FM3 best setup?

Rodreezus said:
For sure, right now I’m debating wether to wait for feb for the Adam a5x to be stocked or go with Yamaha hs7s (I have a smaller space) OR go with Nuemann kh80, or maybe look at something from focal.
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tuff call. Im wondering if the Yamaha stuff will satisfy. of course the Adam would be nice, but the Yamaha 7's are probably cheaper then the adam 5's and your getting more speaker.
 
cleanplanets said:
tuff call. Im wondering if the Yamaha stuff will satisfy. of course the Adam would be nice, but the Yamaha 7's are probably cheaper then the adam 5's and your getting more speaker.
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yup, for me it just needs to sound as good as my HD600s do and I’ll be super happy!

good luck w your search, please keep us posted if you end up getting something. I would be interested to hear your thoughts and how they stack up to your HD650s
 
If I had more space I would go with the Yamaha 7's. The JBL 305's I have are okay, but sound a little hollow in the midrange. This is fine for music but for guitar that midrange is critical. When I auditioned monitors, the Yamaha 7's had a more prominent midrange that really made the music sound more detailed, and not just in the treble area like the tweeter was louder. The Yamaha 5's had too much midrange and treble and with lower bass they sounded really unbalanced, but the 7's were great. I ended up with the JBL's because they sounded pretty good overall and I don't have the space for large monitors.
 
Jarick said:
If I had more space I would go with the Yamaha 7's. The JBL 305's I have are okay, but sound a little hollow in the midrange. This is fine for music but for guitar that midrange is critical. When I auditioned monitors, the Yamaha 7's had a more prominent midrange that really made the music sound more detailed, and not just in the treble area like the tweeter was louder. The Yamaha 5's had too much midrange and treble and with lower bass they sounded really unbalanced, but the 7's were great. I ended up with the JBL's because they sounded pretty good overall and I don't have the space for large monitors.
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Thanks, can you elaborate on how you run your JBLs?

I ran my monitors direct into the xlr outs on my fm3 but noticed you mentioned using some kind of other Audio Interface
 
I have the HD650 and some Audio-Technica ATH-1040x and bounce between them. I think either sound plenty close to my Headrush FRFR-112. I'm happy and am not going to anguish over it as long as the sounds I'm hearing get into the ballpark for whatever I'm after since I want to sound like me, not someone else.
 
Jarick said:
I mean like volume at 30%. Anything past about 40% would kill my ears.
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Whaaaaaaat?!?!?! I use Sennheiser 598SR, which are 50 ohm headphones and at 30-40% it would be very quiet with the output block peaking just above 0 db. I know I haven’t lost that much hearing in my 40 years. I can get the volume up to at least halfway before it starts to get too loud for comfort or safety. Am I missing something? Even when I’ve tried any other headphones, I need to be approaching halfway on the dial to get it to “fun” volume levels. You’ve got me nervous:)
 
PdotCdot said:
Whaaaaaaat?!?!?! I use Sennheiser 598SR, which are 50 ohm headphones and at 30-40% it would be very quiet with the output block peaking just above 0 db. I know I haven’t lost that much hearing in my 40 years. I can get the volume up to at least halfway before it starts to get too loud for comfort or safety. Am I missing something? Even when I’ve tried any other headphones, I need to be approaching halfway on the dial to get it to “fun” volume levels. You’ve got me nervous:)
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With headphones, it's easy for the volume to get away from you without realizing it. It's almost as if the two cans are applying equal but opposite sound pressure to your ears and cancelling each other out. You're not aware of how loud it is.

To get an idea of how loud your cans are actually playing, get the volume into that "fun" zone, then move one side off your ears so you can only hear the other side. You'll be surprised how loud it actually is.

When you're playing guitar, a big part of that "fun" volume is acoustic volume pushing your guitar and making it vibrate — feeding that volume back through your amp. To achieve that with headphones would require blistering-hot volume.
 
Rex said:
With headphones, it's easy for the volume to get away from you without realizing it. It's almost as if the two cans are applying equal but opposite sound pressure to your ears and cancelling each other out. You're not aware of how loud it is.

To get an idea of how loud your cans are actually playing, get the volume into that "fun" zone, then move one side off your ears so you can only hear the other side. You'll be surprised how loud it actually is.

