Powered monitors for everyday hifi listening?

brokesnob

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Mar 8, 2020
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Hello,
I have just discovered this forum and am in absolute awe of all the knowledge here- I look forward to exploring it more deeply over the years to come.
Currently, I'm only able to work with a small setup inside my small music room. I am a musician who does his own recording at home, but also listen to hours of music a day.
The source is my iMac (FLAC files and Spotify), but eventually I plan to get a turntable. My current speakers are Neumann KH120's, but tomorrow I will be ordering a pair of Geithain RL906's, for which I'm very excited.
This got me to wondering what people generally think about using powered/active monitors for hifi pleasure listening? I can appreciate that it might not be for everyone given the level of neutrality, but I personally quite like that. I'm also curious what other components you guys could suggest for me to buy. My interface has a DAC, but I think I would do better with an separate DAC- would love some recommendations up to the $2k mark. Additionally, seeing as I'm using powered monitors, I'm assuming there's no need for a separate amp since the speakers are already powered, but would a preamp be of any benefit?
I would like to eventually get a pair of the Geithain RL901K's and build a proper dedicated listening system around them, but that's at least a year out.
Anyways, just wanted to know how active monitors are viewed in hifiland, and if there's any difference between active monitors made for recording/mixing and those made for "pleasure listening"?
Thanks, nice to be here.
 
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Solypsa

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Jun 7, 2017
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Welcome!

A lot of topics within your post. I have had a foot in the pro/recording world and in 'hifi'. One of the first things (imho) is to get your head around the way the vernacular differs in these two camps. For example your use of the term 'monitor' and the related concept of recording monitors being 'neutral'. Submerged into these terms is a lot of bias and presumtions from both camps.

Geithain certainly is respected and while I haven't heard them I have researched them a bit. Your dac certainly *should* be capable of driving them well but it may be that a good preamp would improve matters. These are not simple things to benchrace and depend on all the components used...
 

UEM

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Dec 26, 2017
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brokesnob,

Congrats to your RL906 - I'm sure you'll enjoy them, as I do since a few years. :)

Here is at least this thread on "Active Speakers"
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/active-loudspeakers.27360/page-2#post-566688

BTW: IF your DAC has already a built in volume control, you can connect it directly to your MEG's - otherwise a good pre-amp is more than advisable. (…actually it’s a must, or you need to adjust the volume by the small controls on the back…)
Just a thought: A TUBE (valve) pre-amp may be worth considering ?

Regards
Urs


The 901, or one of the newer successor models, are on my "dream list" - unfortunately they are simply to big & bulky for my room
 

MTB Vince

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May 11, 2019
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There are more than one of us who do exactly that @brokesnob as my signature suggests...
 

brokesnob

Member
Mar 8, 2020
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brokesnob,

Congrats to your RL906 - I'm sure you'll enjoy them, as I do since a few years. :)

Here is at least this thread on "Active Speakers"
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/active-loudspeakers.27360/page-2#post-566688

BTW: IF your DAC has already a built in volume control, you can connect it directly to your MEG's - otherwise a good pre-amp is more than advisable. (…actually it’s a must, or you need to adjust the volume by the small controls on the back…)
Just a thought: A TUBE (valve) pre-amp may be worth considering ?

Regards
Urs


The 901, or one of the newer successor models, are on my "dream list" - unfortunately they are simply to big & bulky for my room

Just wondering, but wouldn't a tube preamp add too much colour, sort of defeating the purpose of neutral monitors? Sorry if it's a silly question, but I'm new to this and would like to learn more. Would love some preamp suggestions for the 906's.

And yes, I intend to get into some 901K's eventually in a few years once I'm in a bigger space and have a dedicated hifi setup.
 

UEM

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2017
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Waedenswil, near Zuerich, Switzerland
Brokesnob,

Well, I personally don't necessarily associate "Studio Monitor" with “Neutral “or even cool sounding.
I rather think they are meant to sound musically correct (Please, don’t ask me, to clarify any possible difference…..)

