Floorstanders for under £800, recommendations needed!

[the record spot]

Big claim there that you're hard pressed to back up Dave, Genelec, AVI, and probably a few more have actives around the £1200 mark. Genelec would be my pick but the Mackie's are decent speakers.

In all honesty, ddc is probably quite correct. The 624s produce prodigious bass, certainly they appear to have more than the BM5As and the ADM9Ts that I have also heard.

The 9T was always reckoned to be light on bass, but there are many ways to produce it. If the OP wanted fun big bass, then I'd suggest he gets a pair of Cerwin Vegas, but speaker positioning plays a part too, as does personal preference, and the actives I've heard in recent years have all delivered good bass and that'd include Genelec.

I believe the current AVI 9.1 speaker, the RS or RSS delivers much better bass than earlier models. Something for the OP to consider...

 

[davedotco]

Big claim there that you're hard pressed to back up Dave, Genelec, AVI, and probably a few more have actives around the £1200 mark. Genelec would be my pick but the Mackie's are decent speakers.

In all honesty, ddc is probably quite correct. The 624s produce prodigious bass, certainly they appear to have more than the BM5As and the ADM9Ts that I have also heard.

The 9T was always reckoned to be light on bass, but there are many ways to produce it. If the OP wanted fun big bass, then I'd suggest he gets a pair of Cerwin Vegas, but speaker positioning plays a part too, as does personal preference, and the actives I've heard in recent years have all delivered good bass and that'd include Genelec.

I believe the current AVI 9.1 speaker, the RS or RSS delivers much better bass than earlier models. Something for the OP to consider...

Except of course that it is massively over budget.

The OP has a budget of £800, an Essence St soundcard, which if memory serves is pretty decent and the Mackies connect directly to that.

As always there are many ways to solve this particular issue, but inexpensive high output passive speakers, Cerwin Vega, JBL, Klipsch etc tend to lack both refinement and bass extension at this price level.

The Mackies though are considered accurate enough to be more than competitive in the budget pro-monitor market, so they are clean, low distortion and, within context, reasonably accurate.

Their prodigeous bass output is also well known, plenty of bass and mid bass punch and extension to below 50hz, it is hard to think of a better solution at the price.

 

[the record spot]

Yes Dave, we know you like them....

And I can read thread titles but I think you mentioned "best speakers under £1200" as an arbitrary remark hence my comments.

To the OP: Q Acoustics 2050i if no one has mentioned those are well reviewed too. I recall Noel Keywood waxing lyrical about their sound in his Hi-Fi World review a while back. The bass is apparently subterranean allied to a big dynamic soundstage that is huge which sounds like they might tick your boxes. No surprise given their size, but they're apparently refined when required. Big speakers though so you'll need the room, but they'll withstand a few amp upgrades too. £450.

 

[davedotco]

Yes Dave, we know you like them....

And I can read thread titles but I think you mentioned "best speakers under £1200" as an arbitrary remark hence my comments.

To the OP: Q Acoustics 2050i if no one has mentioned those are well reviewed too. I recall Noel Keywood waxing lyrical about their sound in his Hi-Fi World review a while back. The bass is apparently subterranean allied to a big dynamic soundstage that is huge which sounds like they might tick your boxes. No surprise given their size, but they're apparently refined when required. Big speakers though so you'll need the room, but they'll withstand a few amp upgrades too. £450.

RS, I really do not want to get into another argument but you really should read the posts properly before making 'confrontational' replys.

I did not say that I liked the Mackies, nor did I say that they were the "best speaker under £1200".

Firstly the Mackies have too much bass for my taste, I prefer a lighter balance for domestic listening, but they should suit the OPs requirement well.

Secondly I actually said this,

"If you want serious bass the Mackie HR monitors outperform anything under £1.2k."

This is a specific context, I have not heard any speaker, active or passive, that can deliver such powerful bass at this price point. The combination of depth, punch and shear power along with exceptional control is beyond anything I have heard.

This does not make them the bast speaker under £1200 by the way.

 

[the record spot]

Semantics Dave. If you'd heard every combination then you'd be right were it true, but you've not. You made an absolute statement and that's what I challenged.

Pots and kettles re: confrontational statements by the way.

 

[davedotco]

Semantics Dave. If you'd heard every combination then you'd be right were it true, but you've not. You made an absolute statement and that's what I challenged.

