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Passive speakers, separate boxes...help me understand the appeal

Blumlein 88

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The review is fascinating.... these speakers reproduce a square wave and impulse better than anything I have seen. The fact that is was done all passively is amazing. This all leads back to the question of are first order crossovers "better"? Clearly they measure better than any other crossover configuration if square wave's and impulse response in one spot is what you are measuring. If you are measuring off access or any number of other things including complexity and expense they are poor. Ideally a SOTA speaker would be able to reproduce a square wave/ impulse response/ not ring and have good off access response and frequency response and be practical to build and sell and would work in any room... obviously we are not there yet.

Well the Quad's do squarewaves, have a better, though not necessarily great off axis response and the exact position to get a fair squarewave is not so critical. Notice in the article they talk about how you move vertically just a few inches and the response changes. Notice the very up and down vertical plot. This is an issue with 1st order crossovers. Vandersteens do the squarewave thing and also have the off axis problems.

I'm hardly one to complain as I like panel speakers which have their own issues.

One could build an active time and phase coherent 4th order system that would have reduced lobing off axis, but in truth it seems doing so isn't necessary for good sound.
 

Blumlein 88

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RayDunzl

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The review is fascinating.... these speakers reproduce a square wave and impulse better than anything I have seen.

It would be interesting to me to see the square across a range of frequencies.

Here, I can make a pretty nice square, or not, depending.

An in-room recording at the listening position of a swept square, lower to higher frequency, and a spot where it "looks good" in the middle. Not sure if it is the room, or the speaker, or both, causing this condition.

1549396820924.png
 

Ron Texas

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RayDunzl

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Those are high on the list of likely suspects. I might even be able to find a pair of used ones from the older series.

I use a pair of JBL LSR 308 (old version) as my Daily Drivers - TV, Radio, whatever.

18 x14 x 9 room, 10 feet from speakers to couch.

They're quite adequate at moderate levels, and produce 30Hz well enough.

DSP is applied. They seem a touch boomy in the 100Hz area (to me here) without some modification.

48Hz problem is a room null at the listening position.

Pink noise with DSP applied:

1549398322113.png


Pink noise with no DSP:

1549398380437.png
 

Blumlein 88

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I use a pair of JBL LSR 308 (old version) as my Daily Drivers - TV, Radio, whatever.

18 x14 x 9 room, 10 feet from speakers to couch.

They're quite adequate at moderate levels, and produce 30Hz well enough.

DSP is applied. They seem a touch boomy in the 100Hz area (to me here) without some modification.

48Hz problem is a room null at the listening position.

Pink noise with DSP applied:

View attachment 21392

Pink noise with no DSP:

View attachment 21393
Ray, you could at least apply 1/12th smoothing. Very few commercial speaker brands show response that isn't at least 1/12th smoothing. Plus I think 1/6th comes closer to what we actually hear (is more like 1/3 at lower frequencies). So 1/12th isn't cheating too much imo.
 

Blumlein 88

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Ron Texas

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Those might be worth trying out too. The guys at that company left Harman after the downsizing following the Samsung purchase.

For whatever reason, there are many LSR 308's available used, but fewer LSR 305's.
Can't run out today and buy one.
 

ramed

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... Here's my main listening setup today - it's Sunday, I tinkered :)
...
- the speakers sound very different.
...
- I like one of the pairs best for a certain type of music/recordings, I like the other pair best for other types.

No surprise they sound different (considering the Berillium tweeters in Scalas and massively different cabinet designs). May I ask you to describe the differences (comparative advantages, deficiencies)? I am quite curious to learn what types of music, or even specific pieces of it, in your opinion, sound best on Giyas (G3, right?) and which ones are better suited for Scalas (I'm not sure which generation and variant they are). And what is your experience with adjustable treble and bass on Scalas?
 

JJB70

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If you take into account the small active speaker systems bought at a typical electronic store, I wouldn't be surprised that active speakers sell in larger quantity than passive speakers.

Judging from what I see the market is dominated by blue tooth active speakers and AV sound bars, both of which are active and digital types. How many homes have a traditional hifi system nowadays? I visit very few homes with a hifi system and the market seems to have decisively shifted to BT speakers and sound bars, or to headphones.
 

Blumlein 88

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For whatever reason, there are many LSR 308's available used, but fewer LSR 305's.
Can't run out today and buy one.
I've not looked at the used market. I did think the 305 was better than the 308. The 308 seemed a little uncontrolled on the low end and drew attention to itself. And how does the 306 fare?

I don't know, probably some EQ would fix it. Certainly the extra power handling might be a plus if you pair it with a subwoofer. I've read a few reports of people preferring it when paired to a sub vs the 305 when used in larger rooms. Seems a 80 hz cut-off fixes any ills while letting the woofer/mid not be overtaxed for everything else.

Plus this was the old version. Maybe the Mark 2 is better.
 

stunta

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Those are high on the list of likely suspects. I might even be able to find a pair of used ones from the older series.

Kali 8" on sale: https://www.guitarcenter.com/Kali-Audio/LP-8-Lone-Pine-8-inch-Studio-Monitor-Each-1500000256712.gc

Amazon has them at the same price ($200 each) with free prime shipping. So tempting...

EDIT:
From Kali's website:
Both models use 40W for the 1” soft dome tweeter. The LP-6 uses 40W for the 6.5-Inch woofer, and the LP-8 uses 60W for the 8-Inch woofer.

Only 60W for a 8" woofer? I suppose its designed for near-field listening.
 
