Genelec - technologie from the 80s? - Page 5

Peter may well be certifiably insane, but he is right about the dynaudios being far superior to listen to than the Genelecs. The genelecs are a killer choice for loud clean and dynamic, which makes them a wonderful choice if your primary concern is getting reference level very cleanly in a very large theater space. If a high quality commercial cinema is your frame of reference, and clean and accurate and little else is your goal, genelec makes excellent speakers for that. They are tough, well designed, professional products. But they don't sing with music, in my opinion. Relentlessly accurate is a very worthy goal, and it absolutely should be Genelec's goal as a professional speaker maker, but as far as my own personal tastes go, I wouldn't do genelec in a critical music system. They'd kill for a loud rock and roll system where you want to blast yourself silly deaf and do it with great accuracy, and this is why they are great for a clean dynamic theater especially in a large space, but there's also no magic there. Dynaudio's home speakers have a great deal of magic, their pro monitors less so (and a little bit behind in driver technology in my understanding). This is, for ME personally, a huge advantage. However, it may not be for others, especially if you don't care primarily for enjojyment, but rather what the mixing engineer which is unvarnished, unpretty, relentlessly clean and undistorted flat response etc etc. It just depends what you're after. I'm after enjoyment primarily, and primarily with music. Clean loud dynamics is great, but it's not a huge priority IMO. I like my hearing.

Chris, Im trying to understand your post. It just seems to say that Genelec and Dynaudio monitors are too accurate for you. You say they are "relentlessly clean and undistorted flat response etc etc" but not suitable for "critical" use. I think critical listening needs "relentlessly clean and undistorted flat response etc etc".

Also if "high quality commercial cinema is your frame of reference" Genelecs would be a waste of money.

I dont understand how accuracy is at odds with enjoyment. For me they are inextricably linked.

Using the Dynaudio Audiophile speakers may be a better surround sound overall than the Dynaudioacoustics. The Genelecs while impressive are tnot class A. Hopefuly Coldmachine will come down to Miami to experience the world's finest projected image in Helene and there he will hear whatr Chris is talking about.

That picture is too funny. Lol. Anybody can throw some high end speakers behind a screen and put some heavy equalization on it to get a straight line. Then make the room respond nicely and kill off the mess the speakers produce in the first place (poor directivity, phase control). I do not think that this is the right way to do it, a passive speaker not to begin with. However, maybe the Lion should explain his main goals a little more indepth and then we can further discuss what is right and not. In the end without blind a/b tests this is all just hot air about opinions, nothing else....

Peter,

I hesitate to point this out to you, as I know some have accused you of paranoia in the past, but be careful, someone is watching you.

No they cant, or even close to it. Big rooms are very resonant and reverberant. EQ at this level is not so much about the speakers as it is about room correction.

That would depend on how they are built, designed and treated.

Semantics perhaps, but in my mind the two are inextricably linked.

@ coldmachine. The room Peter has build implies he did room treatment, well, I hope he did. The point was more that with the room correction there is not much left of the original voicing of the speakers to begin with (aka as coloration most common in many high end speakers). He could have thrown alot of stuff behind the screen and after the heavy equalization did it's job, one can only guess what is behind that screen, which make the hole point of chosing Dynaudio rediculous, hence any statement of them being superior.

Agreed, on point 1, Im going down that road with my architect atm.

I disagree that its semantics, but agree that the 2 are linked inextricably.

What does that mean?

If you have advice, I'd be more than glad to hear it.

The architects Im using are very experienced in acoustic environments, as well as more mainstream work, they also have a good acoustic engineering consultancy profile. I need normal architectural input as well, as I may have to drop a floor level. I need to find out what the limitations are as that will have a major bearing on screen size. It will only be than that architectural decisions can be made that will mitigate any room issues as far as possible. It mat not need that sort of work at all, but till i know the structural limitations are first.

You are full of Sh1t . This is one of the best sounding rooms for multichannel out there and it was done brealking all of the stated ridiculous rules that have been thrown around. The proof is in the pudding, and andreas you are just a big charlattan with a german accent. I was right YOU WERE WRONG!!!!!!

Furthermore this room sounds great with zero settings of the surround processor, not even distances and levels have beenn dialed yet. Calibration is not a requirement in this room.

I demand apologies, widespread , earnest apologies from the lot of you...

Room looks like crap. Not the best in Florida. Best install is in Naples, FL

You are just a redeneck with no style...

In any event I was talking about the video and audio.

By the way, what are Florida's winning LOTO numbers for wednesday? You are the only being in the world that can perfectly design and install without the need for "any" calibration.

