KRK EXPOSE E8B User Manual

USER GUIDE

EXPOSÉ

E8B

BI-AMPLIFIED

STUDIO MONITOR

2

ntroduction

I

Congratulations on your purchase of the KRK Exposé E8B close-field reference monitors.
We would like to welcome you to the ever-expanding family of satisfied KRK owners. The
Exposé E8B is an extraordinary loudspeaker that is designed to perform exactly as its
name suggests: expose the truth, enabling you to make informed decisions about the audio
projects you work on.

The KRK Exposé E8B is the result of painstaking design that employs state-of-the-art
components and has been thoroughly tested to meet and exceed the most demanding
audio requirements. The result is a studio reference monitor that delivers defined low end,
articulate midrange, and precise, natural highs—delivering unparalleled clarity and
accuracy.

This manual is intended to familiarize you with the many features of your new Exposé
monitors and their operation. We encourage you to take a few minutes to familiarize
yourself with this manual. Thank you for choosing KRK!

IMPORTANT NOTICE: It is rare that a unit is damaged during shipping. However, if this
does occur, contact the shipping company immediately. Your Exposé E8B monitors were
originally packaged in a specially designed carton. We encourage you to keep these
packing materials and to use them when shipping or transporting your monitors.

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Design Philosophy

A studio monitor is a tool used to aurally “measure” the changes in an audio path. Ask any
seasoned recording professional what they think makes a great studio monitor and you’ll
get basically the same answers: “Accuracy, transparency, flat response, and the truth.”

Simply put, recording engineers want the electrical signal entering their monitor to be
reproduced mechanically by the transducers and they want this to occur without any
degradation or compromise to the original signal. Professionals depend upon their monitors
to deliver their artistic vision in a way that will translate as accurately as possible to a
variety of audio mediums. Technically, this is accomplished by designing a monitor that
addresses three critically important criteria: Spectral Balance, Distortion Management, and
Resonance Management.

Spectral Balance (Timbre)

Research confirms that a speaker with the proper spectral balance is most often
considered a great studio monitor.

Spectral balance is defined by:

• Smooth on-axis response

• Smooth octave to octave response

• Smooth off-axis response

From years of listening to feedback from some of the top engineers and producers, KRK
engineers have come to understand how a properly tuned monitor can become a valuable
recording tool.

The Expose E8B has been designed to be linear and as ruler flat as is humanly possible
so that what you hear represents the true nature of the audio material without coloration or
enhancement. You can be confident in the fact that your mixes will be accurate and phase
coherent.

Distortion Management

Any loss or addition to the audio signal is a distortion and this frequently occurs in the
speakers themselves. The E8B has extremely low speaker distortion, which is difficult to
achieve but was required for a monitor of this caliber.

Various amplifier distortions have been eliminated as well; the most common being
intermodulation, transient intermodulation, and harmonic distortion.

Distortion can also occur when the waveform is impacted by physical conditions such as
port turbulence and diffraction. KRK engineers implement design concepts that eliminate or
minimize these damaging conditions.

Resonance Management

Resonance is the tendency of something to vibrate at a particular frequency after the
energy source is removed. Resonances play a major role in impacting the performance of
a speaker. KRK design elements minimize driver and enclosure resonance.

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Design Elements

The Enclosure

The contoured shape of the Exposé E8B enclosure creates a striking appearance;
however, its design is every bit as functional as it is beautiful. More rigid than conventional
rectangular designs, it improves the linearity of the bass response, and increases off-axis
response, resulting in a wider sweet-spot. The E8B’s gently curved front baffle and
wide-radius edges reduce the diffraction effects for better imaging.

Cabinet rigidity is extremely important to a loudspeaker’s performance characteristics. A
properly designed enclosure should not resonate and produce its own sound. All sound
should emanate from the transducers and be focused in a single direction—from the front
of the cabinet. With its non-parallel, internal walls, the E8B reduces the chances of
standing waves inside the cabinet. The thinnest point in the construction of the cabinet
walls is 1-inch. Further, the thickness of these walls is continuously variable due to the
curvature of the enclosure’s exterior, which also helps prevent any resonant buildup in the
walls themselves as a result of sound that is being transmitted from the drivers. Further, the
base of the E8B is made from a non-slip, sound absorbing rubberized material that
eliminates vibrations transferring to the surface the monitor is sitting on as well as insuring
the enclosure will not “drift” on its pedestal, or mounting stand.

The Exposé E8B is video shielded to ensure maximum protection against magnetic
interference with video monitors.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: These monitors are heavy! Please use care in handling them and
ensure that the enclosure is placed on a suitable surface capable of supporting the weight.

NEVER TOUCH THE TWEETER ON YOUR E8B MONITORS, AS THIS CAN
DAMAGE THE TWEETER MATERIALS BEYOND REPAIR.

Amplification

As a 2-way design loudspeaker, the Exposé E8B utilizes two discrete, 120-watt (RMS)
Class A / AB power amplifiers. The system runs Class A up to approximately 8 watts (the
crossover point). This is a dual mono system—one amplifier each for HF and LF—
with symmetrical heat sinks built into the sides for cool running,
reliable operation. Special circuitry in the E8B eliminates turn on/off “thumps.”

The Exposé provides maximum circuitry protection against AC power surges, amplifier DC
output, and thermal overheating of the amplifiers.

The Tweeter

The HF tweeter in the E8B is made from beryllium and aluminum in a composite material
known as AlBeMet. The aluminum in this composite helps dampen the metallic
characteristics of pure beryllium.
titanium-type tweeter is very high stiffness to weight resulting in an extension of frequency
response, thus increasing the overall bandwidth of the monitor
with beryllium are far beyond the normal human hearing range; hence, this eliminates any
other second or third order harmonic distortion that is audible in the normal listening
registry. Further, the voice coil diameter on this tweeter has been increased, resulting in
improved power handling capability
improves the phase relationship.

The advantage of beryllium over the more conventional

The resonances that occur

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The resonant frequency has been lowered which

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