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I am not sure if I want to drop 500 EUR more on the monitoring setup but probably will consider this in the future as the speakers I feel ought to be a quality piece of the whole setup. The sound can come from a $5 beat up kids toy put through a free VST for all I care. ?

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OK got my BM15A's now and eagerly listening to some of my favorite bassy tracks, and I think something's messed up with my setup. What happens is this - in this clip around 4-5 minute mark there is this cinematic bassy sound.

First I heard the left bass driver make a sort of crackle, then I remember thinking "oh damn now I have to replace it", but after jiggling some cables (frankly I do not remember what I actually did), the crackle's moved to the right bass driver. It's definitely related to bass freqs because I can trigger the same effect with another similar track.

I have my laptop hooked up to MOTU Track16, with balanced XLRs nicely going to the speakers. This setup used to work nicely with Yamaha HS8-s, so I wonder what's wrong here. Maybe this is just somehow related to my cable nest being a huge mess and it will go away once I find the time to finally neatly organize everything?

 

Edit: these are used monitors and have had the shop tech go over them just a couple of days ago, so it should not be a matter of "breaking them in" or another technical issue.

Edited by thawkins
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49 minutes ago, thawkins said:

OK got my BM15A's now and eagerly listening to some of my favorite bassy tracks, and I think something's messed up with my setup. What happens is this - in this clip around 4-5 minute mark there is this cinematic bassy sound.

First I heard the left bass driver make a sort of crackle, then I remember thinking "oh damn now I have to replace it", but after jiggling some cables (frankly I do not remember what I actually did), the crackle's moved to the right bass driver. It's definitely related to bass freqs because I can trigger the same effect with another similar track.

I have my laptop hooked up to MOTU Track16, with balanced XLRs nicely going to the speakers. This setup used to work nicely with Yamaha HS8-s, so I wonder what's wrong here. Maybe this is just somehow related to my cable nest being a huge mess and it will go away once I find the time to finally neatly organize everything?

 

Edit: these are used monitors and have had the shop tech go over them just a couple of days ago, so it should not be a matter of "breaking them in" or another technical issue.

Just tested it on my BM15A and there's no crackling here whatsoever.
When I first got my new monitors I had to change my cables because whenever my arm touched my desk the monitors would start to buzz. But once I changed the cables it went away. And from what you're telling it definitely sounds like your cables are a bit janky.

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Yeah I think it was the cables. I just plugged the right one in and out and now the crackle's gone. I don't think the cables are bad necessarily, just the Track16 breakout cable can be finicky sometimes.

Damn it sounds so good to have monitors again. 

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12 minutes ago, thawkins said:

Yeah I think it was the cables. I just plugged the right one in and out and now the crackle's gone. I don't think the cables are bad necessarily, just the Track16 breakout cable can be finicky sometimes.

Damn it sounds so good to have monitors again. 

Great!

How do you like them so far?

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43 minutes ago, Squee said:

Great!

How do you like them so far?

As always I got totally blindsided by the actual size and weight of those things, but that's fine as I have room now and the HS8's were not small beasts either. (This always happens btw - no matter what I buy off the internet, my first thought when it arrives is "oh shit oh shit that's bigger than I thought").

As for the sound I love it, although I felt a little pang of horror when stepping out of the room while Compa - Commandment was playing and there was a huge bass resonance (maybe even a standing wave or something). Our apartment is in a super nice and quiet courtyard place and while I do not plan to turn up the volume and start cranking out wicked beats, I still do not want to piss off the neighbors. ?

I now need to figure out some nice combination of speaker stand/rack enclosure so I could lift the things a bit higher and also look into some kind of acoustic treatment.

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One weird thing about the BM15A is that there seems to be absolutely no indication on the speakers and in the manual about the most basic fucking thing: which speaker is left, which one is right side.

Or is it me who is the dumbass here?

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46 minutes ago, Squee said:

Correct!

The lights on the left monitor should be to the far left and vice versa 

Well damnit. I just switched them around because I saw this on Thomann https://www.thomann.de/intl/dynaudio_bm15a_right.htm

Turns out they use the same pics for both right and left! https://www.thomann.de/intl/dynaudio_bm15a_aktiv_studiomonitor.htm

How's a regular person supposed to understand any of this. ?

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6 minutes ago, thawkins said:

Well damnit. I just switched them around because I saw this on Thomann https://www.thomann.de/intl/dynaudio_bm15a_right.htm

Turns out they use the same pics for both right and left! https://www.thomann.de/intl/dynaudio_bm15a_aktiv_studiomonitor.htm

How's a regular person supposed to understand any of this. ?

I didn't know either until I decided to compare pictures from studios all over the world.

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Seriously though, I hope you end up loving these monitors. I did a mix today for a cartoon show. I used Adventure Time as a reference and holy shit, it's so easy to replicate mixes with these monitors. I just tested the mix side by side with Adventure Time on my TV and it sounded exactly the way I had intended.

