Hi there!

Need some advise.
After a lot of thinking (thank you all slutz for your priceless suggestions), I have ended up with an MCI JH-528 rev C, which now I would like to pair with some wall mounted speakers.
Budget is 10k.
Genre is underground electronic music oriented.

I was thinking of two Genelec 1237A
But I have to admit I don't know much on the subject.

So far I have been working with Genelec 8050 and 1032, used as near filed monitors.

Any suggestions?
Thanks much for your help,
E

Whatever sounded good in my room. Demo any speakers you can get in your place....Quested, ATC, Barefoot, Genelec, etc.... Better yet, start by going to a dealer that may have some of these next to one another to build an impression of what you like tonally, explaining the floor plan of your control room to the staffer there and just jump in.

Kii3.. Amazing

But you'll definitely need to check them in your room first. That being said they're not as picky with rooms as other mentioned brands but still sound awesome.

I'm defo buying a set when I have a half decent space.

Wiggy

When you say "wall mounted"... do you mean soffit mounted? If so, does the 10k budget include the design and implementation of the soffit mounts? In some context, if you just build a box around them you could be creating a whole world of trouble for yourself. A well designed soffit mount which leaves the wall invisible to the monitors and the monitors invisible to the wall, is VERY hard to implement well. My top tip: get someone in that knows what they are doing before you set off down that path (and before you decide on what monitor to choose because they are not all created equal). I used Thomas at Northward Acoustics and can't recommend him highly enough. There might be 3 or 4 other people in the world I'd trust with this job.

Good luck.

What Trev said, he's 100% right.

On the nearfield side I'd test a pair of atc scm25 or 45 if the room is big enough. If you want them soffit mount the 110 or the 200.
I'd also test the new 8341, since you like genelec..

Although interaction with the room is what will make them work or not.
The acoustics should always comes first imho and ime.



Cheu

The 110 and 200 would be outside of his price range of 10k Euro.

There are a pair of used 110s in classifieds for less than that...

Well that was easy!

Yep, but as Trev said there's a pair of used 110 in the classifieds



Cheu

Ocean Way HR4S.

Thank you all for your insights.
The control room will be treated by a professional old-school acoustic engineer, who I know since a long time and always made me very happy with his way of working.

The room is roughly 16’-5” large by 20’-8” long, with a variable height of 7 to 8 feet.

Let’s say the overall NET volume could be something around 55 cubic meters (2,000 cubic feet), GROSS volume being 70 cubic meters (2,700 cubic feet).

The speakers should be wall-mounted and slightly slanted forward, to better pass over the MCI vu-meters and possibly leave some space for some nearfields like the Genelec 8050 and/or Yamaha NS-10, which I already own.

As a first scratch, the distance between the two wall-mounted speakers’ center could be around 6’-10”.

Of course, the decision of which brand of speakers made in advance would help designing better the rough skeleton of the control room.

I don't really have any speaker preference, even if I worked almost exclusively with Genelec in the past.
British Pound is a bit low at the moment so I won't mind looking at UK-made speakers.

A lot of people electronic music oriented told me such great things on ATC, but when I look at their characteristics, I see they don't really go very low at +-3dB… On their website they write 50Hz at +-2dB, which seems a bit low to me (again, excuse my ignorance, I am not trying to offend anybody here!)


I understand I will probably have to increase my budget to 15k, but I still would like to make a clever choice.


Of course, maybe having separate power amplifiers (with passive monitors), could also help to build a lighter structure and have the amplifier in a more accessible place.


Regarding the suggestion to go and try listen to potential speakers in other studios, that makes a lot of sense, I agree. I will try to do and keep you posted.


So far I have put my eyes over:

ATC SCM110
ATC SCM150
GENELEC 1237B

DYNAUDIO M3VE



Also somebody was mentioning:

FOCAL

QUESTED
OCEAN WAY
,
but I don’t know which model could fit my studio yet.


