 
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