Are Genelecs good as main speakers for a small club?

[ReedSound]

Hello everyone,

I am building a listening room / small club and I want to create stunning immersive listening experience for audiophiles, playing wide range of good quality music from jazz to club genres.
Dimensions of the room: 5m x 6.5m and 3.5m tall
My budget is $20k
I will invest in proper room treatment as well

So far I tried pair of Genelecs 8361A with Genelec 7370 sub, and they sound pretty great, the clarity of highs is really unprecedented,
but the lower mids region wasn't that impressive and basically I was maybe expecting a "bigger" sound for that money, but they are still being sold as near-field monitors, so that's why I'm wondering if they are even intended for my scenario and whether there isn't some better fitting solution out there.

I was also considering compact series of Funktion Ones F101.2, but I'm afraid of not getting as much detail in the highs as with Genelecs which I definitely don't want to let go.

I am thinking that maybe adding smaller Genelecs to rear and surround would make my "not big enough sound" feeling disappear quickly and I'll likely test that scenario.

But in general, my question is, are these Genelecs good fit for a small listening room / club or are there better alternatives to try out?

 

[test1223]

I would install some line array speakers since you don't have one single sweet spot and huge differences in the listening distance. With a line array the first and last row get almost the same spl. The stereo effect also works much better if you aren't in the sweet spot with a line array. You also get the bigger sound from bigger speakers.

 

[LTig]

Look at the Genelec S360 or the Neumann KH420, both with their corresponding subs, if you want very good SQ. But for a wider audience line arrays may be better suited. OTOH the room is not so large hence the mentioned speaker should do. Of course, if the S360 is not loud enough there are several other Genelecs with higher SPL capability but they might blow your budget.

 

[FrantzM]

Must it be Genelec? A pair of Revel Salon 2, could be the answer. Wider sweet spot, full range, loud, linear
Or the JBL M2 system , complete with amps and quite capable in everything that matters in hifi.

Peace.

 

[sarumbear]

Hello everyone,

I am building a listening room / small club and I want to create stunning immersive listening experience for audiophiles, playing wide range of good quality music from jazz to club genres.
Dimensions of the room: 5m x 6.5m and 3.5m tall
My budget is $20k
I will invest in proper room treatment as well

So far I tried pair of Genelecs 8361A with Genelec 7370 sub, and they sound pretty great, the clarity of highs is really unprecedented,
but the lower mids region wasn't that impressive and basically I was maybe expecting a "bigger" sound for that money, but they are still being sold as near-field monitors, so that's why I'm wondering if they are even intended for my scenario and whether there isn't some better fitting solution out there.

I was also considering compact series of Funktion Ones F101.2, but I'm afraid of not getting as much detail in the highs as with Genelecs which I definitely don't want to let go.

I am thinking that maybe adding smaller Genelecs to rear and surround would make my "not big enough sound" feeling disappear quickly and I'll likely test that scenario.

But in general, my question is, are these Genelecs good fit for a small listening room / club or are there better alternatives to try out?

Your room is very small for a club. Any big PA speaker will fail. As you need a sub there’s no point in using 8361. Use 8351 instead. The formers extra bass facility is better served by a sub. However single drive bass is not enough for night club levels. You need the multi-driver sub, possibly the 7382 or multiple 7380.

Genelecs are dependable, which you want in high SPL systems.

 

[tmuikku]

Hi,

Eww, mixed feedback.. you just have to try and find out.

Some point source PA speakers will do fine as long as its height is less than listening distance, and tweeter somewhere at ear height, I mean most plastic pa speakers would be fine for sound although ugly by visuals and perhaps not suitable in that sense for a hifi house.

I can't see wide radiating speakers like salon 2 best for listening positions along the whole room, the sweetspot is "big" only for the quality of frequency response but you can't do time/intensity trading with them which means stereo phantom center collapses to the closest speaker, which might be fine but not optimal in my opinion. It is true that you'd want very good off-axis response like the salon 2 or any other modern speaker built for smooth directivity but to have more stable stereo image for bigger audience you need rather narrow coverage speakers, something like ~90deg nominal to below 1kHz, and proper toe-in for the time intensity trading. This would keep some stereo image quality for multiple listening positions. You also need to manage bass for the whole room, somehow smoothen out room modes, and take care about positioning of the speakers, the tops and the subs to avoid losing the kick bass with the closest boundary interference.

Usually hifi people setting a system in a home for such small room the reasonable target for hifi sound quality is for one seat, perhaps for a sofa, but the whole room is quite ambitious and a lot of work, lot of details go into how to manage. For example, the directivity is important for many reasons, time intensity trading was mentioned but it also has to work with the room acoustics which both define direct / reflected sound ratio at any distance from the speakers. This means the good sharp sound image extends only so far from the speakers, the lower the DI the closer so you'd need quite high DI system and room acoustics treatment. Again to cater the backseats with good sound you'd probably need higher DI variety speakers. And acoustic treatment.

Well, my advice is not perhaps any better than others, I'm trying to provide additional information you can use to zone in for suitable loudspeaker system.

I encourage you to rent / borrow / buy modern PA fullrange point source speakers like JBL SRX or similar, even if they are visually what you are looking for you'd still get to hear what effect the coverage angle with toe-in can do, what the SPL capability can be or is enough etc. Then just try and find speakers with similar properties with nicer looks. Experiment with multisub setup or double bass array to get even bass for most seats.

My opinion to whole hifi scene is that the looks and some particular sound qualities are more important than the absolute sound quality for majority. Many people just can't hear a difference between nice and very good, even poor sound quality sounds fine to many unless there is something better to compare side by side, hearing system adapts. I think it would be enough to impress your customers if the sound is nice without big issues.

I would concentrate on: even coverage through out the room, bass management, enough SPL capability for nice loud listening level without listening fatigue, impressive stereo image for as many people as possible. With these you will impress most of your customers. The sound would be so much different from anything people have at their homes with the sound bars, bookshelf speakers and bluetooth speakers they've used to. Conversely, think about sitting on a table where there is fancy stereo sound impression and a room mode null so that the bass is gone, now the sound is not very impressive, like in most peoples home.

Hope it helps

 

[raindance]

Properly setup, I've heard these sound pretty good:

ICLive X Series - Renkus-Heinz

ICLive X Ultimate Flexibility for Live Sound The culmination of

www.renkus-heinz.com

Probably more elaborate than you're wanting.

Looking at the Japanese hifi bars, they seem to go with vintage horns a lot. So it might be worth considering some of the JBL range that make good use of horns and are designed for smaller venues. Hell, even a pair of the Studio 590 hifi speakers might work ok and give you the fullness you are after.

 

[ReedSound]

How about some Funktion One PAs?

Anyone has any experience with them in smaller space?

 

[test1223]

How about some Funktion One PAs?

Anyone has any experience with them in smaller space?

The main problem with smaller places is the huge relative distance differences between the stereo speakers. This can only be solved with line arrays or multiple speakers and a good integration of all the speakers. Even cheap line arrays or multiple speakers will sound much better for the majority of the room compared to a good pair of stereo speaker. With any standard speaker you will have a much smaller sweet spot listening area. Only if a small sweet spot area (about 1/3 of the room) is acceptable I would invest any thoughts on a pair of stereo standard speakers.

 

[dasdoing]

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[mcdn]

The brand of speaker is almost irrelevant here. You need to choose between a “listening room” where speakers and people are in predictable positions, or “small club” where they are not. For the club option you should probably have 4 speakers running in mono.

Either way you should have DSP, subs, and reasonably low distortion speakers. The room is very small so output really won’t be an issue.