Thanks again for your help

When you say "wall mounted" are you meaning in-wall (soffitt/flush mounting) or on-wall?

Height/tilt (especially tilt which raises all kinds of issues) should be determined based on speaker. Clearing a console isn't a big deal if the tweeter and midrange clear -- the woofer doesn't need to. You often don't need to tilt to clear things and flipping speakers "upside down" is pretty common to get the acoustic center of the speaker in-line with the mixer's ears. The biggest problem I see with your room is the low ceiling -- there's a good chance you'll end up putting your woofer in a null point on the vertical axis.

6'-10" is really narrow for center-to-center. My midfields are almost exactly that with no mix console between me and the speakers. Farfield/mains should be wider spread because (A) larger sweet spot to cover more of the mix console and (B) with the console between you and the speaker, you should be sitting further than 6'-10" from the center of either speaker when at the desk. An equilateral triangle is still best so determine how far you will be from those walls when sitting at the desk.

The ATC can have their amps separated for soffitt mounting into a rack. The Dynaudio has its amp separated in a rack unit. I'm not certain but I'm guessing that model of Genelec can also have its amp separated (you'd have to check with them.) I'd say the ATC 110 with a soffitted subwoofer per speaker would be a good option (some major EDM guy recently did this.) The shallower cabinet of the 110 vs the 150 also means you won't lose a lot of control room space (the 150 is deep.)

Quested have multiple monitors that are designed to be soffitt mounted with separate amps (their amps are not passively cooled so you'll need to prep an isolation cabinet for the fans.) The Oceanway HR3.5 would fit your needs and has its amp separated. Don't know about Focal. You should also put PMC as a contender -- the IB1 or IB2 with an XBD unit (I'm guessing more along the lines of the IB1 with XBD) would fit your needs.

What I'm getting at is you can have proper active monitors and all the benefits with separated amps. It's pretty common for main monitors. But try to keep the amps close to the speaker. We've always had cooling racks to hold the amps built directly underneath the speakers to limit the cable run. For Questeds, there was an A/C conduit pulling air from the machine room to cool the amps and returning it back.

The thing I'd wonder about is your ceiling height. If it's 8' max and maybe lower where your monitors will be, that's awfully close to the "corner" where your wall and ceiling come together.

quested V3110

Here is a link to the Ocean Way. Different to everything else.

HR4 | OceanWay Audio

I have the HR4 set without the sub, they are amazing.

If you can afford it you owe it to yourself to check kii3.. Total convert after hearing them.

Bryston recently came out with their active speakers design with external amps and crossover. So benefit of active design but without going weak on amps or having the sensitive components inside the chassis. Might be worth a look.

I second taking a look at the Oceanway line. If you can stretch the $10k a bit, the HR3.5 is a killer. If low-end output (underground electronic music) matters, it will eat the small box, small drivers, needs DSP to make up for it boxes. Usable and designed for near-mid to far-field, soffit-mount capable, etc. Serious bang-for-the-buck.

You guys are great!
Thanks so much for your help, would like to invite you all at a party at the new studio when done!


Some more info.

I have to admit I didn’t really know the meaning of “soffit-mounted”. In my language “soffitto” means “ceiling” so I thought that you meant “ceiling-mounted” LOL 

And that’s why I have written “wall-mounted” instead.


But I can confirm, I’m looking for some soffit-mounted speakers.
 And that’s why the best would be to know which ones I will be mounting before the acoustic engineer will draw the shape of the soffit-mounted speakers’ walls.

I’m probably gonna put two nearfields also.

6’10” (possible stretchable to 7’-4”) is the distance between the two speakers’ vertical axis of diffusion.



Amp-separated would be VERY important.
That is also one more reason to know the model of the chosen speaker BEFORE drawing the project, so we could insert some proper space under the speakers to host the amps in a very accessible way (close to cabinets, and easy to remove for maintenance).


I know, ceiling is low, but we must compromise. It is actually 9’, but we have some 1’ beams in the middle which we need to take into consideration, so it’s 8’ clear, but with some space on top which we could still consider useful for acoustic treatment.


