KVR Audio

steffeeH · Post by **steffeeH** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:56 pm

I bought a pair of Yamaha HS8 monitors last week.
While I think they sound lovely, I'm a little worried about the lack of punch they seem to have when it comes to kicks and similar sounds.

When I first got them they barely had any punch in the kicks and such, but I understood that I simply had to let them play for a while and they would "sink in" or what you call it.
And yeah it got better, but I feel it's still not there, even though I've used them a lot the last days. It's like I've hit a plateau in letting the speakers sink in.
Songs that I've heard on a large quantity of different speakers - all reproduce the punch much better, so it's not like all the other dozens of speakers in all the different price ranges etc over-pronounce the punch.

Somehow I can't help but thinking, will it help if I play "punchy" music at a loud volume for a few days to make the speakers sink in better with the punch?
Or what else can I do? I mean obviously this isn't how it should sound on studio speakers, they shouldn't lack such a vital feature, even within this lower price range.

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 9:27 am

The term is "break in", but I have serious doubts it really does something other than you yourself getting used to them. Maybe the cone gets some extra flexibility by the exercise, but you'd notice that in high frequencies.
You say it lacks punch in the bass. I'd say that is an inherent quality of the monitors, maybe by design. If you want earthquake bass, get a subwoofer. Nearfield studio monitors don't deliver that.

steffeeH · Post by **steffeeH** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 10:47 am

BertKoor wrote:The term is "break in", but I have serious doubts it really does something other than you yourself getting used to them. Maybe the cone gets some extra flexibility by the exercise, but you'd notice that in high frequencies.
You say it lacks punch in the bass. I'd say that is an inherent quality of the monitors, maybe by design. If you want earthquake bass, get a subwoofer. Nearfield studio monitors don't deliver that.

These monitors have awesome bass level and depth-wise. It's more that they at the moment doesn't seem to correctly reproduce the dynamics of the 60-90 Hz spectrum or so. The overall bass level is good, it's more the dynamics of a certain part of the lowend.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:13 am

steffeeH wrote:The overall bass level is good, it's more the dynamics of a certain part of the lowend.

Have you used near-field monitors before? Is the room they are being used in acoustically treated?

steffeeH wrote:Songs that I've heard on a large quantity of different speakers - all reproduce the punch much better, so it's not like all the other dozens of speakers in all the different price ranges etc over-pronounce the punch.

I don't think I understand what you are saying here ... if other speakers sound better to you why did you buy the one's you did?

steffeeH · Post by **steffeeH** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 5:13 pm

[/quote]
I don't think I understand what you are saying here ... if other speakers sound better to you why did you buy the one's you did?[/quote]

Because these weren't studio speakers

steffeeH · Post by **steffeeH** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 5:17 pm

Thanks for your replies, and sorry for taking so long.

I didn't move my monitors anything, however I tried walking around my room and only focus and listen to how the dynamics of the 60-100 Hz spectrum responded (= the punch) as I moved around the room, and yeah there are some slight differencies - for instance further back in the room you have that classic Woomf-area where you have all the sub freq boosted but no punch.
I actually did find a spot with better punch, however this was pretty much where my computer screen is standing = almost between the speakers, and there were some phasing going on there so I more believe that the punch was boosted there - probably the most accurate punch were in fact where I'm sitting.

I did what I believed would make the speakers reproduce the punch better - breaking them in, and also playing them really loud. And it actually worked a bit, I now feel they reproduce the punch slightly better ever since I turned them up a bunch playing punchy electronic music. That and doing some final fine tweaking on the speaker correction EQ to better reproduce the punch.

So yeah the speakers now sound as they should

NystagmusE · Post by **NystagmusE** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 7:59 am

what's the frequency response graph of your speakers? are they rated to go down to 60? a lot of monitors cut off around 75 Hz

steffeeH · Post by **steffeeH** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:18 pm

NystagmusE wrote:what's the frequency response graph of your speakers? are they rated to go down to 60? a lot of monitors cut off around 75 Hz

What? Dude even the cheapest 5" monitors go down below 75 Hz...
My speakers are rated to reach 30-38 Hz, but in reality they reach down to 27 Hz, everything below that is sharply cut off.

steffeeH · Post by **steffeeH** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:19 pm

steffeeH wrote:
NystagmusE wrote:what's the frequency response graph of your speakers? are they rated to go down to 60? a lot of monitors cut off around 75 Hz
What? Dude even cheap 5" monitors can go down below 75 Hz...
My speakers are rated to reach 30-38 Hz, but in reality they reach down to 27 Hz, everything below that is sharply cut off.

Making my new monitors "sink in"