http://www.dynaudioacoustics.com/Default.asp?Id=3680

I just took a drive recently to a studio. I brought some different pairs of monitors with me. The studio is looking to upgrade from Behringer Truth monitors. Here's some comments by the studio owner:

http://www.vsplanet.com/ubb/ultimat...c;f=16;t=016750

quote:

posted by "GawsDigitalUnderground" at vsplanet.com

Dan Richards was nice enough to offer to ride down to my studio today with a Jeepload of Monitors..Actually he brought the Mackie HR824's, Dynaudio BM5A's, and the 6's..We also compared them against my Behringer Truth's.

This is just my personal opinion of what I heard today..Take it for what it's worth comming from me!

The Behringers vs the Mackies..There was a difference. I won't say that the Truth's were better, but I can't say they were that much worse either..Dan and I both pretty much agreed that if you factor in the price difference, we didn't hear that much improvement to warrant paying $1,200 for the Mackies, vs, the $400 for the Truths...Now if money isn't a concern, I wouldn't hesitate buying the Mackies over the Truths. The Mackies seemed to have more low end, and were abit clearer. But $800 worth? I don't know. Seems like a good Eq between the recorder and the Truth's, and you'd have the Mackies..But that's just my 2 cents.

Now, the Mackie HR 824's vs the Dynaudio..Well, what can I say, not really in the same ball park to my ears..The Dynaudio BM5A's just rocked..Tight focused bass, not muddy. Crystal clear high's, etc, etc. I was really impressed. We ran some of my mixes through each and with the Dynaudio's, you could hear clearly the reverb trails, the sizzle in the cymbals, and everything. Things that I couldn't hear with the Truth's, and the Mackies were right up there in the BM5's. What can I say, I'm buying the Dynaudio BM5's..

It would have been great to get to spend a couple of weeks with both sets of monitors, and got to do some actual tracking, and mixing with them, but for a short days listen, the Dynaudio's seemed like the clear winner of my moolah..

What we auditioned:

Behringer Truth
Mackie HR824
Dynaudio BM5A's
Dynaudio BM6A's

I agree pretty much with the studio owner [ if you read his comments at the link. ] I thought the Truth's sounded like they were muffled. I didn't hear any real improvement when comparing the Truth's to the Mackie's. The Mackie's had more low-end - and a little better separation of instruments, but not by much. And I couldn't justify the $1200+ cost of the Mackie's over the $399 cost of the Truth's.

Next were the BM5A's. Immediately there was a noticable difference. With the 5A's I could easily hear details of the program material that were not at all evident on the Truths or the Mackie's. With the 5A's I could hear all the reverb tails, the top of the snare and cymbals, and overall clear separation of instruments. The bass was tighter but still full.

I think the model numbers Dynaudio gave the 5A's and 6A's is a little confusing – and some people might think the 6A's have 6" woofers and the 5A's would have 5" woofers. Not so. The BM5A's and BM6A's both have 6.89" woofers. 5A's have 50W amps on tweeter and woofer. 6A's have 100W amps. The 6A's have the BM series styling. The 5A's have the AIR series styling.

The 6A's sounded near to the 5A's until we turned up the 6A's louder. That's when the 100W amps showed the 6A's to have more horsepower. But for the small size control room the 5A's more than do the job.

In the end, we thought the 5A's [ also considering price ] were the best tool for the job. At under $900 the 5A's kicked the $1200+ Mackie's to the curb. The owner is buying the 5A's.

One of my pairs of personal monitors are Dynaudio AIR 15's with a Benchmark DAC1. So, I'm used to that $3000+ monitor sound on a daily basis. The 5A's deliver the same type of sound [ clarity, imagery, depth, no ear fatigue ] in a smaller package.

Thanks alot Dan for helping me out with those monitors. I just recently finish my first tune with the new Dyn's, and am happy to report that the only thing I "had" to do after burning my first test mix, was in the editing dept. My first mix (to my novice ears) seemed to translate extremely well to everything I played it back in. I'm very impressed with these monitors. I didn't have to remix any part of it, and add or subtract EQ, and actually, I didn't have to do much Eq'ing while mixing, because I was hearing a pretty accurate image of what I had recorded, and heard what I was recording while tracking. Makes a huge difference IMO. Also before recording this first tune with the new monitors, I bought some bass traps, and studio foam to treat my control room, which has made a difference too. Can't say how happy I am with this mix..It's about Time!