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I do love them already, aside from the occasional bump like the bass crackling which is due to some cable issue probably.

I spent the whole of yesterday going through my weekly music stuff and I can't help feeling that I just got to go through and remix everything. The HS8s were not nearly as clear as these are.

I used to have a tendency to listen on headphones when jamming and recording, to have a more closer idea of what's happening (esp. on the low end). Last week I did everything on the BM15As, and it was so much more liberating and the resulting mix translated much better as well to the cans I have lying around in the office. Even though my "mastering" consists of slapping a multiband splitter which pipes low end to mono along with 2 airwindows plugins on the master.

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11 hours ago, xox said:

We Are Not Regular People >>> We Are The Music Makers

Wait dude I though nobody here's actually making music - it's just people talking about how to make music. Whoever actually follows through and does something gets banned instantly or the account mysteriously goes inactive. ?

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Weird thing about that bass crackle - I just had it show up again. Both the speakers have been on since 5 hours ago and I have spent all that time streaming dub techno mixes off Soundcloud. Now just 5 mins ago the right speaker started crackling again, it's definitely doing that in reaction to bass frequencies. First I tried to jiggle the cable, but basically this made no difference. So I just turned the speaker off and on again, and voila the crackle is gone. Weird thing. ?

And I have been working in the other room so everything including the table the speakers are on is totally untouched, just playing the mixes off Soundcloud.

I suppose one way to test is to switch the speaker cables from right to left and see if it shows up in the left speaker. There is definitely something weird going on electrically because occasionally the MS2000R metal body gives off a buzz - I thought this might be related to it being hooked in through a step-down transformer though.

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Dynadio BM15A trip report, day 8 (yesterday): did some listening and mixing. At some point I discovered that the left speaker had high frequencies missing. Fixed this by turning it off and on again. Slightly nervous now because it's looking like something's busted in a weird way.

Dynadio BM15A trip report, day 9 (today): right speaker won't turn on. No red light, no nothing. Can't be the outlet because plugging other stuff in it gives power. Going to wait and hope that it's one of those electricity issues that fixes itself when you unplug the device for some minutes. Update: it was a blown fuse.. wonder how that happened.

 

This is extremely shit because I really like the sound. ?

Edited by thawkins
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1 hour ago, thawkins said:

Dynadio BM15A trip report, day 8 (yesterday): did some listening and mixing. At some point I discovered that the left speaker had high frequencies missing. Fixed this by turning it off and on again. Slightly nervous now because it's looking like something's busted in a weird way.

Dynadio BM15A trip report, day 9 (today): right speaker won't turn on. No red light, no nothing. Can't be the outlet because plugging other stuff in it gives power. Going to wait and hope that it's one of those electricity issues that fixes itself when you unplug the device for some minutes. Update: it was a blown fuse.. wonder how that happened.

 

This is extremely shit because I really like the sound. ?

Man, return those monitors immediately.

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22 hours ago, Squee said:

Man, return those monitors immediately.

I sent a huge e-mail to the funky junk people now, let's see what happens. I think I will have a tech check them out again locally here in Paris if possible. I can't really rule out that something is fucky with my electrical system at home, and if I need to spend some $$$ to buy a power conditioner anyway, then it's still fine by me.

However if they are going to say that everything's working as intended and I keep having the issues then I have no choice but to return them. It's just been a little more than one week (and I have a gig on 28th so would be nice to have even janky monitors so I can prepare something!).

 

The good thing is that I listened to a bunch of my half finished stuff yesterday and basically every track the mix had different issues with bass it was maddening. This is all because I mixed stuff on headphones and did not cross check enough. I am supposed to make a live set out of this stuff damn. ?

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Just turn them back! No questions, no answers!

buy something better like Amphions if you have the money. You’ve already said that you thought about them. And you’ve bought these just for a few hz of low end? ...that’s not even remotely accurate like in some other mid priced monitors. Do you really need anything lower than 45-50 hzs? Below that point you need to spend 3 times the amount of money to have relatively accurate representation, something like Neumann kh310 and only up to 30 hz

Use headphones to check the subrange 6-36. And for the money you can buy much better mid reproduction too imo

Believe me, in the long run you’ll be happier. Those Dynaudios are old tech anyway. Much better Dynaudios came to the market in the last 5-10 yrs for the roughly same money, not to mention other brands. 

Edited by xox
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Yup I am returning the BM15As, just waiting for the guys to walk me through the process. I almost knew that it would be too good a deal for almost half the price for a new pair. I wanted to have them but it's just a crap shoot whether the sound will be OK or not once you turn them on. Maybe it's something to do with getting them warmed up? No matter, it would be stupid to keep the things if they already have issues 2 weeks in...

Not sure now what I will get - the Amphions are of course nice but quite pricey too. I don't think I care too much about specific frequency response stats or something like that - I think my needs distill down to:

1) clear & accurate sound that lets me hear what's happening in the mix

2) must have some bass freqs

3) I want to enjoy listening to good music on the monitors so I can build a gut feeling for the speakers by doing everyday listening

4) bass ports out in front because I don't have much room still

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Ok, that’s good! Let’s go back to the beginning!

