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Added a Genelec 7040A sub to my 8030C monitors

Draculr

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I've been rocking my Genelec 8030C monitors for a few months now thanks in large part to the ASR review and measurements and I've been very, very happy with them. I always calibrate my setup using a UMIK-1 and REW and they just sound perfect. The effect they have of bringing the singer forwards right into your face is downright magical.

I wanted to experiment with adding a subwoofer to my setup. I never have had a good experience in doing so since my room isn't properly treated for it. But with my success in using REW I thought I'd give it another shot. My 7040A sub arrived from Thomann today and here are my before and after results (left channel shown, right channel is a similar story)

Before:
7040a before.jpg


After:
7040a after.jpg


Wonderful! For an untreated room to have basically 24hz-20,000hz covered and be relatively flat is crazy if you ask me. Even though the 7040A is the smallest Genelec sub and usually recommended for the 8010 and 8020 speakers I think it does a fine job as long as the SPL is enough (which it is for me). Not only does it fill out the bottom end nicely it even somehow got rid of the big null I've always had at the 90hz region. A little more tweaking may be done in the future since there is still a bit of a dip around the 200hz range but for now I'm happy.

Suffice it to say everything I play on this system sounds incredible!
 
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alekksander

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how did You set Your speakers dBu sensitivity + back dips? what software do You use for equalization? (if any). i'm having umik-1 plus same 2.1 setup for some time, but never had enough time to do the corrections. will play with it today. what i plan to do is to rew measure 8030C separately, then connect them to the sub and to more lf corrections. my room is basically untreated except two background diy panels – only 5cm thich – nothing very effective. suggestions are welcome :)
 

Sprint

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It's about 3.5 x 3.7 meters. There's also a bed behind me which acts as a good sound absorber :)
What is your listening distance?
 

jSchultz

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Good results! I had a null solved by adding the 7040A as well - im very happy with it.
 

YSC

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I just overlayed mine with yours, same speaker, but a much smaller room, like 2m*3.7m (speaker on long side). only dip switches used with 1/6 octave smoothing, I would say genelec does very good job in sounding great with the small footprint and even without EQ and REW it's very good

7040 overlay.jpg
 
OP
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Draculr

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I've actually gone back to using them without any EQ at the moment. All the switches are set to default. I find there's just a tiny bit more heft to the low end without any EQ without anything standing out as being not right.

Before I added the sub I couldn't run them without EQ due to there being too much reverb, but now that's been eliminated. All I can guess is that it was due to the speakers and desk playing up certain low frequencies (even with my desk mount which raises the speakers up a fair amount). Now that those frequencies have been moved to the sub which isn't linked to the desk at all it's cleaned that up.
 
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Draculr

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Tom C

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Superbly flat. The main thing is to have control over the process, which you have achieved admirably. Then you can make it however you like it, like For myself, I think I would like more bass boost. Maybe less treble. But such choices are a matter of personal preference, and, frankly, I never have been one to blend into the crowd.
 
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Draculr

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Superbly flat. The main thing is to have control over the process, which you have achieved admirably. Then you can make it however you like it, like For myself, I think I would like more bass boost. Maybe less treble. But such choices are a matter of personal preference, and, frankly, I never have been one to blend into the crowd.
That's true. I end up going back and forth between EQ on and off and turning a low shelf boost on and off. It's nice to always be able to go back to flat just to keep your ears calibrated :)
 

YSC

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I've actually gone back to using them without any EQ at the moment. All the switches are set to default. I find there's just a tiny bit more heft to the low end without any EQ without anything standing out as being not right.

Before I added the sub I couldn't run them without EQ due to there being too much reverb, but now that's been eliminated. All I can guess is that it was due to the speakers and desk playing up certain low frequencies (even with my desk mount which raises the speakers up a fair amount). Now that those frequencies have been moved to the sub which isn't linked to the desk at all it's cleaned that up.
can you post without EQ settings?

I have been engaging the dip switches though
8030C: desktop mode, bass roll off and bass tilt -4db
7040A: +2db sensitivity compared to 8030C, and -2db bass roll off

all these to counter the 5cm range of both speaker and sub to the front wall
 
OP
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Draculr

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This is my measurement of the left channel with no EQ, right is very similar.

The biggest thing I did which improved my measurements was those speaker stands I linked above. My speakers are raised 27cm from the desk so that the point between the tweeter and woofer is level with my ear. I used to battle a lot with bad results trying off desk stands or things like foam pads or iso acoustic stands. These stands fixed so many issues for me.

7040a 1.jpg
 

Karu

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With the 27cm stands, do you still use the table bounce dip switch on the 8030c’s?
 
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Draculr

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I have all the switches off with the speakers on those stands however without a sub handling the low frequencies the system had a fair bit of reverb. 90% of that is gone and I'm currently just running a simple hand made EQ based on my measurements to pull down a couple of frequencies (I have to pull down things around 50hz and 140hz).

I was tempted to give the table switch a go since i believe it pulls things down around 140hz but this is working for now so I haven't messed with it since!
 

YSC

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I have all the switches off with the speakers on those stands however without a sub handling the low frequencies the system had a fair bit of reverb. 90% of that is gone and I'm currently just running a simple hand made EQ based on my measurements to pull down a couple of frequencies (I have to pull down things around 50hz and 140hz).

I was tempted to give the table switch a go since i believe it pulls things down around 140hz but this is working for now so I haven't messed with it since!
I personally is using the genelec switches with the sensitivity control on the sub to get my preferred response, but when you have a EQ and do them with measurement I don't see why you would want to have the switches engaged for some general presets,
 

timiark

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Hi, if possible, can you sure your THD results? I am also interested in pairing them with my G3 (basically identical to 8030C). But I am not sure if Genelec gets the distortion suppression done correctly with a rather small driver.
 

YSC

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Hi, if possible, can you sure your THD results? I am also interested in pairing them with my G3 (basically identical to 8030C). But I am not sure if Genelec gets the distortion suppression done correctly with a rather small driver.
Have to wait until I got home, but I do boost a deep bill by like 8db and that cause it to rise to 5% locally at 47hz (my personal choice, since I don’t notice distortion that low and having it is better than none)
 

timiark

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Have to wait until I got home, but I do boost a deep bill by like 8db and that cause it to rise to 5% locally at 47hz (my personal choice, since I don’t notice distortion that low and having it is better than none)
Understand, I know that both 8030C and G3 rolls off at 47Hz that it makes sense you want to boost it.

I just want to make sure 7040A doesn't have this sorts of 'flappiness' and 'rumble' that many subwoofers with small drivers have.
 

YSC

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Understand, I know that both 8030C and G3 rolls off at 47Hz that it makes sense you want to boost it.

I just want to make sure 7040A doesn't have this sorts of 'flappiness' and 'rumble' that many subwoofers with small drivers have.
For rumble you really need to see your volume, at high volume it will rumble a bit, especially if your floor isn’t entirely flat
 
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