| hey guys
well i went to my regular local music store (where i always try to buy stuff from to support the local industry) to try out a range of monitors.
they did not have the hs50m's. they had the hs80m's, events, dynaudios, genelecs, yamaha msp7's, fostex's and a whole bunch of others.
they had a pretty cool switching feature so you could quickly switch between the speakers.
i went in there fairly pessemistic regarding all their stock becasue i wanted the 50's. the gelelecs were not plugged into the speaker switcher so i was unable to do a fast comparison with them.
after 30 mins of switching back and forth, it was evident that the hs80ms were a clear winner for flat clean response, which is exactly what i was going for.
i wont do a full writeup, but i was very happy with the 80's over all the others, so i broke the bank and took them home.
when i got them into my studio if was pretty amazing comparing them to the old consumer speakers i was using previously. it was also obvious that the sennheiser HD 25-1 II's colour the sound to some degree.
then i put the kids to bed, the street noise died down, i turned the air conditioner off and then i could hear a hiss coming from the tweaters in the hs80m's. it was more obvious directly in the stereo field. i was sitting about 1.5m from the speakers.
so i googled around and read some reviews that said both the hs50m's and the hs80m's have some hiss. i thought this was strange becasue no one here mentioned hiss.
so i took them back to do an AB with the instore monitors. every monitor, every brand had at least the same ammount of hiss as my hs80m's except the genelecs. the genelecs hiss was about 4 times quieter than the rest of them (8020's) but it was still there if you put your ear up close. the fostexs were the worst, easily doubling the hiss of any other speaker.
the tech guy in store told me that all monitors have some hiss and said that my monitors were not faulty.
i had seen posts online that said the hs80m's "had no hiss" so im wondering if monitors dont like "conversion to australian 240volts" and if the americans and japanese dont get the hiss becasue they run at 110v?
anyway, if they all do it except genelecs, i am happy to put up with it till i can afford genelecs. maybe im being a bit sensitive (excuse the pun). the other salesmen in the store thought i was being pretty anal about the fact that i could hear the hiss. maybe they are used to it? maybe i should get used to it?
in any case, my mixes are sounding a whole lot better. straight from my studio to the car without any back and forth trips. it was like pulling the wool from my ears.
the bass response is good. im glad i got the 80's instead of the 50's. even if i didnt try the 50's, i did an eq test cutting the freq off at 55hz, and i think it is not low enough for me to be satisfied. i figured if i was going to save for the sub i might as well break the bank right now.
overall i am very happy with them and look forward to years of mixing on them.
thanks again to everyone who replied.
cheers
rob |