JBL LSR305 PAIR of Powered Monitors $199 @amazon

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Jun 19, 2001
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Edit:
12/18 Update!
Special Edition red LSR305 monitors $99/ea
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-...amplified-studio-monitor--limited-edition-red

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http://www.amazon.com/JBL-LSR305-Professional-Studio-Monitor/dp/B00F1DEI8G
Good deal. Tempted to pick up a pair for the bedroom, love my LSR308's.
 
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Nice! That's $100 savings for a great pair of monitors. I don't need or even want them, but am awfully tempted to buy anyway. Would be a nice step up from my TV's soundbar.
 
Nice! That's $100 savings for a great pair of monitors. I don't need or even want them, but am awfully tempted to buy anyway. Would be a nice step up from my TV's soundbar.

There's a 20% off code on the Amazon product page, MUSIC20OFF, that doesn't work when applied in my cart. But you might be able to get a CSR to apply it for you or issue a credit. How does a pair for $160 sound?
 
They've been at this for one or two weeks now. They were 99 EA on Amazon when I got them as I pointed out in the JBL thread. That price was also on BH and a lot of places. Now they're the same price but for a pair on Amazon.

They sound very good but they're really finicky with what you hook them into. God help you if you have them on the same power outlet as the one your computer is hooked into. They also hiss some but it is minor enough. Tbh I think Topping or Lepai with eBay speakers is a comparable sounding setup with much less fuss. It's really dependent on what kind of eBay deals you can find though.
 
How do these compare to m-audio av40's? How much of an upgrade are these?
 
There's a 20% off code on the Amazon product page, MUSIC20OFF, that doesn't work when applied in my cart. But you might be able to get a CSR to apply it for you or issue a credit. How does a pair for $160 sound?
Even better deal, but self-control prevailed. No purchase for me. :p
 
They've been at this for one or two weeks now. They were 99 EA on Amazon when I got them as I pointed out in the JBL thread. That price was also on BH and a lot of places. Now they're the same price but for a pair on Amazon.

They sound very good but they're really finicky with what you hook them into. God help you if you have them on the same power outlet as the one your computer is hooked into. They also hiss some but it is minor enough. Tbh I think Topping or Lepai with eBay speakers is a comparable sounding setup with much less fuss. It's really dependent on what kind of eBay deals you can find though.

Have you contacted JBL about this at all? I have the LSR308's into my PC via a Schiit Gungnir multibit and they are dead silent. I'm on the same power strip as everything else. Nothing is isolated.
 
How do these compare to m-audio av40's? How much of an upgrade are these?

The cabinet size of the jbl lsr305 is a lot larger, and combined with the larger 5" drivers, the midbass/bass performance is significantly better as well. The av40 are, for most people, probably the better choice if trying to fit your speakers on your desk, but if you don't mind stands/wall mounts, or are looking for a bookshelf-sized speakers to begin with, they're a beefy upgrade vs the av40. If you can spare the room, hit to your wallet, and would like more oomph from your speakers, going to 6" or even 8" drivers is ideal but the cabinets are huge.

Guitar Center and similar shops are a great way to give a listen to several brands, and maybe even score a great deal on some used monitors. I saw a PAIR of jbl lsr308 last week in "excellent" condition for only $150. Assuming they truly were in excellent condition, that's a pretty insane deal.
 
Have you contacted JBL about this at all? I have the LSR308's into my PC via a Schiit Gungnir multibit and they are dead silent. I'm on the same power strip as everything else. Nothing is isolated.

You have... what... a 1300$ DAC with actual balanced outputs? I'm just talking about for the average consumer setup. What almost everyone else is going to do is grab one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HGM1D6?keywords=3.5mm to 1 4&qid=1449453082&ref_=sr_ph&sr=1
And just go to town with their average headphone amp or sound card. I mean these speakers are not in the price territory of high end audiophile stuff. You shouldn't have to get a setup that costs 3-4x as much as they do in order to use them. In order to do that, you have to isolate them from the rest of the system. Once I plugged them into another power strip, they worked perfectly fine without any PC sounds or buzzing. Though the very minor hissing is still there. The hissing is volume dependent and as far as I understand it normal for powered speakers in general. I'm just saying in general the first thing I did for a budget PC speaker set is a set of Ebay Paradigm Atom V3's paired with a Topping TP20. It ran me about 150 total at the time (with a decent chunk of shipping on the Atom), and it sounded absolutely excellent, with very little fuss. No grounding issues, nothing. I just plugged everything up with a 3.5mm->RCA cable and it was all up and running and sounded wonderful.