And in the case of the MEG’s (and I assume any other professional brand) all studio monitors are designed to give the engineer /listener a similar “sound signature”. Hence your RL901 is likely to sound very comparable to the 906, BUT way more involving, especially the bass… ;)

My limited experience with TOTL-digital sources led me to use a tube amp for my (among others: “Low-Fi” & harsh sounding digital stuff) PC- and Office- monitoring system, where I’m using the RL906 as a true Near-Field Monitor.
IF they are used as Mid-Field (room) speaker, the situation could be very different.

(My big “Living-Room-System” is mainly full analog, with active speakers from LINN, but with a solid-state pre-amp from NAIM)

Regards
Urs
 

jackelsson

Well-Known Member
Dec 1, 2013
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Welcome brokesnob, nice to have another member in this forum who likes powered speakers. :)

I myself switched from passive hifi speakers to active studio monitors for 'pleasure listening' some ten years ago. And although I think that there are also very interesting passive speakers around I never really looked back.

My powered speaker journey in this past decade has been all Geithain: RL904 -> RL 933K -> RL 901K. I also had a pair of Neumann KH 420 here for two weeks some two years ago to compare them against my RL 901K, the same with a pair of Manger C1 last year. In the end I preferred the RL 901K for several reasons in both comparisons, but certainly both the Neumann as well as the Manger are phantastic speakers and perfect to simply enjoy long listening sessions for pleasure. There is certainly nothing "over-analytical" or "too neutral" there.

If anything I have sometimes received comments about my MEGs being a tad too polite. But this is not to a small amount a function of my listening room which errs on the slightly overdamped side of things.

Also, I did have the chance in the past to hear bigger Geithain models (RL 901K, RL 922K, ML 811K1, ME 800K, ME 160) in various systems and while they do have a sort of house sound (like most speaker manufactures have somehow imho) the final result usually depended much more on the room and the system setup than anything else.

IMG_1422_Manger-C1_MEG-RL901K_sw_800pxh_web.jpg

IMG_7736_MEGundNeumann_800pxh_web.jpg
 

jackelsson

Well-Known Member
Dec 1, 2013
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280
.de
I'm also curious what other components you guys could suggest for me to buy. My interface has a DAC, but I think I would do better with an separate DAC- would love some recommendations up to the $2k mark. Additionally, seeing as I'm using powered monitors, I'm assuming there's no need for a separate amp since the speakers are already powered, but would a preamp be of any benefit?

Just wondering, but wouldn't a tube preamp add too much colour, sort of defeating the purpose of neutral monitors? Sorry if it's a silly question, but I'm new to this and would like to learn more. Would love some preamp suggestions for the 906's.

I don't think that a tube preamp necessarily adds coloration. That is very much a question of proper design. Two very good RL 901K based systems that I had the pleasure to listen to have tube preamps (Lamm LL2.1, Valvet L2) and they didn't seem coloured to me. One of them incidentally belongs to a classical musician and he actually preferred the tube preamp to his previous solid state preamp. Having said all that: I'm running a solid state preamp from Pass with my MEG and very much like the combination.

In general a lot of the systems with powered speakers that I came across had a dedicated preamp and mostly the feedback from the owners was that the sound benifited from adding this additional buffer stage.

If you happen to understand German you might want to check out www.aktives-hoeren.de, a forum discussing mostly active speakers and digital audio in technical detail. You will find a wealth of knowledge in regard to these two topics there.
 
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UEM

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2017
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Jackelsson,

Your comments make a most excellent summary ! The opinion of active classical musicians is nearly always the best possible reference for me.

And your pictures show an additional feature of the MEG (I don’t know whether it applies to all models): The concentric arrangement of the speaker array, which I believe supports the coherent sound signature - or “house sound”

regards
Urs

BTW: a supporting reason to go “Professional or Studio Active”: You spare the cost and exorbitant prices of the furniture designer and all those stylish cabinet makers !
You invest only in the Good Sound !!
(yes, I know: my LINN’s are nice indeed , but bl….y expensive)
 

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