Audiophiliac Steve Guttenberg reviews the Genelec G Three...

[Chaconne]

...and he likes them. He really likes them!

Audiophiliac review of Genelec G Three

 

[ctbarker32]

Lightning does indeed strike twice. First it was the Mola Mola dac. Now, it's the Genelec.

I believe that Amir has secretly taken up residence in Mr. Guttenberg's Amygdala, with or without his knowledege, and is now firmly in control.

 

[audio2design]

...and he likes them. He really likes them!

Audiophiliac review of Genelec G Three

Watching him makes my brain hurt.

 

[Zensō]

Steve is a cheerful fellow, in fact perhaps too cheerful; he seems to like almost anything and everything. You really want a more skeptical curmudgeon as an audio reviewer.

 

[audio2design]

Steve is a cheerful fellow, in fact perhaps too cheerful; he seems to like almost anything and everything. You really want a more skeptical curmudgeon as an audio reviewer.

Just what are you saying about @amirm ?

 

[JRS]

I'm confused: they talk as if there is an all analog input path to driver, and is therefore acceptable as it isn't digital. OM seems a bit ambiguous.

 

[jkasch]

Dat shirt.

 

[preload]

As an audio reviewer, it's important to like everything.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

As an audio reviewer, it's important to like everything.

Bah, humbug.

 

[Killingbeans]

I'm confused: they talk as if there is an all analog input path to driver, and is therefore acceptable as it isn't digital. OM seems a bit ambiguous.

I think the 80X0 and G series are in fact only equipped with analogue active crossovers and a pair of Class-D amps.

But still, the idea he has about it making them audibly superior is ridiculous.

 

[JRS]

I think the 80X0 and G series are in fact only equipped with analogue active crossovers and a pair of Class-D amps.

But still, the idea he has about it making them audibly superior is ridiculous.

Interesting, so line level output; no problem with that but wow, the stock unit is then without any dsp. That's extraordinary given how flat they are.
So my last question is it has DSP--surely there is somewhere in the path that is contaminated. Doth one forsake the analog wholesomeness at the alter of the digital devil? Seems a shame to throw out all that sophisticated tuning.

I really don't know as I am unfamiliar with the Genelec products but like everyone else on the planet has taken notice of this speaker. This whole analog curtsy biz has me doubly intrigued.

 

[Hilltop]

Dat shirt.

His wife makes all his clothes. Kinda cool.

 

[snaimpally]

I really don't know as I am unfamiliar with the Genelec products but like everyone else on the planet has taken notice of this speaker. This whole analog curtsy biz has me doubly intrigued.

Understandable. Genelec are well known in the field of professional audio - many recording studios use them. However, not well known outside professional audio.

 

[fragzone]

Probably the wrong thread to ask but I have been curious about DSP for a while. I know that at its core it is basically just automatic and active EQ, but what is it based on?

I imagine it's attenuation of the frequencies to compensate for a speakers weaknesses. Like say you want to play a sound at 6khz, but the speaker has a spike at 6k which the creators know about, so they apply an x dB reduction to compensate for that anytime a 6khz 'signal' is delivered through the DAC. Is that the jist of it?

 

[JRS]

Probably the wrong thread to ask but I have been curious about DSP for a while. I know that at its core it is basically just automatic and active EQ, but what is it based on?

I imagine it's attenuation of the frequencies to compensate for a speakers weaknesses. Like say you want to play a sound at 6khz, but the speaker has a spike at 6k which the creators know about, so they apply an x dB reduction to compensate for that anytime a 6khz 'signal' is delivered through the DAC. Is that the jist of it?

I can share a bit of my experience--for the period between 1988 and 2000 I'd trade in speakers every two to three years. All good speakers but none offering the long term satisfaction I wanted. My audio dealer would likely tell you it was because I was a cheap skate and never spent the requisite big bucks on a really good preamp, amp and cables. My TT rig was up to snuff--like it's a transducer, so duh. But I was a watt is a watt kind of guy for the most part and had ebough engineering sensibility to dismiss the cable nonsense.

In retrospect I would say that all were good speakers but I was unable to wrest the magic from their musical souls--maybe in a case or two it was the lack of a amp with honest to God grunt into some hellacious 2.5 ohm impedance minima. But not all the speakers were like that, and even when I did the dealer demo on some Krell if you have to ask you cannot afford it, I wasn't convinced it was that much better. Quite possibly it was NO better, but I was under the spell, and bought into some of the BS.

No it was because like many audiophiles I bought speakers that were superb in some respects, but almost always flawed in the way they would interact with the living space, and all of which had FR anomalies that were enchanting for a time (or at least could be overlooked in light of other strengths) but in the long term proved to be as annoying as in I can no longer live with these speakers, I need something different!

What happened around 2000 I bought a DEQX. I had listened to some Meridian speakers in GA and was convinced that the idea of getting rid of analog XO's and optimizing drive linearity--that checked all of my engineering boxes. So that was in 1995, but I remembered it and when I read of a product capable of doing that for any speaker, I grabbed one.

That I could use the same to tame room response was great when it came to bass, but really where it was at was simply getting a relatively "flat" frequency response, and making sure that each driver had enough power, and wow, a lot of other sins could be forgiven.

So long story short, have not bought a commercial speaker since, hell I haven't even looked at another speaker. Reminds me of what Paul Newman said when asked during an interview whether he was tempted to stray outside his marriage to Natalie Wood, Joanne Woodward and said now "why would I grab a hamburger out when I have steak at home."

So no you can't kill a spike at 6k. But what is more likely is that this is a nasty resonance from a SEAS Magnesium midwoofer, and you need to get close to say 3.5k before crossing over. Good luck--you may pull it off, but more likely not quite. And you ditch the project and never again, no more metal drivers.

