Monitor Speaker Recommendations, Please

I need to sort some new active near-field speakers. I currently use PreSonus Eris 3.5s. They’re great little speakers but size is the problem - they just don’t move enough air so I need something bigger to give a better picture of what I’m mixing. I haven’t anywhere near the space for proper studio monitors so mixing on near-field size speakers is all I can do.

I’ve got an album with my band that I’m also engineering and producing. My room is largely acoustically treated so is pretty good for controlling the sound. Even with my 20-band eq set up and having fully pink-noised my setup the sound just isn’t ‘big’ enough to give a good picture. I just need better speakers for mixing a full band.

Many have recommended the KRK series but I have also read many reviews complaining of significant background noise. In a perfect world I’d source a set of Yamaha NS-10s but I’d also need an amp so want active-only. I guess I need drivers in the 6” range and above. My current ones have 3.5” drivers.

Do you good people have any suggestions?

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I had a pair of KRK last year to try them out over several weeks. Compared them to the ERIS E66 that I usually use and found them to be a bit mushy (and it wasn`t only background/white noise). I am currently looking at the new 2023 ERIS8 which I listened to in a showroom last week. They seem to have a lot of ummpf while being true to the input.

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Thanks. Good to know the larger PS speakers are worth a look-in because mine are excellent for the money, just not big enough. I’ve also read some comments about the mushiness of the KRKs but they seem very popular anyway which why I was considering them. I’m pretty much PreSonus across the board anyway as I run Studio One through a StudioLive 64S! Nothing like a bit of brand loyalty!

I’d love to actually try before I buy but beyond Thomann’s returns policy, I can’t. The nearest pro music shop to me is Barcelona which is hundreds of km away!

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I'm a Genelec fanboy.
A long time ago I went to a store that had several monitors set up. The Genelecs were physically smaller. The aluminum cabinets have thinner walls compared to cabinets made with MDF, so they look smaller, but the internal volume might be comparable or larger. But it was the resolution of the drivers that really stood out compared to the others. As far as I remember the others were M-audio and KRK etc.
Since then I've upgraded to bigger Genelecs. Happy as a clam with them :)

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Martin,

that would have been my question and/or recommendation, but since it's too far for you, let me recall my own excursion to a local music shop because of monitors.

In a small environment, the ones I liked most (of all I've heard) were Focal, Neumann, and Genelecs. Like Krillo I chose the Genelecs because of my restricted space, but you can't go wrong with either of them.

Could you order them for a test at your home perhaps? That would be ideal IMHO.

Good luck,
Wolfgang

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Thanks Wolfgang. I could take advantage of Thomann's 14-day no-questions-asked return policy but that will be very tedious. Postage around here is, umm, entertaining. We have all our post and Amazon, etc., orders delivered to a local service address as direct-to-door post is hit and miss at best and largely non-existent the rest of the time. I love Spain to bits but the postal service is pretty awful outside of the major towns.

I'll add Genelec to my research list but price is also a consideration (I see their range varies in price!).

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Kali Audio

Some Yamaha monitor design engineers broke off and started their own company. Love mine. I’ve owned the industry standard Yamahas and KRK.
https://www.kaliaudio.com/product-line-up

[img]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/MEDIAX_792452-T2/images/I/61WCBm6Y0UL.jpg[/img]

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I strongly suggest NOT buying KRK speakers with the auto shutoff feature. It a feature they had that silenced the speaker when not in use for 20 minutes. It was known for not coming back on ever. Avoid any krk with that feature. I have a dead set because of it .It’s expensive to fix.
The slight second or two before they come back on when you hit play is annoying .

It’s a well known issue so you can google which models .

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