KVR Audio

Psuper · Post by **Psuper** » Sat Oct 17, 2020 4:30 pm

Bit late to the party, but I've had the BluSky mediadesk for about 15 years or so and I'm not sure I'd want to replace them with anything else. You can sometimes find them cheap on eBay or other places too, so I've picked up an extra sub and speakers along the way.

LocalTrack19 · Post by **LocalTrack19** » Sat Oct 17, 2020 5:06 pm

Will do Andy

. In the store they really put a smile on my face, in fact for me they sounded even better than the Genelec’s 8010 I also listened to, which were excellent too

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat Oct 17, 2020 5:28 pm

If I read this, and other stuff related to speaker and room size, I'm happy to have opted for 5" speakers as well. Anything else probably would have been overkill for my room... already hearing some resonances at some bass frequencies, and some "sucked up" bass in the really low frequencies.

LocalTrack19 · Post by **LocalTrack19** » Sat Oct 17, 2020 5:35 pm

chk071 wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 5:28 pm If I read this, and other stuff related to speaker and room size, I'm happy to have opted for 5" speakers as well. Anything else probably would have been overkill for my room... already hearing some resonances at some bass frequencies, and some "sucked up" bass in the really low frequencies.

How big is your room? And did you treat it?

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat Oct 17, 2020 7:54 pm

About 3 metres x 4,20, and no treatement at all. I doubt that I'd be able to treat it against bass resonations anyway, and that's the most problematic thing I faced. For bass treatment, I think you need a lot of material, which is just not possible here.

The biggest "problem" I have are resonances at about 80 to 100 Hz (or so). I always hear some bass booming there at very specific notes/frequency.

El°HYM · Post by **El°HYM** » Sat Oct 17, 2020 8:20 pm

Presuming there is less distance than 4,30 (80Hz) or 3.40 (100Hz) from the Monitors to the Wall, everything beneath 100Hz will just directly bounce back without completing the full - single - cycle of the Waveform. Also not really many Options to get around this, as the Room is just too small for those Frequencies.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat Oct 17, 2020 8:37 pm

Yep.

Is it true though that, when the wave just bounces back, it can add up to resonate, and make the frequencies "boomy"? It's something I already noticed with my former monitors (M-Audio BX5a), and even more so with my current ones (JBL LSR305). Some frequencies (pretty narrow band) just tend to be very boomy, and everything below and above is alright.

roman.i · Post by **roman.i** » Sat Oct 17, 2020 9:25 pm

chk071 wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 7:54 pm I doubt that I'd be able to treat it against bass resonations anyway.

Trust me, you can kill the entire bass range with few bass traps. Maybe it's hard to impossible to kill bass with a set of cheap foam, but with a set of proper bass traps 15cm thick it's actually easy to overdo it. Pay attention to the sound absorption graph. Panels less than 10cm don't have any effect on bass, but thicker are quite effective. Maybe most people buy the unless foam, and that created a myth about hard to kill bass, but just buy the right thing for the job, it works.

And that state about a wave not able to develop in a small room, I think it's misunderstood math thing that also became a myth, it doesn't pass the real world test. First, I can hear the sines waves down to what my speaker is able to produce in a small room. Second, if you have been in a car with a sub woofer in a trunk you can hear and feel the bass to any low note. This makes me think that this rule applies to a some artificial room without windows, doors, and with walls made of an artificial material, and this mostly irrelevant for us.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat Oct 17, 2020 9:29 pm

roman.i wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 9:25 pm Trust me, you can kill the entire bass range with few bass traps. Maybe it's hard to impossible to kill bass with a set of cheap foam, but with a set of proper bass traps 15cm thick it's actually easy to overdo it. Pay attention to the sound absorption graph. Panels less than 10cm don't have any effect on bass, but thicker are quite effective.

Yeah, that's what I read. It just isn't possible here, in this room, otherwise I would definitely consider it.

It's fine for me if I know what the problematic frequencies are. It's not optimal, but, sometimes you have to live with shortcomings. Actually, it's a LOT better now than how it used to be, because, before, I had the computer and speakers set up in a niche where the whole niche resonated...

poonna · Post by **poonna** » Sun Oct 18, 2020 2:24 am

I can’t treat ALL the bass problems. Still, some treatments are much better than none at all. If you can’t place bass traps on the floor due to space limitations, consider placing some thick (4-6 inches) broadband absorbers tilted across the wall-ceiling boundary. That should help reduce some bass reflections, which makes it sound much tighter.

LocalTrack19 · Post by **LocalTrack19** » Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:54 pm

I received my Focal Alpha 50s today, and have been testing them all afternoon and evening. They sound fantastic, and with the LF filter on (-2DB) so far I do not experience any audible issues with low end in my room. Listening to my previous mixes was somewhat embarrassing though, as these monitors revealed a lot of issues, particularly on poor EQ and lack of stereo panning.
So far (yes I realise I have only used them for a day) I can highly recommend the Alpha 50s for small and untreated rooms.
As soon as I have familiarised myself a bit more with the monitors, I will do some measurements in my room to see if there are any issues with reflections.
Thanks again to all who have given me advice

e@rs · Post by **e@rs** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:57 am

Don't forget about this:
https://www.focal.com/en/focal-teach/wh ... -in-period

LocalTrack19 · Post by **LocalTrack19** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 12:50 pm

e@rs wrote: Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:57 am Don't forget about this:
https://www.focal.com/en/focal-teach/wh ... -in-period

Thanks for the heads-up. Maybe a stupid question, but do they mean 20 hours playing in non-stop?

e@rs · Post by **e@rs** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:59 pm

Not continuously, just run them whenever you got the time.

V0RT3X · Post by **V0RT3X** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 10:09 pm

LocalTrack19 wrote: Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:54 pm I received my Focal Alpha 50s today, and have been testing them all afternoon and evening. They sound fantastic, and with the LF filter on (-2DB) so far I do not experience any audible issues with low end in my room. Listening to my previous mixes was somewhat embarrassing though, as these monitors revealed a lot of issues, particularly on poor EQ and lack of stereo panning.
So far (yes I realise I have only used them for a day) I can highly recommend the Alpha 50s for small and untreated rooms.
As soon as I have familiarised myself a bit more with the monitors, I will do some measurements in my room to see if there are any issues with reflections.
Thanks again to all who have given me advice

I have the focal alpha 80s for a bigger room and they sound great. For a small office setting im considering the 50s.

Monitors for tiny home studio