# KRK ROKIT RP8 Studio "powered" Monitors



## newtitan (Mar 7, 2005)

got off my butt and wrote a review , hope folks like the read, not really different than all the other excellent online reviews, its a great set.


so here were go...............

Ive had these for a few weeks now, so I thought Id throw up a review for those interested in buying them, and or those just stopping buy.


The build quality is EXCELLENT imo, the gloss black enclosure shows no seams, breaks etc. only bad thing is you have to dust em off all the time if you are cosmetically anal. Attention to detail is high also, for example there is soft foam pad on the bottom of each enclosure to decouple the unit from the desktop. So literally there is no enclosure resonance that I have been able to hear. The enclosure itself is actually a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but its still about 30lbs or so each one I think

The tweeter is a basic 1” dome, mounted from behind the panel. I cant tell the material type, but it’s a soft material non metal for sure. I wouldn’t go sticking my fingers on it lol. The 8” driver is a composite of some sort, im sure you can research its makeup all over, as this is a popular set at guitar center, and online. I really dig the yellow cone too, although I would have like a grille, but I assume that would color the output a tad. Also each unit has a yellow ROKIT sign that’s lights up when in use on the front, that looks cool in the dark—cosmetic only, but it does look cool lol.

Most recommend these as a huge step up from the Behringhers when it comes to starting out in studio monitors. Reliability wise, and auxillary noise concerns seem to be the biggest issues with behrigher active set. I get absolutely no noise from my units playing straight from a computer, no buzzing, hissing, etc

There are separate gains for both tweeter, and mid, and seperate phase controls also, which I think have to do more with attenuating to the room size, and acoustics when recording. I left those flat. The drivers are bi amped, with I believe 50W to the tweeters, 70W to the drivers. And there is a dedicated fuse, and power switch. The guys at guitar center recommended that I go XLR cable versus ¼ TRS so that what I used. My auzentech xmeridian with upgraded LMS op amps supplied the direct ¼ mini signal (AWESOME CARD by the way). The xmeridian has a VERY hot output board for some reason, so it seems like I wouldn’t need any other pre amps

The tweeter is slightly overbearing, but remember ive been using them flat, and sit DIRECTLY on axis, no more than 3-4 ft away. Most studio’s have them at 30 degrees off axis on stands or in the far corners on the studio board. Well that’s the way they were when I worked in college radio waay back. These are SURE better than the monitors we had at school I know that

The tweeter/mid are crossed at 2400 hz, and are designed to play flat, for better pre recording purposes. Not really designed for personally listening, but I adjusted , and was OVELRY impressed. When at guitar center the guys had me listen to the Yamaha, m- audio, and one other brand that started with an ‘E” cant remember the name—it’s a rather expensive unit so im sure some of you know the name. He wouldn’t break out the mackies for me since they are so costly. He did give me a pro tools lesson though that was cool. And said as long as I bought something from them he could understand why id buy em online versus at the store. So I bought my cables, and some magazines, and a few tutorials worth of stuff, so I guess costwise it was a wash lol

These were the most like “normal” bookshelf speakers to me, the most lifelike, and seemed to not take too much from what most like as vibrancy in the music. The tweeter handles the mid to high midrange very accurately, ran trough the highs of Mariah Carey, and Michael Jackson—Noo problem. The middle octaves of Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin Noo problem with that either. Nothing better than hearing the smoothness of Marvin Gaye as he sang the National Anthem at the 1980 all star game—niiiice—this is hard recording to get right since it was recorded live, in a huge stadium. One or my favorite tracks ever.


The midrange/midbass driver is 8” across as described, and is cut at 2400 as stated before. The slot port is extremely smooth, no sound jumps or bass frwquency inaccuracies at all . Something ive never been able to get right with slot ports (im rather bad at box building lol—I leave that to Marv, and just pay for it )


Anyway, the bass is very articulate, and takes one even the stingiest , dirtiest bassline. I like to use old 1970 vinyl ripped reggae albums as they are very dirty, and its hard to get the bass line to come in with the heavy tone, and still allow the driver to articulate each note of the instrument. So put it through Gregory Isaacs (who doesn’t love “night nurse”, Lee Perry and more recently various Sizzla (xterminator era—these are more machine driven bass lines, much deeper) records, and these drivers handle it with definition that I really haven’t heard other than high end headphones, and maybe my seas w18nx’s I had a few months back.

If you can handle the volume, once you supply enough source voltage WHOA do these hit low, and they are VERY loud. Like piss off your neighbor loud—so be mindful of that 92db efficiency in the home

 Ive read npdangs efficiency 8 ohm/ versus 4 ohm debate many times, and always go back an forth lol, but these 8’s show me how much power we “waste” in the 12v/car environment. 

Took out my trusty euphoric midnight bass cds tracks, and not the biggest electronic fan, but these can handle the 40hz shot with force. I think the port filter below 35 hz to protect the driver though---im not sure, just going buy ear. Ran a few bas sweeps, and there is superior and useful output from 40hz up. You can get away with a subwoofer for coomon listening, Pink Floyd was working fine, as well as some of my other rock albums (sting, and Bon Jovi—please don’t hate on my dated rock influences lol) Pulled out my wifes aerosmith cds, and to me they hit the drums quickly and with force. But for your local Hip Hop Drum and Bass—id get a subwoofer lol. I like a ton of bottom, and these play the notes, but you are not jumping out of your seat with them. But that’s not there design or purpose at all. So I really didn’t push them to find out “how low” can you go either.

I will say I used to say aaah there not “that” much difference between a 320kbps mp3 and a cd track ummm WRONG. These units really show the difference in fidelity, midrange depth, that you lose once the mp3 crops the supposedly no auditory frequencies.. Ill still sue mp3’s, but lets say ill be quicker to break out the lossless files now lol. Kinds changes my car headunit needs also

And lastly I took out my “love supreme” album ( my fav Coltrane album) , and some grant green ( if you like tribe called quest you like grant green lol), and jimmy smith for the knee tapping upbeat make you happy jazz. The drivers were excellent with the more upbeat records, but needed a touch of tweeter –3db action for the Coltrane action for my ears. I like the lower portion of the saxophone sound to be pronounce, so to my ears it mated better like that. 

Overall for my first monitor set, these are/were AWESOME. But for me the “chase” of audio is the fun part to me lol. I really want to take a academic jump, and learn how to make crossovers of my own, and maybe try out a tube amp to get more understanding of why folks like that so much. So since I buy and sell drivers so much I think id like to have a nice 200Wx2 receiver (or 75x2 if it’s a tube) and listen to multiple drivers etc etc.

But if you don’t want the hassle of wood building ( I hate box building), and don’t want to deal with passives, this is perfect!! The amps are easily interchangeable from the rear, so if you could easily change driver back and forth if you wanted to tray out other 1”domes or 8” drivers to play around with.

But from my ears, and what I heard of the other sets, these are the best performance versus cost out. There are better units im sure, shoot even KRK as higher end unit, but for the price, build quality, cosmetics, and most important overall lifelike fidelity these are 9/10 in my book.


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