Don't get me wrong, for the sound quality and the relatively all in one package, these are good, but you need a power jack to each one and it needs to be isolated from the PC in most common budget setups. Even at their current budget price, they're not a painless choice...
 
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You have... what... a 1300$ DAC with actual balanced outputs? I'm just talking about for the average consumer setup. What almost everyone else is going to do is grab one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HGM1D6?keywords=3.5mm to 1 4&qid=1449453082&ref_=sr_ph&sr=1
And just go to town with their average headphone amp or sound card. I mean these speakers are not in the price territory of high end audiophile stuff. You shouldn't have to get a setup that costs 3-4x as much as they do in order to use them. In order to do that, you have to isolate them from the rest of the system. Once I plugged them into another power strip, they worked perfectly fine without any PC sounds or buzzing. Though the very minor hissing is still there. The hissing is volume dependent and as far as I understand it normal for powered speakers in general. I'm just saying in general the first thing I did for a budget PC speaker set is a set of Ebay Paradigm Atom V3's paired with a Topping TP20. It ran me about 150 total at the time (with a decent chunk of shipping on the Atom), and it sounded absolutely excellent, with very little fuss. No grounding issues, nothing. I just plugged everything up with a 3.5mm->RCA cable and it was all up and running and sounded wonderful.

Don't get me wrong, for the sound quality and the relatively all in one package, these are good, but you need a power jack to each one and it needs to be isolated from the PC in most common budget setups. Even at their current budget price, they're not a painless choice...


Hissing that's volume dependent is not normal for active speakers. Your setup is NOT completely isolated from your PC. The hissing that is normal is when you put your ear right up to the tweeter and passive setups have this too but some are not sensitive enough to reveal it. You're mixing pro and consumer gear that have different gain structures and it can cause issues. A cheap optical DAC + a pro mixer and TRS cables would fix it which is what I do. Mixer: http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-Q50...449455166&sr=8-2&keywords=behringer+xenyx+502 (it does have it's own USB 44/16 DAC but I use a consumer cheapo DAC that plugged into one of the inputs of the mixer and boosted to pro levels and it can handle up to 192/24), no more noise and only a slight hissing when I put my ear like an inch from the tweeter. It's isolated from my PC via optical cable then converted to balanced, no noise, no hiss (other than the normal hiss that's even in passive setups). :)

I disagree with your statement "Topping or Lepai with eBay speakers is a comparable sounding setup". These JBL's are special and there's nothing in that price range that comes close. They're active which almost everything else is passive. Active is superior to passive. They also have trickle down tech from speakers that are $20,000/pair. I have speakers that are $1000/ea and the JBL's hold their own against them. In fact the last year I've spent more time listening to music on the JBL's than my main system which is magnitudes more expensive than the JBL's.
 
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Would these be a good upgrade from my Audioengine A2's? They would be sitting next on my desk next to my monitor about 2ft away and plugged directly into my Soundblaster Z.
 
Hissing that's volume dependent is not normal for active speakers. Your setup is NOT completely isolated from your PC. The hissing that is normal is when you put your ear right up to the tweeter and passive setups have this too but some are not sensitive enough to reveal it. You're mixing pro and consumer gear that have different gain structures and it can cause issues. A cheap optical DAC + a pro mixer and TRS cables would fix it which is what I do. Mixer: http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-Q50...449455166&sr=8-2&keywords=behringer+xenyx+502 (it does have it's own USB 44/16 DAC but I use a consumer cheapo DAC that plugged into one of the inputs of the mixer and boosted to pro levels and it can handle up to 192/24), no more noise and only a slight hissing when I put my ear like an inch from the tweeter. It's isolated from my PC via optical cable then converted to balanced, no noise, no hiss (other than the normal hiss that's even in passive setups). :)


I believe what I am talking about is indeed the hiss at the tweeter. What happens if you do have these on the same power strip as the computer while simply using the sound card is that they start buzzing. What I mean by saying the hiss is "volume dependent" is that at 5 and above it sounds relatively the same up until the max (10). At 5 and under, it starts getting slightly quieter. At around 1-2 and under it entirely peters out. And yes, I know that passive speakers do indeed have some as well, but maybe because of their passive crossover circuitry they (in my experience) are not nearly as loud, even with the ear right up at them.

