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some such location would allow. But placing it that low is likely to obstruct the 10" driver. KRK notes that the monitors can be angled to aim at the listener from a lower or higher mounting position, but my guess is that more than a few users will either rearrange their studios, or get busy with the hex- and Phillips screws and reconfigure the 10-3 for the sideways option. In that case, KRK suggests that the tweeter and 4" driver then be on the outside in a mid-field arrangement, but if the cabs were to be placed up close, for nearfield use, then the tweeter and 4" driver should be on the inside. I didn’t rotate the drivers, but I can vouch for the need for critical height placement—most of the subtle stereo information is lost if the ear isn’t in the right spot relative to the 4" and the 1" drivers. KRK addresses optional nearfield use of these cabinets; I’m not convinced that this is a good idea, but—to each his or her own, of course... The manual also suggests setups with a subwoofer, and as 5.1 and 7.1 systems, which I think would take a huge and well treated room to pull it off without creating a muddled mess of sound. If you’re wondering about in-wall installation, the manual says nothing about that. With all I/O and controls FIGURE 1

hole. Sure, there can be satisfying bass, but adding a subwoofer and achieving careful division of labor in the low end would not be a bad idea if you like to operate at considerable loudness levels. If 80 to 85 dB is where you’re comfortable, you’ll find lots of accurate and balanced sound here. The bass has no flab, and since it’s not over-hyped, you can follow bass lines deep down and perceive accurate pitch and color without boominess. The designers seem to me to have tried almost too hard to keep the upper bass/low mids, the “mudrange”, free from, well, mud. I perceived a touch of dryness, a lack of roundness, in solo cello tracks that I know to have a fuller tone than the 10-3 let me hear. The difference was subtle, and less can be more, so if your mix gets thick in that range, the 103 will still let you hear what’s there even if it may be a bit too much “there” there. I wasn’t always convinced that cymbals had the clarity and purity of transients that I remembered from the same sources on other playback systems. This may have been due to the distance and, hence, to room/ceiling splash. All that said, as I heard it, the strength of the 10-3 is in the mids and upper mids. Voices, violins, winds, were all nuanced and distinct, and even massed brass sections didn’t lose transparency. Food for thought As one who has used nearfields forever, I tried hard to get a handle on the listening experience presented by these large cabinets at the correct distance from each other and from my listening position. A conclusion I can draw is this: If you’re considering the 10-3 as an option, be sure that you have a well-treated room that will not unduly interfere, since your ears will not have the benefit of proximity to the speakers as happens with nearfields. To their credit, the 10-3 cabinets provide a generous sweet spot, especially on the horizontal plane (when used in the upright position). Another “if”: Should you wish to impress clients with volume, the 10-3 might well be a good candidate. I can’t vouch for purity of sound at very high SPLs since I couldn’t bring myself to drive them to those levels (not for want of power on their behalf). So—with a well-treated room that can take hefty levels and provides the space needed to set these cabs up correctly, you can be happy using the KRK Rokit 10-3 monitors, with or without a sub, and possibly just to provide an alternative listening experience in conjunction with an accurate pair of nearfields for that clinical upclose listening. Price: $499 each More from: KRK Systems, www.krksys.com
RECORDING FEBRUARY 2012

being on the rear, you’d have to connect up, adjust the controls, and then place the monitors, which may not be ideal for some installations. The sound The first impression was the obvious one: A lot of sound coming at you from this much speaker displacement. Not necessarily brute volume, just a big “wavefront”. Six feet of distance was the most I could reasonably achieve for the equilateral triangle, and without ceiling treatment in my fairly tall room I couldn’t swear that I heard no room influence at that distance. Another immediate impression: These drivers must be of a very efficient design. The spec sheet could make you think that the 10-3 is underpowered, but I had to turn down the volume knob a lot, just to tame the sound levels when I was trying to match the level of the 10-3 with the levels of the other two monitor pairs that I set up as a “sanity-preserving” reference— they were nearfields and helped me keep everything in perspective. Yet another early impression: There is not an over-emphasis on bass, despite the heft of the LF driver and the wide port

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Recording - February 2012

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