Best 5 inch monitors in 2021

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Adam is my ideal for clean sound,but realism of Fluid Audio is astonishing.
Hesitation is between these two basically.
JBL will be super for listening,not sure about the mixing and sound design.
Tannoy is unbeatable in price department.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

It seems that i missed very important thing till now - amplifier class?
From what is watch and read Class D is most efficient and sterile been hybrid analog/digital,which i guess is super for monitoring,but people constantly complain about hiss and some said D is less pleasant.
Class AB seems reliable fully analog,but consume more electricity and produce heat.
Personally i don;t care about heat and el consumption,just don't want hiss.
Could Anybody share opinion about this hiss,people in comment say all D amps have it?
I am about to reconsider all my list,probably class AB is better,if anybody have experience with both classes please share info about it,i still don't understand why companies use class D if produce unpleasant hiss?

[e@rs]

My two pairs of small Genelecs use Class D amps. I don't hear any hiss, unless I put my ear a few centimeters away from one of them. So the hiss is there, but it's hardly a problem.

[Unaspected]

All studio monitors will produce hiss.

[chk071]

Speakers with Class D amps all produce hiss. Some more, some less, I guess.

[Ploki]

My focals are near silent, they use class G.
My custom woofers are powered by QSC PLX class H.
Both are variation in Class AB and none produce heat that much.

Class D is fine for woofers and midrange, but for less power hungry tweeter range, good hissless class D design isnt much cheaper than a Class AB so it makes little sense to use class D on tweeters.

There’s a flip side- properly implement class D can take digital input and doesn’t really need a DAC. (And here it makes sense to use class D across the board)

For 5” I’d absolutely consider Kali IN-5 3-ways, but Kali’s are hissy.

Adam A7X i had werent hissy. But T is cheaper so idk. I wouldn’t go for T series Adams anyway

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Is it possible be a issue related to the cables and what type of connection is used XLR,TRS,RCA so on,not to the amp itself?The more i think the more hesitate about the affordable or to save for something like Genelec or Dynaudio.
Now checking Presonus Eris E5(class AB) - most boring speakers i've listen so far,maybe that's good thing,boring and translating,specs seems better than the new XT model which is hyped in higher register and sounds better, but translation of treble spectrum will not be neutral
Hate to buy cheap stuff,then to regret:)
Cheers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ok-l7lnMmA

[Ploki]

idk, my system is far from boring (my woofers are 6800W peak) and its a good system to mix on - translates really well, so i don't necessarily agree with the sentiment that boring = automatically good.

The hiss from amps might be from EMI directly to speakers/cables, but considering fairly short cable runs for small speakers its much more likely cheaper power supply coupled with less than ideal power source

[cryophonik]

@cryophonic: Do you still have the JBL's? What's quite annoying for me with them is a very prominent peak at about 60 Hz. I don't know if that's down to my room's acoustic, or if they have a massive peak there by design. I tried to change a bit in the room, made a bit of space on one side of the speakers, also played with speaker placement a bit, tried to put some pillows/cushions behind the speakers etc. Nothing. Can't really move them somewhere else, so, I'm at a bit of a loss here.

Sorry, just saw this! No, I don’t still have mine. I sold them about four years ago when I was going through a lull and downsizing in preparation to buy a bigger house with a smaller studio space I don’t recall a 60Hz peak, but I usually used them with my Yamaha sub, so it may have been masked?

[Ploki]

@cryophonic: Do you still have the JBL's? What's quite annoying for me with them is a very prominent peak at about 60 Hz. I don't know if that's down to my room's acoustic, or if they have a massive peak there by design. I tried to change a bit in the room, made a bit of space on one side of the speakers, also played with speaker placement a bit, tried to put some pillows/cushions behind the speakers etc. Nothing. Can't really move them somewhere else, so, I'm at a bit of a loss here.

60Hz wont be absorbed by pillows and cushions and if its a room mode, positioning the speaker wont make much of a difference

A quick search for their frequency response doesn't reveal anything of the sort so i'd argue its the room

[chk071]

Yeah, I posted about it after my initial post:

I just checked by placing the monitors in the other, "long room" direction, and placed them away from the walls. They don't have that bass peak that way. Definitely an issue with the speaker placement. I can't really place them any other way though.

"Speaker placement" could well be "listening spot" as well, because, I noticed that the "problem zones" are always the same in the room, regardless of speaker placement... there are places where it's super boomy, and there are places where certain low frequency are almost completely cancelled out. The usual, I guess.

Anyway, there's no real way to improve it in this room. I can neither treat it, nor put the speakers in another place, or sit somewhere else. It'll have to do. And, I know the issue now, so, might be able to work around it, when I know that a certain frequency "area" is amplified.

[Ploki]

sorry didn't see the other comment. Yeah that's a room mode. it could be SBIR, but then it would change with speaker placement.

You can try to EQ it out. I find that DSP correction cuts are much more forgiving than boosts.

there are ways to fix this with limited space but they're not cheap so likely out of question

[ramseysounds]

I can never understand why people say try speakers at your store. Unless the store is the same size and build as the room you intend mixing in, you’ll get different results
Any well recommended speaker, especially coupled with something like Sonarworks which improved my mixing massively, should help you achieve good results and don’t forget even the most basic of room treatment (bass traps)

[Winstontaneous]

Hiss is not inherent to an amplifier class/topoplogy. It has to do with:
a) The quality of a manufacturer's specific implementation, and
b) Equally important, but almost never discussed here: most powered monitors have a fixed amplifier output level (so the amp is working in its sweet spot), it's only the input level feeding the amp you are adjusting. In this case: The hiss has a constant level that's quite noticeable at lower volumes, but is progressively masked as the audio signal gets louder. In guitar amp terms you're adjusting the preamp gain but not touching the master volume.

With passive speakers where the volume control on your amp controls the overall output level (master volume): The hiss is proportional to the output/volume. When the volume is turned down low, only a low level signal (and corresponding hiss) is audible. As you turn up the volume, the audio signal and hiss increase proportionally. Of course, due to the Fletcher-Munson loudness curve, it may be more noticeable at certain volumes, but that is a function of the human hearing apparatus rather than the gear itself. And once an amp is pushed past its rated specs, distortion and noise are likely to increase.

[ThomasHelzle]

Kali Audios second wave of speakers could be interesting.
We are currently testing the white second-wave LP-6 for my GF and it's quite an interesting speaker in the pricerange. A bit larger though with 6".

They reduced the hiss a lot in the second wave!
I can only hear it when I put my ear directly to the speaker - and I'm quite sensitive there.

I think I still prefer my Neumann KH 120 A, but that is slightly steeper
For low volume, the JBL 305s are actually quite close, I use them as back speakers in my surround setup. Not as precise and not good for loud though.

Cheers,

Tom