Frankly the fact that you have to consider all this is what is a weakness to me when it comes to having a simple computer audio setup. Like you say, this is mixing "pro and consumer audio gear", but at the end of the day that is by and far the simplest thing to do. The thing is, I guess that I'm just fairly sensitive to high frequency noises. I can hear this hiss even a few feet away, and it never changed no matter which outlet I moved the speakers to in the house. Luckily at my sitting position it is quiet enough to be considered negligible. The nice thing about Topping+passive is that it's not source dependent at all. I can fling the entire setup anywhere and hook it up to anything with a simple 3.5mm jack and it will sound consistent. To me that's kind of nice.

I disagree with your statement "Topping or Lepai with eBay speakers is a comparable sounding setup". These JBL's are special and there's nothing in that price range that comes close. They're active which almost everything else is passive. Active is superior to passive. They also have trickle down tech from speakers that are $20,000/pair. I have speakers that are $1000/ea and the JBL's hold their own against them. In fact the last year I've spent more time listening to music on the JBL's than my main system which is magnitudes more expensive than the JBL's.

I understand what you're trying to say, but I believe for most intents and purposes (ie realistically speaking) they are comparable, as far as simple budget computer setups are concerned.. I haven't directly auditioned these vs, say my Topping paired with some of my passives. I can tell you that I am not sure if they are quite where my Beyer T1's are at (I use an Objective 2 DAC/AMP with my headphones). The Paradigms I simply remember sounding absolutely excellent when got them. Every upgrade after them was incremental. So you can say that these are leaps and bounds above that simple setup, but fact of the matter is that it's simply an incremental one. It may be in "another world" in our terms, but pragmatically speaking for most users either one would blow any common setup away and be sufficient for most if any applications. It's just that one is very simple to set up, and the other requires isolation and all that crap. Don't get me wrong, these do sound great, especially at near listening. Certainly a great budget deal. But for many people, what wouldn't be, and how much extra trouble is the sound worth?

Also, isn't optical out lossy?

As far as active vs passive, I won't really comment. I remember designing filters of all types back in my college circuit labs at ga tech, but I don't really remember the results when comparing active vs passive. Someone mentioned that one of the advantages is being able to design much higher orders, but I'm a bit skeptical on that front. There is one thing that I remember, and that is when I kept increasing the order of the filter, the results did not necessarily get that much better. 2 and above performed fairly similarly... Maybe that's just with the mediocre lab gear.


I'll be keeping these either way, don't get me wrong. I'm always searching for the next level of fidelity with all of my equipment. These are great computer speakers. But I don't consider them an absolute must have for everyone.
 
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I believe what I am talking about is indeed the hiss at the tweeter. What happens if you do have these on the same power strip as the computer while simply using the sound card is that they start buzzing. What I mean by saying the hiss is "volume dependent" is that at 5 and above it sounds relatively the same up until the max (10). At 5 and under, it starts getting slightly quieter. At around 1-2 and under it entirely peters out. And yes, I know that passive speakers do indeed have some as well, but maybe because of their passive crossover circuitry they (in my experience) are not nearly as loud, even with the ear right up at them.

Oh ok you mean by the volume controls on the back of the speakers. I use a passive volume control, that might help but like your next paragraph says it does make it more complex. Some people seem to be really sensitive about the hiss. I've seen a few negative reviews of people who can't take it. Though it does make me wonder if yours might be defective. I can only hear the hiss even when turned up to 10 when I put my ears right up to the tweeter. I sit about 2ft away and can't hear them at all, I think I have mine set to about 6 so it integrates into the sub nicely and the passive controller is what I use for volume. Does the hiss persist when there's nothing hooked up?

It's just that one is very simple to set up, and the other requires isolation and all that crap. Don't get me wrong, these do sound great, especially at near listening. Certainly a great budget deal. But for many people, what wouldn't be, and how much extra trouble is the sound worth?

This is hard to quantify because not everyone will experience the noise in their setup. With PC's it's really hard to tell until you do it. I just happened to have an optical DAC I wasn't using and the mixer wasn't too bad at $55 shipped to add to it to boost to pro levels.

Also, isn't optical out lossy?

Depends on the hardware and it's age. The DAC I have can accept 192/24 2 channel lossless over coaxil or toslink optical, though I understand hardware gets really picky at that rate over optical but it's not an issue for me since nothing I have is at that rate. I have a Marantz AVR from ~2001 and it can accept up to 96/24 lossless over optical. 5.1/6.1 has to go DTS (ES) or DD (+) lossy though.

