What ARE THESE?! DMAX SuperCubes 5 Studio Speakers Review
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2024
- ✅ DMAX SuperCubes 5 ➤ bit.ly/supercubes5
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★ SKIP TO SOMETHIN’ ★
0:00 Intro
1:06 What is an ultra nearfield monitor?
2:14 First impressions
5:50 Soundstage & sweet spot
6:32 Directionality & off-axis test
8:17 Transients, speed, punch, dynamics
8:51 Low end performance
10:04 Why they sound so good! DSP technology
12:05 Mounting issues, desk reflections
15:12 Are these monitors for you?
17:38 Final thoughts
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as a multi-signal engineer (audio, video- cinema, large-venue production), I really appreciate your careful attention to giving 101 descriptions of VERY relevant audio concepts for the audio enthusiast
Thanks Sean. I appreciate that. Yes it’s always good to explain foundational concepts that help us understand audio better. I always try to build in an educational approach when doing my reviews. Thanks for stopping by the channel and commenting on the video. Stay in touch!
I’ve tried them before, I was surprised by how much extension they had. As long as you get into the sweet spot, the sound is rather impressive for their size and budget
Very true. I was also impressed with their extension. And yes, you have to be careful to get right in the sweet spot. Cheers!
A ultra close earing is like using giant headphones. Very good results...
I own a pair of super cubes and the special amp and never been happier with the sound. If you can get your hands on the pair, do not hesitate.
Thanks for the comment. All the best with your SuperCubes!
interesting 👍 gonna check them out….thanks for the detailed review
Thanks for watching! Let me know what you think if you get them. Cheers.
Would you recommend these for small home "studio" that's not very well treated over something like Yamaha HS series
Hey hey. First, I would recommend attending to your room treatment as a first step. At least improving what you can. Anything you do to your room is going to make your speaker-room response much better.
Do you need good low frequency extension? Do you need to sit more than one single engineer in front of the monitoring? If so, go with Yamaha HS8s.
If not, then I would absolutely recommend these. Their mid and high performance is dramatically better than the HS series, and their DSP will give them a nice edge. No crossovers as well. All the HS are 2-way with a crossover.
I'd like to add that most 5" monitors typically lack a strong low-end response, with a typical frequency range of 50-20000Hz (-3db). Therefore, nothing particularly critical in this case.
Very true. One would not expect these to have much low end extension. In my tests they were +\-3 dB down to 40 hz even which is impressive. But that was likely due to my room acoustics and front wall acoustical loading.
For their size these perform quite well in the LF.
Would you still advise to place these as close as possible to the back wall to make use of SBIR? Or will they sound consistent as long they're set up at the recommended distance to the listener?
I would always recommend that a non-cardioid speaker be placed as close to the front wall as possible. Yes.
I'm building a second small production space at the new studio for assistants etc. These look attractive; but I'm wondering if something like these OR the mm500's are better suited for a small space? Which would have a greater variety of application for QCing and Assembly?
Hey hey. Neat that you’re expanding to include a new studio. These would be great for a small space. MM-500s would be overkill IMO, although they would produce low frequency extension.
I would consider less expensive headphones for checking LF, such as Verum Audio Verum 1s. They have superior LF extension to anything I’ve heard in terms of headphones (larger membranes).
And then you could use the SuperCubes 5 as well. That would be ideal IMO. I use SC5s and Verum 1s in my Studio B (shown in the video) and then KH420s and Audeze LCD-5 and LCD-X in my Studio A / control room.
@@warpacademy Nice!
I actually have 2 pairs of mm500's and a pair of Verum 1's!
I think I'll have to listen to these in person to understand the pro/cons of them vs headphone set-up in a second space
Sweet. Can't go wrong with the MM-500s or Verum 1s if you already have them. It's just the differences in headphone soundstage presentation vs. 30 degree stereo that would be of prime concern for me. As long as you're using some kind of crossfeed like CanOpener or Embody Immerse Apple Spatial, that'll get you closer.
Just out of curiosity do you have sonarworks in your main studio?
Hey hey. No I don’t use room eq in my control room. The low end is all I would use it to correct and the low end is ruler flat to 25 hz aside from floor interaction which you can’t address with EQ anyways.
Please What did you use to analyse this stuff
I used Room EQ Wizard (free) and an Umik-1 calibrated mic. Cheers!
Have you ever considered one or two Neumann KH 750 to complement your KH 420s? Not particularly for extended low-end, but because you can achieve way better in-phase waves, thus improved “sharpness”, depth in middle… also the woofer of the 420 could focus on the upper sub-bass and everything above.
Hi. I have not considered using subs. There is nothing lacking in the response of the KH420s whatsoever. Adding subs would just excite the room modes more without enough corresponding benefits IMO.
