Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
By kn00b Sun Jan 30, 2022 1:40 pm
Hey, I've been using the MPC Live II for about a month now and during this time I noticed some imbalance between the right and left speaker unit when panning sounds hard-left and hard-right. Was a bit concerned so I contacted my nearest Akai service and explained everything. They obviously said some imbalance is natural and just closed the case, though it would probably be best to listen to it live. It's bugging me ever since as this is the kind of thing that once you hear it you can't unhear it :P, and I suspect something's not quite right. Therefore, I decided to make this post and perhaps get some responses from you guys as I'm curious about your opinions.
Here I'll drop a screenshot of wave forms of both right and left speaker unit outputs (this is the typical frequency spectrum 20Hz-20kHz, recorded with a capacitive mic as best as I could for my environment):
Image

And here I'll provide an output recording of both left/right units (this is deadmau5's recent track):



These are the wave forms of those recordings:
Image

I can provide additional recordings if anyone is interested, I know and agree that using a commercial track is a bad practice in terms of checking the frequency response of speakers but I can assure you I played hundreds of tracks on it already and constantly hear the same consistent difference, and I think using a track like this better represents the difference in terms of hearing it and not focusing on visual sound wave representations. Besides, the difference remains when using a typical sound spectrum recording.

The right speaker unit seems less responsive than the left one. What are your thoughts?
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By elstebbano Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:29 pm
Well, I think the primary use for these speakers are just for jamming arround a bit outside the studio. Of course they are not meant for mixing or anything like that, so I personally wouldn't mind that issue that much..
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By EnochLight Tue Feb 01, 2022 2:37 am
kn00b wrote:The right speaker unit seems less responsive than the left one. What are your thoughts?


It seems very negligible, but I'll admit even I can hear a very slight difference (and this is coming from someone who has tinnitus)! But, in the grand scheme of things - I don't think this would bother me. My MPC sits slightly to the left of me at my desk, which is the only time I use the built-in speakers on a regular basis, so my sitting angle alone results in un-even sound during monitoring. But I don't use the built-in's for mixing or anything - I use them to monitor while sampling, or to just jam. Obviously YMMV. If the difference in sound is bothering you that much, maybe exchange your MPC? Or is it too late for that?
By DokBrown Tue Feb 01, 2022 7:36 pm
I thought the speakers were a joke & waste of battery power/space
I got a used MPC LIVE v1 for cheap when everyone was copping v2 ;-)

When I mix, I use my KRKs but most of the time I am jamming on my headphones or an old roland/peavey AMP. I suck
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By EnochLight Thu Feb 03, 2022 7:31 pm
DokBrown wrote:I thought the speakers were a joke & waste of battery power/space


And yet, apparently the Live II has been hugely successful. I use the speakers all of the time - it's particularly great when you want to quickly monitor when sampling from a turntable or mobile device and don't have some cans laying nearby. Also useful when I'm sitting out on the patio in the warm summer days and don't want my head sweating like crazy. :lol: