Speeddemon":2ganpkpj said:
Interesting you mention the Opals.
I'm keen to hear your thoughts on Dynaudio, Tannoy, old Mackie HR's, Meyer HD1's as well.
Respect the BM1A (I think that's what they were called - the super-popular model from back in the day) for its warmth and punch. Definitely no harshness there.
Only ever used the Tannoy Little Reds way back when, but they were great and I immediately respected the brand due to this.
The old Mackies were excellent, but I had a tiny issue with the high end. To my ears, it was a wee-bit hard. Not harsh, just "hard", and I put this down to the tweeter material and design.
Meyer is something I've never had the honour of hearing; they're way beyond my pay grade.
Speeddemon":2ganpkpj said:
By the way, aside from excellent transient response, I don't care for the Yamaha HS-series. Way too mid-forward for me. Quite aggressive. And this is coming from someone who digs Focals. Both for studio and hi-fi.
I hear you. I recommended the OP look at them 'cause of the price : performance ratio.
They're still excellent for what they are IMHO; that forwardness is something one could expect given the NS10 heritage.
Speeddemon":2ganpkpj said:
In my living room I have a set of 816W's, which I've chosen after extensive A/B/C-ing with Monitor Audio, Dali, B&W, KEF and some others.
Nice. At a glance I wouldn't use something like that for near field monitoring simply because of the drivers' physical separation from one another; there'd be phase issues at the monitoring position if it were a metre or two from the units.
In your living-room situation 'though, it's a different story. When I bought the Opals I moved my old Alesis Pro Linear 720 DSPs to the living room, and they do the job, especially when you're used to shitty stereo systems and TV speakers, as I am.
swamptrashstompboxes":2ganpkpj said:
I value hearing different examples because you can anticipate how the mix would sound on something else. IMHO, YMMV, ETC.
Definitely the way to go, mate; there shouldn't be any mileage variation there.
Unfortunately I've only ever been able to run one pair at a time due to space limitations. Thankfully these days we can use emulators such as Audified's MixChecker Pro for multi-system comparisons, and then there's the likes of Waves' near-field monitor and mix-room virtualisations (generic studio & Abbey Road versions).