I won't be greedy... I'll even share the winnings with you.

You could say the same for custom audio and video solution for this home in Miami...


*Image Source - Wikipedia

Maybe I was a little harsh using the word crap. Perhaps I'm spoiled from other installs and ours. I could not sell the aesthetics to my clients and I'll leave it at that.

Och Peter, and you gather the full "half-wisdom" on accoustics on this planet in your little brain

Let's call it an even, OK ?

Once you have understood what I ment, how I ment it, feel free to ask for details and we discuss on/off-axis behavior of speakers, active vs. passive x-overs, room accoustics as such. Otherwise stop to insult me right here.

If you will not use any room eq in that setup I will be more than surprised how you compensate the loss of sound due to the screen (although not huge), you being the strongest promotor of that TACT stuff. Otherwise I can only imagine you get colored sound from the Dynaudios and that is something you really do not want to give as a recommendation, do you ? And you still know what colored means ? Either somewhere too much or too little or both, on- as well as off-axis.

Well said Dizzman, in fact check out this gem I quoted from that Dynaudio url Peter posted above

FWIW JBL engineers design and build some of best drivers on the planet...period. If one seeks perfection I highly recommend the Everest.

CES 2007 Show Report /JBL Everest
http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2007//index4.html

I would say that's a bespoke solution... certainly nobody would claim it to be their off-the-shelf offering.

You put the K in kustom.

(windbag)

"http://www.dynaudioacoustics.com/Default.asp?Id=3070
The human hearing is so much more sensitive than any measurement instrument in the world…

Wilfried Ehrenholz"

That is patently false (cable difference hearing audiophiles are turning in their graves I know). There are measurement instruments thousands of times more sensitive than the human ear. It's not even close.

I think the room looks great, although I would of choose a different color for the chairs. If I remember correctly Peter stated it was chosen by the owner. So in that case it is the right color. I was helping a friend work on a multmillion dollar condo and the owners changed their minds so many times ripping up carpets and floors. That happens when you have too much money (if there is such a thing).

Good Job Peter!!

I think the room looks nice. I didn't care for the carpet color but it's still a really nice looking room. This thread is getting a little "personal", it's hard to tell if people are speaking tongue in cheek when it's a typed response.

Let's see some pictures of the Naples install for comparison purposes, Jim.

Behold what a home theater should "look" like...


Outdoor Marquee to theater for guests



Ceiling



Left Side/Front



Back


This is my point of reference so you know where I am coming from.

Wow Jim, that is a F-ing horrid movie watching environment. Tiny little screen, bright/reflective room, tons of hard surfaces, acoustics must be atrocious, interior designer gone crazy. Hardly a place I would even consider watching a movie, nice to look at with the lights on but after that I'd take a 50" plasma in a dark room.

To a point. Some of their studio monitors are more pleasing to listen to. Studio monitors, if you've ever spent a lot of time with them, aren't always the most enjoyable to listen to. And the yamaha's that are widely used are downright mediocre, but they are a good thing to mix on because they help lead to a portable mix. The world's greatest speakers don't really force the mixing engineer to work much, since it'll sound good and natural no matter what pretty much. The custom install stuff for home theater that Genelec makes is rightly designed for extremely high output, and to do that very cleanly. However, if you're not just going for huge SPL for a long time and incredibly resiliant to abuse, you can go after many other sound quality attributes that may concern a music listener. Again, there are some incredible sounding commercial cinema speakers out there, but the design goals for a speaker like that don't necessarily make them the BEST for enjoyment of music. They can do quite well with music, but how many people have left a movie theater (I mean a high-performance commercial cinema, the ArcLight, or THX certified Cinerama etc, not just some crap multiplex POS) and thought "wow, that was a great musical experience." Hardly happens.


Well, again, in my opinion, they are to a certain degree. There are some basic things that we want in terms of accuracy, but accuracy comes at different kinds of SPL. To get clean flat response with little distortion at the astronomical SPL that the Genelec stuff is capable of, some other things naturally get left behind. And for THAT task and goal, that is the right choice to make. But who wants to listen to music at 110+ db all the time? Not me.