Finalists are now:
(prices in USD for pair, external amp kit not included):

ATC SCM110 16,600
ATC SCM150 17,900

GENELEC 1237A 10,100

GENELEC 1238A 14,500

NEUMANN KH-420 9,000

OCEAN WAY HR 3.5 12,000

OCEAN WAY HR4S 9,800


PCM IB1S AIII 12,000


QUESTED V3110 10,000


Last consideration: I have a feel that going with ATC or PCM is like wanting the big dream but buying the wrong model.



I am very curios about the Neumann KH-420 and the Ocean Way, which I must admit I don’t know at all, but browsing around I’ve read some amazing reviews.



Again, I’m not doing rock or pop or classical music.
Just electronic music with an underground vibe, some vocal inserts.
A MCI JH-528 will be the mixer, Apogee converters, Pro tools HD (Logic/Ableton), and a bunch of external gear (Massive Passive, Vari-Mu, API 2500, Crane Song Trekkers, Urei, ELOP, and some others).



Bless up you folks for your help!

Not sure about the KH 420's, but my 500's have LF slam that ATC 150's do not have. My buddy has a set of 150's and said he wished his monitors had the chest/stomach punch the 500's put out.

Thanks for your insight bushwick.
What kind of 500 are you referring to?
(sorry maybe stupid question!)

Thanks!

Klein & Hummel o500 C monitors. Discontinued now. Was K&H's cost no object monitor, actually used an ATC mid driver....German engineering with budget to support it. $25k a pair at the time and purchased mostly for big studios in Germany with the budget for monitors like that.

OK now I understand.
Sorry I browsed around "Neumann KH500" and found nothing, but you were referring to the previous K+H model! My bad.

On another note, I find very interesting you're saying the ATC 150 don't have that low end.
From the specs I read I had the same feeling, even if I have never listened to them, so no offense to anyone here, I know there are so many ATC fans, but looks like the real low end on ATC is on the top line models (SCM200 / SCM300), which are definitely out of budget for me.

So instead of trying to buy the small car of a big brand, wouldn't be maybe better to buy a great car of a smaller brand, would it?

I have a feeling you are doing a currency conversion to USD from another (Euro?) because those prices don't match up with USD prices.

Whatever the case, you've priced the HR3.5 without the amps. The speaker boxes are $12k/pair. The amps (which have all the crossovers and cabling too) and are required are another $7600/pair: model Ocean Way Audio A-4100. So you are looking at $19600/pair. (I really don't know why Ocean Way just doesn't price this as a kit to avoid the confusion.)

The ATC will do the business but you should really go 110 if soffitt mounting -- shallower box, as low as the 150, same amp, and soffitt mounted (not free-standing) you'll get flat to about 25Hz and then a third order roll-off. I know this from my own numbers. ATC publishes free-standing specs -- soffitt mounting does a lot of good for the low end which is a departure from the free-standing numbers. (You'll get a bass boost with all soffit mounted speakers and if the speaker isn't designed for it or have eq filters built into the amp, you'll possibly need to eq the response)

If you are going PMC IB1, get the passive and buy your own amps. The IB1-AIII is an "activated" speaker and not a true active speaker (it doesn't have an active crossover -- just a built in amp.) You can get a better amp and have more power for the monitor by adding your own amp. The IB2-A and MB3-A (and larger PMC actives) are true active monitors with active crossovers; that's one of the reasons why there is such a sharp price increase (and they have more amps) for models above the IB1-AIII.

Most of the models you've listed all share their company sound. You buy the monitor for the loudness you want and the space you need to fill. You aren't missing out of any of the family characteristics by going smaller (and often, depending on the size of the room, smaller is a better choice to fit physically in the space and be able to align it.)

Good luck with your purchase -- and as Psycho Monkey mentioned in another thread, you should be sure you like the "family sound" of the speakers you are shopping and then decide on the model. Go visit installed systems if you can.

