# New Speakers/Studio Update



## Gerhard Westphalen

I wanna share some big changes that I've currently made in my studio as I'm mainly mixing and mastering nowadays.

I've been waiting for these speakers to arrive since June. They are protoypes designed by Exakte called the (JBL) "M2 Killers" built in LA. Shipping wasn't easy. By far the best speakers I've ever heard. When I was looking around I heard big ATC, PMC, Barefoots, B&W, etc. and these always came out on top. I haven't heard an M2 though. I can't even imagine how the newer protoypes will sound.

They're 3-way (compression driver in a custom horn, 10" "mid" going down to 80Hz, 10" sub on the back) tri-amped (Parasound) and with a DEQX handling all of the crossovers and driver correction. The speakers themselves have no crossovers. The amps are 20 years old so they have some issues and I'll have to replace them at some point. The system was designed to use a Starke amp (which only costs $7000...). Couldn't afford it at the time. I still need to schedule the final DEQX set up session with a DEQXpert to have the speakers properly tuned but I've gotten them roughly set up and they sound great.

With changing these speakers I also got a massive 12" sub from Exakte and a JBL 705p to replace my center. Both sound great.

I also got rid of my table as it was just a huge amount of open space for reflections. Now everything is on wheels like at John Powell's. When I'm mastering I can push my monitor up between the speakers to not have it in the way.

I'm currently looking to redo the acoustic treatment to have some proper low end control.

I can't wait to work on this new system!


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## wst3

Very cool! At the moment my first choice would be PMC, I was really (re-)impressed with them at the recent AES convention. I had forgotten how much I like them. The Barefoots are also awesome! Would love to hear all of them, including the Exakte in that list!


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## Gerhard Westphalen

wst3 said:


> Very cool! At the moment my first choice would be PMC, I was really (re-)impressed with them at the recent AES convention. I had forgotten how much I like them. The Barefoots are also awesome! Would love to hear all of them, including the Exakte in that list!



I had the chance to listen to the TwoTwo and some big hifi PMC's and really didn't like either. I briefly heard the really big ones at a studio and those seemed nice. The Barefoots and ATC would all be fine to work on but the thing for me is that they all have their own sound. These don't really have any sound to them. 

That's mainly due to the DEQX. These sound very similar to my Dynaudios with the DEQX. To be honest, if I knew the DEQX could do so much, I probably wouldn't have bought these. I would've stayed with the Dynaudios and gotten a pair of JL subs to extend them. The biggest difference is that these are speakers for a really big room. Probably on par with the SCM150. I'm pushing them nowhere near their full potential. I did get a really great deal on them though and at least have the option if I use a bigger room in the future. 

I'm really curious to hear the M2 as a couple of people have told me they're the absolute best studio monitors nowadays. The 705p which is sort of a smaller version sounds very impressive for a 5" speaker.


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## synthpunk

A engineer friend of mine swears by his Attack Wall, he also has a fair bit of DIY acoustical treatment supplement as well.

I'm still very happy with Dynaudio's if that ever changes the only thing thats blown me away next step up is Barefoots.

Nice vibe, be sure though your room can breath. Nothing worse for physical and mental health than being locked in a dead space all day with bad ventilation.


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## jcrosby

You should get the Dynaudios on their own stands. Or they should be pointing down at you if they need to be that high up. Having them that close to the ceiling presents a number of issues though, (which I'm sure you're aware of...) SBIR, comb filtering, stereo imaging issues...

What I did to get my monitor behind my speakers was pull them forward a foot or so and put in a 50" Curved TV. (I have a hexagonal front wall like you have going on here. I can't say for sure the curve achives much but I'd imagine it does some light scattering. I thought I'd hate the curve but actually like it quite a bit for working...) Getting the monitor behind the speakers added depth I was missing when the monitor was more or less between them, and cleared up some clutter in the low mids I didn't notice before... Wound up with about 2 1/2 feet of depth between the speakers and monitor. Getting the monitor away from me also made the room feel more open...


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## Ryan

How big is that room? Width etc.


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## Gerhard Westphalen

jcrosby said:


> You should get the Dynaudios on their own stands. Or they should be pointing down at you if they need to be that high up. Having them that close to the ceiling presents a number of issues though, (which I'm sure you're aware of...) SBIR, comb filtering, stereo imaging issues...
> 
> What I did to get my monitor behind my speakers was pull them forward a foot or so and put in a 50" Curved TV. (I have a hexagonal front wall like you have going on here. I can't say for sure the curve achives much but I'd imagine it does some light scattering. I thought I'd hate the curve but actually like it quite a bit for working...) Getting the monitor behind the speakers added depth I was missing when the monitor was more or less between them, and cleared up some clutter in the low mids I didn't notice before... Wound up with about 2 1/2 feet of depth between the speakers and monitor. Getting the monitor away from me also made the room feel more open...



