Ax8 with studio monitors question

Carpercen

Inspired
Hi, tomorrow I'll be ordering my AX8 for home use with studio monitors.
I was hesitating between JBL lsr308 and Yamaha hs8. But two days ago I found the new Adam t7v and although there are few reviews out there, all say the same, overall sound quality is better on the Adam vs jbl and Yamaha.
Would like to read your opinions so I made a final decision.
And BTW, there are no soaud/music stores where I live that has these brands (jbl, Yamaha, Adam) so chances to test them before buying are less than zero.

Now, it would be great if this wasn't a blind but, but sadly it is, so I can only trust in your best opinions to make the best decision.

Right now I'm more inclined to buy the Adams because of reviews on Sweetwater, musicians friends, Thomann, etc, and don'YouTube videos, only thing that makes me doubt is the Adams are only 70 Watts while Yamahas are 120 Watts good example.

Is that really an issue or something I should be worried about? I really don't know...

So thanks for your opinions and sorry if my English is bad.

Cheers!
 
Your English is excellent, and although i have not heard it myself, the t7v seems to be great for the price, and AX8 has more than enough output for you ....Enjoy your new rig and welcome.
 
Any will be great. I’d probably go with the JBL’s just because they have the lowest price and are still really good for the money. If you can still find some blowout pricing on them (as they have mkIIs coming out) they are pretty unbeatable

I remember seeing the 305’s for something crazy like $99 each at one point
 
Any will be great. I’d probably go with the JBL’s just because they have the lowest price and are still really good for the money. If you can still find some blowout pricing on them (as they have mkIIs coming out) they are pretty unbeatable

I remember seeing the 305’s for something crazy like $99 each at one point
I know but it's hard to find any of these brands on any store here in Mexico :/
 
I don't have any experience with the new Adam speakers, but they seem to have a few good reviews going. I've done a lot of work with Presonus and use the Scepter S8s here. The Scepters are more expensive, but the very nice sounding Eris E8 speakers are in the same range as you are considering. They use a larger speaker, which helps with the lows, have a clear hi end, and boast 140 watts to give you plenty of useable headroom. Just a suggestion to add to your considerations.
 
I don't have any experience with the new Adam speakers, but they seem to have a few good reviews going. I've done a lot of work with Presonus and use the Scepter S8s here. The Scepters are more expensive, but the very nice sounding Eris E8 speakers are in the same range as you are considering. They use a larger speaker, which helps with the lows, have a clear hi end, and boast 140 watts to give you plenty of useable headroom. Just a suggestion to add to your considerations.
More Watts mean more headroom? The Adam are only 70 Watts, the Yamahas are 120 Watts, and the Eris 140, so is that really bad for the Adams?
 
It can mean that, but honestly just using wattage as a guage can also be misleading at times. I’d say that, given equal quality components, it is a fair general statement that twice the power would allow you to get louder without approaching distortion. In that way, yes. Adam and Presonus are both quality speaker companies, so my guess (and it is that, as I haven’t used the Adams) is you’d get more from the Eris in volume. Whether the sound is better to your ear is always the tricky part. I like them, but Adam has a lot of fans too.

I’d caution against total assumptions based on any one specification. Sound quality is always going to be the deciding factor. Buy from somewhere you can try and return for another item if you don’t like them. Sweetwater offers that, as do some others.
 
It can mean that, but honestly just using wattage as a guage can also be misleading at times. I’d say that, given equal quality components, it is a fair general statement that twice the power would allow you to get louder without approaching distortion. In that way, yes. Adam and Presonus are both quality speaker companies, so my guess (and it is that, as I haven’t used the Adams) is you’d get more from the Eris in volume. Whether the sound is better to your ear is always the tricky part. I like them, but Adam has a lot of fans too.

I’d caution against total assumptions based on any one specification. Sound quality is always going to be the deciding factor. Buy from somewhere you can try and return for another item if you don’t like them. Sweetwater offers that, as do some others.
I'm from Mexico, there's no chance to try before buying and where I live there are no places that sell those monitors
 
+1 for the Presonus Scepters, I use the S6 with the T10 sub and its a wonderful combination.

That said, I would think JBL or Yamaha would be easier to get a fair price in Mexico ? Harman/JBL surely has pretty good distribution all over all.

I also wouldn't worry too much about volume levels. Any of them are going to be able to get loud enough to where your going to get ear fatigue/hearing damage from cranked levels. With as revealing as good/decent near fields are last thing I'd personally want to do is sit there with monitors pusing 90+ dB a couple feet from my head.
 
For mixing, I agree that 90dB is way too loud, but when I use my Adam A7s to build presets, i crank them up approaching 100 dB to achieve live levels.

If the primary purpose of getting the speakers is using them with your AX8, I would get a large driver and lots of power. It doesn't matter that much if they are not completely linear or if they are not fast enough to reproduce the finest transients.

Your room is probably much less linear than any set of studio monitors, you could possibly find.
 
I'd give Adam T7V's a try. I have great experience with Adam AX series and I have hope that more affordable T series will at least worth the money.
But to be honest, I'd never buy a pair of low cost studio monitors if I couldn't evaluate their sound quality.
 
For mixing, I agree that 90dB is way too loud, but when I use my Adam A7s to build presets, i crank them up approaching 100 dB to achieve live levels.

If the primary purpose of getting the speakers is using them with your AX8, I would get a large driver and lots of power. It doesn't matter that much if they are not completely linear or if they are not fast enough to reproduce the finest transients.

Your room is probably much less linear than any set of studio monitors, you could possibly find.


