My room is small and I added, not 1 but 2 Subs. Yet, you can see my results.

 

It's good to go, a wider than deep space with adequate bass dampening and dispersion and I never go above above 80-85 dB. If they don't work out for whatever reason I can always sell them and come back to the KRKs.

 

I got the APS 2020 Klasik pair from UPS today, plugged them in and...holy shit...they blow away those KRK by a country mile and then some. I played a little thing that I did for a harmonica student and was like, fuck, I suck at mixing. The flaws were so self evident that I felt a touch embarrassed to have ever thought that it was passible to let someone listen to it. I heard the reverb tails like never before and the extra inch of speaker made a world of difference to what I was hearing in the low end. Everything heard was discernable and my ears easily locked on to each minute part that made up the whole. And this was in 10 minutes of throwing the power switches. They weren't yet even broken in for an hour!

The negative side of the deal was the finish workmanship on the cones which had a white powdery residue on parts of the very edge of the speakers and a mottled look to them which I deemed unworthy of quality control before they left the workplace. Also, the power supplies get REALLY hot, hot enough that it is worrysome and will get in contact with them on Monday.

They sound stellar though.

 

Thanks for the feedback!! Still considering wether to get these (they have a big footprint as well) or the Adam A7V.

 

Fabulous review in Sound On Sound magazine:
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/aps-klasik-2020
No mention of power supply overheating issues so you need to look into that.

 

That's just how the APS amp are and why the huge heat sync. The less you will crank the amp on the gain knob in the back, the less heat it will propagate. Mine is all the way down on my Aeon 2 and it's still hot.

Congrats on your purchase, you got yourself the best monitors you could get at this price point. Enjoy the bass extension if you're into some boom boom club thing haha.

Oh, and I also have some white powder on mine. I'm taking a snif once in a while when I feel down. Nothing like that polish speaker powder to get you back up and running.

 

The thing with making music is that you have to like your monitors.
If you were just a mixing engineer, it's easy. then you go with what most facilities have to get used to that sound and be able to work anywhere.
And that would be genelec or neumann these are really wide spread.
I'm very much into neumann monitors. they are good workhorses for a more than fair price. don't underestimate the k80. i would prefer the kh80 over kh120, its the more modern speaker with features like phase linearity over the frequency spectrum and stuff like that (stuff that couldn't be done with the dsps that were available when the kh120 came out).
but some say neumann might not make you smile when making musik (I wouldnt say, that but compared to the more modern genelecs, I get what they mean). But the neumanns are going to tell you what to do, thats for shure. so imho perfect for work. compared to the genelecs in your price range (the 8030) i would go for the neumanns. But I consider the new genelec series (the 83xx) as really good speakers.
The 83xx imho is a good balance in being exciting and still telling what to do, but these are even more expensive than neumanns kh310, which is a VERY decent monitor. the kh310 has a feature that is very valuable for apartment use: It is a closed design. So the clarity of its bass response is not that demanding room wise. (I know, out of budget, and too big, just telling)
On the other hand: Your setup right now is not that bad, is it?
(Never had focal, but they have good reputation)

 

Funny, i saw the title of the thread and came here to recommend the APS Klasik 2020 and i see that there are already people talking about them. I've had a pair of APS Klasik 2020 for 3 years now and i love them. I still remember the feeling of my mouth hitting the floor when i first started using them. They were an unbelievable step up from my previous JBL LSR305. Compared to those, i felt like i had xray vision into each and every harmonic of any electric guitar, lol. They also give you that "front-to-back" depth like you mentioned (as long as your room acoustics are good). Very natural yet detailed with a nice holographic soundstage (well, as good as 6'5" inches can give you).

In hindsight i kinda wish i had gotten the bigger Neon monitors from APS, just for the extra bass extension. The Klasik 2020 aren't a speaker that's gonna push air at you, simply because of size/physics. But MAN they are clear. So clean that you can see the spaces between the sounds.

I have a similar experience to Lois Lane, you can easily hear every little 0.3db adjustment you make on any plugin. I can hear the difference between a high quality reverb and a flat digital reverb, one sounds like it's coming from "behind" the sound source in a natural 3D way, the other sounds like a 2D toy. They're pretty revealing, you can trust them to tell you if anything is too harsh or boomy.

