You see spinorama, is the same thing.
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Genelec 8030C Studio Monitor Review
- Thread starter amirm
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Most of it is represented in magnitude response - magnitude and phase will get you everything in a CSD waterfall.
40th Anniversary
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Loved reading this review and comments on the Genelecs.
Black Friday came and I ordered a pair of 8030C powered speakers.
When I picked them up I had a chance to listen to the Neumann KH80DSP very briefly. I thought the soundstage was wide on those: I'll have to have a future listen at length in time.
1. Unpacked the 8030C: extremely well built, heavy and sturdy for the size. Out of the box, impressed.
1.5. Tried them in my basement system ( I sit 12 feet from the speakers). They work but the soundstage is a little small - the room is a little big for them.
2. Like the adjustable feet and now have them sitting on Auralex pads on my office desk.
2.5 I site at my desk with the speakers about 1 meter from me at lower volumes. Perfect and oh...the detail in the music! Wow.
3.0. I can also sit about 10 feet from the same speakers in my office; the room is about 12x10 feet: they fill the room nicely. Yes a sub would dwelve lower, but these
sound full and just right and bass is plentiful!
4.0 I have the bass tilt set at -2 db and the 160 hz notch activated. I can further control EQ via my RME DAC: simple.
5.0 The dip switches at the rear of the speaker work but are a pain to change. Not a biggie, but worth mentioning. Once you set them up it's a one time thing.
6.0 For strictly desktop usage, I think the 8020s would have been plenty.
I wasn't sure what to make of these at first as this is my first neutral speaker. I had to do a little bit of work to get them to sound their best.
Very quickly I think the Neumann at the store and these sound rather similar than different.
By playing around with EQ, placement and the dip switches they are really nice. Lots of detail, layering and the soundstage is fine. Bass is plentiful in the sense that there is "whomp" to the sound when bass is present. The highs are detailed and not bright. I turn the volume up and they play clean and do not hurt my ears; so many speakers do and I've been on the search for nice tweeters with the speakers I seek: my Triangles Comète 40th are sweet as is the SEAS T35C-002 Excel tweeter in my Dynaco Clones. Seek and ye shall find.
As I type this I am in close range to the Genelecs, playing music at low volume and everything just sounds so right on my desktop. They are built like a tank and that alone makes them worthwhile, jewelry for this audiophile (work in progress).
PS: They are a little wide in the mid-section and won't fit in an opening in the wall I have in my basement system (to add additional rear-side speakers); the KH80 DSP will fit so most likely a pair will be purchased in the future.
Thanks for the detailed review, the measurements, etc, et al.
Black Friday came and I ordered a pair of 8030C powered speakers.
When I picked them up I had a chance to listen to the Neumann KH80DSP very briefly. I thought the soundstage was wide on those: I'll have to have a future listen at length in time.
1. Unpacked the 8030C: extremely well built, heavy and sturdy for the size. Out of the box, impressed.
1.5. Tried them in my basement system ( I sit 12 feet from the speakers). They work but the soundstage is a little small - the room is a little big for them.
2. Like the adjustable feet and now have them sitting on Auralex pads on my office desk.
2.5 I site at my desk with the speakers about 1 meter from me at lower volumes. Perfect and oh...the detail in the music! Wow.
3.0. I can also sit about 10 feet from the same speakers in my office; the room is about 12x10 feet: they fill the room nicely. Yes a sub would dwelve lower, but these
sound full and just right and bass is plentiful!
4.0 I have the bass tilt set at -2 db and the 160 hz notch activated. I can further control EQ via my RME DAC: simple.
5.0 The dip switches at the rear of the speaker work but are a pain to change. Not a biggie, but worth mentioning. Once you set them up it's a one time thing.
6.0 For strictly desktop usage, I think the 8020s would have been plenty.
I wasn't sure what to make of these at first as this is my first neutral speaker. I had to do a little bit of work to get them to sound their best.
Very quickly I think the Neumann at the store and these sound rather similar than different.
By playing around with EQ, placement and the dip switches they are really nice. Lots of detail, layering and the soundstage is fine. Bass is plentiful in the sense that there is "whomp" to the sound when bass is present. The highs are detailed and not bright. I turn the volume up and they play clean and do not hurt my ears; so many speakers do and I've been on the search for nice tweeters with the speakers I seek: my Triangles Comète 40th are sweet as is the SEAS T35C-002 Excel tweeter in my Dynaco Clones. Seek and ye shall find.
As I type this I am in close range to the Genelecs, playing music at low volume and everything just sounds so right on my desktop. They are built like a tank and that alone makes them worthwhile, jewelry for this audiophile (work in progress).
PS: They are a little wide in the mid-section and won't fit in an opening in the wall I have in my basement system (to add additional rear-side speakers); the KH80 DSP will fit so most likely a pair will be purchased in the future.
Thanks for the detailed review, the measurements, etc, et al.
Last edited:
Neumann KH80 have a very bad radiation pattern because of their plastic enclosure and they are not comparable also because of 4 inch woofer.
Except for extreme lack of space 8020 are not good enough to compete with 8030; more irregularities on mid section and a tone of distortion on lower end.
I advise you to correct the room modes by measuring room response, the sound will improve considerably, try to avoid corrections on transition zone (400 Hz and above).
You can optionally rise 2.5 kHz by a couple of decibles, a matter of taste (as Amir did in his review). The speaker will be more accurate but less forgiving.
If you want DSP and even more accuracy then Neumann KH120 ii will be the best option
POST EDITING: after reading comments and Amir’s measurements I rectify my opinion about KH80 which was based on a single experience at home and without measurements. So I cannot support it objectively.