Problem though is a lot of monitors guess less linear when pushed hard, and room acoustics issues get magnified, so cranking the volume to "live" levels can often result in worse translation to FOH systems than not.

As I've explained in other threads (I have a doctorate in audiology so this stuff is totally up my alley) the curves of minimum auditory perception are pretty darn flat between about 100 and 5000 Hz when you get the intensity to just 50 dB or so. Yes your ear isn't going to perceive 30 Hz, or like 12,000 Hz the same at 50dB as you will at 70 dB, but essentially no one is playing guitar in those ranges. I don't know about you, but I always high and low cut my patches at like 100Hz and 6000Hz anyways, so the frequency range of what I'm actually playing is being well represented at moderate volume.

Other factor is even "flat" monitors start to quickly fall off past around 60 or 70 Hz, and while they spec might say they can go down to say, 38 Hz, its a lot weaker response, so if you crank the lows to make it sound fuller its going to sound like mud on a big system with proper subs. More than likely that big house/club system already has too much low end too, because they don't dial in it to be flat, they dial it in to "bump", as that is what people want to hear. This compounds issues issues more than it helps.

Basic rule of thumb I tell folks, based on all my experiences with live sound, playing guitar, and study of human auditory perception is simply don't overthink things, too many variables you typically can't control. If you dial in patches on decent monitors at like 50-80 dB your going to have a tone that will transfer pretty well to most any other system. You won't have excessive ear fatigue, and your not going to cause any damage to your hearing.

Sitting there blasting your ears with potentially over driven near-fields at 100+ dB a few feet from your ears is not how people are hearing guitar live. Its just like how you wouldn't crank headphones to painful levels and expect it to transfer. Nearfields are closer to headphones than they are mains speakers. They are designed to be close to your ears and direct, ideally minimizing room acoustics. Can't crank them and expect nearfields to turn into midfields just because you made them really loud.
 
I'd give Adam T7V's a try. I have great experience with Adam AX series and I have hope that more affordable T series will at least worth the money.
But to be honest, I'd never buy a pair of low cost studio monitors if I couldn't evaluate their sound quality.

Big problem with monitor shopping is the question of if the subjectively "best" sounding monitors are actually the most accurate. Sometimes what is pleasing isn't revealing and vice versa.

I've been in listening rooms in shops where you find that a certain pair had a switch flipped on to cut the HF driver like -1.5 dB and that makes them a little smoother, and little "better" sounding as other models would sound harsh in comparison, but they were actually more accurate.

Home stereo speakers are designed to make things sound pleasing. Monitors are designed to just reproduce whatever the program material is for better or worse.
 
Big problem with monitor shopping is the question of if the subjectively "best" sounding monitors are actually the most accurate. Sometimes what is pleasing isn't revealing and vice versa.

I've been in listening rooms in shops where you find that a certain pair had a switch flipped on to cut the HF driver like -1.5 dB and that makes them a little smoother, and little "better" sounding as other models would sound harsh in comparison, but they were actually more accurate.

Home stereo speakers are designed to make things sound pleasing. Monitors are designed to just reproduce whatever the program material is for better or worse.
Absolutely agree. I recommended to try before buying with one main purpose - to make sure that the monitors didn't have any inacceptable flaws. It's highly possible that any lower price tag monitors will sound not just harsh, but absolutely wrong. Adam T series is a brand new product, so far there are no trusted reviews. So, the buyer's ears are the only things that can help to decide they are worth buying.
 
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It can mean that, but honestly just using wattage as a guage can also be misleading at times. I’d say that, given equal quality components, it is a fair general statement that twice the power would allow you to get louder without approaching distortion. In that way, yes. Adam and Presonus are both quality speaker companies, so my guess (and it is that, as I haven’t used the Adams) is you’d get more from the Eris in volume. Whether the sound is better to your ear is always the tricky part. I like them, but Adam has a lot of fans too.

I’d caution against total assumptions based on any one specification. Sound quality is always going to be the deciding factor. Buy from somewhere you can try and return for another item if you don’t like them. Sweetwater offers that, as do some others.
Thanks for your answer, problem is I have no way to test any of these brands before buying.
Another thing is that Sceptre are more expensive and my budget is 500usd :s
 
Absolutely agree. I recommended to try before buying with one main purpose - to make sure that the monitors didn't have any inacceptable flaws. It's highly possible that any lower price tag monitors will sound not just harsh, but absolutely wrong. Adam T series is a brand new product, so far there are no trusted reviews. So, the buyer's ears are the only things that can help to decide they are worth buying.
But I have no way to test then, big problem here in Mexico... Do isI really appreciate your help to make the best possible decision

Thanks to all of you guys!
 
I haven't listened to the Adams or the Yamahas but I bought the JBL LSR 308's without hearing them because they had such good reviews. They were around $350 for the pair new. I later added the subwoofer which gave me more of a guitar amp feel for sure.
 
Resolution Magazine does great monitor reviews where they actually measure data, if anyone is interested. It's the only place I know that does actual useful reviews of studio monitors. Subjective reviews of monitors are dumb IMHO haha. A monitor's merit is in how accurate it is, and accuracy of a speaker can be objectively measured.

According to their reviews, the JBL LSR 308 is slightly better than the HS8 in directivity and transient response, but the LSR has surprisingly high 2nd harmonic distortion that measures around -40 dB at all points below 400 Hz.
No review for Adam T7V.

@Carpercen if your budget is 500 USD, and it's just for home use with AX8, I would get the JBL LSR 308. Great bang for buck.
 
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