Genelec: 1 x 7370A or 2 x Genelec 7360A?

[scottrichardson]

Hi all,

New member here. Saw other discussions about Genelec products so thought people here may be able to provide some opinions and suggestions.

My studio/office has just been renovated and all the walls have been treated with some nice acoustic wall panels.

I currently have Genelec 8351B main monitors. Which are incredible. I sit at the front wall in the middle of the room, and the bass response is nice, though lacking. If I wheel my chair back to about 70% of the way to the back wall, the bass is tremendous, and I am sure if my desk was there, and I ran the GLM DSP, I would get phenomenal results. Sadly this is not an option.

So my question to you is - should I:

1. Just re-run GLM and manually drive the low-end up higher in EQ to compensate, eating into the headroom on the main monitors
2. Buy a single 8370A 12" sub and place it either on the back wall, or under my desk slightly left of centre, or:
3. Buy a pair of 8360A 10" subs and place one in each of the aforementioned positions?

I am making a fairly safe bet that a sub at the back of the room will produce fairly buffed bass response at my seating position since I'm at the opposing wall, and in almost all of my life experience of listening to rooms and bass, being against an opposing wall to a sub yields decent bass due to the accumulation of room modes and peaks. Obviously it would require GLM/DSP to clean it up but it would give me that nice "pressurised omnidirectional" tonality I am hoping for.

The room is quite damped. Walls, roof and floor are treated, except for a large corner section which is a window area which provides just a little liveness which is ideal.

I produce electronic music, mostly progressive trance, trance, techno, tech etc. Not that it really matters since good sound is good sound.

I wonder if the 10" model(s) would provide accurate extension down to slightly below the main monitors? Or do I really need the 12"? I suppose I could start with a single 10" at the rear and test it.

I will take a room measurement with GLM shortly and post the graph from my main monitors at the MLP.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Scott

 

[NTK]

Welcome to ASR!

Two subs will give you more flexibility in working to tame your room modes. However, to maximize the benefits, you can probably use some help from software such as MSO to perform the heavy duty numerical optimizations. Two 10 inch subs will also likely give you more volume displacement (i.e. area × stroke) capacity than one 12 inch sub, which mean higher raw output capacity even when without the MSO optimization.

 

[scottrichardson]

Thanks for the welcome @NTK . This was my best assumption also.

My next question is about connectivity. If I place the sub at the back of the room, am I going to have to run 2 XLRs to the sub, then 2 back again to the main monitors? That will result in tons of cabling. Is there a way I can daisy chain from the main speakers to the sub instead? Or even upgrade my audio interface to have more outputs and just run the sub in parallel as an additional pair of outputs and let GLM group it? Clearly outside my expertise here.

EDIT - looks like Genelec allows DBM (distributed bass management). From their bass management PDF:
"The distributed bass management architecture allows the audio signal cabling to go: b) In parallel via a split cable to feed both the subwoofer and each appropriate monitor."

I assume that since my Apogee Duet 3 only has a pair of outputs, I'd need to somehow split the signal to run to my sub, or to my FIRST sub? If I get two subs, I assume I can then run another cable from Sub 1 (potentially under my desk) to the back of the room to sub 2?

 

[scottrichardson]

I have ordered one of the 7360A subs. Will trial the room with one sub, in either location. And if it solves my remaining bass issues, I'll stick to one. If not I'll add a 2nd.

 

[NTK]

I think it is a sensible choice. For a single listener 1 sub is often good enough since you may not need to have good bass response for a large listening area.

And yes, Genelec lists using y-cables as one of the methods to connect to the sub(s) and mains. And subs can be daisy-chained (see using the section in the manual on multiple subwoofers).

 

[EERecordist]

Good project. Have you tried moving your GLM microphone/a calibrated microphone with RoomEQ Wizard software in a cubic grid around your listening position? For producing the music you mention, sometimes people use the DBX subsonic synthesizer or equivalent plugin. Do you have a nearby club to test your productions in?

 

[scottrichardson]

Good project. Have you tried moving your GLM microphone/a calibrated microphone with RoomEQ Wizard software in a cubic grid around your listening position? For producing the music you mention, sometimes people use the DBX subsonic synthesizer or equivalent plugin. Do you have a nearby club to test your productions in?

I also have a UMIK mic and REW which I use for my home theatre room, and also use that Mic for when I had Dirac. I wonder if there's any benefit to running Dirac Live on top of and after running GLM? GLM seems to only do minimal amount of somewhat wider Q adjustments compared to when I ran Dirac with my old Genelec 8030As which were my prior main monitors - actually Dirac really breathed new life into those little beautiful speakers. I find GLM doesn't really do much to the high mids and highs in my room - which as I have mentioned is nicely damped now.

 

[Behrelec 37]

scottrichardson.


Just for your information, every single one of the room corrections made by humans that exist on the market are only the best guess and method after the result of the computer equations after one measurement, which most people leave and start listening to music. Try to understand what adults really do. At what point does the measurement take place, either 10-30 cm or more or less of all these numbers I have given, is from the previous measured point in some direction in your room, so the microphone set to measure also the height in degrees ALWAYS gives a completely new result than before the previous measurements if those different measurements have happened in your history.