OP
svart-hvitt

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Genelec coaxs are too rich for my blood (I think very reasonable pricing for the amount of genuine innovation on offer though). The huge waveguide affords exceptional directivity control for its size, which is probably why it gave that effect in midfield, barring SPL limitations. Though I do wonder why the need for slotloading, and not using side-mounted woofers and leaving the waveguide baffle continuous with the rest of the enclosure. Someone once claimed to me on DIYAudio that the slot-loading lowered the directivity control frequency compared to using direct radiating woofers (basically in a way similar to the DD 8Cs passive cardiod), though I can't figure out why for the life of me. Not even Genelec's own excellent white paper mentions the role of the woofers in directivity control - they only mention the huge waveguide. FWIW there is some compression and intermodulation in the lower midrange that appears to be the result of the slot-loading, lowering measured max SPL to a surprisingly low level given the amount of woofer surface area. The max SPL in the bass is also low as well. The paradox of this speaker is in how exceptional directivity control has the greatest effect at relatively large listening distances where the direct sound doesn't dominate as much, but the max SPL might not be high enough for listening at that distance.

FWIW, I'm looking at active coaxials for my next setup, but budget options are thin. It is frustrating that the best direct-radiating coax drivers outside of the Genelec are all passive - TAD, KEF (except LS50W which doesn't suit my needs), ELAC and Technics. There's this sealed box coaxial that I'm slightly curious about, because of how they've managed to cram in FIR DSP, active crossovers, manufacturing in Germany and using a custom SEAS Prestige coax for LS50 passive money (also I want to try something without a port for a change). But their own curve:

C5-Ref-FRQ.png


looks nothing like what an independent lab measured unsmoothed in the review, even discounting the scale differences:

View attachment 21385

I don't think the factory graph looks excessively-smoothed either. So I shot them an e-mail with both graphs traced in VituixCAD, overlaid and smoothed 1/12-octave hoping to clarify. If it turns out there was a revision after the review that reduced some of the waviness in the FR and it is indeed +/- 1dB except in the bass (easy to EQ for anyway) as their own graph suggests, I might jump on it as the polars look nice enough.

You have pointed to some of the measurements where the Genelecs The Ones don’t excel.

Having said that, I think what the Z review tells you, is that these speakers do a lot of things right in a way that other speakers don’t. And they play louder than what is advisable.

That’s why one should audition them. The good thing about The Ones is I think you can audition them wherever you are and you can expect a very similar sound at home.
 

Ron Texas

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You have pointed to some of the measurements where the Genelecs The Ones don’t excel.

Having said that, I think what the Z review tells you, is that these speakers do a lot of things right in a way that other speakers don’t. And they play louder than what is advisable.

That’s why one should audition them. The good thing about The Ones is I think you can audition them wherever you are and you can expect a very similar sound at home.

The nearest dealer is in Dallas, that is a 5 hour car trip each way and an overnight stay. As for measurements where the Genelecs do not excel, that poster consistently makes a mountain out of every molehill he finds. I find Zeos, who can be a bit goofy at times, to be more believable.
 

Erik

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The nearest dealer is in Dallas, that is a 5 hour car trip each way and an overnight stay. As for measurements where the Genelecs do not excel, that poster consistently makes a mountain out of every molehill he finds. I find Zeos, who can be a bit goofy at times, to be more believable.
That 2 kHz peak on LS50 horizontal directivity plot does look like a mountain though.

KEF%20LS50%20H%20Contour%20Plot[1].png
 

LightninBoy

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And how does the 306 fare?

I don't know, probably some EQ would fix it. Certainly the extra power handling might be a plus if you pair it with a subwoofer. I've read a few reports of people preferring it when paired to a sub vs the 305 when used in larger rooms. Seems a 80 hz cut-off fixes any ills while letting the woofer/mid not be overtaxed for everything else.

Plus this was the old version. Maybe the Mark 2 is better.

Did you mean the 305 was the old version? Because the 306 is only available in the MKII line.
 

andreasmaaan

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omeone once claimed to me on DIYAudio that the slot-loading lowered the directivity control frequency compared to using direct radiating woofers (basically in a way similar to the DD 8Cs passive cardiod), though I can't figure out why for the life of me. Not even Genelec's own excellent white paper mentions the role of the woofers in directivity control - they only mention the huge waveguide.

Slot-loading in the way Genelec does it extends directivity control lower down in frequency by effectively shifting the acoustic centres of the woofers to the locations of the slots, thereby increase the effective centre-to-centre distance between the woofers. This means that when the listener moves off-axis, cancellation due to the difference in relative distances between the woofers begins to occur at a lower frequency. This is only effective, however, on the axis of the slots (the vertical in most typical setups, although one could just as easily lay the speakers on their sides to make the effect work in the horizontal plane). Unlike the cardioid response of a speaker like the 8C, the cancellation created by the slots is only effective in the 180° plane in front of the speaker, i.e. there is no significant cancellation resulting from this arrangement to the rear of the speaker.

EDIT: here's a good illustration of the effect. See how the directivity control extends lower (though not particularly smoothly) in the vertical polars of the 8331. That's due mostly to off-axis cancellation resulting from the C2C spacing of the woofer slots:

1549416213911.png
 
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Blumlein 88

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Did you mean the 305 was the old version? Because the 306 is only available in the MKII line.
Yes, I've heard the old 305 (own three actually) and the old 308. Would the 306 mkII be better than the old 305 without issues of the old 308? I don't know. Is the mkII 308 now fixed? I don't know that either.
 

LightninBoy

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Yes, I've heard the old 305 (own three actually) and the old 308. Would the 306 mkII be better than the old 305 without issues of the old 308? I don't know. Is the mkII 308 now fixed? I don't know that either.

I've got some 306mkii ordered. Won't be able to compare them with 305/308s unfortunately.
 

Ron Texas

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@Erik , your last post was a troll, pure and simple, knock it off.
 
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