Nearfield monitors for music.. KRK VXT4 + 10s vs Adam A7X vs Dynaudio BM5A MKII vs Focal CMS50/65

The adams a7 are very neutral, great speakers.  Highly recommended.

Here is a test in French unfortunately, but with plenty of measures which should be understandable easily.

http://www.homecinema-fr.com/test_monitor/CR_test_monitor.pdf , The Adam, Focal and Dynaudio were test (+Tannoy and JBL)

Globally for the listening test, sound signatures are agreed upon by the 3 different listeners but the optimal speakers depends on the room, hence the order of preference changes depending on the listener (Each listener listened in their own home).

But the measures are interesting nonetheless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infinito 

In this case, which is the best?¿

Hi

I can't comment on which is the best because I haven't heard any of them and I don't know anything about them.

However I will say that I use the speakers and amp with my computer for listening to music as well as for editing sound, when I'm doing video editing with Final Cut Pro (which I do quite a lot of).

Personally I think the most likely route to get good sound quality is to get a good stereo amplifier and a pair of regular domestic stereo speakers of reasonable quality.

I am using a Sugden Transimpedance Bijou amplifier and a pair of Rogers db101 speaker. All bought second-hand for a lot less than the prices you have identified but I think my set up will sound very good indeed compared with speakers sold as "monitors".

Many of these "2.1" set ups sold for computers really are not great because they split the signal far to high up the audio spectrum. Once again I am not talking about the ones you have mentioned so I am writing generally.

There is a bizarre myth that "active" speakers are inherently a good thing. Of course they are not because the amplifiers are built into the speakers which is a very bad place to put an amp owing to the great deal of vibration.

Then people want to suggest that it is better to have the crossover between the amp and the pre-amp. However this is not an inherently better place to put a cross-over because it will add a lot of noise before the power amplifier which of course the power amplifier will amplify.

I am not saying that those arrangements I've described are bad, just that they are not necessarily good.

So...

A nice stereo amplifier driving a good pair of regular speakers is very well worth looking at.

As an aside, remember that when using near-field speakers it is important that they are pointing at your ears! So many people buy some expensive pair of speakers, plonk them on their desk. They listen to them wildly off-axis and the sound quality will be terrible.

i just so happen to have listened to all the speakers in your lineup minus the cms50's.  to my own ears, the dynaudios seemed to be the least fatiguing with an open, almost buoyant and airy quality to their sound.  They were my overall favs.  the focals were very nice too, but seemed much more sensitive to room placement (even though the are front ported, which is odd), making them less than ideal, as i was also planning on putting the monitors on a desk (which is against a wall).  The adam's were just strange - overly agressive and almost blaring across the spectrum, with a slightly boomy and uncontrolled bass (which was a shame because the older a7's were magnificent).

the krk's were crap.  muddy and non-flat.

but i highly recommend you listen to them all, as my tastes may be different.  you should also give the focals a home audition - with the right room they seem to be the best speakers with an almost holographic high-end and totally controlled and calm but powerful low end - though that placement IS a bitch.  you might also want to give the genelec 8030s a try.

the focals are the better driver that is used in many high end loudspeakers, as with dynaudio and active crossover will almost always be better than passive imo, far more linear response, i'm not sure if patrick has actually listened to a decent set of biamped nearfields with active electronic crossover, or understands why they are technically superior in many cases; certainly at this end of the market before serious money is spent on biamped passive xo and the driver response and impedance is well matched to the amp output impedance and drive capability; at least it should be.

some of the best speakers in the world are active or biamped with the amps as close as possible to the speakers. with these ones for example, we are talking about amps that have pretty serious psrr and vibration caused has got to be one of the most minimal effects up against the issues you will encounter elsewhere in the chain trying to find a speaker and amplifier that mate well together. ATC actives for example are some of the best speakers i have ever heard period.

so i would look at trying out the dynaudio and focals, but i'll put money on you enjoying the focals more