Terry

Hi

Im new to this forum but I just had to jump in here. what youre discussing is REALLY relevant to where Im at at the moment !

I have a pair of event TR6s but im thinking of upgrading cos I cant get enough bass from them. Their clarity is great (bit too harsh on the high end but still great overall ) but they just dont deliver 'down there'

so im thinkning maybe the BM5A's would be a better bet. Ive just one concern with them, They have rear bass ports right? What if im in a really small room and my monitors HAVE to be up close to a corner. wont this cause a problem.

I have treated the corners with rockwool bass traps and its sounding good at the momnet but i still reckon front ports are the way to go for me no??

so that got me thinking , maybe the dynaudio BM5 passive. they are front ported, does anyone know how they sound?? i cant find any reviews!

cheers
D

Hi DoeZer. Haven't used the passive 5's yet, but I'd still recommend the active BM5A's. The reason being is that in order to even approach the sound quality of the bi-amped actives with the passives, you'd have to buy two separate power amplifiers and a crossover to amp each tweeter and woofer separately.

Doezer, my control room is relatively small too. About 7 foot wide, and maybe 14 foot long. And because of where I need to sit to be able to look out of the control room window, I have to keep my desk and monitors pretty close to the wall. Although this isn't ideal, it's not that bad either.

I just got a pair of these. They are sweet. I replaced a pair of Alesis M1 Actives. What a difference. No fatigue at all. I A/B'd them against some $2000/pair JBL's and they kicked A$$. Try them, you'll like them.

Scott

Just picked up a pair here, and although I am still trying to adjust to the change from my old monitors (Genelec 1031) I am beginning to see the virtues of these speakers.

There are lots of things I could say about the BM5A, but a few things come to mind:

1. It took a good 2-3 days for them to burn-in to the point where they really started to open up. Much longer than the manual suggests (btw, did anyone else catch the typo in there?) So folks that demo out-of-the box units should keep that very much in mind: they will sound better after a few days. If I had judged these even after the 1st day I would have had a different opinion that. say, the 4th or 5th.

2. I have to admit that I miss the bass (girth), explosiveness and crystal top of the 1031s. But after using them for so long that to be expected. One thing I have especially noticed is that I seem to have to work a bit harder to get excitment out of somes mixes, and that is probably a good thing (the 1031s can sometimes be a bit "too pretty" and lull you - even if my worst-case test old CD master of the Who's "The Kids Are Alright" did sound noticeably worse on the 1031s).

3. Despite trying, these have not tired me out yet. That 1031 top end did sometimes have a downside.

SoundPure has the best prices for them I have found anywhere, and the service was excellent. Now, back to some listening and trying to "learn" the bass on these pretty little things.

I purchased a set from Dan without hearing them. Previously I'd been mixing on Mackie HR824's at another studio and M1-Actives in my own studio.

One album later I'm very pleased with them. Imaging is good and I'm very pleased with the bass that they have - it's full, punchy, and tight.

I'll probably even keep them when I have my ADAM S3-A's next year.

I recently tested these out in a quiet room against the Mackie 824 and KRok V6 and 8s.

The KRoks are too punchy for my tastes. I can see them being fatiguin after a short time. They were a lot less money (well, the 6's are) and a lot less tru to the source. Wouldn't be bad at all as second speakers to judge mixes against homes systems IMO, but I would not pick them as main monitors.

The Mackie sound is pretty well known. Good solid speakers that are not hyped. On first listen the Mackies sounded nice and pretty true. Nice imaging, etc.

Listening to the Dynaudios was a nice surprise.
The had a depth and detail the Mackies lacked. Suddenly they sounded a bit flat, as in dimension. Also, the Mackies bottom suddenly seemed loose and a bit flubby, at least in comparison.

The Dynudios have great bass, it is just right there.....no flab at all and just super solid and the perfect amount of punch. This was almost like an audio illusions because they are rather smallish looking.....they somehow look smaller than they are, if that makes any sense.

The mids and highs were just right too, to overextension so to speak, no part of the audio spectrum sticking out over the others, just a very nice balance.

My ears are sensitive,so it's easy to get a handle on fatigue factor. I pushed these a bit for a handful of songs and thought these were speaker I could sit in front of without too much abuse to my tender ears. Oh, on my own tunes I immediately noticed things I didn't notice before, everything seemed truer and more clearyl represented, and I knew I'd make different decisions using these.

