Should I ditch the NS10's and go active?

[Richard deHove]

I've got a pair of NS10m studio monitors going through a truly terrible amp (an emergency measure after my last -also not great- amp died). So it's time to get something decent!

I'm thinking of getting a Crown XLi 800: https://www.thomann.de/gb/crown_xli_800.htm
That'll drive the 60w NS10m studio's with 200w/side which I think is about right.

But then I wonder if I'd be better off ditching the NS10m setup entirely and going with a pair of the Yamaha HS8 ? https://www.thomann.de/gb/yamaha_hs_8.h ... 8_313037_0

I could possibly stretch to a pair of the Yamaha MSP7's if that was a really significant improvement? https://www.thomann.de/gb/yamaha_msp_7_studio.htm

I mainly play dark ambient / soundtrack material at low to medium volume in a home studio.

Amps aren't my special subject so really appreciate any advice.

[JCJR]

I don't care for the idea of powered speakers though self-powered speakers have some advantages. I don't like the possibility of active speaker amp failure after a few years. It might be difficult or impossible to find parts to repair a 5 or 10 year old studio monitor plate amp. But with a passive speaker if it isn't convenient to repair a dead amp, it is easy enough to buy a new replacement. Amps made today work fine with speakers made decades ago.

Last year I got (on closeout cheap discount) a crown XLS 1500 and XLS 1000 as two parts of a tri-amp home studio monitor system. They work fine so far as I can tell.

Crest factor is an interesting thing in context of low-spl nearfield monitoring. For instance if a speaker is fairly efficient, and you want to protect your ears and USUALLY monitor at an average SPL no louder than 90 dB-- On average the amp will be delivering very low power.

For instance if you nearfield monitor at 1 meter, and the speaker produces 90 dB SPL at 1 watt / 1 meter, than the amp is on average delivering 1 watt. But if there happen to be occasional 110 dB transient peaks in the music (20 dB crest factor), then for brief instants the amp needs to deliver on the order of 100 watts transient peaks.

In my situation the speakers (except the subwoofer) are more efficient than 90 dB 1 watt / 1 meter, so the amps average even less than a watt, though there are brief instants of higher power. In my usage, I have never seen the crown level meters move above the nominal "signal present" lowest reading.

In a quiet monitoring environment, amp fan noise can be an issue. I read reviews of some amps where home studio users complain about the loud fans. In my usage the crowns do not have noticeable fan noise. At normal room temperatures and modest audio levels, the fans in these crown digital amps seem to run for maybe a half-minute out of every 5 or 10 minutes. When running, the fans run so slow you can see the blades move. At this slow speed I can't hear the fans unless putting my ear to the chassis.

If the amps were used for high power stage use, then I'm sure the fans would run near continuously and probably be obnoxiously loud. But in that case the music would be so loud it would be unlikely to hear the fans. Dunno if all crowns have such nice fan control, but am pleased with these "last years model" XLS.

Running powerful stage amps for low spl nearfield monitoring, the self noise of the amps could possibly be an issue. In my case, if the room is quiet I can put my ears up to the speakers and hear some hiss, but it isn't objectionable to me and not usually noticed from 1 meter away. I've read complaints about noisy powered monitors, so it isn't a unique situation. Analog electronics always have noise to some degree. Its just that maybe an "excessively over-powerful" amp in a home studio could POSSIBLY have a bit more self noise. For instance if two amps both have 80 dB signal to noise ratio, but one amp is 1000 watts and the other amp is 100 watts-- The 1000 watt -80 dB noise will be louder than the 100 watt -80 dB noise.

[Richard deHove]

Hi JC, thanks for the thoughtful reply. You mentioned several things I was thinking about including the amp fan noise. I was a bit concerned about that but with several computers and some environmental noise already I think that should be OK. Also I'll be barely pushing the amp at all. Which is pretty much to say that I think I'll stick with the NS10m's. I'm so used to them now that it'd probably take a couple of years to adapt to anything new.

I'm a little surprised this aspect of music production gets so little airtime at KvR. Perhaps it's because it's something that people only need address every 5 or 10 years.

Also inspired by your studio shots to look into some acoustic treatment

[ghettosynth]

I would not have a monitor amp with even a single fan. I don't see the point of that much power really. Find a decent hi-fi amp that is dead silent.

I should say more I guess.

In my hardware studio I have some PA speakers hooked up to a Mackie 1500i. They're for monitoring, but not critical monitoring. It doesn't take much for that fan to come on and it's noticeable. I wouldn't tolerate that where I'm critically listening.

That said, if you're used to the NS10's, the newer Yamaha's will probably be a pleasant upgrade and if you already have noise in your environment and it's untreated, you will probably be fine.

I'm currently using my HS50s because my other monitors need repair and I can hardly wait to get my old monitors back. I'm not a fan of the harsh highs.

[Richard deHove]

I'm currently using a Denon hifi amp but am having to drive it at about 50% for any robust listening. I'd prefer to get something fanless but haven't found anything so far. All the NS10 threads generally recommend at least 120w+/side and I'm currently on 45!

Amps aren't a very exciting topic for general discussion but you'd think there would be three or four generally used new studio amps for this market.

[ghettosynth]

I'm currently using a Denon hifi amp but am having to drive it at about 50% for any robust listening. I'd prefer to get something fanless but haven't found anything so far. All the NS10 threads generally recommend at least 120w+/side and I'm currently on 45!

Amps aren't a very exciting topic for general discussion but you'd think there would be three or four generally used new studio amps for this market.