Last edited:
thewas
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Both statements are unfortunately incorrect, they have for the size a good and smooth directivity and if it would have been bad it wouldn't be because of their composite enclosure.
unpluggged
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Uh huh.
Erm... no.
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No hiss with mine. I have an RME ADI-2 DAC FS driving the Genelecs.
more like fortunately incorrect.
In that case I rectify my post, I hadn’t red the measurements.
When I have a uint at home the enclosure vibrated a lot, just putting the hand on the side and all were transmitted.
It sounded quite bad in comparison to 8030C on the same placement and without EQ, both were over a table.
At that time I had no mic or software for measurements, after a couple of weeks received the kh 120 ii and didn’t sound very different from 8030C as should be expected.
Perhaps my kh80 unit was broken during transport (germany to spain).
I'm sitting at around 1m away from mine. They're connected to a MOTU M4 and the gain on the back of the speaker is at its lowest setting. If I concentrate and listen carefully, I can hear a bit of hiss. Even the quietest music will easily drown it out, though.
A laptop fan at its lowest speed easily masks the noise from the Genelecs.
Coming from a live sound world, I find this perfectly acceptable: I'm perfectly able to mix in far noisier environments.
I can imagine, though, that an audiophile wishing for a brilliant-sounding desktop system might find the slightest disappointment with that background noise, though.
Chris
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Update on my 8030C powered speakers.
I made one little change as I re-read recent comments and re-read Amir's review.
My RME ADI-2 DAC Pro FS is set to +24 dBu and I use a Khozmo passive pre for volume control.
I also eq'ed the speaker: +2db @ 2.5 kHz with a Q of 2.0.
For my listening tests comparison I remotely turn on and off the EQ.
If I had not EQ'ed I would have been totally satisfied with the sound.
With that little bit of EQ, yes the mid-highs' veil comes off and it sounds oh so perfectly transparent.
I could never have achieved this EQ setting were it not for the review, the measurements and the recommendations.
I've never heard, in my smallish-medium office a more perfect sounding speaker. I wish I had the luxury to try more speaker systems.
Heresy (for ASR): the Khozmo passive pre with my RME Pro Unit running full out (+24 dBu) sounds very dynamic. I can't put my finger on why and absolutely no hard data to share. But if ASR can EQ the Genelec for better sound and I can reproduce this with my system setup with noticeable improvement, there has to be something to the passive pre I have inserted.
PS: I also use a Schiit Kara for my basement system. I've not directly compared the Schiit to the Khozmo. The Schiit offers remote + passive + active mode.
The Khozmo (my configuration) offers a great remote with easily readable + dimmable display for the volume setting.
But I digress....
What a journey this audio quest. Fun times.
I made one little change as I re-read recent comments and re-read Amir's review.
My RME ADI-2 DAC Pro FS is set to +24 dBu and I use a Khozmo passive pre for volume control.
I also eq'ed the speaker: +2db @ 2.5 kHz with a Q of 2.0.
For my listening tests comparison I remotely turn on and off the EQ.
If I had not EQ'ed I would have been totally satisfied with the sound.
With that little bit of EQ, yes the mid-highs' veil comes off and it sounds oh so perfectly transparent.
I could never have achieved this EQ setting were it not for the review, the measurements and the recommendations.
I've never heard, in my smallish-medium office a more perfect sounding speaker. I wish I had the luxury to try more speaker systems.
Heresy (for ASR): the Khozmo passive pre with my RME Pro Unit running full out (+24 dBu) sounds very dynamic. I can't put my finger on why and absolutely no hard data to share. But if ASR can EQ the Genelec for better sound and I can reproduce this with my system setup with noticeable improvement, there has to be something to the passive pre I have inserted.
PS: I also use a Schiit Kara for my basement system. I've not directly compared the Schiit to the Khozmo. The Schiit offers remote + passive + active mode.
The Khozmo (my configuration) offers a great remote with easily readable + dimmable display for the volume setting.
But I digress....
What a journey this audio quest. Fun times.
I have a WiiM Ultra streamer DAC and do all the job very efficiently and perfectly flat: have a room correction software you can use and tweak as you want with PEQ 10 parameters.
The problem of 8030C (Genelec G Three B in my case) is just its size: it needs a sub imperatively. I use Genelec F Two sub with sub output of the WiiM that allows to set phase, crossover frequency (85 Hz is recommended by Genelec) and delay, volume of the sub…
I corrected also the 2.5 kHz region, as measurements showed constant dip there, even changing positions.
With a subwoofer it improves considerably, not only the bass region but also the mids sound better (clearer).
I perceive also the hiss, but as you mentioned the quietest music erase it
I have the 8030c, and connect regular stereo output to the XLR. There is minor audible hum. At some point, I might want to swap the PCM5102 with a true XLR DAC, such as the SMSL M300SE. I do not hear this hum, unless I put my ear to the speaker. But it is more noticable than any noise from the 8030c.
I have also slightly “humm” because my electric network is not properly grounded in the living room (here is mandatory in the kitchen, bathroom, but not in all plugs of homes).
But as you, I can only listen when sticking the ear to the subwoofer, and even my mic doesn’t show anything close to 40 dB at 1 m distance so I let it as it is.
Most definitely not the same thing. The waterfall plot shows cabinet resonances that can make a monitor not worth the time.
Not cabinet resonances.
It will. Also cabinet resonances almost always show up as frequency response and directivity anomalies.
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