Genelec 8030C Studio Monitor Review

[GelbeMusik]

Here's one measurement of...

Normally, the difference is larger than this though. In this case, ... the difference can start to become huge.

Gotcha! Again a re-use of other measurement. So now I'm supposed to imagine that you're right. Isn't that how it is? There are measurements, and I'm supposed to imagine something. Great, pedestrian science!

 

[Bjorn]

Gotcha! Again a re-use of other measurement. So now I'm supposed to imagine that you're right. Isn't that how it is? There are measurements, and I'm supposed to imagine something. Great, pedestrian science!

Actually, it's basic understanding of how a speaker intereacts with a room that I'm drawing the conclusion on when I'm saying a speaker with collapsing polar like this Genelec will have tonal swifts compared to a speaker with constant directivity lower in frequency.

Just like I can't give you a quick paper on why the earth isn't flat, I can't give you a paper on a subject that's based on understanding of fundamentals that is build on several steps (while I've tried to explain it here to some degree). But it's certainly out there for you educate yourself.

 

[aac]

You know @amirm does a LOT of work for us. But opening each active speaker for meassuring the amps would be a crazy amount of work and time. Espeacialy when you think

May I suggest you buy the speaker, rip the amp out and if amirm wants to test it, you can send it over?

Not sure if the speaker has a DSP module - if it does, do we need to test that in isolation too?

IMO, there is very little ROI with this approach given the speaker is sold with the amp built-in.

Why you (and other people who quoted me) got everything backwards?
I suggested another procedure - connecting it to speaker and measuring performance this way.

But usually problems with amplifier in active speakers are easily identifiable as hiss, if you insist on measuring electronics performance.
I'd say it's one of the most important characteristics, as many of speakers tested are small speakers intended to be used on a desk.
Many active speaker have this problem, that is why I still think passive (or designs which allow to use your own amplifier/crossover) are better, unless manufacturer does a good job on amplifier (but separate design is still better for reliability/ease of repair).
Unfortunately it is hard to measure when the room is not quite (dead quite, like anechoic chamber).

 

[thewas]

To be fair, the loading of the horn may allow the horn to extend low enough that the high-pass is at a low frequency (higher wavelength) where CtC spacing has a better chance of approaching quarter-wavelength of the crossover frequency, reducing vertical lobing.

Well, the waveguide and compression driver of the M2 allow also a very low crossover and the vertical spacing of the sound centres is smaller than in comparable multiway horns.

 

[hmt]

.

Just like I can't give you a quick paper on why the earth isn't flat, I can't give you a paper on a subject that's based on understanding of fundamentals that is build on several steps (while I've tried to explain it here to some degree). But it's certainly out there for you educate yourself.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/2393/earth-3d-model/

No paper but it should suffice. So where is your proof?

 

[GelbeMusik]

Actually, it's basic understanding of how a speaker intereacts with a room that I'm drawing the conclusion on when I'm saying a speaker with collapsing polar like this Genelec will have tonal swifts compared to a speaker with constant directivity lower in frequency.

Just like I can't give you a quick paper on why the earth isn't flat, I can't give you a paper on a subject that's based on understanding of fundamentals that is build on several steps (while I've tried to explain it here to some degree). But it's certainly out there for you educate yourself.

Please do not accuse me of not knowing the stuff. My previous caveat against Your argumentation remains valid, nothing to add. Only so much, that the latest measurement, which was unrelated, showed two totally different speakers. They differ not only in the onset of directivity, but in its amount, vastly. What are You doing?

 

[Bjorn]

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/2393/earth-3d-model/

No paper but it should suffice. So where is your proof?

In basic understanding of sound waves. You can find it books of acoustics, online writings and many videos online. It's fundamental.

 

[richard12511]

Here's one measurement of a speaker with a constant beamwidth to 800 Hz-1000 Hz area horizontally and vertically (blue graph) compared to a speaker with a directivity lower in frequency. The crossover is at 1 KHz for both speakers. 1/24 oct. smoothing used.
View attachment 74456

Normally, the difference is larger than this though. In this case, the room is big with long distances to side walls and there's also acoustical treatment in the room. In very small rooms with little or no treatment, the difference can start to become huge.

I think it would help to provide a full set of anechoic measurements of at least one speaker that you consider to be a great speaker. That would go along way towards proving your point. A single on axis in room measurement or a single horizontal polar map is not sufficient. From your signature, it looks like you're associated with a loudspeaker manufacturer. Surely those speakers are ones you would deem to be good?, could you provide some spinorama style measurements for those speakers? Horizontal and Vertical polar maps would be icing on the cake.

 

[Bjorn]

I think it would help to provide a full set of anechoic measurements of at least one speaker that you consider to be a great speaker. That would go along way towards proving your point. A single on axis in room measurement or a single horizontal polar map is not sufficient. From your signature, it looks like you're associated with a loudspeaker manufacturer. Surely those speakers are ones you would deem to be good?, could you provide some spinorama style measurements for those speakers? Horizontal and Vertical polar maps would be icing on the cake.

They already exist out there and I've also shown one horizontal polar. It's well know that speakers can have constant directivity low in frequency and several has been shared in this thread already. So not sure what you think such a graph will prove my point. What exactly is it going to prove? That such speakers exist? Or something else? I don't understand your request.

 

[thewas]

The same thing I said to Bjorn applies here. What in heaven can statistical tests tell us? That the population has got used to some crap and expects it to be perfected again and again? A good box is like my old one, but better! (Depending on how bad I think my old ones are now, there can and should be more or less deviations.)

If read the research (most of its results can be found even for free here before your usual AES gripe comes ) most people don't actually prefer the "crap" they have at home at blind tests but the same neutral loudspeakers with continuous directivity. Also there are no discrepancies in the rating sequence of experienced and inexperienced listeners, only the first have a more accurate and wider spread of ratings.

However, in terms of the result, I am completely with Björn. I like big boxes! I like the dry sound, he, it seems, does not like the dry sound the other way round. Well, what then?

I also like big boxes and my main system has 12" woofers but would never dare to call existing research and general preference as senseless or mediocre.

What was that about? Whether the little genelecs' directivity is also suitable for home use. In any case, the DI seems to me to be seamless. Oh, one more thing. What about the reverberation time at home? It's supposed to be unpredictable from a distance. How about we measure it? I mean, yourself? Thank you very much.

What does that have to do with it? I measure my reverberation time almost weekly indirectly when doing loudspeaker measurements, in my previous home it was much better/lower than in my current one and as I wrote some pages ago I personally would not like to listen to such a small 5" loudspeaker from more than 1,5 meters (and that's what also Genelec recommends) but still it wouldn't be really worse than most typical hifi loudspeakers that don't even have wide smooth directivity.

 

[hmt]

In basic understanding of sound waves. You can find it books of acoustics, online writings and many videos online. It's fundamental.

That is no proof. It is a smokescreen.

 

[Bjorn]

That is no proof. It is a smokescreen.

It's really not. We're talking about fundamental understanding of sound works with boundaries in a room. I think it should be a criteria to understand this before involving in a discussion. If this didn't matter at all, we wouldn't even look at off-axis measurements of a speaker.

It's really foolishness to ask to a quick proof of something basic like this and than attacking the person who doesn't provide the "fast food". You and others have to educate yourself. Here are few books to start with.
https://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Sixth-Everest/dp/0071841040
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-System...ld=1&keywords=don+davis&qid=1595334445&sr=8-4
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reprod...MXX226CPK0M&psc=1&refRID=9QTDVP5PPMXX226CPK0M

 

[tomtoo]

Why you (and other people who quoted me) got everything backwards?
I suggested another procedure - connecting it to speaker and measuring performance this way.

But usually problems with amplifier in active speakers are easily identifiable as hiss, if you insist on measuring electronics performance.
I'd say it's one of the most important characteristics, as many of speakers tested are small speakers intended to be used on a desk.
Many active speaker have this problem, that is why I still think passive (or designs which allow to use your own amplifier/crossover) are better, unless manufacturer does a good job on amplifier (but separate design is still better for reliability/ease of repair).
Unfortunately it is hard to measure when the room is not quite (dead quite, like anechoic chamber).

If you talk about hissing, the problem is active speakers have usually no resistors in front of there tweeters. Passive speakers mostly have, couse tweeters are louder then typical bass/mid. Another thing is usually the amp's in active speakers get used at full gain. Hiss is/can be a problem, hope more manufactures get more sensitive to it.

 

[richard12511]

They already exist out there and I've also shown one horizontal polar. It's well know that speakers can have constant directivity low in frequency and several has been shared in this thread already.

All you showed was one horizontal polar and one in room on axis measurement of a different speaker. That's not sufficient to make the claim you are making. You need to provide an anechoic spinorama style measurement. Surely you have such measurements of your own speakers? Why not post those?

So not sure what you think such a graph will prove my point. What exactly is it going to prove? That such speakers exist? Or something else? I don't understand your request.

Your original claim was this.

"We shouldn't praise mediocrisy. Heck, we shouldn't call this mediocre either. It should at minimum have a uniform directivity down to 700-800 Hz to be considered ok."