As far as active vs passive, I won't really comment. I remember designing filters of all types back in my college circuit labs at ga tech, but I don't really remember the results when comparing active vs passive. Someone mentioned that one of the advantages is being able to design much higher orders, but I'm a bit skeptical on that front. There is one thing that I remember, and that is when I kept increasing the order of the filter, the results did not necessarily get that much better. 2 and above performed fairly similarly... Maybe that's just with the mediocre lab gear.

Being able to use steeper filters is one of the benefits, though that requires a lot of testing. Increased damping factor (amp has direct control of the driver, most noticeable in bass drivers which is why almost all subs are active), more efficient use of the amps (amplifying a narrower bandwidth vs full bandwidth), the tweeter is no longer bound to the woofer (in passive setups if the woofer distorts it forces the tweeter to distort) and some others which is more useful for DIYing than studio monitors; more flexible in designing speakers that use drivers with varying sensitivities and tailoring them to the specific room.
 
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Yes, the hiss persists with nothing hooked up, and it's fairly audible in a very quiet room for me even at 3 feet. 4, I can still hear it. Most of the time though I have fan noise or something going on so it's not necessarily a big deal. The thing is, opinions on that front are as varied as the amount of people on the internet. Some claim these shouldn't hiss at all and they never hear it. Some claim that they should hiss some but they only hear it when right next to the speaker. And then there are others like me that say theirs can be heard from 3-4 feet away.

My question is whether this is dependent on whether the speakers are defective or not, or whether the people listening simply have differing levels of hearing loss in the higher frequency range. For what it's worth, I rarely ever listen to music very loudly. I always keep it at a very reasonable and perhaps even quiet level. The problem is that I've never seen a post where anyone had hiss and then they just went and exchanged the speakers for new ones and then said "okay, it's gone!" or something similar. So it's kind of hard to tell whether it's normal or not. The thing that makes me say it's more likely to be human-related is because I got my speakers as two separate Amazon orders (placed at the same time but still). So it's kind of less likely to me that both of them would sound almost exactly the same (maybe some slight variance). If it was the case that them being manufactured at similar times means that they're both defective in a related way, then what about the ones after and before them? Are there people returning these and leaving bad reviews with roughly the same batch time? Honestly this hiss is worse than I thought, though...I guess most of the time I have ambient noise but at night I can really hear these.
 
Anyone happen to know how these would compare to Audioengine A5s?

I've been very curious about the LSR308s for a while, but the price on these seems hard to pass up. They seem very universally well liked.
 
Well, never mind, I went for it. Not sure if it's a price mistake or what, but they are now showing up as $139 with free shipping for a pair. Proof in case it disappears! Hopefully they don't cancel my order.

 
Well, never mind, I went for it. Not sure if it's a price mistake or what, but they are now showing up as $139 with free shipping for a pair. Proof in case it disappears! Hopefully they don't cancel my order.

Bought. I already have the 308's but let's try the 305's as well. :D Oh and my wallet doesn't like you.
 
Bought. I already have the 308's but let's try the 305's as well. :D Oh and my wallet doesn't like you.

Well, I do what I can. :D

Still showing $199 for me.

Maybe that seller's stock is depleted (or they fixed it if it was a price mistake). The $199 is from Amazon, while the $139 was from a different seller.
 
Yea I saw that. Checked their other sellers and he wasn't listed anymore so I'm assuming he sold out pretty quick.
 
Mine got canceled. So I went back to purchase them from Amazon for the $199 - 20% off and now they are showing up for $273.91/pair. Great.
 
I'm going to return these. They just hiss way too much for me. When playing quiet music I can easily distinguish the hiss now, and in fact even in louder rooms it's still audible. Even turning them below 5, it's still just too loud.

I think what I will try next is the Vanatoo T1's. Totally different price range from the JBL's but honestly I don't care anymore, after having an alternative to wearing headphones (T1's) all day I'm a bit hooked to the general concept. It's just that these 305's are too finicky for my tastes.
 
#AudiophileProblems
They've been at this for one or two weeks now. They were 99 EA on Amazon when I got them as I pointed out in the JBL thread. That price was also on BH and a lot of places. Now they're the same price but for a pair on Amazon.

They sound very good but they're really finicky with what you hook them into. God help you if you have them on the same power outlet as the one your computer is hooked into. They also hiss some but it is minor enough. Tbh I think Topping or Lepai with eBay speakers is a comparable sounding setup with much less fuss. It's really dependent on what kind of eBay deals you can find though.

