Barefoot MM27 vs. K+H O300, Vintage King Speaker Shootout, Review

Infrasonic is a really great indie studio where I had a blast doing a session a couple months ago. The outboard gear is esoteric and sounds unbelievable, the mic collection is gorgeous and well rounded, and their Neve 5088 may be my favorite Neve console ever, but the control room acoustics are a work in progress. The environment was not right for a speaker listening test. For example, the meter bridge was not long enough to accommodate all three sets of speakers, so one Barefoot sat to the right of the console on a stand. New acoustic treatments have been installed recently which have made an improvement, but sub frequency information is only available at the back of the room.

In my opinion, none of the speakers sounded like themselves. I’ve heard each sound very different in other environments. After I adjusted the placement and angling of the O300s and the Barefoots, things made a bit more sense. Jeff, Pete (the owners of Infrasonic) and I agreed future shootouts would work better in their large live room with lots of baffles and gobos around.

I have rarely liked the sound of the Focals, so I pretty much ruled them out and only turned them on a couple times briefly. Incidentally, at Tape Op Con a Focal engineer confirmed my observation of harshness around 3kHz by revealing to me that the Beryllium tweeter has a resonance at that frequency. [After this blog posted, my friend Simon Côté from Focal contacted me to dispute the other Focal staffer’s claim. Apparently that guy was not an engineer and the resonance is actually at 1294Hz. Perhaps the first harmonic (2588Hz) of the resonant frequency and the crossover point of 2500 are having some interaction.—ED.]

Some program material sounded better on the O300s and some on the Barefoots. In many ways, I think the O300s were better for Infrasonic’s control room and actually exhibited better bottom end, a surprise considering that I’ve felt the O300s to be lacking in deep bottom in the past. But that control room has some weird issues in the bottom that did not allow the Barefoots to shine down low.

On the majority of the program material it’s fair to say the O300s sounded the most spectrally balanced and neutral. The Barefoots presented a surprising upper midrange bump, a sound I’ve not associated with those speakers in the past. The Barefoots have become regular in-house speakers at Infrasonic. The owner/engineers there informed me they had found a much better placement for them behind the console on stands. I imagine the strange upper mid rise and lack of body I perceived would be diminished at that placement versus where they sat on the console’s meter bridge.

The O300s easily had the widest sound stage–a very broad image that extended well past the outside edges of the cabinets. For some material this was pleasing. Vocals sounded very clear and natural on the speakers, but there was something just a bit metallic about sibilance when compared to the Barefoots. The Barefoots, set up vertically, presented a much more focussed image, locked in between the speakers, but much more defined than the O300s. Vocals especially seemed to live and breathe right in front of me. In the end I preferred the imaging of the Barefoots because it seemed very direct and point-source-like, whereas by comparison the O300’s image did not seem to converge as the sound emanated from its three speakers. Perhaps the science behind the O300s very complex front baffle shines in some circumstances whereas the Barefoot’s simplicity of three speakers in a straight line on one plane works in others. When I had the O300s in my studio I noticed an unsettling comb filtering happening in the upper mids when I moved off axis.

The final and most swaying area of judging was enjoyment. There’s something about the top end of the Barefoots that’s just really nice to listen to. Each time I switched to the Barefoots, even if the spectral balance seemed whacked, the sound was compelling and pleasing. Based on this I concluded I would just really enjoy working on the Barefoots. At Infrasonic I tracked a 5 piece band live in a very fast paced session. Monitoring through the Barefoots, I made quick and confident decisions and enjoyed the feedback they gave me.

From past listens I’ve the Barefoots have struck me as “juicy” sounding. I had figured they wouldn’t work for me because if the material would already sounded good I wouldn’t work as hard to make it sound good. I’ve not worked on any bad recordings on them yet, but from what I can tell, not only are the Barefoots juicy, they’re also very very revealing.

Considering the O300s cost half of what the Barefoots do, I think they are an amazingly smart choice. None of the speakers on that day were at their best in that control room. I’ve gone back and forth on what I think would be the best speaker for me. At this point, if I were to not over-intellectualize it, I would go with the Barefoots for sheer listening pleasure. I think that fun would translate to my work. Everyone I’ve asked has had a lot of luck with the way Barefoots translate to the outside world.

In truth, what I’m focusing on at this point is getting my control room to sound better acoustically. I’ve significantly changed my space recently. I think the real conclusion here is that it’s the speaker in concert with the room that creates the monitoring experience. Either the Barefoots or the O300s can work great in a room that is adjusted to suit the speaker. Of course, sometimes you get lucky, too.

The O300 is a world class product and I recently wrote a very positive piece on them in Pro Audio Review . My new observations and love of the Barefoots don’t contradict anything I’ve written or said about the O300s—I just have new information. I would still be overjoyed to make records on the O300s. To me, the K+H sound is a bit more scientific than emotional, and right now I’m compelled by emotional—I’m compelled by the Barefoots.

—Alex Oana

I’m a producer, engineer, mixer based in Los Angeles. You can listen to my work and find out more at alexoana.com