The All Purpose Advice Thread - Part 2

We install a bunch of the sealed in-wall and in-ceiling triad stuff, I would say it's good stuff!

 

This is just one man's opinion and as I have been down the passive nearfield desktop speaker road for the past 20 years, I wouldn't. Especially, if you have a wonderfully tuned Senn as your basis for reference. And since you are asking for advice, mine would be .........skip passives, even though you may have a great amp.

Go powered, maybe something like Genelec or on the budget end, JBL or any number of in betweens.

 

I couldn't find the sensitivity of the LGK 2.0, but considering the floorstander LGK 2.4 is rated at 86 dB @ 1W, I'd expect the bookshelf 2.0 to be even lower. Even if we assume it's the same, you're only getting a couple watts out of the EC amp so you really don't have much headroom at all. Hoffman's Iron Law says you can only pick two of the three: low bass, small enclosure, good sensitivity. As your parameters already necessitate the latter two, you've gotta give up bass which doesn't sound good for anyone.

As Bixby mentioned, you'd likely be better off picking something powered and using the EC as a preamp.

 

Is this because of practical considerations like desk space or is it for some other reason?

Thanks Armaegis. Yes, sensitivity is a concern with the 2.0. I could not find the spec either.

I figured I could add a sub at a later time if I found it to be an issue. Would powered speakers avoid the problem? I assumed that any full-range driver in a small enclosure would never produce bass anyway.

 

Spec for the LGK 2.0 is "84db from 80hz to 20khz." It's buried in the kit description. Graphs show something similar. Not too terrible for something that small. How far would you plan on placing the speakers from the wall? Room gain can be helpful for the lower octaves. There are a lot of components in that build, which is certainly effecting sensitivity. At that size, I'm more partial to TL's with no crossover (Babylabs).

 

@Psalmanazar sorry for the tag but aforementioned friend is still looking around and figured you'd have great input, if you can spare the time. The Genelecs and Neumanns are on their shortlist but I dug a bit and saw your comments on their having a smeared quality (have an idea of what you mean lmao) and was thinking to keep fishing for recommendations.

Right now I'm toying with the idea of suggesting smaller ~3in bookshelf things and having them run a 12in sub to complement, but they want to keep it simple.

 

Partially for space reasons, and partially for performance reasons - active speakers tend to perform better than passive plus amplifier at a given price point - putting an active crossover before the amps, which are then connected directly to the drivers and are designed for the drivers, tends to be the objectively "best" way to do things though subjectively you might prefer passive. The higher performance is why pretty much everyone in the recording world has been using active monitors for decades - they're tools for recording/mix engineers. Mastering engineers often go with really nice passive hi-fi speakers though, like Bob Ludwig and his ginormous Eggleston Works system. Duntech Sovereign or Dunlavy SC-IV, V, or VI are also popular, as are ToTL B&W and others.

 

If they've got the money, ATC is great. If they can find a used pair of Meyer HD-1's in great condition (or he's willing to have them properly refurb'd) that would also be a good choice. Neither is an inexpensive option, but quality ain't cheap.

 

Powered simply lets you cheat the sensitivity portion of the Hoffman triangle.

There's a couple mini monitors that punch reasonably well (for their size) like the Adam D3V but you can't expect miracles from them. More money bigger cabinet, there's a Neumann KH80. Moving bigger then you've got a plethora of options.

Mentioned above, the ATC SCM20A is great, but that's pushing the size category of a bookshelf.

 

Heck no, I had monster 12 inch single drivers on my bridge on my desk. Mainly the move to powered was that they were more coherent and dynamic compared to all my "bookshelf speakers" on a desk. I had lots of good stuff on the desk, JBL, PSB, Jm Reynaud, Rogers, Elac, Audio Nirvana, Polk, Dayton, and probably more I have forgotten.

I am not trying to spoil ones' journey, just offering thoughts on a shorter path to perhaps some joy. Cheers!

 

They are not smeared per se. The smearing effect is from crossovers, oft overdamped drivers, and wanting to get bass out of small cabinet volumes and limiting the woofers during normal use.

Cheap 1” dome to 3” woofer to cheap 12” sub is stupid and will suck. Just get a normal
Bookshelf speaker or monitor

 

I got some sleep in between and circled back around to this, hah. The Meyers @Supamark suggested look killer, but nah I'm not gonna ask the guy to up his budget.

Thanks too for the heads up re: cause of smearing, I'm mainly still on headphones and IEMs so speakers (active or elsewise) is an area I genuinely know jack shit about lmao.

 

Focals are great too. Good Shape 65 and great Solo ST6.

ATC has the good 11/12 and the great 19/20 but both need subs that are more expensive than the speakers for full range music unless you are crazy lucky with boundary loading.

Meyer has the Amies now but they will need a sub for sub and almost surely will have higher distortion than the Focal Solo ST6 and ATC SCM20ASL if they are using normalish drivers. More distortion for more money. The benefit is the dispersion pattern supposedly matches larger Meyer systems and the horn limits dispersion for terrible rooms. Could be worth a shot but 8000 dollars is insane outside of corporate write offs but this is Donald Trump’s America.

 

KH80 sucks and is limited 100% of the time in real world use without subs. Glorified computer speakers.

 

They get a small long throw woofer, boost the hell out of the low end of it in the crossover, and limit it so it doesn’t break or horrifically distort instantly.

small 3 ways try to get midwoofers or very small cabinet volume subs to play sub this way to horrific results too. The end result is a more distorted speaker than a normal two way that doesn’t try to play sub bass. The small 3 way genelecs and Neumanns without subs have the woofers limited 100% of the time with electronic, certain classical music, and post fx.

 

Up to 2k has a lot of very nice bookshelf options!

 

Also bad are the small speakers with subs bolted to the side. Usually crossed over very high in the mud region. Distorted subs all the time and crossover dip exactly where guitar and kick resonances tend to be!

 

Unfortunately they just discontinued it, so the quest for an affordable transformer-coupled USB SPDIF device continues. Why is this so hard to find?

 

I know this is asking for a bit of a shortcut but... I just don't have as much time to stay on top of what all is out there these days. Anyway, I've been living with a pair of OPPO PM-3 as my only closed pair for years, only using them when I needed a lot more isolation (otherwise I'm using HD600/6XX or Aeolus) and I don't wanna deal with IEM (cause sometimes you sweat while doing absolutely nothing in the tropics...).

I'm interested in the ZMF Bokeh as an upgrade and as a transportable pair, I've been traveling a fair bit and will likely be traveling even more in the future. I don't want this for travel per se (I use IEM & TW buds for that), just a transportable setup in the truest sense, and I do need some isolation. Question is, what else should I be looking at besides Bokeh?

Not looking for comparisons or pros/cons or anything (though they're welcome), just a shortlist of other closed headphones at a similar or lower price point that don't sound messed up and can be packed for travel (so you know, fold flat hinges at least, if not a case). I'll end up driving them with a variety of stuff ranging from my desk/bedroom setup (Soekris>ECP T3) to my living room one (CTH) to a simple clip-on Qudelix 5K BT receiver.

Eventually I'll probably end up with another small desk setup where I'm traveling to most often. I'm a ZMF fan and Bokeh ticks most of my boxes but I'm curious what I may have overlooked. Thanks in advance!

 

Second hand ETA Mini Closed?