Jul 27th, 2017
I'll try to make it quick (haha). The simple fact is almost all of these new supposed monitor speakers are Chinese pre-designed platform products with different cosmetics for different markets and price points. I see the same product at $300, $600, or $900 & they all suffer from the same issues: false bass tuning (humpy, bumpy, boxy, etc.) and incorrect and simple crossovers into tweeters to make them sound zippy, forward, present or outright strident. That's what kids like and that's why they make them. Genelec (I am not promoting, simply commenting that there are a few others that are considered fairly neutral) strives to get it much better and then people complain they are too "flat" (read normal reasonable accuracy). The great irony is that a few simple tricks can be done to fix the most obvious sonic problem in speakers but nothing as accurate as I would do in my shop.Here in the shop I use special, very sticky felt strips applied to the cone to lower woofer resonance and stop plastic cones from "squawking" in the midrange. Also, the tweeter circuits will get another high pass section on the crossover to reduce over-driving the tweeter at midrange and will now improve phase correction (better sonic transition from woofer to tweeter). Usually a very specific value capacitor and resistor will help quite, obviously. Finally, a specially cut and folded dampening blanket placed behind the woofer will reduce the "boxy"ness of the midbass. To be honest, I loathe that speaker designers allow such muddy mid bass to dominate the sound. It fools you into thinking the mix is punchy and thick when in fact the woofer is simply adding false resonances. This is why novice engineers complain that the final mix done at a mastering house can sound weak, the real bass was simply not campured and mixed reasonably at the recording studio. Also, another filter for midrange or woofer can be added. I could send out a general kit of parts and instructions, but I would charge the labor to sit and write how to do it and how to swap or add parts.
Sorry to say, most of this market is becoming profit driven and products are sold on strange beliefs of names and reputation, which are usually usurped by sentiment and bizarre opinions and gimmickry. The short story is many of these "Boutique" products are just regular things made for a cost point. But the strange thing is most of it is really about the same parts and technology... actually most have well made parts, just not correctly finished. To be blunt, my Behringer 2031A's with a few mods are as good or better than many high priced products, $500 vs. $2000. I know I've been building those up for local people for many years. I will make a comment that the "Boutique" microphone market is even worse. $1000 mics that are a $200 product from the real original maker (OEM). $1000 for a nice paint job I guess.
Consider this: why are there so many of these products? Why the high price? Let's be logical - if a plasma TV costs $1500, why should a mic or a monitor with ok speakers cost $1000 to $5000? The reason is simply because China can slap anything together in 60 days. And an empty company name brand simply just markets, no service, no parts and no one there who knows basic electronics or good advice on how to use products; just glowing review from anyone with financial motive. Reviewers promote this avalanche of product simply because it is the paradigm of today's economy. There are many good products out there but they are seldom ever a big name company. Most want their product to age out in 2 to 6 years so you are constantly buying new, that's a problem. As an overview, people defend many ideas viciously like 30 year old Yamaha NS-10's, which are cheap sounding, claiming "I know what I like, I know what I hear!" We have a poster cartoon here in our shop. It shows a $6000 vintage mic plugged into a $4000 preamp into a vintage console into a $2000 DAC. All this mixed into such sonically limited monitors. Why, I ask, would anyone go through all this trouble of mixing Keith Jarrett on a Bosendorfer piano to be monitored on old speakers which sound like a portable cassette blaster from 1980? QED P.S. The marketing elites are stealing your money. I've written this story before and will put this up on my website with my signature on it. Truths are a difficult process. Finally, I will promote, get a pair of Yorkville YSM6. They are as good as anything else in the price category. They also need mods, but it's a more rugged design, better boards, serviceable parts, and inexpensive. People don't give this company enough credit.
Another quick critique of a particular design which has found a following out there. This design uses a woofer tweeter woofer set up called WTW or MTM (when more a midrange satellite design). Also called Da Appolito design. Regardless of the proponents and claims of some quality, these speakers feature some very troublesome design ideas if one wants a truly honest and accurate monitor. First off, now we have two woofers creating the false bass box syndrome, which in fact internally will have more acoustic interference affects which also resonate from the back of cone drivers into each other. It does make the midrange quality seem more “alive” but really at the expense of bizarre resonances coming from the cones. Secondly, we now have two/three sources of woofer midrange waves competing in the air to dominate and distract us from a more phase correct “point source" dispersion. Add this to the fact that the woofer signals must now also interact with a tweeter at its crossover zone (usually about 1000 to 4000) where the wavelengths are 8 to 4 inch long and such close driven positioning of WTW will cause multiple patterns of adding interference and subtracting acoustic waves for many feet away from speaker. Acoustic measurement show such designs have frequency response errors of + and – 10 to 20db!! Its technically called comb filtering effect and indeed some effects can be exciting to hear at first, but seriously get in the way of accurate monitoring. Plus the fact that woofers of large signal size are competing with tweeter of very small size which is a recipe to burn the tweeter sooner. Simply put, its a design that violates phase coherency, low distortion (in midrange) and poor tonal balance . But of course they will appeal to some strange attributes, oh well opinions of politics, science, religion and retail. The fixes for this speaker are previously discussed but the important final fix is to crossover one woofer at a much lower frequency, typically filtered all midrange out at about 250 to 500 htz. This allows extra bass, mid bass power but without the severe interaction of a second woofer interfering with the tweeters midrange clarity and definition. Local customers are welcome to call about about such modifications I have described here.