very small monitors?

[JES]

Hi All,

I'm looking for a small-footprint desktop monitor and subwoofer combination but that sounds really good for rock. I am willing to pay. Tony Moore asked the same question and got the Yamaha MSP5s as a suggestion, but there are still 7x10ish for a footprint (at that size, I'd get an ADAM A7). I'd like something even smaller if possible.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Best,
--JES

[goldstar]

Tascam VLS21; Andy Hong liked 'em in his review a few months back.

[Professor]

At the beginning of this summer I picked up a new set of small speakers and a sub to run as a third set of monitors in the studio. After lots of listening, I found my way to a company called Mordaunt Short which appears to have been around for a while, although I'd ever heard of them before despite all my time in hi-fi. The boxes I bought were a pair of 'Avant 902i' bookshelf speakers and the 'Avant 907' powered sub. The tops have a 1" aluminum tweeter and a 5" aluminum woofer. Their footprint is still 6.5" by 10.5" so not much smaller than the others you've seen, but the sound they produce (after a good 30-40 hour break-in) is really, really impressive. They have a really surprising range with an awful lot of clarity, and a very smooth and revealing top end. I'm only powering them with a 60wpc integrated amp, and I think they deserve maybe 100-150, but still, the sound is fantastic. The little 10" paper-cone sub fills out the sound really nicely and with a little tuning of crossover frequency and level, it just blends in to be an invisible part of the team. The 12" aluminum-cone sub was even more impressive, but I decided on the smaller size since these were meant to be the little, extra, third set in the studio.
Best thing about them though, is that while the sound just blows away a lot of $1000-2000 bookshelf pairs, these little guys came in at $400 for the tops and $350 for the sub. ($550 for the 12" sub, I think) These things might just have to surpass my usual evaluation of the B&W DM-602 as the best 'bang-for-buck' value I know of in speakers. I'd really recommend trying to find a place to give them a listen.

-Jeremy

[drumsound]

You might want to check out the NHT M-00 and S-00 combination. They are small, detailed and well made.

[DGoody]

Rogers/Chartwell LS3/5a.......

[Babaluma]

Tony Moore asked the same question and got the Yamaha MSP5s as a suggestion, but there are still 7x10ish for a footprint (at that size, I'd get an ADAM A7).

akaik the older adam a7's are NOT magnetically shielded and therefore are no use if you want to put them near a computer monitor. i think the newer ones just have the woofers shielded. it's one of the reasons i decided not to get them (that and the unbalanced connectors on rca's - what were they thinking?)

[shakestheclown]

For what it's worth I heard those new KRK's at guitar center the other day.

VXT4 I think... Tiny things with lots of detail and ass. I didn't feel like I could get them very loud though.

I know nothing about subs.

[dsw]

Might want to listen to the Genelec 8020 paired with the 7050B sub.
Footprint is really small. Cost is not small.

[JES]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I've got some homework to do now. One question though:

Tony Moore asked the same question and got the Yamaha MSP5s as a suggestion, but there are still 7x10ish for a footprint (at that size, I'd get an ADAM A7).

akaik the older adam a7's are NOT magnetically shielded and therefore are no use if you want to put them near a computer monitor. i think the newer ones just have the woofers shielded. it's one of the reasons i decided not to get them (that and the unbalanced connectors on rca's - what were they thinking?)

I thought magnetic shielding didn't matter if you were putting it next to an LCD monitor. Am I wrong? I thought it was just a CRT thing.

--JES

[leigh]

akaik the older adam a7's are NOT magnetically shielded and therefore are no use if you want to put them near a computer monitor. i think the newer ones just have the woofers shielded. it's one of the reasons i decided not to get them (that and the unbalanced connectors on rca's - what were they thinking?)

For the record, the current production A7's have both magnetic shielding AND balanced XLR inputs (the unbalanced RCA's are on there as well).

The product sheet is here.

cheers,
Leigh

[cgarges]

I've heard some Blue Sky speakers that sounded really nice and the other day I saw a pair of TINY Blue Sky monitors at my local GC. I have no idea what they sound like, but they were really cute. Perhaps you could look into those.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Marc Alan Goodman]

What's the footprint on the Focal Solo6's? They're tiny as hell and sound fantastic. Expensive though (I think $2G for a pair)

-marc alan goodman

[lancebug]

Rogers/Chartwell LS3/5a.......

These are awesome. Do they need to be magnetically shielded? They rogers are not I know from watching the colors go wacky on my TV while trying to mount a pair in my living room.