Mediocre means no better or worse than average, and you're claiming that these are below mediocre. If these really are below mediocre, then it should be easy for you to provide full measurements for many speakers that do better. So far you've provided 0 examples. All you've given us is a single horizontal polar of one speaker, and a single in room fr of another. Saying "they exist, just google it" doesn't work. I've looked, but I can't find them. I'm only aware of a handful of speakers(D&D, Kii, The Ones, Genelec mains) that do it better, but if these truly are below mediocre then there should be more examples of speakers that do it better than there are examples of speakers that do it worse, yet you've shown 0 so far. There should be thousands of examples, yet I can only find a handful. Why not just show your own measurements from Keele and Omholt?

If you can't provide examples, then to me that says that you know you're wrong, but don't want to admit it.

 

[ctrl]

A little hair-splitting follows...

Constant directivity lower in frequency is very important and very audible because we listen in rooms with close proximity surfaces and much of what we hear is reflective energy....An example is the speaker below, which looses its directvity below 1 KHz-800 Hz.

I agree that constant directivity is a desirable goal even at the lowest possible frequencies.

A definition for "constant directivity" would be
Source: AES "Metrics for Constant Directivity"

1) For a loudspeaker, a contour plot shows the loudspeaker’s output level in dB, normalized by the on-axis output, as a function of both frequency and angle.
2)... our second criterion is that an ideal constant directivity transducer should have a frequency response at any off-axis position that is identical
to its on-axis frequency response, ignoring any difference in overall level.
3) ... our third criterion is that an ideal constant directivity transducer should have a directivity (or some metric thereof) which is invariant with frequency

A transducer is said to exhibit constant directivity, over a specified frequency range, if and only if its polar radiation patterns are invariant in that range.

Only Geddes Abbey or his other speakers is not a good example of constant directivity in my opinion. One could say that up to 1kHz there is still a "controlled directivity" if you look at the radiation as a whole.

The standard procedure to judge how good the "constant directivity" behaviour of a loudspeaker is, would be to normalise to the 0° frequency response and to consider whether the angular frequency responses are parallel to it.

Because of the extremely unsteady frequency response in the +-10 degree range, Geddes loudspeakers cannot be described with constant directivity. Even if one normalizes to the 22° listening angle proposed by Geddes, side lobes would show up. As a quick example Geddes Nathan normalized to 30°, with the 0° and 60° frequency response.

A horn that works quite well (and far from optimal) with constant directivity would be the XT1464 from 18Sound. Above 10kHz the connection of the driver to the horn causes some problems - just ignore it (measurement 1m distance from horn mouth, 1/24 smoothing, normalized to 0°).

directivity pattern with 1/3 smoothing

Here's a crude indoor measurement of something better. Take note that this includes room contribution (no gating used), so it would look better meassured anechoic. In reality the directivity is 80-90° (indoor measurements with room contribution makes it look wider) and it remains that down to 200 Hz with little devitation down to around 100°.

This looks very much like CD!

How were the measurements taken? Standard measurements at a distance of 1m without a gate and with little or no smoothing would certainly look much "wilder" even with a horn system due to the room influences.
For +-45° the measurements show sound pressure fluctuations of just +-1.5dB in the frequency range 400-18000Hz and this with full room influences - how is that possible?

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I am sure I am not the only one who's lost...
Would someone summarize for me:

Can this spectacular (at least IME) measuring speaker, the Genelec 8030C, be used as mains? , perhaps all around speaker in a a Home set-up helped, of course, by multiple subwoofers?

My understanding of the measurements was (is?) that this speaker response varies smoothly off-axis, which from what I thought I understand is a good thing to have. As I think I understand, down around 500 Hz, the room completely dominates the response, additionally, under Schroeder we are in quasi-steady state territory, thus we can equalize...
Am I completely wrong?
Is the 8030C a good choice in the far field, say 10~12 ft from the plane of the front speakers?

Let's not be lost on academics matters (some of these with only a pseudo-scientific patina) and let's focus more on practical matters.. I (We?) want to enjoy great sound at a decent price:
Room is 6 x 5 x 3 (L x W x H) meter
HT System: A decent AVR such as the Denon AVR-X3600 or X4600 plus 7 of these speakers + 3 Rythmik L12 or SVS equivalent in a 50 square meters room seem on paper to provide an extraordinary HT system once properly set-up and calibrated ...
2-Channel System: Topping DX7 @ $500 + A pair of these 8030C at $1400 for a pair + about the same for subs , less than $4000 for what on paper seems to be a superb 20~20 KHz system able to play over 100 dB SPL at the listening position ...with low THD is something many of us have an interest into.

I want some answers, if this speaker is not good for the above purposes? Why?

