[smoth]

I have made up my mind that I want to go with active studio monitors for my small room home theater/listening room/office. I will be most often sitting within 3' of the speakers and it will be about 6' to the couch in a 11x13x8ft room. I have narrowed it down to the Mackie Hr824mkII for their low end extension, fun sound, and high power and the Adam A7x for their more refined mid range. NOTE: I have never heard either of the speakers and the closest place I could find that had both to audition is over 200 miles away and the closest place which had just one was over 150miles which is especially far for someone who doesn't even own a car.


My first upgrade will be a subwoofer next summer, so I dont know if the low end of the Mackie will be rendered useless come that time.


Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as dropping $1k on speakers without auditioning is a little nerve raking...



Also, I will be feeding these through the RCA outs of an Asus Xonar STX. Will it be beneficial to run the signals through a DI box to run balanced feeds to the monitors or will a 6ft RCA cable be just as good?


Thanks in advance for your thoughts

 

[Jay1]

I would go with these JBL's

http://www.guitarcenter.com/JBL-LSR4326P-Powered-Studio-Monitor-Pair-103554184-i1152810.gc

 

[smoth]

I have been leaning towards a larger LF driver (7-8"), but I have been debating the benefits of possibly going with a 6" (JBL, Mackie, Adam) for a potentially tighter midrange. Obviously for the time being the 8" would give me much better low end, but once I add a sub, will I regret spending the extra money on a 7-8" model and giving up some mid-high range clarity for a temporary low end which will be surpassed?


Any opinions on the large vs medium LF driver decision?


Thanks

 

[jmichaelf]

I did this exact comparison a couple of years ago. It wasn't a perfect test but I ended up placing the Adams in 3rd behind the JBL LSR 6328P and a KRK 8". I don't know if it was the Rokit or the higher end KRK. Cone size wasn't as great an issue as the tweeter. When compared side by side, the JBL and KRK gave a subjectively better high frequency presentation. I haven't seen measurements of the Adam monitors and I was really fascinated by the folded ribbon but it just seemed veiled compared to the domes on the JBL and KRK. I don't remember much about the Mackie but that I thought was a disappointment.


Edit: I'm not going to edit the above post because I think it's funny how weirdly out of whack memory can be. I never heard the Mackies. Here's my original post from 2008.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jmichaelf  /t/1073060/adam-audio-for-casual-listening/0_100#post_14818654


I've been interested in Adam speakers for their cool tweeter. Today I went to Guitar Center to check out some A7s and thought they were a little lean in the mids. They had a pair of KRK VXT6s that sounded excellent compared to the Adam A7s (lean) and the Dynaudio BM5A's (muddy). I was surprised by the Dynaudios. To me, they were the worst of the bunch. I wanted to hear the Mackie HRs, but their display switch wasn't working. Too bad the KRKs are so ugly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jmichaelf  /t/1073060/adam-audio-for-casual-listening/0_100#post_14838258



Compared to the KRKs and JBLs which to me were very close to reality, the Adams were lean. The tweeter was very good though. I've been kind of hyping it in my head for a while, and wasn't let down. It's a good speaker, but the KRK and JBLs were both better, the KRK was the best.

 

[Doc Spratley]

Might also want to check out the Focal CMS line.

http://imgur.com/ucSxZ.png%5B/IMG%5D

 

[Bone215]

I have the JBLs Jay1 mentions above. I have them hooked up so I can drive them with an inexpensive preamp, CD, and tuner. I run my itunes through my laptop via headphone out line into the aux selection of the preamp.

They are clean, revealing, and if played with good source materials, they do well, compressed older recordings, not so well. Garbage in garbage out. Each sits on its own sub so pretty much a nice almost full range system.

I consider it my computer speaker set up.

If your room can handle the larger size speakers I think you will enjoy them as well. Whether tied into a sub or not, 6" or 8" powered speaker will have no problems covering the frequency ranges you ask of it.

I do think active speakers are capable of incredible clarity, more so for samd $ spent on passives and amplification.

just my two cents.

 

[Jay1]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Bone215  /t/1415558/adam-a7x-vs-mackie-hr824mkii-opinions#post_22137027


I have the JBLs Jay1 mentions above. I have them hooked up so I can drive them with an inexpensive preamp, CD, and tuner. I run my itunes through my laptop via headphone out line into the aux selection of the preamp.

They are clean, revealing, and if played with good source materials, they do well, compressed older recordings, not so well. Garbage in garbage out. Each sits on its own sub so pretty much a nice almost full range system.

I consider it my computer speaker set up.

If your room can handle the larger size speakers I think you will enjoy them as well. Whether tied into a sub or not, 6" or 8" powered speaker will have no problems covering the frequency ranges you ask of it.

I do think active speakers are capable of incredible clarity, more so for samd $ spent on passives and amplification.

just my two cents.

That's a pretty nice sounding setup.


When you have accurate, revealing speakers, you will know exactly how well something was recorded (kind of the point of a studio monitor). There's a reason audiophiles listen to elevator music.

 

[smoth]

Just ordered the Adam A7x from B&H refurbished for $500 each. It should be such an improvement over what I have that I shouldn't even miss the low end (not that I have it now..haha). By the time I get used to them I should have enough money for a sub to keep them fresh.


I have actually heard the Focal CMS65 and while they sounded amazing and I would have no reservations, they are just simply out of my price range.

 

[Ka7niq]

I have the Fostex active monitors with a 5 inch woofer and dome tweeter. I just recently bought them for my computer use.

They are the new Fostex, but I can't recall the model numbers ?

They are very warm and rich for a monitor, with a lot of bass for such a small woofer.

I find them to be more musical and flattering then cold and clinical, like most monitors.


Just for kicks, I placed them in my large room, hooked up in 2ch with my subwoofers.

They are outrageously musical, with 3d imaging, in my main system.

LOL, they seem to make most everything sound great, so I don't see how people use them for monitors ?

But if you want a warm, rich little speaker, with kick azz bass for it's size, that images all over the place, and plays pretty loud, check them out.

Fostex also makes this monitor with larger woofers.