Now, it depends what the goal is. For music listening, I take a few more liberties with speakers, and bias myself towards enjoyment. For instance, Dynaudio uses first order crossovers and maintains phase coherence much better. These are things that sacrifice some other aspects, such as frequency response. However, they lead to, in my listening experience, some of the most incredible imaging I've ever heard. A speaker like Revel, makes a different choice, and attains a different sound, that in my opinion seems more accurate. Also a fantastic speaker, different design choice. If I were listening at a mixing booth, or wanted to analyze what exactly was in the recording from an analytical perspective, I'd go with the Revels. But at home, I want to listen to music, and I want to enjoy that music, and something like Dynaudios, while still very accurate, take a few different choices that put them more on the path (IMO) of musical enjoyment.

So that's, again my own opinion and preference. And this same post might very much encourage someone to go buy the Genelecs, if they DO indeed want analytical, clean and undistorted performance in a theater at ungodly SPL. But for music in a 2-channel system, the Genelecs just don't have any magic, they're not really too enjoyable, unless and until you're taking advantage of that ungodly SPL capability and blasting rock music through the roof. If that's the goal, get the Genelecs. That's not MY goal, so that's why they're not my preference. But some people want that, and that's a perfectly reasonable desire.

personally, i've just found a lot of studio monitors to be just plain mediocre, not so much that they are too accurate or too low in distortion.

Chris,

You are really doing a lot of editorializing here. "Genelecs are analytical, clean and undistorted performance in a theater at ungodly SPL". Come on! Any time someone wants to put down a speaker they call it "analytical". Yes, the larger Genelec's can play very loud. That happens to be an important quality for high-end theaters, but again you editorialize it as "ungodly loud", as if anyone who likes them does so because they are a metal head.

You like Dynaudio better or think they image better, fine. But what I see in your last two posts it a whole lot of editorializing, and some comments that seem to ignore the fact that there is a often a big difference between setting up a 2-channel system and a multi-channel system, so comparing a setup that was optimized for one versus a setup that was optimized for the other is misleading at best.

How much of that experience is derived from blind A/B tests ?

Sometimes I have the feeling, we are mixing now single event experiences, like from shows and from some finished HTs with each other, to come to a conclusion on speaker vs. speaker. That does not work.

Many factors incluence the experience. In the case of Peter, he influenced, although without eq, if that is what it will stay, the direct frequence responce on axis as well as via the black baffle and the screen also a little bit the frequence dispersion pattern per band. Then the room will also help alot to mkae up other factors. Now what is the sence in that and to use it as an example why a certain brand should be better than the other ? I'm clueless here.

Basically studio monitors try to achive certain simple things. The better ones focus on the most accurate reproduction of the input signal, either designed for near field (around 1 to 2 meters, so 3 to 6 feet) or mid field reproduction (above 2 meters). So far, this has nothing to do with eq or throwing them behind a screen. However, I agree there a more neutral studio monitors than others. Some have more pronounced highs than others and some image so good and stable, high end speakers can only dream about. The best are free of colorations, we see so often in high end speakers. That why we call such high end speakers "sounded".

See, there is nothing wrong with favoring the one or the other approach. But stay at the facts, and if you have not heard speakers side by side, be cautious. It can happen that you are shocked, that your so fine high end sound, totally unstable in the room, transfers into a total stable phantom source reproduction with an uncolored bias that will get you hooked. Whether that is all possible with a certain Genelec model needs to be discussed, as we have now gotten into a format war, than to focus on what the author of the thread has asked for.

Sometimes ? I'd guess it accounts for 99% of the opinions we form. Even many people who understand how crucial the room is seem to think they possess a magical ability to separate the two, I possess no such delusion. Not to mention it is the setup that is crucial and it's often difficult if not impossible to evaluate speakers meaningfully in many industry shows or showrooms.

That is not to say we cannot draw anything from those events, but it is difficult to draw much. To this day some of the most spectacular systems I have heard were from speakers I consider mediocre based on shootouts I have done with them in a known environment, but the room they were in allowed them to "sing". That's not counting all the other factors that might influence how a speaker sounds at a given moment. I've found for instance that if I am walking an electronics show where there are many scantily clad hotties, that the speakers all tend to sound better .

Back to the subject, Genelec for instance recommends to flush ("soffit mount") their speakers if possible. But you'll rarely have the opportunity to hear them that way at a show or showroom because they are not permanent installations.

BTW Peter, I have little hope of success with this request, but is it really necessary to post pictures of the same installs in every thread here, so that we have to scroll through the same pics over and over? If you cannot resist, how about posting them in the dedicated thread on the system you are doing and just posting a link here. Trust me, this is Not personal, I think the system you are doing is great and the criticisms of the aesthetic design are silly, insofar as we all have our own tastes and design is personal for each client and what works for one is not going to work for another. I just don't want to look at the same pics over and over, not even of my own work !