 

[GelbeMusik]

... most people don't actually prefer the "crap" they have at home at blind tests but the same neutral loudspeakers with continuous directivity.

What I wanted to say was that I am not interested in the personnel of hearing tests. They don't know anything about music. they rate the loudspeakers according to their expectations. the quality of experience of the situation - it's actually known what I mean by that? The mindset - is probably rather "good hifi", but not "good music".

It is sheer rubbish not to consider this aspect. People listen to hifi as hifi, not music transmitted by hifi. The difference becomes obvious with the test material chosen by HARMAN.

One should ask oneself if this embedding a la Toole should be on the record - it doesn't work, or if it should be generated in the listening room instead. And if so, well, how? I just don't want the embedding, fine. But if you want it, does every little decibel count? That's what you two are arguing about, I guess.

I'm only butting in because it's a really interesting topic. Throwing around AES stuff makes it hard to read, though. Redefine the problem again, and thanks a lot for that!

 

[AnalogSteph]

Ah, the classic heated argument between people who are basically in agreement.

@Bjorn's main point boils down to: As in-room response approaches power response in big, lively rooms, otherwise well-behaved loudspeakers with either a small baffle or large baffle will sound different. Well, yeah.
Small baffle - Neumann KH80:

Larger baffle - Revel F208:

Note how power response from e.g. 200 Hz to 5 kHz is down by just 5 dB for the much bigger Revel, but 9 dB for the petite Neumann. The latter, though not substantially colored, is going to sound muddier. And the Revel isn't even a wide baffle affair.

The moral of the story - choose speaker size according to room and listening distance for best results. Nobody is going to use some 8030Cs (the actual subject of this thread) at a distance of 5 m in a large room. If you need that, look at, say, the S360 model instead.

 

[Bjorn]

A little hair-splitting follows...


I agree that constant directivity is a desirable goal even at the lowest possible frequencies.

A definition for "constant directivity" would be
Source: AES "Metrics for Constant Directivity"

View attachment 74455

Only Geddes Abbey or his other speakers is not a good example of constant directivity in my opinion. One could say that up to 1kHz there is still a "controlled directivity" if you look at the radiation as a whole.

The standard procedure to judge how good the "constant directivity" behaviour of a loudspeaker is, would be to normalise to the 0° frequency response and to consider whether the angular frequency responses are parallel to it.

Because of the extremely unsteady frequency response in the +-10 degree range, Geddes loudspeakers cannot be described with constant directivity. Even if one normalizes to the 22° listening angle proposed by Geddes, side lobes would show up. As a quick example Geddes Nathan normalized to 30°, with the 0° and 60° frequency response.

View attachment 74452

A horn that works quite well (and far from optimal) with constant directivity would be the XT1464 from 18Sound. Above 10kHz the connection of the driver to the horn causes some problems - just ignore it (measurement 1m distance from horn mouth, 1/24 smoothing, normalized to 0°).
View attachment 74453
directivity pattern with 1/3 smoothing
View attachment 74457



This looks very much like CD!

How were the measurements taken? Standard measurements at a distance of 1m without a gate and with little or no smoothing would certainly look much "wilder" even with a horn system due to the room influences.
For +-45° the measurements show sound pressure fluctuations of just +-1.5dB in the frequency range 400-18000Hz and this with full room influences - how is that possible?
View attachment 74464

Hi ctrl. Good to see some proper understanding here.
I haven't studied Geddes method of showing a polar, so I can't comment that. I knew he used his own method, but nothing more than that. Geddes would have to answer and I wouldn't judge it before that.

I can't remember the exact the distance the horn was measured with, but it was probably around 80 cm. I can do a new measurement and full polars (horizontal and vertical) can be presented later when measured anechoic. I also want to have independent measurements taken.

This particular measurement was done indoor in a living room with some fairly close boundaries. There's is no gating being used but I've used the standard 1/3 oct. smoothing of polars and normalized to 0 degrees. You can see the setup here:

Showing less smoothing wouldn't work that well when measured indoor without gating.

Here's a measurement done by Omnimic and normalized to 0° and blended gating (therefore only showing to 500 Hz) by the way of another horn. Personally I find Omnimic smooths too much in their polars.

 

[Tangband]

Very interesting loudspeaker. Now I want to know if its a bass-driver from HDS or SDS series from Peerless in the new 8030c ?
Ofcourse, it is propably a custom-made drive unit, and as long as I know, the older 8030 models where using drivers with cast frames- from the HDS Line. Is it the same in the new model ?

I also want to know what class D chip is used ? Can someone confirm its tpa 3251 or maybe tpa 3116 ? They sound very good with the right powersupply.