@@warpacademy but with the correct DSP integration and placement youve way more benefits to flatten out the Low End Frequency response. Its just a little bit work to measure and look where Subwoofers are placed the best.
I also wonder why no one in the studio world uses an Single or Double Bass Array like the home cinema guys to have an even LF Energy in the room and a thick Absorber / Baffle Wall in the Back of the room
Or is this not possible in the Producer/Engineers world ? Some homecinema guys and also some Stereo Listeners (like me) uses Subwoofers / Array Solutions to get the best possible Low End in the room without spending thousands of € in absorbers. But of course everything set up via dsp for time & phase alignment and a lot of manuall work to get it perfectly run.
A friend of mine uses Genelec 8341 and an Multi Sub Config (2 Front, 2 Back) and the Lowend is flat under 100 Hz
Hey hey. Subs can work great in some rooms, if you design the room and treatment plan around them. My KH420s are flush mounted and my rooms frequency response is ruler flat in the low end to 25 Hz +/- 3dB. Due to baffle step, front wall half-space radiation, the amount of low end the KH420s are producing is already more than adequate and I'm shelving them down by 3 dB in the LF. There is no substantial improvement that a sub could offer me with this room design.
Double bass arrays are an interesting concept, but from what I understand the theory doesn't translate into actual tangible benefits (for control room monitoring & critical listening). Trinnov discusses this extensively in one of their videos. If you had a perfect wavefront propagating into the DBA, it could work, but that never happens in a studio in practice. There are room reflections, diffraction, furniture in the room. Absorbing that with a DBA active absorber works out to be practically ineffective, per Trinnov - who would know. They tested it.
This is the video: czcams.com/video/gvt9ooUoIZ0/video.html. Take note of their discussion about DBAs and why they don't work, as well as their "waveforming" bass steering solution.
My room achieves a near-perfectly flat FR in the low end with a large graduated density absorber module. Other NE style rooms use hangars or pressure-based modules to achieve the same effect. It's much less expensive than using a row of extra subs and it works very well.
That said, I'd be very curious to see the acoustical testing of the frequency response and waterfall for your friend's studio. I've never seen a room that uses active sub absorption where it worked well but I'm open to being surprised. Acoustical testing is the only way to know for sure.
If it’s flat, then all is good. I have KH 310 and plan to buy a KH 750 with MA1, maybe dual sub later. Not to get more sub, primarily to ease the burden on 310s woofers, so they can work more efficiently, secondly this sub with it’s DSP is able to eliminate a room mode that causes around 10dB dip at 70Hz. I could mitigateto - 2.5 dB though, with simple REW and SW setup (mainly IIR filters), without ringing or distortion above 1%, and group delay is zero apart from that 70Hz - ish range. All this in a 34sqm L - shaped bedroom, and I’m in +/- 2dB (bearing in mind EBU criteria) with a constant phase drop from +360 degrees to -180 degrees… which this sub can also cure, as Neumann states.
I agree the best if you can build the room around the speakers and treat it from scratch, to avoid hard times and measurements I had in this bedroom (no other spaces yet). And if KH 420s do not sweat at all, that’s the best. I’m impressed by Neumann speakers and technology.
Yep. Flat is the goal (or near flat - my room has a slight rise in the LF by preference). With the smaller 310s then a sub makes way more sense to ease up on the drivers, as you said. Better to let the 10" handle the sub energy. Good plan.
You can't eliminate room modes. All you can do is position your speakers and mix position such that you work with them. If you're getting a null at 70 Hz, that's almost certainly boundary nulling which DSP can't fix. What you'll likely want to do is position your sub right against the wall, to get the reflection as in phase as possible and increase the LF due to acoustical loading. That IS something the DSP can easily address. Low shelf filter attenuation. In fact you don't even need DSP for that. But the DSP will be super helpful for phase aligning your tops with your sub.
Let us know how it turns out. Cheers!
I sit rather close to my KEF R11’s. Point source for the win!
Yep! Point source allows for very close monitoring.
Looks as if they are too close together.. and I see they are 3 feet from the back wall.. so I see some of your comments are questionable..is there a possibility..
Hey David. Looks are deceiving. The acoustical axis of these speakers is 1m apart and forms a perfect equilateral triangle for a 30 degree toe-in for close-field listening. This is exactly in the range of the manufacturer recommended listening distance of 0.8 to 1.2m.
They are 1 foot from the front wall window; which I said in the video was how I chose to orient them based on my desire to look out the window when working. This doesn't obscure the frequency response of the mids and highs as those only project forwards. And much of the bass energy projected backwards actually transmits through the glass and out.
I wish you could hear them because they actually sound great in this room, even though the room is not set up as I would normally set up a studio if I didn't have any restrictions in the room given it's multi-purpose nature.