The Dynaudios are pointing down with the Isoacoustics stands but not enough. I'll probably put them into storage once the new speakers are properly set up as I doubt I'll ever use them. I was going for a John Powell setup. They originally sounded awful up there but Reference 3 made a big improvement on them.

To have the same visual "size" as my 40" I'd need +70" so that's not practical. At that point I'd need a projector but 4k projectors are a fortune. When I'm mastering I'll push my monitor forward and then use the 40" TV on the back wall which is only 1080p so text would be readable. The monitor is on a separate cart from the "desk" so it's easy to push back and still work.


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## Gerhard Westphalen

Ryan said:


> How big is that room? Width etc.



It's about 6.4m x 3.5m x 2.2m. Low ceiling height is a problem but things seem to sound pretty good. I didn't have too much flexibility with the dimensions when the room was built but it ended up having nice ratios. I've had to work in rooms that although were quite a big bigger (4x the volume), had far more issues. 

I've been adding some diffusers that I took out of my live room (like those on the floor) and am planning to rebuild all of the panels to be proper bass traps since right now it's all just broadband. That'll hopefully help tame one of the fundamental modes at around 27Hz. The new LFE sub is really spewing out there and below which isn't controlled. I'm not used to that in this room. I can feel the pressure.


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## jcrosby

No matter how much trapping you put around your walls you're still going to have pressure from the low ceiling. I'd think about getting some chunky traps up as a cloud before doing any other trapping... Especially since that's your smallest distance... (I completely re-did my room last year for the same reason. Low ceiling height... I also have a weird shape, An A-frame running 'sideways'...)

Putting 4 inch traps on the ceiling and getting membrane traps on the walls flanking the speakers made a huge improvement to the low end. It actually evened it out substantially up to 100 Hz. (Which actually surprised me when I re-calibrated it. The hump I thought I still had around 40 hz was actually due to a big hole at 100.) It was a bit pricy but well worth it.

It was also well worth buying treatment the second time around. I would have made a few different choices if it weren't for them doing a rough room analysis. I have a false front wall, (which seems kind of like what you may have going on? At least with the two angled traps...) I was actually better off getting something behind the false wall instead of having a few feet of empty space. Anyway, well worth spending some money on treatment from a place that does a rough analysis. They delivered more than expected... (I typically assumed room analysis was equal parts sales pitch, (which I'm sure it is for some places). The acoustician actually talked me out of a few things that would have made little to no difference.


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## Jeremy Spencer

Glad you like your new monitors, Gerhard! The specs sound impressive. I must admit, I prefer the studio layout you had previously....but now your room looks more like a mastering setup (which is what you're obviously going for). Let me know if you ever decide to get rid of the Dynaudio's


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## Gerhard Westphalen

jcrosby said:


> I'd think about getting some chunky traps up as a cloud before doing any other trapping



Not exactly sure what you mean by chunky traps as a cloud. I have 4" panel clouds (you can sort of see the edge in the picture) and then panels on the wall<->ceiling corner beside the speakers which you can sort of see going back behind the big panels.

I'll be essentially turning all of those broadband panels into membrane traps. The person who is guiding me has built many reputable studios but is using a technique which I haven't found mentioned anywhere on the web or in books so I'm not quite sure if it'll work.


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## jcrosby

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Not exactly sure what you mean by chunky traps as a cloud. I have 4" panel clouds (you can sort of see the edge in the picture) and then panels on the wall<->ceiling corner beside the speakers which you can sort of see going back behind the big panels.
> 
> I'll be essentially turning all of those broadband panels into membrane traps. The person who is guiding me has built many reputable studios but is using a technique which I haven't found mentioned anywhere on the web or in books so I'm not quite sure if it'll work.


Yeah that's what I meant, some 4 inch or thicker panels for the cloud... (As it's pretty common for people to skimp on ceiling treatment...) Are you talking about Denis Foley by any chance?


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## Gerhard Westphalen

jcrosby said:


> Yeah that's what I meant, some 4 inch or thicker panels for the cloud... (As it's pretty common for people to skimp on ceiling treatment...) Are you talking about Denis Foley by any chance?