When you're playing guitar, a big part of that "fun" volume is acoustic volume pushing your guitar and making it vibrate — feeding that volume back through your amp. To achieve that with headphones would require blistering-hot volume.
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I’m fairly conscientious of volume but I will try the one side off thing. Just surprised to see what someone else might consider loud. As a point of comparison, I usually have the headphone volume on my FM3 at about the same as half volume would be when listening to music through iTunes. I’m certain that half volume coming from a MacBook wouldn’t be too damaging to anyone’s ears unless they were listening for 12 hours a day.
 
PdotCdot said:
As a point of comparison, I usually have the headphone volume on my FM3 at about the same as half volume would be when listening to music through iTunes. I’m certain that half volume coming from a MacBook wouldn’t be too damaging to anyone’s ears unless they were listening for 12 hours a day.
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I don't know that that means. Half volume on what as compared to what?
 
Rex said:
I don't know that that means. Half volume on what as compared to what?
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If you plug in headphones to a MacBook Pro and turn it up halfway, that's the volume I listen to music at. I usually have the volume of my FM3/amps at approximately the same volume.
 
Rodreezus said:
I ended up finding a pair of Adam A5X monitors on Reverb (in Canada lol).

Hope to report good findings when they arrive
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Nice find! Those seem like a big upgrade from all the entry level monitors. Those would be on my list to try for sure.

PdotCdot said:
Whaaaaaaat?!?!?! I use Sennheiser 598SR, which are 50 ohm headphones and at 30-40% it would be very quiet with the output block peaking just above 0 db. I know I haven’t lost that much hearing in my 40 years. I can get the volume up to at least halfway before it starts to get too loud for comfort or safety. Am I missing something? Even when I’ve tried any other headphones, I need to be approaching halfway on the dial to get it to “fun” volume levels. You’ve got me nervous:)
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One thing I've found is that impedance for headphones isn't necessarily going to require massive volume adjustments. I had a pair of the HD598's and from what I recall I only add say another 10-15% more volume for the 300 ohm HD6xx. Now I also have a pair of Creative Aurvana headphones at 32 ohms that are really sensitive and can barely crack the volume open.

It might just be my ears and preferences though. I bought a headphone amp early this year because everyone says you need one to properly drive headphones but I honestly didn't hear all that much difference compared to just using my iPad headphone jack even with the 300 ohm headphones. Yeah the amp was a tiny bit cleaner, maybe a few percent, but not worth the hassle.

It's also entirely possible I've got enough hearing damage that it messes with my ears too. I know I've lost my hearing mostly above 15k or so and I do have pretty strong tinnitus, which is a reason I keep volumes low whenever possible.
 
I recently replaced my 305s with A5Xs and I use Sonarworks Reference 4. Also my room is very small and not treated. Monitors are quite close to the wall. YMMV

With the 305s Reference4 managed to clear up the bottom end a lot but could not make them sound good enough for me. The midrange was still hollow and the top end lacking unless I engaged the boost on the monitors. Also they need some volume to get them moving.

The A5Xs shine at everything the 305s are lacking. With Reference even more so. The front ports are also very nice, but if you need deep bass you should go for larger speakers or add a sub woofer - that's what I might do if I find a proper used one, e.g. Adam Sub 8. I haven't touched the bass boost on the monitors yet and might try that.
 
PdotCdot said:
If you plug in headphones to a MacBook Pro and turn it up halfway, that's the volume I listen to music at. I usually have the volume of my FM3/amps at approximately the same volume.
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You can’t compare volume knob settings between different pieces of equipment, or between headphones and speakers, or even between two different pairs of speakers. There are too many variables for that to be a meaningful comparison.
 
It’s actually very meaningful for me. I have the ability to perceive volume differences and similarities between two different audio sources through the same headphones. I’ve worked on it for years at this point by being alive and not hard of hearing.
 
Rodreezus said:
Do you play much clean stuff?

I have a similar set up (hd600 and a single headrush cab). I love my tone w the headphones but don’t care for the headrush tones. It does better at dirty sounds but is too muddy for cleans
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I don't mind the clean tones really.I haven't really experienced much mud with the Headrushes. But yeah I'm definitely a high gain metal head.
 
PdotCdot said:
It’s actually very meaningful for me. I have the ability to perceive volume differences and similarities between two different audio sources through the same headphones. I’ve worked on it for years at this point by being alive and not hard of hearing.
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Maybe I don't understand what you're saying. What I'm hearing you say is that turning up two pieces of gear halfway will result in the same volume. And that turning up a MacBook halfway won't hurt your ears (that one is really dependent on your gear and environment.

To be honest, I'm not confident that I completely followed any of your posts about volume.
 
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