The bass is lean and deep for a 6.5" cone (but if you want big subs you'll wanna get a bigger speaker). The mid-range is clear and natural, the high end is detailed without being too bright. It's just an all-round good speaker. They sound super appealing to listen to but without misrepresenting the music. If the mix is bad/raw, the speakers will tell you. If the mix is amazing, your jaw drops to the floor. For that reason they're basically the perfect mixing speaker imo, because you can hear things accurately but the speakers are not so over-the-top great that you lose touch with the common man. They're also about as good as you're gonna get at this price and size. (actually, i'm not sure what the price is these days but it was 1,000 euros when i bought them 3 years ago)

Another thing i like about em is that they're built by a small boutique company in Poland. They're made with passion. Think a lot of it is hand-made too. They're a true analog speaker, no DSP stuff going on. High quality materials. I think that's why they sound natural.

The lack of clean/accurate sub bass is my only gripe. And that's me nitpicking. It has sub energy in there, but it sounds a little "forced". It's not its natural capability, so the task of working on low-end in mastering is still a tiny bit of a guessing game with a speaker this size. The bass is great for its size, and it'll definitely rattle your windows if you put it up loud enough, but it's not mastering level clarity down there i wouldn't say. I have to use my headphones to gather more of an idea of what's happening down in the sub range.

Btw i didn't have any of the problems Lois had in regards to craftsmanship. All good over here.

Like any speakers, your converters, room treatment and positioning of the speakers in the room will dictate whether you're using the speakers to their fullest potential. Well if you've got those factors sorted then you wont be disappointed in APS. Especially if you're coming from a "consumer" level monitor like i did. They're f*cking amazing for both mixing AND listening to music in general. Just don't expect the kind of "air pushing" bass you'd get out of a 8"+ speaker. It's more of a lean & clean bass that you can hear clearly and adequately but it wont give you a vibrating sensation in your chest or something

EDIT: Actually, i spose it would vibrate your chest if you had it super loud. I don't mix super loud though. And that reminds me of another thing that's great about these speakers, you can mix at very low whisper-quiet volumes and you can still hear the full frequency spectrum. They're well balanced at both low and loud levels

 

Last edited: Jun 9, 2023

I don't feel that I need a sub because I don't compose deep end music. These 7 inches go down to something like 39 Hz if I remember correctly and it's not a mushy mess down there like it was from like 100 hz on down with my KRK V6 S2 when I was guessing and putting on headphones, earbuds and jumping in the car to see what was what. I can hear (and almost see) a bass string vibrating just north of and against the low end of an 808 kick. It's wondrous and freaky at the same time.

 

What is the depths of the Klasik 2020s excluding the controls in the back, just the cabinet?

 

The only problem I've found with seriously upgrading studio monitors is that I have to go back and relisten to all my favorite music because I've never heard it before.

 

320 mm or 12.598 inches (360 high, 210 wide). They are deep suckers,, and with the rear ports I have them shifted far forward on the desk's swiveling stands to have them far enough from the wall as not to mess with the sound. The port must be tuning the low end just enough and not any more as not all that much low frequency is emitted from the back (looks like double ported but is supposedly just one) of the cabinet.

 

I guess that's true for anyone. Even Hans Zimmer stick with Quested monitors that are, in my opinion, nothing spectacular....but he love them and feel comfortable with them because he know them. I know I feel the exact same for about 2-3 months (and even longer to some extent) every time I get the next best thing. I usually first go through a ''shocking'' phase where hear sh!t I never did before in my 20 favourite pop reference track then the part in my own mixes where I don't understand what happened at this or that frequency, then making clear comparison with my other monitors and understanding what I like about each one.

To this point, I never had a set of monitor that was better then all my previous ones in all aspect.

They all have flaws. Barncore bass rendering in his room and monitor placement says he has loose bass on his Klasik. I don't have that issue with my Aeon 2 but it's lacking definition in the mid bass (120 to 300hz or about) so I got the DMAX Super Cubes 5 but those cut sharp at 80hz and 10khz so no sub nor air frequencies in there but an incredible magnifying glass on the mids (including those 120hz to 300hz that are missing on the Aeon 2 but are incredibly detailed on the Super Cubes 5).

My Mastering monitors also don't show me the real life rendering of my music (In airpods or TV speakers for example) but are extremely fast transient wise and overwhelming in details to the point where it's not ''realistic'' for anyone's listening environment.

All in all, It's always a ''I don't have a single clue what I'm doing but I like that it sound like that'' type of game with any monitors and with anyone.