Pots and kettles re: confrontational statements by the way.

RS. Look I am trying hard here.

The statement I made was not absolute but qualified by the part of the sentance that said "if you want serious bass", plain english I thought.

Similarly my other statements about the Mackies were qualified by statements such as "anything I have heard" among others, no absolutes there either. (Though I have heard many if not most of the active studio type speakers in this price range)

Willfully miss-interpreting qualified statements as absolutes is a pretty poor argument in my view.

 

[the record spot]

Generally speaking, when it comes to inexpensive active speakers, I have tried a lot (friends in the trade).

If you want serious bass the Mackie HR monitors outperform anything under £1.2k.

The HR 624-2 are currently available about £700 if you look round. For normal size, untreated rooms they are enough, 'only' a 6 inch bass driver but the whole of the back panal is one big ABR, the bass is immense. Virtually zero bling though, if that is what you want look elsewhere.

It is not just me that thinks this, check out.....

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep07/articles/mackie_hr824mk2.htm

The Essence ST is a good card, it will drive the Mackies well untill you can afford a serious outboard dac/preamp.

The Mackies outperform etc, etc. You maybe do need to try harder Dave.

 

[davedotco]

Generally speaking, when it comes to inexpensive active speakers, I have tried a lot (friends in the trade).

If you want serious bass the Mackie HR monitors outperform anything under £1.2k.

The HR 624-2 are currently available about £700 if you look round. For normal size, untreated rooms they are enough, 'only' a 6 inch bass driver but the whole of the back panal is one big ABR, the bass is immense. Virtually zero bling though, if that is what you want look elsewhere.

It is not just me that thinks this, check out.....

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep07/articles/mackie_hr824mk2.htm

The Essence ST is a good card, it will drive the Mackies well untill you can afford a serious outboard dac/preamp.

The Mackies outperform etc, etc. You maybe do need to try harder Dave.

RS, please I genuinely do not understand your logic.

I am not trying to have a go but the statement is qualified by the phrase "if you want serious bass", is that not clear?

This is a rather silly argument, I prefer to talk about hi-fi and such, but it becomes pretty difficult if we are not speaking the same language.

 

[BigH]

+1 for Neat Motive 2 as well

Not sure about that for loud bass from what I have read on another forum about distortion and bottoming out when played at moderate to loud volume with music that had any bass.

 

[alienmango]

To be honest if we're going to provide sensible recommendations we need to know how big the room is and how loud OP likes to listen in my opinion.

There are people for whom the aforementioned mackie speakers will be great and others who are looking for a different sound.

 

[BigH]

Yes room size would be useful to know.

He did say "However they HAVE to be capable of low, loud, deep, punchy bass!"

I found the Epos Epic 5s to have quite a lot of bass.

 

[davedotco]

To be honest if we're going to provide sensible recommendations we need to know how big the room is and how loud OP likes to listen in my opinion.

There are people for whom the aforementioned mackie speakers will be great and others who are looking for a different sound.

Agree entirely mango.

There are a fair number of posts on here from enthusiasts who simply want a more potent bass response from their system. In many cases they have a perfectly sensible amp/speaker combo that fails to deliver the bass response that they want for a variety of reasons, most often price related.

Now I am sure that in some cases swapping one pair of inexpensive speakers for another pair of inexpensive speakers might work, but in general terms the improvement may not be that great, that said, just a little bit more might be exactly what is wanted.

However there are some enthusiasts who say that they want a lot more, serious deep 'pounding' bass at moderately high levels in some cases. It is these individuals, of which the OP appears to be one, that the recommendation for the Mackies are aimed, no one else.

It is my contention that in this application, in a normal average sized room, the Mackie HR624-2 would deliver more of the above than any active or passive combination that I have heard at the price, currently just £700 and within the OP's budget. If the room is large and the owner a real 'basshead', then the larger HR824-2 at about £1100 will certainly not disappoint.

 

[alienmango]

The problem we're having is that "low, loud, deep, punchy bass!" means different things to different people.

Low ...how low? I would guess flat to 40hz would make the OP happy,

Loud ... how loud? At what frequency.... 100dB? 110dB?120dB ....we're talking completely different speakers at each level sounding the best in his budget...

deep...see low... Rap music may need extension FLAT to 30 not 40.

punchy.....are we now talking bass from 80-250hz needing large output? Or does the OP mean the typical kick drum 60-100 followed by the decay to 40hz...............????