I don't use monitors for anything other than critical or casual listening so I generally don't need them to be too loud. I have small PA speakers in my studio for when I want to turn it up. I also have reduced my mixing level the last few years.

I can't say for sure, I don't have one of those amps, but, I've yet to own a poweramp with fan that wasn't too noisy for studio use and came on at inopportune times. It depends on placement I guess. My computer is very quiet because I've gone out of my way to make it so.

I think that the reason that there's not much discussion is that very few people are using passive monitors anymore. I'm planning on adding a set of "cubes" of some sort here soon and I have an Adcom amp that I'm going to be using for that with, IIRC, about 80 Watts/side.

[Richard deHove]

Going active sure looks easier! If I was starting again I think I'd definitely be looking at the HS8 or MSP7 option. But it seems a terrible waste not to use the NS10m's, especially since I'm hopeless at reselling stuff.

I'm now thinking of going with the Yamaha P2500S. It's recommended several times in this ultimate NS10 Gearslutz thread:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much ... ad-15.html

And is a good price:
https://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-P2500S-2- ... B00JQI0EX0

Reports also seem to indicate the fan often doesn't even come on unless pushed

Also for future reference this is a great site for NS10 info: http://www.ns-10m.com/NS-10M-Other.html

[kelvyn]

As an NS10 non believer I have never really understand why in these days of fantastic, powered alternatives people still cling on to them.
Yes! People that use them are used to their particular sound and the old adage of 'If they sound good on these then they sound good everywhere' is an oft spoken but to my mind a well worn out mantra. Truth is... IMO they suck!
In the eighties - very well known - engineers would sometimes put kleenex tissues over the tweeters... Mad! But to be honest in those days they didn't have the choices that we have now.
On the other hand does it really matter what an individual uses as long as it gets them where they want to be, just look at what Andrew Scheps uses as his go to speakers - Tannoys - and he makes fantastic mixes on them... an almost impossible undertaking for us mere mortals.
I've owned Yamaha, Westlake, Genelec, PSI in different permutations and sizes in the last 30 years and am now using Focals. But! When one of my PSI's died I ordered a pair of small KRK's to bridge the weeks that it took for the PSI to be repaired, and honestly... they were really, really good! Especially at their price point.
So! Sorry for the long preamble... long story long. I would suggest trying some powered monitors, maybe something like the smaller Focals or even the much cheaper KRK's - which will probably cost you less or as much as a really good amplifier and get you more than likely much better results - My 2 cents.

[Aloysius]

NS10s can be a bit heavy around the ears after a while.

[sfxsound3]

+1 Time to get out of the stone age?

[lfm]

Going from port-less NS10 to ported speakers will need some time to transform, suddenly hear much more lows.

Either way, going active - think about good calibration stuff to room.
Just +/- dB on tweeter and low end is not quite enough, or you are just lucky your room fits the speakers.

So something in general to calibrate if close to a wall - like 300 Hz low shelving or something.
And both lows, mids and highs adjustment are good too.

Overall for Yamaha, they have this strange -10dB level specs for frequency response which is not standard -3dB, so appear to cover more than they do. So going 7" might be better for your room.

Either way I would keep NS10's, you might want them back.
When you made final mix over a dozen times, and still not balance well everywhere.

[bungle]

Best thing i ever did was get rid of my NS10s, got the Hs50 years ago and while they sound very similar to the NS they are just less fatuiging over time.

[JCJR]

I can't say for sure, I don't have one of those amps, but, I've yet to own a poweramp with fan that wasn't too noisy for studio use and came on at inopportune times. It depends on placement I guess.

When I was amp shopping-- The 30+ year old amps still seemed working fine but I got paranoid about using the old amps with new speakers, maybe risk of old amps going down and frying new speakers.

At the proper price/spec point, seemed easier to buy new amps and put off recapping the old amps for some future rainy day project. More instant gratification to build the new speakers and "quickly" hear the result without delaying gratification recapping the old amps. More fun to build something new than refurbish something old.

As usual I spent forever reading specs and prices and user reviews of candidates. Fan noise complaints were rather common for most current-selling amps containing fans, even a couple of low power models apparently specifically targeted toward home studio use. There are only a few modern "affordable" fanless mid-power amps, and user reviews of those models had too many early failure and quality control complaints for my liking. Maybe the products are fine but I get nervous if there are too many "went up in smoke after two weeks" reviews. Any product will get a few such reviews. Difficult to judge how many are too many.

So anyway the crown xls fit all my desired specs "on paper" and I didn't read numerous complaints about fan noise. At retail I'd probably have been too cheap to buy em, recapping old amps instead, but at that time window the xls model change closeouts just happened to be "cheaper priced than behringer".

The fan control on those "older" xls models seems very fine-grained, but maybe lots of modern amps have equally good fan control, dunno. It isn't just a fan switch which is either turned off or loud as a vacuum cleaner. When running low power at reasonable room temp, mine kick on maybe 30 seconds out of 5 or 10 minutes and the lowest fan speed moves so slow you can see the individual fan blades turning.

Dunno if all the crown models have similarly fine-grained fan control.

[Mister Natural]

: yes

the 21st century is a very nice place. We have good monitor speakers here

[Richard deHove]

: yes
the 21st century is a very nice place. We have good monitor speakers here

Agreed, but it doesn't seem too unreasonable to want a simple quiet amp. There's just so few new fanless amps! Main one looks to be the Behringer A500, but am not overly keen on the brand...