I tell you there is a goddarn black hole surrounding these speakers. There are no reviews anywhere on the net- it's incredible.
I think I know why: Perhaps out of protest, purely to preserve industry standards, or perhaps out of snobbery, the professional community are refusing to acknowledge the BX5as. You see, by naming their product "BX5a", very similar to the Dynaudio "BM5a", M Audio has committed an industry faux pa, they have been seen to lower themselves into the muddy depths of emulation. The BX5As are classed as "replicas", as lower-class, as common, belying their price tag and brand name reputation. I think an undisclosed, even unacknowledged, wall of silence has been erected by the pro and semi-pro web community, shunning M-Audio for their attempt to "dupe" honest-joe-public. There are some awful snobs out there, particularly within the semi-pro, home studio scene, who like to be seen as "running with the big boys" and so anything that can be looked down upon will be looked down upon.
I mean, if they are good monitors they deserve attention right? Similarly if they are awful the uninformed buyer deserves warning- in the £150 price band they stand almost alone and are bound to attract the attention of lower-end buyers like myself.
I have never owned studio monitors before and know nothing about them other than what I have read online. I also don't know what has attracted you to smaller monitors, whether it’s money or size. I personally don’t feel I could tolerate overly large or ugly monitors so you may, like me, be considering LOOKS also. Smaller monitors are prettier in your living room and, in addition to audio prowess and regardless of what a lot of techies say, aesthetics are important to a working environment.
Based on these thoughts I have been researching monitors and I think I have arrived at a theory that, if you will indulge me, I will lay out here. My theory is this (endless coughing): since small monitors suffer mostly in the bottom-end department- lack of bass definition, intricacy and imaging- manufacturers achieve satisfying results in this area at a price to the consumer- cabinet size/volume. The diminutive size of smaller drivers are compensated for, if compensated for at all, in wood and mass.
If I am right, this could be a handy rule-of-thumb and help people, like myself, face some engineering realities by accepting that the quest for “little but loud” is doomed to failure and that the concept of space saving small driver monitors is slightly misleading. Bass = Size.
I have reached this conclusion by taking a close look at three active 5" driver models- the BX5A,
the Tapco S5 and
the Tannoy Reveal 5a. Now, what information I have gleaned about the BX5a leads me to believe that these have good mid and upper range responses, if a little bright, but suffer in the lower end and are recommended for use with a subwoofer. Their dimensions are (H) 250 mm x (W) 176 mm x (D) 200 mm (8800cm3) and are the most compact of the three. Their weight is 5.0 kg/unit . The Tapcos are reportedly very good. They get a rating of 9 from SOS and Music Tech Magazine. They were described as exceeding their price in quality althouh “the bass end drops away quite rapidly below the traditional kick-drum frequencies, the overall 'focus' isn't quite the equal of expensive monitors, and the maximum SPL is lower”. Their dimensions are (H)286 mm x (W)194 mm x (D) 232 mm (12872cm3) and weight is 7.7 kg/unit.
The Tannoy reveals are described as very, very good and receive a rating of 10 in Music Tech Magazine. They supposedly output low frequencies equal to a lot of bigger monitors, but look at their dimensions- (H) 298.8 x (W) 184 x (D) 304.3 (16725 cm3) they’ve got quite a back-end! Their weight is 7.8kg/unit, making them the monitor with the biggest range but also the most massive.
It appears that the amount of bottom-end these three monitors portray increases with their size/volume- notably DEPTH and HEIGHT. Now the latter two monitors are rather more expensive than the BX5a but these simple statistics show clearly that of the three the bass increased with cabinet dimensions, not with price- the Reveals and the S5s are both sold at £229. So, without this extra mass, whatever the price, it seems reasonable to assume that speakers will always be bottom light.
The decision tree multiplies then, as we now have to decide practically whether we can phsysically ACCOMMODATE, as well as afford, more bass?
If a small footprint is important then the Tapco and Tannoy products despite only housing 5” drivers are, as they have a larger volume to achieve a deeper bass response, on the large side and unlikely, IMHO to save you very much space.
So space-saving 5” driver monitors ARE slightly misleading.
Tony