You have... what... a 1300$ DAC with actual balanced outputs? I'm just talking about for the average consumer setup. What almost everyone else is going to do is grab one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HGM1D6?keywords=3.5mm%20to%201%204&qid=1449453082&ref_=sr_ph&sr=1
And just go to town with their average headphone amp or sound card. I mean these speakers are not in the price territory of high end audiophile stuff. You shouldn't have to get a setup that costs 3-4x as much as they do in order to use them. In order to do that, you have to isolate them from the rest of the system. Once I plugged them into another power strip, they worked perfectly fine without any PC sounds or buzzing. Though the very minor hissing is still there. The hissing is volume dependent and as far as I understand it normal for powered speakers in general. I'm just saying in general the first thing I did for a budget PC speaker set is a set of Ebay Paradigm Atom V3's paired with a Topping TP20. It ran me about 150 total at the time (with a decent chunk of shipping on the Atom), and it sounded absolutely excellent, with very little fuss. No grounding issues, nothing. I just plugged everything up with a 3.5mm->RCA cable and it was all up and running and sounded wonderful.

Don't get me wrong, for the sound quality and the relatively all in one package, these are good, but you need a power jack to each one and it needs to be isolated from the PC in most common budget setups. Even at their current budget price, they're not a painless choice...

I believe what I am talking about is indeed the hiss at the tweeter. What happens if you do have these on the same power strip as the computer while simply using the sound card is that they start buzzing. What I mean by saying the hiss is "volume dependent" is that at 5 and above it sounds relatively the same up until the max (10). At 5 and under, it starts getting slightly quieter. At around 1-2 and under it entirely peters out. And yes, I know that passive speakers do indeed have some as well, but maybe because of their passive crossover circuitry they (in my experience) are not nearly as loud, even with the ear right up at them.

Frankly the fact that you have to consider all this is what is a weakness to me when it comes to having a simple computer audio setup. Like you say, this is mixing "pro and consumer audio gear", but at the end of the day that is by and far the simplest thing to do. The thing is, I guess that I'm just fairly sensitive to high frequency noises. I can hear this hiss even a few feet away, and it never changed no matter which outlet I moved the speakers to in the house. Luckily at my sitting position it is quiet enough to be considered negligible. The nice thing about Topping+passive is that it's not source dependent at all. I can fling the entire setup anywhere and hook it up to anything with a simple 3.5mm jack and it will sound consistent. To me that's kind of nice.



I understand what you're trying to say, but I believe for most intents and purposes (ie realistically speaking) they are comparable, as far as simple budget computer setups are concerned.. I haven't directly auditioned these vs, say my Topping paired with some of my passives. I can tell you that I am not sure if they are quite where my Beyer T1's are at (I use an Objective 2 DAC/AMP with my headphones). The Paradigms I simply remember sounding absolutely excellent when got them. Every upgrade after them was incremental. So you can say that these are leaps and bounds above that simple setup, but fact of the matter is that it's simply an incremental one. It may be in "another world" in our terms, but pragmatically speaking for most users either one would blow any common setup away and be sufficient for most if any applications. It's just that one is very simple to set up, and the other requires isolation and all that crap. Don't get me wrong, these do sound great, especially at near listening. Certainly a great budget deal. But for many people, what wouldn't be, and how much extra trouble is the sound worth?

Also, isn't optical out lossy?

As far as active vs passive, I won't really comment. I remember designing filters of all types back in my college circuit labs at ga tech, but I don't really remember the results when comparing active vs passive. Someone mentioned that one of the advantages is being able to design much higher orders, but I'm a bit skeptical on that front. There is one thing that I remember, and that is when I kept increasing the order of the filter, the results did not necessarily get that much better. 2 and above performed fairly similarly... Maybe that's just with the mediocre lab gear.


I'll be keeping these either way, don't get me wrong. I'm always searching for the next level of fidelity with all of my equipment. These are great computer speakers. But I don't consider them an absolute must have for everyone.

Yes, the hiss persists with nothing hooked up, and it's fairly audible in a very quiet room for me even at 3 feet. 4, I can still hear it. Most of the time though I have fan noise or something going on so it's not necessarily a big deal. The thing is, opinions on that front are as varied as the amount of people on the internet. Some claim these shouldn't hiss at all and they never hear it. Some claim that they should hiss some but they only hear it when right next to the speaker. And then there are others like me that say theirs can be heard from 3-4 feet away.