The Dynaudios had the best balance, were the most true, had that certain something as far as depth and image that the others lacked.

I've listened to a bunch of speakers in the $1,200 range and down. None made me want to replace my trusty monitors.....until now. This was one speaker I could say were worth it and would definitely become an indespensible tool.

The bottom line is: I'm buying the Dynaudios.

I had the opportunity to listen the Bm5A and i was amazed how the music sounded homogeneous throughout the whole range. Further more most of the time when you listen to low volume, every nuance of the music disappear but with the Dynaudio bm5a i was still able to hear the bass and the drums, whereas at the same volume level, only the mids where present on the mackie.

If you had the opportunity to test both the Bm5a and the Bm6A at the same time, could you tell me if the Bm6a respond like the bm5a at low level at what are the differences between the two?
Nobody carries the bm6a in my region.

Thanks,

Mel.

Hi Guys
I've just audtioned a load of sub £1000 studio monitors ( and some above £1000). Forget the tech specs, the Dynaudio BM5As sounds so much better than the 6As. They may not go as loud (didn't test this) but they sound much deeper (42Hz against 50 Hz?...pa!!!) and much more coherent. I can't believe the quality for the price. They even made PMC TB2As sound a little hollow.

This is my first post here and just wanted to say that this is a great forum!
I purchased a set of the BM6a's from Soundpure a couple of months ago.
All I can say is that these sound great! This is one of the few items I've purchased recently where I feel I finally bought something that would be keepers.
I was wondering if anyone out there has purchased the subs and whether they are worthwhile getting. Also, if you did get the subs, did anyone compare the difference between the 9S and 10S?
I've heard from a GC rep that you can't mix with the sub. Thoughts?
I used Rockit 5's B montioring ala the old Aurotone 5C's and was also wondering if it is better to just get the sub for those and not add the sub to the BM6A's.
Thanks!

"I've heard from a GC rep that you can't mix with the sub. Thoughts?"

Well my first thought on this is consider the source! "a GC rep." What the GC rep was REALLY saying is that HE can't mix with a sub – or more likely, the GC rep can't mix on anything! I've met car salesmen that are more knowledgable about sound gear than most of the GC folks I've had the displeasure of interacting with. That being said, some people love mixing with a sub and others don't. IMO, its simply a personal preference that would be significantly influenced by the kind of music you're working with.

drbam

quote:

I've heard from a GC rep that you can't mix with the sub. Thoughts?

Like drbam said, consider the source. Bottom line...once you get to a certain quality of speaker, you can mix on anything that you take the time to really know. Some speakers just take less time!

I haven't found a sub necessary. The only problem I could see with using one is that most consumer systems don't have a sub. As always, check your mixes to see how they sound in your oldest car.

I have a Yorkville sub with a foot switch to put it in or out. This works really well for me with my BM6a's. I can put the sub in to check what's going on down there below 40 Hz and for full range rockin out. For more critical mids, panning, stereo field listening it is better with the sub out, as it adds a third point of sound reproduction and seems to mess with the stereo image and mids somewhat. It just sounds different no matter where I set the crossover.
Mind you this is not a high end sub.
I still like having it.
It's like having nearfields and a quasi full range setup with the stomp of a footswitch.

BM5A's are great monitors. They are a Godsend to project studio owners.

Thanks for the input. I think I will leave my BM6a's as is and get the sub for the Rockit 5's only to as a check for those subwoofer types.
I'm not a fan of subs, but bass players want to feel their bass during tracking, and most really don't know how bass is supposed to sound on good monitor speakers, especially with hip hop. However, most of my clients have been screaming emo types and can only comment on their sound when they plug into their mp3 players. Oh well, just have to satisfy the paying customers! Sometimes I feel like a prostitute of music

Has anyone had a chance to compare these directly with the Event Studio Precision 8's? I'm trying to decide between these two great sounding monitors, but haven't been able to listen to them in the same space to accurately compare them.

Thanks!

Having lived with these now for a while (thanks for a great price Dot!) one thing I have definitely noticed is that the area that required the most "proofing" on other systems is vocals.

Anyone else having the same experience?

Oddly, bass has been less of an issue - its been more a matter of getting the mids right (least in my room)