Every single time the measurement happens and your room is not symmetrical with any furniture or walls or other materials, the measurements always sound different. You really don't need to measure two different system room measurements, you can do super well with one. For example, in Genelec's GLM settings, there are probably a million different options on your computer screen to modify the HZ levels and their Q and Gain levels (height and depth and how wide this modified area covers!!!), so that the changes increase or decrease in the respective listening area in the music you want to listen to.

So you can and will be able to influence the stereo sound better and sharper and enrich it yourself when you modify the result of the first measured room calibration yourself and add your own changes on top of it.Did you truly understand the depth of this meaning? So you have the hand of God to control the chain of events yourself, and the modifications can be big or small or both, and they can still be improved over time if you want and when your ear's perception improves through age and experience.

 

[scottrichardson]

@Behrelec 37 , yes I understand. And you're right. I can simply let GLM do its thing, and then run REW after and adjust inside the GLM customisation section as needed. Thanks.

 

[Behrelec 37]

Good.

 

[Mort]

You don't need two subs, especially GLM models, with a single listening place. 1x 7370 if you listen to bass heavy music.

 

[dasherzx]

i find that a larger sub is better than 2 smaller ones in situations where you cant sit far from the sub. i made the mistake of getting two 12 inches instead of a 15. having the 15 under my desk was amazing. moved that to the living room, put 2 12-inches at the sides of my desk and it was lacklustre.

 

[scottrichardson]

Well I have a single 7360 on the way. If it's no good I can swap it for the 7370.

 

[AudioJester]

Well I have a single 7360 on the way. If it's no good I can swap it for the 7370.

You need to try the 7360 for yourself. Anecdotal experience of others wont necessarily apply to you

 

[Mort]

It'll come down to the music you play and the volume.

 

[scottrichardson]

It'll come down to the music you play and the volume.

Primarily trance, progressive, techno, psy. Volume level is never too crazy. My GLM software is usually set to -25dB and then use my Mac's volume controls for the rest. Even just the 8351B's have plenty of low-end at my seating position, however it's not quite that room-filling/pressurised sound that I would prefer - and to be clear I'm not seeking bass that is too loud relative to the rest of my sound - I still want a balanced response.

 

[Kyle_PL]

Well I have a single 7360 on the way. If it's no good I can swap it for the 7370.

For Genelec 8351B (113dB SPL one speaker => 116dB from pair ... in 100Hz-3kHz range), Genelec 7370 should be optimal (113dB SPL in 30-85Hz range), and I think with little lower frequency cutoff than default 85Hz (75Hz?) should be little more optimal when "satellites" is little stronger (pair SPL 116dB), than single subwoofer (113dB).

 

[scottrichardson]

7360A arrived and have set up at the rear of the room. Crossover set to 60Hz. Default GLM felt a little bass lacking - probably pretty flat. So I boosted the low end with a shelf +3db @ 55Hz and just manually added a bit of a room curve to the subwoofer EQ.

I have to say I am extremely pleased with the sound in my primary listening position. Moving anywhere else in the room sounds awful, obviously, but that is to be expected with a GLM setup like this.

My 8351Bs have impeccable low end already, without the sub. At first I tried 85Hz crossover, but I felt that the mains were better at handling more of the lows so I switched to 60Hz. This has netted a much nicer overall sound. I am now intrigued as to how it will sound set to 50Hz or 55Hz, with the sub just filling in the lowest frequencies.

The sub itself - great. For a 10" driver, in this room, it's clearly able to go a a little deeper than my 8351Bs in my listening position with every little effort. GLM had to basically turn everything down by 8-12dB across the sub spectrum since I am sitting at my front wall. My ears are about 1.2m from the wall so plenty of room gain to be had here.

I cannot foresee myself needing anything more, ever, in this room.

I will take some REW measurements for those interested tomorrow with my UMIK.

 

[Kyle_PL]

Default GLM felt a little bass lacking - probably pretty flat.

It's a matter of habit. I'm listening at flat, and music (example: Beyonce - Daddy Lessons) sound perfect.

Crossover set to 60Hz.

I have Genelec 8330A (104db single => 107dB pair ... 100Hz-3kHz) and Genelec 7350A (104dB ... 30-85Hz) so mine satellites is little stronger than subwoofer (107dB vs 104dB) so i have lower crossover (than def. 85Hz) too ... at 65Hz Sound great.

 

[scottrichardson]

It's a matter of habit. I'm listening at flat, and music (example: Beyonce - Daddy Lessons) sound perfect.


I have Genelec 8330A (104db single => 107dB pair ... 100Hz-3kHz) and Genelec 7350A (104dB ... 30-85Hz) so mine satellites is little stronger than subwoofer (107dB vs 104dB) so i have lower crossover (than def. 85Hz) too ... at 65Hz Sound great.

I like to have a room curve just to account for our hearing sensitivity to lower frequencies. I'm about to run REW on the system and then I will move the sub to under my desk at the front to test there as well. By the sounds of a test tone that I ran, I am getting pretty much FLAT from 20-90Hz. I can 'hear' a bump at ~100Hz which GLM didn't appear to pick up so I will adjust manually if REW picks up the same response issue.

Still tempted to drop the crossover to 50Hz. These 8351B's are SO GOOD already that it's barely different with or without the sub dialled in.

Of note, I think I need to adjust the gain on the sub a little to compensate as you mention your sensitivity of both mains is higher than the single sub. Would GLM account for this or would I have to manually account for this myself?