No. He seems to have some good products but they're expensive and he says some questionable things in some of his videos. Is he who helped you? Are you using his ACDA? I did their free room analysis that he's always talking about and he basically gave me no practical feedback. I doubt he even looked at what I submitted when I spoke to him. Seemed like very broad generic statements. 

If I had to go with a commercial solution (i.e. if my new treatments end up not working) then I'd go with GIK. I'd never go with Realtraps as Ethan has some strong beliefs which I know aren't true and so just show that he's not listening. Looking at Primeacoustics they're products are way overpriced for what they are. That's basically everyone around.


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## jcrosby

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> No. He seems to have some good products but they're expensive and he says some questionable things in some of his videos. Is he who helped you? Are you using his ACDA? I did their free room analysis that he's always talking about and he basically gave me no practical feedback. I doubt he even looked at what I submitted when I spoke to him. Seemed like very broad generic statements.
> 
> If I had to go with a commercial solution (i.e. if my new treatments end up not working) then I'd go with GIK. I'd never go with Realtraps as Ethan has some strong beliefs which I know aren't true and so just show that he's not listening. Looking at Primeacoustics they're products are way overpriced for what they are. That's basically everyone around.


Yeah, Denis is really pricy. That said I have a friend who's a pretty heavy duty engineer and swears by his traps. He said his room sounded completely different when he put the firs two in, and had a fried of his build a third... (His room's up on Denis's site somewhere. I'll post a link if I can find it...) I thought about it but the footrprint was too big for my room, and at 200+ pounds each they'd have to come up 4 flights of stairs so no go...

I used GIK. Traditional but well designed, and by far the fairest pricing I found in N.A. I did a combination of 244s with the membrane ('flex-range'. Basically a vibrating MDF face with rigid insulation behind. These take care of the SBIR. They put a lot of transient detail back into the room and improved the center image a lot), monster traps with a plate for the the rear wall, (with a row of DIY traps behind them.) Soffits, and combination of 244s and 4 inch Alphas around the rest of the room. I looked at Ethan's site but his prices were a bit high. GIK offers pretty much the same options as he does but their pricing is significantly better. They have some really fantastic diffusers you might want to look at down the road, (if you haven't seen them yet...) http://www.gikacoustics.com/product/gotham-n23-5-inch-quadratic-diffusors/


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## Jeremy Spencer

Gerhard, have you seen this stuff?

https://www.acousticsciences.com/

There's a studio in Calgary that has this treatment, it's impressive.


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## Gerhard Westphalen

Wolfie2112 said:


> Gerhard, have you seen this stuff?
> 
> https://www.acousticsciences.com/
> 
> There's a studio in Calgary that has this treatment, it's impressive.



Some people swear by their AttackWall and others say they're not so great. They are very expensive though (I think something like $1000 per tube). They are a very old product. That's not necessarily a criticism but I think there have been a number of advances in bass trap technology.

UofC has an AttackWall in the recording room at the Rosza and they have some tubes in a big rehearsal room that they do some recording classes in. Honestly, they don't seem to do very much.

I've read of an easy way to build tunable traps very similar to the TubeTraps using a concrete forming tube. They would cost less than $20 each. I may try it out.


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## Gerhard Westphalen

New treatment is up. The difference in the low end is unbelievable. I love how it looks. 

And no, the resemblance to HZ's is not intentional  I had someone else pick the colors for me.


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## synthpunk

What material do you have on the floor btw @Gerhard Westphalen ?

Looks like you have your little Attack style wall now.

Are you thinking about a desk and hardware outboard at some point ?

Good for you finding your niche!


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## Gerhard Westphalen

synthpunk said:


> What material do you have on the floor btw @Gerhard Westphalen ?
> 
> Looks like you have your little Attack style wall now.
> 
> Are you thinking about a desk and hardware outboard at some point ?
> 
> Good for you finding your niche!



Are you asking about the diffusors on the floor or the actual floor material? The diffusors are just some sort of wood from Home Depot that I cut. The floor is a dark hardwood. A little hard to see in the picture but it's a dark brown sort of mocha color. I really like the wavy texture it has but it scratches easily.

I recently got rid of my desk so no desk anytime soon!

My philosophy with outboard is that while plugins vs outboard will always be different, I think that the results are equally usable so the cost and inconvenience of outboard isn't worth it. Having said that, I have very little experience using outboard so I could be wrong and it could be vastly superior but I doubt that I can't get to equally great results without it.


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