 

[alienmango]

"a real 'basshead'" has varying degrees....

I would classify myself as a real basshead .... The larger mackies would not come close to my needs. For 95% of people they may be excessive. This really seems like a situation where the OP needs to comment on what he wants given his demands of "low loud deep punchy bass" or whatever it was.

 

[davedotco]

"a real 'basshead'" has varying degrees....

I would classify myself as a real basshead .... The larger mackies would not come close to my needs. For 95% of people they may be excessive. This really seems like a situation where the OP needs to comment on what he wants given his demands of "low loud deep punchy bass" or whatever it was.

Genuinely interesting mango.

I would really love to know what does come close to satisfying your needs and how you go about getting it, I find the idea that anyone would want more than the HR824-2s can deliver quite terryfying.

Re your other points about being more specific about what we are talking about bass wise, it is my experience that in general, when people on here are asking for "more bass" they are looking for greater mid bass punch rather than bass extension, that is my impression anyway, and was almost invariably the case back when I was a dealer in the 90s.

Both the Mackies I have suggested go to 50hz, deeper in a suitable room, but the bass and mid bass output is prodigious for such relatively inexpensive systems and very tightly controlled too.

 

[Overdose]

The problem we're having is that "low, loud, deep, punchy bass!" means different things to different people.

Low ...how low? I would guess flat to 40hz would make the OP happy,

Loud ... how loud? At what frequency.... 100dB? 110dB?120dB ....we're talking completely different speakers at each level sounding the best in his budget...

deep...see low... Rap music may need extension FLAT to 30 not 40.

punchy.....are we now talking bass from 80-250hz needing large output? Or does the OP mean the typical kick drum 60-100 followed by the decay to 40hz...............????

From putting sticks in noisy fans to keep them quiet to measuring frequency in decibels. Do you actually know what you are talking about?

How true your opening sentence.

 

[alienmango]

I can only tell you what I have if that answers your question, as a poor student my budget for audio equipment is relatively small, I built a subwoofer in a heavily braced and acoustically padded box from 25mm mdf with an 18inch fane collossus xb (I bought it before the price hike, so £140 new) it's here if you're interested: http://www.fane-acoustics.com/downloads/Fane%20Colossus%2018XB%20DS030513.pdf

Anyway I put it in a 7.5 cubic feet enclosure and designed it with variable tuning (two vents) so I can have it optimised for movies or (most) music with tuning frequencies of around 30hz and 44hz.

Then I powered it with a cheap dj amp from ebay (£50) which has a bridge mode allowing it to do 600w rms. This means I can get a flat response to 30hz at 120db without pushing it.

There are obviously comprimises....how many people want a subwoofer the size of a washing machine in their room and also the fan for the amp makes a noise. But sonically I can't fault it. It sits on a bed of elastic bandes seperaing it from the floor so the bass is controlled and voices are never muddied.

For main speakers I'm getting a pair of celestion a2's soon (being delivered) but at the monent I mainly use a pair of athena bookshelves (again ebay -£20 delivered). If I'm doing a party then I'd use the brilliantly awful valdus 500 speakers instead.

 

[alienmango]

From putting sticks in noisy fans to keep them quiet to measuring frequency in decibels. Do you actually know what you are talking about?

The frequency in dB was more of a miscommunication.... assuming there's no sub the bottom frequency in hz is going to be the most difficult (normally) to reproduce so the question is really what is the expectation for the loudness at that frequency.

Suprisingly yes...I do know what I'm talking about.... My suggestions were cerin vega xls 215's, celestion A3's and Dali IKON 6 Mk2's which all have hugely different form factors and I believe one of them will be a good choice for the OP depending on his/her requirements and aesthetic tastes.

 

[BigH]

Anyway I put it in a 7.5 cubic feet enclosure and designed it with variable tuning (two vents) so I can have it optimised for movies or (most) music with tuning frequencies of around 30hz and 44hz.

Rather you than me but I don't like RAP either. Can you actually hear 30Hzs?

I don't know of any recordings that low, the lowest I found was a classical organ recording that was 32Hzs. Most music does not go below 40Hz anyway.

 

[alienmango]

You can kind of hear it....There was a brief study showing the ear can hear much lower than previously thought when it's clean enough, so the rotational subwooferr that plays down to 0.5 hz or something showed people can hear at 10hz.

