out of curiosity, any 805 fans ever listen to the bookshelf monitors produced by Dynaudio? i had never heard of them before i worked at a high-end boutique-type place years ago, but out of all the speakers that ever came through that place while i was there, Dynaudio's Contour 1.3mkII speaker pretty much killed everything. the main complaint i heard raised against them was that they were too neutral, or too boring. i found them to be the most listenable speaker i had ever heard. the detail, low-frequency response and (what i could judge of it) accuracy were all pretty amazing. i think the price kinda puts them in a different category, i suppose, but the difference in performance makes them well worth a listen. in my unrequested opinion.

I've had really good experience on ProAc Studio 100's and the small Genelec's. The ProAc's like a bit of power though, a 30 watt tube amp won't do it.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:Dynaudio's Contour 1.3mkII

I agree. I am currrently hoping to land a pair of this speaker's successor, the Contour 1.3 SE. Excellent monitors for a smaller space.

I recently purchased a pair of Dynaudio BM6As, which are two-way active speakers. My previous system was:

Creek 4330 preamp -> B&K Ref 4420 power amp -> Mission 771e bookshelf speakers.

The Dynaudios kick this system in the nuts. I decided on the BM6As after about a year and a half of research. When I was a studio intern, several freelance engineers brought in their own pair of BM6As. Sounded great. Earlier this fall I had the chance to listen to a pair in one of the rooms at Masterdisk in NYC. Again, impressive. I used to build passive loudspeakers in high school with Dynaudio components and loved the sound then. Listening to them now in my own room, I know I made the right choice. I think Dynaudio is a company to be trusted. For a studio monitor, the BM6As have an accurate spectral balance that I like. I got my pair for $950 off of Ebay. That's a price/performance ratio that I don't think you can fuck with.

In their defense, I think active monitors work perfectly in a monitoring environment where most of the listening is done in the near field at moderate levels in a smaller room. This is the situation that I am in. No tears were shed unloading my passive speakers and related components. More room for other stuff! I think I'll only go back to separates if I have the chance to setup a critical listening room for mastering purposes.

The point that I really wanted to make is this: whatever you end up choosing, don't drool over it so much that you forget about room acoustics, especially in a small room. Be anal about speaker placement and what the speakers are mounted on. It's easy to cancel out the benefits of a great speaker like the B&W 805s with a bad setup.

And sorry for blathering on and on about active monitors in a post that was specifically started to discuss passive monitors.

Bonati,
What's up man.
I think Im a having a little trouble with my new 805s (ironically, the ones that sold in this post) in my room actually. Well, I had problems with my Event 20/20 bas speakers also. Im going to add 4 feet to my control room with should minimize standing waves and allow my speakers to be further from the back wall, but at the moment Im having some trouble with bass response.

Im not sure I understand why you think it is better to have active speakers in a small room/nearfield monitoring enviornment. Are you just saying that it's not worth it to spend the big dough on a passive system when the acoustics are affecting the sound more than your pricey components, or are your saying the active speakers are inherently better in a near field enviornment? Thanks, Im trying to learn more about this stuff.

btw, i emailed that guy you told me about, no word from him though

mike

bonati wrote:The Dynaudios kick this system in the nuts.

Yesterday, I mailed off a cashier's check for a pair of Dynaudio Contour 1.3SEs. I'm completely excited. Only sad thing is that I'll be powering them with a Hafler DH-220 until I can afford a Bryston 4B ST. Maybe by Spring...