near-fields vs. reinforcement/"hifi" speakers

[dadams]

Hello All:

I currently have HW speaking through a pair of Klipsh KG4s and a pair of Yamaha two-way sound reinforcement speakers (12"&horn) driven by 35 watt per channel Adcom power amp. As someone said in another speaker thread - its what I had in the house when I put all this together. Using the Skinner and Ken's St. George Casavant it sounds quite nice. Luckily our LR is a vaulted A ceiling so theres room to play with.

So my question is why use near-field monitor speakers for room use? I always thought they were intended to deliver best sound within a few feet with a relatively direct listening path. Wouldn't a cabinet/speaker combination optimized for higher powered sound delivery into a large space be a better way to go? Is it just that eight channels into studio monitors is just easier/smaller/cheaper, or am I missing something about new studio monitor technology?

confused

dave

[dna]

Good question. Most near-field monitors can produce a fairly high clean output for their size, especially active monitors. Most use a ported enclosure which is also more efficient and produces low distortion at the lowest frequencies which is particularly nice for organ. Most (certainly not all) near-field monitors are fairly compact which is rather useful for those who have a lot of them. Perhaps the most important reason is that the lower end of the market represents an impressive value (there must be a lot of starving aspiring recording studio engineers out there) IMO. For example, the Behringer 2031A which I have uses 8" woofers, high output tweeters, an active crossover, individual level controls, frequency control control, and two amplifiers (one for each driver) with balanced inputs. A pair of these cost around $340 or less.

Most hi-fi and home-theater speakers are passive. By the time you add amplifiers, the price of these speakers compared to the lower end near-field monitors is quite a bit more. An example of this approach is Classic Organ's Definitive Technology model 450 speakers which use 5" bass drivers, as I remember. Compare their cost including amplifiers and cables to similar near-field monitors.

I suspect high quality live "mains" speakers, like the better Mackies, would be better suited for organ use. They are designed for wide dispersion, often use horn drivers for mid-range and treble which is very efficient and therefore should have lower harmonic distortion, and are capable of very high output. However, the lower end models especially tend to sacrifice sound quality for high output. I'm not an expert on these speakers but my impression is that you need to get into the $1000+ range before you get decent sounding mains speakers. These speakers are large compared to most near-field monitors and it would take a very large room for a couple dozen or more of these. The output level capability would probably be overkill for most ranks and most living rooms.

David

[Joe]

So my question is why use near-field monitor speakers for room use? I always thought they were intended to deliver best sound within a few feet with a relatively direct listening path.

You correct. However that could be said of any small speaker. The difference is positioning. If done correctly the studio monitor speakers, and any speakers, never face forward but are angled up slightly and face backwards to bounce off the wall. Since sound waves fall at a 45 degree angle they need to face up a little, and most importanly they need to face backwards towards the wall. Once the sound is bouncing off the wall you can forget about the nearfield focus. Let's say you have 8 studio monitors facing the wall, and a subwoofer to handle the low end, you can imagine how the sound is being mixed and dispersed into the room. If they were facing forward you would have hot spots. This is especially true with Studio Monitors.

And as David says, the convience of having the amp built in simplifies the setup. Affordable, small size, built in amp, clear and accurate sound, what's not to like?

Cheers,

Joe

www.V-Organ.com

[toplayer2]

Dave,

I agree with the comments posted by David and Joe and will add a few thoughts of my own.

Some benefits of monitors with built-in amplification:
- amplifier power matched to drivers, tweeters need and can handle less
- no inductor saturation
- The highly regarded Linkwitz-Reilly design provides 24 db/8va slopes and time alignment characteristics
- maximum damping factor to maintain tighter bass
- designs may include servo control over driver motion to reduce distortion
- designs typically have in-built driver protection circuitry
- less complicated and cluttered than separate speakers and amps, made more important when you are doing 8 - 24 channels
- designs often include equalization to flatten total system response
- some designs allow switching for near-field vs. whole space use
- typically, you receive better value for money

There are also some benefits to using numerous identical monitors. For example, this provides flexibility to adapt to advanced present and future signal routing schema. This would become essential for David's suggested routing scheme (discussed elsewhere on this forum) which would dynamically allocate ranks to different groups of speakers based on a load leveling algorithm.

In my opinion, a monitor should be a neutral reproducer that does not introduce its own personality, rather it lets the samples speak for themselves. (This opinion is not shared by many who prefer to match particular speaker types to particular ranks, and often this approach is musically excellent when done well.)

As I often have in the past, I will tout my personal favorite monitor, the Mackie HR824 which sells for around $1000/pair USD. They work very well for organs, based on my experience. See also:

http://mixguides.com/studiomonitors/Reviews/mackie-hr824-monitors-498/

The Mackie SRM-450 is not a good speaker in my opinion. The SR1530 ($2000/pair) is excellent. For the low end (under $500/pair) , you may want to look into the Mackie Tapco S8. These are manufactured in China to Mackie spec and are said to be quite good.

A subwoofer that has good buzz is the HSU Research VTF-3 ($800).

Joe H.