Kali IN-5 versus PreSonus R65 V2

[mophilly]

I have a small room for my home studio work. The space is 10 feet by 10 feet with 8 foot ceiling, about 3 m X 3m X 2.5 m. I am trying to decide on studio monitors.

The Kali IN-5 three way is attractive. I found a good price on the PreSonus R65 V2.

Opinions and advice warmly welcome.

[Telefunkin]

Hi, - Disclaimer - I'm not an audio expert, just opinionated, and here's what I think, although you're free to totally ignore it....

You don't hear just the speakers, you hear the speakers IN THAT ROOM. Sadly, your dimensions are far less than ideal and you WILL get some problems with low end standing waves (unless you have so much bass trapping that you'll hardly get through the door ). Even the most expensive and technically perfect speaker will still suffer from the same problems in that space. Personally then, I wouldn't spend a fortune on monitors for that room (although if you're going to move into a better room later then get the best you can afford). My suggestion for that room would be to select monitors based on their mid and high-end clarity without worrying about bass extension. 5" monitors are probably a decent compromise, but don't get a sub speaker unless its only for use in short-term checks (but even then with the proviso that the sound will never be perfectly balanced). I might also suggest going for front-ported rather than rear-ported speakers. It looks like both your choices are front-ported, with a similar bass end frequency response (although the Presonus has a bigger driver) and are similarly priced. In that case there's probably little to choose between them anyway, and it probably doesn't matter which you get because they'll give a similar (although potentially misleading) performance in your room. The best you can do is to place them carefully, be equally careful where you sit, use as much bass trapping as you can comfortably fit in, then use EQ Wizard to get to know what your issues are (probably standing waves somewhere around 65Hz, and shifting closer or further from them by just a couple of feet will drastically change how much bass you hear). Do everything you can to tune the speaker and listening point locations so you have the best compromise of everything, then get used to how it sounds by spending lots of time listening to commercial music. It won't be perfect but there's no reason you can't still make great music using either of those monitors. It'll help to have some sanity checks too (like Izotope's Tonal Balance, Metric AB, Mix Checker, some small monitors eg Auratones, and some decent headphones with Sonarworks or even Slate VSX), but shelling out for software that will supposedly 'correct' your speaker's response is probably not money well spend in such a small square room because it can't cure the low end standing waves, and the 'correction' will vary depending on the precise listening location. You don't want to have to keep recalibrating each time you move your chair .

Basically then (after all that guff), I'd say simply choose the monitors that you prefer the sound of and be happy with your decision because it won't matter much in that room, but make sure you've got back-up (as above). Sorry if that doesn't really help, but I work in a similarly sized room and I know the problems . Its not stopped me from signing a few hundred tracks across a dozen exclusive libraries though, so even if it is far from ideal it shouldn't be a total stumbling block. Don't let it stop you.

[mophilly]

Thank you for the detailed reply. I appreciate the time and information.

[cosmicdolphin]

How any speaker intereacts with the room is key, and generally trickier the smaller the space.

The goal of any monitor is to allow us to make mixes that translate once they leave our studios and land on TV etc, so room treatment , DSP correction and sanity checking methods all play a key role.

In essence I would agree with Graham that it probably doesn't matter which montiors you choose at a given budget as there aren't any awful designs out there. They're just voiced differently or built from different materials etc and they can all probably do a job for you once you get used to them.

In my experience getting the room sound right does far more for you than speaker A Vs speaker B in any given price range. Things that really helped me in my room which is a similar size to yours were, broadband absorbers at the mirror points ( self made ) , some bass trapping, some Auralex tiles, good speaker stands, Room EQ wizard software ( free ) and a measurement mic ( not free ) , Sonarworks Correction software , 2 other other sanity check devices hooked up to a switch ( a boombox and an Avantone Mixcube ) , Izotope Tonal Balance Control software and Metric AB referencing software and I have VSX headphones with the room emulation. All this gives me a reasonably neutral sounding room to mix in and a bunch of ways to check my work without leaving my seat.

Now that's a lot and I didn't do it all in one fell swoop so it's more of a process of refinement really. If I was starting again today I would probably opt for the Adam A4v speakers. These are in the next price bracket up to what you are looking at for a pair but they are 4" drivers so better suited to smaller room but they have a massive bonus of having built in DSP which allows you to upload a Sonarworks Sound ID profile into them that is a fantastic help in flattening out the sound of a room ( especially at your listening spot ) and it all runs on the speakers themselves, no need to have it running in the background on your computer all the time which can bring it's own challenges. You only need the trail version of the Sonarwork software to do it as well which comes with them I believe.

I think this would give you a flatter sound to work with for less outlay than the other speakers plus a bunch of room treatment. Hope that makes sense.

Mark

[Casey H]

What's funny is after all this trouble, people may end up listening on their iPhone.

[mophilly]

What's funny is after all this trouble, people may end up listening on their iPhone.

Yes! As I make my way up the hill of learning to mix properly, I now work the mix alternation between headphones and monitors, then check each milestone bounce on the phone, in the car, and on the TV the family uses.

Hopefully all of that will lead to a better finished product.

[mophilly]

...The goal of any monitor is to allow us to make mixes that translate once they leave our studios and land on TV etc, so room treatment , DSP correction and sanity checking methods all play a key role...

In my experience getting the room sound right does far more for you than speaker A Vs speaker B in any given price range...

Now that's a lot and I didn't do it all in one fell swoop so it's more of a process of refinement really.

Thank you for the response. This, and all the posts, are very helpful.

Today I need to find a functional balance at a lower price point. If I had a larger budget today I would take a serious look at the Adam products, and a higher end mic ($800+). I just bought my first large condenser mic from Warm Audio.

One thing on my mind is the difference between the 2 way and 3 way design. I believe the 3-way might offer better range than the two way design in my space. I have long wondered about the placement of a tweeter or mid within the cone of the woofer, as is found in the Kali product. Perhaps I am being unnecessarily skeptical.

As for acoustic treatment and the other bits, this is a long process for me. I can absorb new knowledge but I am no genius. Read, try, fail, repeat is the process I am stuck with.

The order of tasks, barring new information, is get monitors, run first attempt at room assessment, put the various absorption/dispersion things in place, and see where things stand.

[funsongs]

What's funny is after all this trouble, people may end up listening on their iPhone.

Funny - but a true reality - so, examining end-use production using earbuds (which tend to be bass-heavy)
is not altogether a bad practice; not forsaking a pair of good, flat-response monitors - as this guy is seeking.

For example: at the Road Rally - what was the most-common playback/listening device?
There's the bulk of your audience, eh?

[cosmicdolphin]

What's funny is after all this trouble, people may end up listening on their iPhone.

Yes but if you want it to translate to the iPhone speaker ( or to earbuds ) and not sound like garbage then some of the above will really help. Especially the boombox, the mixcube and in VSX there is actually an iPhone emulation..and earbuds

[cosmicdolphin]

Today I need to find a functional balance at a lower price point. If I had a larger budget today I would take a serious look at the Adam products, and a higher end mic ($800+). I just bought my first large condenser mic from Warm Audio.

I understand but with the Adam's you'd probably end up with a flatter sound with less room treatment so you need to calculate which gets you the closest for your overall budget. Speakers are a major outlay so best do it once and keep them 10yrs+ . Room treatment you can improve piecemeal over a period of time and it will never wear out, be obsolete or break down.

The warm audio mic will be fine, the difference between a great budget mic and a good high end mic is not as great as you might think.