1. How much money are you willing to spend? (including taxes)

2. How big is your room? 

2a. What’s the length of the listening distance?

3. Do you have any absorbers and bas traps installed? Are you planning to do the room treatment?

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3 hours ago, xox said:

Ok, that’s good! Let’s go back to the beginning!

1. How much money are you willing to spend? (including taxes)

2. How big is your room? 

2a. What’s the length of the listening distance?

3. Do you have any absorbers and bas traps installed? Are you planning to do the room treatment?

1. I think I'd rather not go over 2k EUR.

2. Seems like 3.2x3.6m.

2a. Around 1m of the speakers.

3. I only have a bit of furniture but probably won't have anything serious like bass traps. ?

This is looking like I shouldn't be buying any huge speakers right?

Thanks a lot for all your advice by the way. ?

Edited by thawkins
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2 hours ago, thawkins said:

1. I think I'd rather not go over 2k EUR.

2. Seems like 3.2x3.6m.

2a. Around 1m of the speakers.

3. I only have a bit of furniture but probably won't have anything serious like bass traps. ?

This is looking like I shouldn't be buying any huge speakers right?

Thanks a lot for all your advice by the way. ?

Firstly, we need to remember that acoustics and sound quality depends on speaker size and quality + room size and quality.

For your room dimensions and the money id recommend the small Neumanns, kh120, again, i know. The new ones, kh80 are too small imo, they could be too bass light for your taste, as was for mine. The 120 have great eq options built to them, for room adjustments. I have similarly sized room and i needed to attenuate bass by 5 db and the high end by 1 db. In my smaller room i had to attenuate the bass by 7 db. They have enough bass for almost any normal work. Also, they’re built like a tank!  

I’m not sure what’s the problem with the looks of Neumann kh120a? But they do look much better in person than on pictures and the build quality is really top notch. Idk where you at but if you’re in eu it’s best to buy from Thomann. 

These speakers are 1200 euros a pair (shipping and taxes included). And you also have them in beautiful white too, if you’d prefer that color instead.

SOS review

Mixonline review

kenrockwell review

Now, it’s always preferable to place monitors at least 20 cm from the front wall (your front, behind them) and these work just fine 1 meter from your ears. That would be perfect for you bc you’d be sitting 120 cm from the wall, right between 1/3 and 2/3 of the room’s length, where you’d have the least problems with sound reflections. 

For the rest of the money I’d buy some absorbers from a company specialized for room acoustics treatments, like GIK in the uk.  (Or, you could make them yourself for third of the money you’d spend buying from Gil or similar companies.) Believe me, this is very important bc you can spend 10.000 euros on speakers and they’ll sound like 50 euros shit without at least some treatment. I learned this after I spent years in vain avoiding to accept the basic truths about physics of sound. Just spend 300-500 euros on Gik panels (iirc 4 or 6 panels, dimensions 120x60x5 cm) you’ll be fine! Later, if you decide to add a sub, like Neumann kh805, or change for bigger speakers you’ll need to spend additional 300-500 euros on corner bass traps (without this a sub wouldn’t work properly), but that’s future. Once you have a solid base it’s easy to add or modify accordingly. 

That was opinion no.1

In other options im not sure of for the money. I’ll think about it and report back to you in next few days.

Edited by xox
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Thanks a lot for the long post. I have read the SOS review on the Neumanns and they really seem like good speakers. Personally they are not super ugly, I guess I discarded them at first because they look like pieces of cheap plastic and I still have this completely illogical fear of small bass drivers. Maybe it's a fetish thing I don't know. ?

I have to say though now having the BM15As I think they are slightly too huge - it felt like I was setting up a PA and my interface is still maybe at 1/10 the max volume level which is probably a good indicator that these things are meant to be used in a louder and more spacious environment.

As for room treatment I feel I am totally screwed - I am basically sitting with my back to a window, with one corner behind me having a bookshelf (which is not a bass trap) and the other corner is a double door so there's no way to put a bass trap there. Not sure actually if the bass traps should be behind the speakers (in front of me) or behind. I should read up on that actually.

Why I am feeling not so happy about acoustic treatment is that the room is basically an extension of our living room and I can't just start throwing foam shit on the wall without significant diplomatic consequences.

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Adding acoustic treatment can feel like having a whole new monitoring system. A few standing traps / panel can make a world of difference. My panels are DIY but used the very same wool GIK used (and I wish I could buy a few pre-made ones off them too, but shipping is expensive for such packages). 

Now, some simple tricks can significantly improve your room response : for instance, don't close your doors (whenever possible). Monitor stands are also inexpensive and mandatory, having the monitors at the right heigh and width compared to your sitting spot is key. A bed / couch can also be an effective bass trap.

Aside from the Amphions, I'd stil recommend a set of Klasik.

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