There's a lot of strange stuff which has low frequency stuff (below 20hz) for no real reason. Some trance/dubstep producers for example don't know what they are doing. 4 strings "take me away" for example has an awful lot of sub 10hz stuff which really reduces clarity when played at high volumes.

Another example is enya's longships which has a lot of content around 20.... makes the bottom note in love lockdown seem like a high pitched squark. In this case though it definitely adds to the sound.

A lot of reggae also goes to 20 and below. It's not important but it's also nice to experience.

 

[the record spot]

RS, please I genuinely do not understand your logic.

I am not trying to have a go but the statement is qualified by the phrase "if you want serious bass", is that not clear?

This is a rather silly argument, I prefer to talk about hi-fi and such, but it becomes pretty difficult if we are not speaking the same language.

I'd have thought it was pretty straightforward Dave. You've tried a lot of actives, if you want serious bass, the Mackies outperform anything under £1200. So have you heard all of the speakers under £1200 that do a good line in bass? At best it's wholly subjective and sums up where Alan Shaw was coming from in his blog the other day. All I'm doing is questioning your line of reasoning which is a pretty straight black and white statement.

In any case, all of this is moot as, much as I said in my first post on this thread, it depends on the OP's room size, budget and the options available to him are locally. The notion of what "deep bass" means to some people as opposed to others is highly relevant as well of course.

No argument Dave, but your comment about language is bang on. A lot of terms are interchangeable in hifi, but what you and I mean when we talk about bass, deep bass, clear treble, or the like, could be miles apart in practice.

 

[davedotco]

RS, please I genuinely do not understand your logic.

I am not trying to have a go but the statement is qualified by the phrase "if you want serious bass", is that not clear?

This is a rather silly argument, I prefer to talk about hi-fi and such, but it becomes pretty difficult if we are not speaking the same language.

I'd have thought it was pretty straightforward Dave. You've tried a lot of actives, if you want serious bass, the Mackies outperform anything under £1200. So have you heard all of the speakers under £1200 that do a good line in bass? At best it's wholly subjective and sums up where Alan Shaw was coming from in his blog the other day. All I'm doing is questioning your line of reasoning which is a pretty straight black and white statement.

In any case, all of this is moot as, much as I said in my first post on this thread, it depends on the OP's room size, budget and the options available to him are locally. The notion of what "deep bass" means to some people as opposed to others is highly relevant as well of course.

No argument Dave, but your comment about language is bang on. A lot of terms are interchangeable in hifi, but what you and I mean when we talk about bass, deep bass, clear treble, or the like, could be miles apart in practice.

RS, I agree it is hugely subjective but the suggestion that you have to hear everything available to express a view is nonsense, the forum may as well shut down if that is the case. I try very hard to say what I mean and try and use clear language so that my views are taken in context but clearly this is not always the case.

I consider myself pretty experienced, both in pro-audio and hi-fi, though I shall not bother you with my CV. Bass is a hugely contentious issue, unlike some posters I am not much interested in sub bass, I have 'done' the 'big driver in a wardrobe' scenario many years ago with some truly phenominal drive units including models from JBL, Gauss and the legendary Cerwin Vega 189ES and, quite frankly, I don't see the point outside of a club situation. Others like mango, clearly disagree.

 

[the record spot]

I didn't suggest you do Dave (need to hear everything), nor do I bother to hear much. Your comment stood out for the reasons already stated. Personally, in a typical UK lounge, mega-woofered speakers are a mistake. Give me good quality bass anyday.

 

[davedotco]

I didn't suggest you do Dave (need to hear everything), nor do I bother to hear much. Your comment stood out for the reasons already stated. Personally, in a typical UK lounge, mega-woofered speakers are a mistake. Give me good quality bass anyday.

I thought you did, but that is a language issue that I don't want to get into again.

I most definitely agree that too much bass is a big mistake in a 'normal' room. Personally speaking the merest hint of overhang has me reaching for the off button and since I like, when I can, to play quite loud the control of the bass is everything.

Without wishing to get into another bunfight, this is one reason why, at the budget end of the market, I rather like active speakers.

In general I find them more controlled at the low end, particularly at higher volumes. The Mackies we have been talking about would not suit me for normal use, there are others that I think are much better allrounders, and I have mentioned these elsewhere.