Get yourself some multi-track and try re-mixing a popular song and master it to your taste. You will end up with something different because you are someone with different taste then others. And if you don't agree with me on that last one, please leave my wife alone !!!

 

I still use old Fostex PM-1.
I selected them because ALL PROFESSIONALS who reviewed them said they were "balanced" compared to others in the same listening room.
And yes, they are.

Of course, i lack low end.
But on the other side, if i bought subwoofer and/or bigger monitors, i would need to treat my room better.

So now i use headphones to double check bass extension.
And tools to mesure bass better than my "feeling".

At least, i can provide a balanced mix (not perfect) to a potential mastering eng

My worst experience was mixing in an L shaped small room ...

 

Just a correction: I don't have loose bass on these Klasiks. I said the bass is lean and deep for its size. I'm just saying, compared to a 8" speaker cone (like say the Yamaha HS8) the bass isn't as "strong" as far as how the air hits your ear. I'm just trying to manage people's expectations when they read about the Klasik 2020. The bass extension on these things has nothing to do with the speaker quality itself, it's more to do with the size of the cone (which would be the case with any speaker this size, cos physics)

The bass on these things is really good though, i'm happy with it. I master songs for clients on them. I don't want to give the wrong impression that it's bad or loose. I just didn't wanna give people the impression that it's a big vibration. You need bigger speakers for that.

I know this because i tested them against Yamaha HS80M (8" cones), and one of the things that struck me about the HS80M was how the bass vibrated in your ear. It felt like a more "physical" experience than with the smaller Klasiks. You could "feel" the bass.
The Klasiks sound way better and clearer overall than the Yamaha though. And less fatiguing too.
With the Klasiks it's like the music is floating in the air in front of you like a hologram. You forget the speakers are even there. Not the case with HS80M, it feels like a more "2D" experience, you can hear the colouration of the speaker

 

Last edited: Jun 10, 2023

Gotcha.

Yes, the Yamaha's are more ''in your face''. Its a sound signature known by that brand including the iconic NS10's. Everything is flat and upfront.

Not bad per se, just a different sauce. Very useful to balance your signals quickly. But again, some might hear them differently.

I also loved my Klasiks when I had them. Great monitors. When you start going up in the next bracket of prices and further up, the differences are starting to be minimal. I mean, it's obviously different in any monitors but I wouldn't be comfortable ranking monitors if there's no very specific situation and location mentioned. And even there, I would still suggest that specific person to chose his monitors himself as we all have different preferences.

Some people are into Focals, some others find their most important needs met in a set of Dynaudio, others in Genelecs.....etc.

They all have their own character.

There's some monitors I can deal with, some I love, some others that just don't work for me.

Funny story. When I got my DMAX Super Cubes 5, I made some measurement at my listening position to get a hold of what was available on a freq spectrum. Another user on a forum saw the results and said I would be better of with a set of Horrortone. His point was that because the DMAX wern't reaching as high as the other cubes, I was therefor using a worst tool then the aforementioned. My use case was exactly on the complete opposite thought process then he had and that is, because they were so focused on the most important frequencies, it would make me work harder to have my mids as clear and defined as possible before moving to a full spectrum type of monitors.

So in the end, the tools we use are really just that. A set of tools. That user was using some Auratone to get an idea of his full mix, I was using my DMAX to magnify a specific part of it to work on it. 2 different people, 2 different world.

I think the same apply with studio monitors. 2 person might be using the same sauce or type of monitors but won't use them the same way.

 

I have a pair IK Multimedia MTMs, incredible small speakers, large sound and most importend.. they translate very well!

 

ATM I think I'll just sell some gear to finance the Adam A7V.

Not many reviews around but I think it should be okay for the money. APS Klasik 2020 has stellar reviews but I'm afraid in my setup I have them to close to the wall/corners for back firing ports. Still not certain about this since there seem to be contradicting guidelines regarding back ported speakers against the front wall.

So far I figured the Adam A7V go low enough for my bass heavy music, can be EQed and seem to be a proven brand (A7X being one of the most popular monitors with electronic artists.. )
Will i regret it?

 

I don't know, but they are not as good as what you already have.
It is still advisable to check objective data.

 

Last edited: Jun 20, 2023

I've the APS Klasik about 2 1/2 to the further 5 inches from the wall with no problem whatsoever.