I just did some routine measurements on the Behringer 1030A monitor. This thing looks pretty good on paper and the sound matches. This particular one unfortunately has a noticeable rattle while doing the frequency sweeps that wasn't heard with music and a sporadic treble distortion that is more frequent when the treble boost is engaged. t took me some time to figure out that the treble distortion was actually on the recordings I was listening to. I am just barely able to hear it on other speakers. This is not really a fault of the speaker except that it will expose problems on recordings that may have escaped the producers of the recording. The top is the vertical polar response toward the tweeter followed by the vertical polar toward the woofer. A fairly broad vertical lobe for such spacing. Next is the impulse response which is very clean and the horizontal shows a generally broad pattern with some degree of beaming in the top octave. Certainly no major diffraction issues here d/t the sculpted baffle.
Rattle? As in something loose or flopping around ... or a driver anomaly? Could you say a bit more?
ReplyDeleteOn every self amplified monitor I have measured, the amplifier rattles when doing frequency sweeps. This one wasn't very bad compared to some others FWIW. My Mackie monitors have started audibly rattling during music after about a year of regular use. I suspect they all will. You can easily rectify the situation if need be. ;)
ReplyDelete"You can easily rectify the situation if need be. ;)"
DeleteYou mean by replacement ? :)
Also hows the long term experience with 1030s been in this regard ?
I wasn't thinking replacement. I was talking about doing thugs that would void your warranty like removing the amp from the box. I'm not liable for any damages though.
DeleteIs it possible that this rattle issue is only with the smaller variants like 624, 1030 etc and not with their larger variants like 824s, 1031s etc due to weight ? 1030 is only 5.5 kg....
DeleteThat wouldn't explain why none of the ADAMs rattle.
DeleteAnd all 3 : Adams,Mackies and 1030 have been with you for long time, with no issues yet with Adam ? If yes, that's surprising as 1030 can excused for its price, but Mackie.... ?
DeleteThe ADAMs and Mackies have been with me along time. The ADAMs still don't rattle, but the Mackie vibration has gotten worse. It's now often audible on music. I'll have to go through and tighten it up or just completely remove the amp from the box. Both the Mackie and 1030 rattled right out of the box. That tells me that it's a design flaw. The 1030 were only in my possession 2 days. I wouldn't think the vibration would go away. Do you?
DeleteYou are right, it won't go away but will it worsen like 624 is a worry!
DeleteAnyways you had them only for 2 days so....
I need to just fix the Mackie.
DeleteIn any case this is part of the reason I always recommend the ADAM.
But is it a weak amp used as compromise (since normal is much less taxing than sine wave) or bad cabinet design ?
DeleteThis can checked with other folks on some forum....
In the Mackie it's the amp--or parts in the amp actually. The others I really didn't test to pin it down. The Mackie is also the only one I heard it on with music. I contacted them about it over a year ago and they said they were working on a fix--and a fix for the QC on their tweeters. Nothing's come back to me on that front yet--I should pester them about it really. They've neglected keeping me informed.
DeleteI read some folks facing issue Adam s3-x wrt rattles, but looks like they have sorted it out..This kind of things makes one wonder whether passives are better :)
DeleteAlso I read sine waves can be risky for monitors, how do you ensure that tweeter doesn't blow etc ? By keeping low volume etc ?
Maybe only the expensive ADAMs rattle? It may be the case. Stranger things have happened. Who knows, but it's interesting enough. Higher price certainly doesn't mean higher quality--definitely in the world of loudspeakers!
DeleteI'm a big fan of passives for this very reason. If it wasn't so costly to get ADAMs in the passive version, I'd do just that. I know, it seems odd to pay more for them to not include an amp, but they put them in really beautiful boxes...
You'd have to do something pretty radical to blow the tweeter in every case i've tested. I certainly don't test at 100+dB or anything! My hearing is too valuable and a hate wearing protection. ;) I test at 70-80 dB which is plenty loud enough for separation from the noise floor here. I'd even argue that it is plenty loud enough for you to mix and master at. If the tweeter blew, I'd certainly right it up as junk.
Is this suited for near-field usage, e.g. for monitoring or casual PC music listening? Will there be a bass hump due to BSC designed for stand-mounting away from walls?
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely good for the near field. No reason it can't or shouldn't be used for both.
ReplyDeleteBass is a rather complicated issue and is best left to 'in room' measurements and adjustment based on that. I don't remember if this speaker had a switch for different mounting methods or not, but a decent EQ would be better.