The 200 and 300 are designed for high output not extended low-end. The 200 doesn't go lower than the 150 or 110 but it can put out a lot more volume. The 300 (by consequence of the more powerful amp) can go 5Hz lower.

Honest assessment of working in the 20-25Hz (or even 20-30Hz) range: if you have a lot of music material in that range you are going to be disappointed on it translating anywhere. That isn't really where we feel the "thump."

You should figure out how much SPL you want. And be careful with manufacturer numbers -- a lot of times the max/peak and continuous SPL numbers are muddled together and they actually list those numbers for a limited frequency band instead of the full range. It takes a lot more power to drive the low end loud. Email/call the company if you have questions about what range those SPL numbers apply to if they aren't specific on their data sheets. Some companies are better than others (for instance, Geithan is really specific.)

From memory my (floating soffit mounted) 110s measured pretty flat down to about 22hz. Nobody has ever complained about lack of anything here.

As mentioned flush:wall mounted speakers will give you a natural bass boost, plus with no rear boundary interference the response will be smoother.

I have 50s and a 45 flush mounted with the 15 inch sub.
Personally as a massive fan of bass, the sub has been on my wish list for years and Boy was it worth it.
If I had your budget, I'd look for some used 50's or 45's and buy the sub new.
Should come in under budget.

Quested are also well worth a look. Way less analytical and "fun" to work on- but don't seem to translate as well.
Also ATC lets you hear every microscopic flaw. If it sounds great on ATC it sounds great ANYWHERE.

Very interesting, thanks.
I apologize for my ignorance, but the ATC website shows the following data for the ATC SCM110 ASL Pro:

Amplitude Linearity (±2dB): 50Hz-17kHz
Amplifier Output: Bass 200W, Mid 100W, High 50W

In my total stupidity I would think that with those specifics I could not reach some very good low-end dynamics (200W for the bass at 50 Hz +-2dB) and depth.


On the contrary, for instance, on the Neumann KH line website I read:

Free field frequency response (± 3 dB): 26 Hz - 22 kHz
Class AB amplifiers output power: 295 W Bass / 130 W Midrange / 130 W Treble

which I thought could give me a more low-end dynamic and deep sound (and a cheaper price).


Can somebody please explain me why I should not consider too much the ATC low-end website specifics?

You guys are speaking about them being pretty flat on the lower 20ies Hz.

Am I missing something? (maybe a subwoofer?)

Yes. When we are speaking of the low, mid 20Hz flat response of the ATC, we are talking about soffit mounted. The ATC numbers and the Neumann numbers listed are free-field (not soffit mounted.) That makes a big difference on how far speakers extend.

Neumann's number on the 420 are
Max. long term SPL with pink noise at 2.3 m, in typical listening conditions (single/pair) 90 / 96 dB(C) SPL (full range)

ATC's numbers on the 110 are
Max. Continuous SPL (1 metre): 115dB. At 2.3m that should be about 108-109dB.

So the Neumann is 90dB continuous long term and the ATC 110 is 108dB continuous long term.

The surface area of the woofer on the 420 is for a 10" woofer. The surface area of the dual 9" woofers on the 110 is equivalent to a single 12.7" woofer. There are two voice coils on the 110 and one on the 420 for the woofer. The cabinet volume on the 110 is larger than the 420 and both are ported (though I don't know their tuning frequencies but they will differ.) And speaker driver sensitivities will differ between speakers which is what translates those power watts to decibels. There's a lot more to a speaker than just the power of the amps. You can go by the manufacturer numbers they've published and I've copied above if you want to know loudness for the speaker as a whole. The ATC can go louder.

But quite frankly, if all you want is loud, PA speakers are the way to go for price. Both ATC and Neumann speakers are fine speakers but they have different sound characteristics and you should listen to both.

I dont think I've ever seen anyone from ATC on here but Thomas from @ Northward designed my studio and soffits and he may be able to throw light on the bass extension issue.