DSP--no sweat. I'm going to XO not at 3500 but at 3750 and to do it, I'm gonna use 48db/octave slopes. (Or 96 dB/octave if 48 still isn't enough). Now I can take advantage of all the midwoofers advantages, and dispense with the disadvantages. That twang is now 37 dB down, and getting nearly no excitation.

Efficiency mismatch is another bugaboo easily dealt with. So the gist is this--if you're building a speaker from scratch, you have considerably greater selection of drivers, and to linearize the FR while handling XO's becomes a relatively trivial task. It's easy to get it to sound good to very good, much more work to get it so sound great; that requires modeling and I find prototyping the baffle time well spent. Bear in mind that you will need or more (often six channels of amplification-- for the biamping of mains and two for 2 subwoofers. But you will also realize that by getting rid of the passive XO's make most speakers pretty easy loads to drive, and it really does become a watt is pretty much a watt, given reasonable specs. So that Siren's song is gone. I need to reamp as I bought most on Ebay 2001, and I am losing channels 1 by 1. So many great multichannel Class D amps, it'll likely be the last I need to buy. Lots of benefits--bigger outlay initially, but getting off the merry go round has been so worth it.

 

[Doodski]

I can share a bit of my experience--for the period between 1988 and 2000 I'd trade in speakers every two to three years. All good speakers but none offering the long term satisfaction I wanted. My audio dealer would likely tell you it was because I was a cheap skate and never spent the requisite big bucks on a really good preamp, amp and cables. My TT rig was up to snuff--like it's a transducer, so duh. But I was a watt is a watt kind of guy for the most part and had ebough engineering sensibility to dismiss the cable nonsense.

In retrospect I would say that all were good speakers but I was unable to wrest the magic from their musical souls--maybe in a case or two it was the lack of a amp with honest to God grunt into some hellacious 2.5 ohm impedance minima. But not all the speakers were like that, and even when I did the dealer demo on some Krell if you have to ask you cannot afford it, I wasn't convinced it was that much better. Quite possibly it was NO better, but I was under the spell, and bought into some of the BS.

No it was because like many audiophiles I bought speakers that were superb in some respects, but almost always flawed in the way they would interact with the living space, and all of which had FR anomalies that were enchanting for a time (or at least could be overlooked in light of other strengths) but in the long term proved to be as annoying as in I can no longer live with these speakers, I need something different!

What happened around 2000 I bought a DEQX. I had listened to some Meridian speakers in GA and was convinced that the idea of getting rid of analog XO's and optimizing drive linearity--that checked all of my engineering boxes. So that was in 1995, but I remembered it and when I read of a product capable of doing that for any speaker, I grabbed one.

That I could use the same to tame room response was great when it came to bass, but really where it was at was simply getting a relatively "flat" frequency response, and making sure that each driver had enough power, and wow, a lot of other sins could be forgiven.

So long story short, have not bought a commercial speaker since, hell I haven't even looked at another speaker. Reminds me of what Paul Newman said when asked during an interview whether he was tempted to stray outside his marriage to Natalie Wood, and said now why would I grab a hamburger out when I have steak at home.

So no you can't kill a spike at 6k. But what is more likely is that this is a nasty resonance from a SEAS Magnesium midwoofer, and you need to get close to say 3.5k before crossing over. Good luck--you may pull it off, but more likely not quite. And you ditch the project and never again, no more metal drivers.

DSP--no sweat. I'm going to XO not at 3500 but at 3750 and to do it, I'm gonna use 48db/octave slopes. (Or 96 dB/octave if 48 still isn't enough). Now I can take advantage of all the midwoofers advantages, and dispense with the disadvantages. That twang is now 37 dB down, and getting nearly no excitation.

Efficiency mismatch is another bugaboo easily dealt with. So the gist is this--if you're building a speaker from scratch, you have considerably greater selection of drivers, and to linearize the FR while handling XO's becomes a relatively trivial task. It's easy to get it to sound good to very good, much more work to get it so sound grea; that requires modeling and I find prototyping the baffle time well spent. Bear in mind that you will need or more (often six channels of amplification-- for the biamping of mains and two for 2 subwoofers. But you will also realize that by getting rid of the passive XO's make most speakers pretty easy loads to drive, and it really does become a watt is pretty much a watt, given reasonable specs. So that Siren's song is gone. I need to reamp as I bought most on Ebay 2001, and I am losing channels 1 by 1. So many great multichannel Class D amps, it'll likely be the last I need to buy. Lots of benefits--bigger outlay initially, but getting off the merry go round has been so worth it.

I agree. I ran a tri-amp'd system of my own creation. It was easy to dial in and sounded great. It really is the way to go for a end game system. I really like @dualazmak's system. Lots of fun can be had with that one.

 

[Chaconne]

>>"Reminds me of what Paul Newman said when asked during an interview whether he was tempted to stray outside his marriage to Natalie Wood, and said now why would I grab a hamburger out when I have steak at home."<<

Actually, the "steak" Paul Newman had at home was Joanne Woodward. Natalie Wood was the "steak" of Robert Wagner. (As creepy as it is to analogize women with cuts of meat.) But we know what you meant!

 

[VintageFlanker]

...and he likes them. He really likes them!

Is there anything he doesn't?

 

[Chaconne]

Is there anything he doesn't?

Just the Adam Audio T8V, as far as I can recall. He suggested getting an Elac something instead.

 

[thewas]

I ran a tri-amp'd system of my own creation. It was easy to dial in and sounded great. It really is the way to go for a end game system.

If you want an objectively (= measurement) end game system it is not easy at all to "dial in" by just taking some good drivers and playing with crossover frequencies like some do, as this is a full loudspeaker design in the end where you need alot of anechoic measurements and loudspeaker design understanding to get directivites and crossover points and slopes right.