low volume near-field monitors?

CfNorENa · Post by **CfNorENa** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:40 pm

JimmyTheSaint wrote:But, from what people here say, at this level of quality it's not a matter of whether these speakers are good or not, but just personal taste.

Exactly. Really, you can hardly go wrong here. Your Kronos will sound FANTASTIC through those Genelecs.

BobTheDog · Post by **BobTheDog** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:56 pm

A pair of 8030As would be arround $1330 in the UK so that price isn't bad!

I have some 8030As, they are nice monitors!

My bet is that you would be very happy with them.

ParadoxMachine · Post by **ParadoxMachine** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:53 pm

JimmyTheSaint wrote:Can people advise as to how appropriate they are for low volume? Or are they made to be cranked up a bit?

A decent pair of monitors will sound perfectly fine at low volumes, as will they at higher volumes. I think the idea of speakers sounding better at higher gain comes from the guitar amp world, where indeed very high output levels can add coloration to the sound due to the speaker cones starting to resonate with the cabinet.

On the other hand, something to keep in mind is this thing called the 'equal loudness curve', which is the way our ears respond to frequencies at different loudness levels. In the mixing world, it's common to be working at a 85 dB SPL level, because at this level your ear's freqency response is as flat as will be. This is pretty loud though. At lower volumes your ears are less sensitive to low and high frequencies, so things might seem a little less exciting.

JimmyTheSaint · Post by **JimmyTheSaint** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 3:20 pm

I ended up buying a pair of KRK Rokit 5's at $450, and they're working out nicely as expected. I see the street price everywhere is $300, but my customs duties would be 25%, and then the shipping costs would be over $100, even $200, so the Taiwan dealers know they've got you. They started at $530, and I couldn't get them to go below $450. Not a fair price like the Genelecs they were selling, but I'm happy to spend $800 less. Also, I A/B'ed the KRK's with the Genelecs and actually like the KRK's better due to a richer bass. Perhaps that makes them not as flat as the Genelecs, but not being in production I value a more pleasing (to me) sound over accuracy.

michelkeijzers · Post by **michelkeijzers** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 4:51 pm

JimmyTheSaint wrote:I ended up buying a pair of KRK Rokit 5's at $450, and they're working out nicely as expected. I see the street price everywhere is $300, but my customs duties would be 25%, and then the shipping costs would be over $100, even $200, so the Taiwan dealers know they've got you. They started at $530, and I couldn't get them to go below $450. Not a fair price like the Genelecs they were selling, but I'm happy to spend $800 less. Also, I A/B'ed the KRK's with the Genelecs and actually like the KRK's better due to a richer bass. Perhaps that makes them not as flat as the Genelecs, but not being in production I value a more pleasing (to me) sound over accuracy.

I also have these Rokits and it is very much better than using a default (or possibly good) stereo.