My question is whether this is dependent on whether the speakers are defective or not, or whether the people listening simply have differing levels of hearing loss in the higher frequency range. For what it's worth, I rarely ever listen to music very loudly. I always keep it at a very reasonable and perhaps even quiet level. The problem is that I've never seen a post where anyone had hiss and then they just went and exchanged the speakers for new ones and then said "okay, it's gone!" or something similar. So it's kind of hard to tell whether it's normal or not. The thing that makes me say it's more likely to be human-related is because I got my speakers as two separate Amazon orders (placed at the same time but still). So it's kind of less likely to me that both of them would sound almost exactly the same (maybe some slight variance). If it was the case that them being manufactured at similar times means that they're both defective in a related way, then what about the ones after and before them? Are there people returning these and leaving bad reviews with roughly the same batch time? Honestly this hiss is worse than I thought, though...I guess most of the time I have ambient noise but at night I can really hear these.

I'm going to return these. They just hiss way too much for me. When playing quiet music I can easily distinguish the hiss now, and in fact even in louder rooms it's still audible. Even turning them below 5, it's still just too loud.

I think what I will try next is the Vanatoo T1's. Totally different price range from the JBL's but honestly I don't care anymore, after having an alternative to wearing headphones (T1's) all day I'm a bit hooked to the general concept. It's just that these 305's are too finicky for my tastes.
 
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And you wouldn't be considering these if you weren't one. Forgive me for obviously sounding defensive here, but what is your point? >_>
 
And you wouldn't be considering these if you weren't one. Forgive me for obviously sounding defensive here, but what is your point? >_>

As a potential buyer, I appreciate your honest feedback. I am very sensitive to irritating white noise (e.g., fans, hiss, etc.) and I'm sure it would drive me nuts as well.
 
Are there comparable bookshelf speakers which aren't powered? Wanna get a set and hook them to my A/V receiver.
 
As a potential buyer, I appreciate your honest feedback. I am very sensitive to irritating white noise (e.g., fans, hiss, etc.) and I'm sure it would drive me nuts as well.

Well you should maybe give them a shot anyway. I mean, they were great speakers sound-wise and who knows, there might be a few possibilities for my scenario anyway:
- Both speakers were just faulty
- I have much more sensitive ears (in that frequency range) than most other people
- Some ridiculously bad grounding at my house is somehow causing the hiss (even though I read it shouldn't really do that).

I've got mine being refunded for Amazon credit and I'm going to go for auditioning the Vanatoo's as soon as I get it. Someone in FS/T is offering Vanatoo's for a great price, but I kind of need to audition them and I'd prefer to have a 30 day return window even at the extra expense.

I mean I think I kinda crapped up the thread and I didn't really mean to. My bad..
 
Are there comparable bookshelf speakers which aren't powered? Wanna get a set and hook them to my A/V receiver.

Depends on the sound you want. Older JBL's have a specific sound profile, which isn't really flat. I haven't heard these monitors to know if they don't color the sound too much.

Chane bought out Arx which use split gap XBL tech (JBL) midrange drivers http://www.chanemusiccinema.com/loudspeakers/chane-loudspeakers/A1rx-c

I've heard good things, but they're ugly.

What's the price range?

For a little less ($99 ish) there are the Andrew Jones Pioneer speakers which are decent, for about $400 you can craigslist some Polk LSi-7's which will probably blow these out of the water due to the high frequency driver in the polks. The ring radiator is incredible.

Probably better in the midrange section than anything listed here is the Zaph Audio kit, but you're stuck building a cabinet and assembling it yourself. I don't think madisound has cabs for them now. https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/2-way-speaker-kits/zaph|audio-za5.2-tm-2-way-pair/

There are so many speaker options, it's kind of like asking "I want to eat food, what should I get?"
 
The hiss of an active speaker is pretty normal.. I have hooked these up in different rooms in my house and both produce the same hiss noise. They do sound amazing for the price. Even the websites who reviews these said they have hiss but also explained that is normal. Got mine for 99$ each in white a while back.. Love these things.
 
Depends on the sound you want. Older JBL's have a specific sound profile, which isn't really flat. I haven't heard these monitors to know if they don't color the sound too much.

Chane bought out Arx which use split gap XBL tech (JBL) midrange drivers http://www.chanemusiccinema.com/loudspeakers/chane-loudspeakers/A1rx-c

I've heard good things, but they're ugly.

I bet the sound those produce is...ahem...off the chane.

Massdrop has had those before; I believe the price was $129.99 per speaker.
 
Regarding hiss. I used to get hiss bad but not anymore. I went to a modi/magni stack and no more hiss.
 
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