Genelec 8030C Studio Monitor Review

[Trell]

Unfortunately Thomann.de won't ship Genelec products to the USA.

I must have recalled wrongly then as I believed not shipping Genelec products to USA was for monitors only.

 

[txbdan]

I must have recalled wrongly then as I believed not shipping Genelec products to USA was for monitors only.

That's right. I bought my Genelec stands from Thomann and I'm in the US.

 

[ordeith]

Honestly I am so happy with my setup, but I already have a "problem". My apartment (NYC, pre-war building) has hardwood floors throughout. My wife (2 rooms away) can feel/hear the sub's bass. I think this is in part due to reverberations on the hardwood floor.

Before this becomes a problem for the apartment below me (honestly in my building I hear NOTHING unless the kids in the apartment upstairs play bowling on a hardwood floor, or someone stomps around in high heels), I would like to get a 'rubber mat'.

Before I buy one - any recommendations from the crowd here? Are there specific sub/absorbing mats I should look at to really help with the hardwood floor situation? Or does a simple piece of X work?

 

[MaxRockbin]

Honestly I am so happy with my setup, but I already have a "problem". My apartment (NYC, pre-war building) has hardwood floors throughout. My wife (2 rooms away) can feel/hear the sub's bass. I think this is in part due to reverberations on the hardwood floor.

Before this becomes a problem for the apartment below me (honestly in my building I hear NOTHING unless the kids in the apartment upstairs play bowling on a hardwood floor, or someone stomps around in high heels), I would like to get a 'rubber mat'.

Before I buy one - any recommendations from the crowd here? Are there specific sub/absorbing mats I should look at to really help with the hardwood floor situation? Or does a simple piece of X work?

I got a piece of granite countertop and put it under the sub. I have a downward facing sub (out of fashion right now). I just figured that it'd be good to reduce floor vibrations whether it was bothering anyone or not. If you find a place that sells those countertop slabs they will usually have lots of "scrap" pieces more than large enough for the area under a sub. You can ask them to cut it to size. I don't think a rubber mat is likely to help a lot.
You would want to get it a slab a little bigger than the sub itself. As much bigger as convenient but not bigger than you can lift

Aside from bothering people, I have wondered if floor vibrations are significant in adding distortion to bass. Probably not....

 

[HiFidFan]

I must have recalled wrongly then as I believed not shipping Genelec products to USA was for monitors only.

That's right. I bought my Genelec stands from Thomann and I'm in the US.

Not sure whats going on then. . .

 

[mkt]

Not sure whats going on then. . .

View attachment 151940

At least once I have had Genelec accessories shipped to the US from Thomann. Other times no luck. Once I found a good price at https://studiocare.com Seems a little random.

 

[HiFidFan]

At least once I have had Genelec accessories shipped to the US from Thomann. Other times no luck. Once I found a good price at https://studiocare.com Seems a little random.

That is odd, and random. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[ordeith]

I got a piece of granite countertop and put it under the sub. I have a downward facing sub (out of fashion right now). I just figured that it'd be good to reduce floor vibrations whether it was bothering anyone or not. If you find a place that sells those countertop slabs they will usually have lots of "scrap" pieces more than large enough for the area under a sub. You can ask them to cut it to size. I don't think a rubber mat is likely to help a lot.
You would want to get it a slab a little bigger than the sub itself. As much bigger as convenient but not bigger than you can lift

Aside from bothering people, I have wondered if floor vibrations are significant in adding distortion to bass. Probably not....

Thanks! I have been doing some research here and it seems that the granite solution is more about an acoustic preference than a pragmatic one to limit vibrations in the hardwood floor underneath.

On the 8030C stands - interestingly B&H photo were sold out as was Sweetwater. Had to put in a special order with the latter for a fee on top of the cost of the stands. Not sure when they will arrive but it seems to be "weeks"...

 

[Kachda]

Honestly I am so happy with my setup, but I already have a "problem". My apartment (NYC, pre-war building) has hardwood floors throughout. My wife (2 rooms away) can feel/hear the sub's bass. I think this is in part due to reverberations on the hardwood floor.

Before this becomes a problem for the apartment below me (honestly in my building I hear NOTHING unless the kids in the apartment upstairs play bowling on a hardwood floor, or someone stomps around in high heels), I would like to get a 'rubber mat'.

Before I buy one - any recommendations from the crowd here? Are there specific sub/absorbing mats I should look at to really help with the hardwood floor situation? Or does a simple piece of X work?

Svs has sound isolation get that can be screwed into the sub in place of its current feet. This reduces vibration being transferred to the floor. You can also get sorbothane mats or feet which does a similar thing. However nothing except solid walls can stop bass sounds from creeping to your neighbors apartments

 

[daftcombo]

I measured my 8030C at listening position today.

Right speaker:

Those measurements led me to EQ out the 75Hz peak on the left channel (75Hz, -9dB, Q=5) that was resonating in my tiny room on some tracks.

I'll see if more EQ is needed later.

 

[pchmykh]

Hello guys! Can't read whole 50+ pages, but maybe someone interested in teardown of 8030 monitor, so you can see internal parts:

You need 5:57 timestamp. It is in russian, but you still can look at amplifier, motor system etc.

 

[Dannyws]

So, reading trough all the comments, would the mackie mrs10 be a good companion for the 8030c's? I have no idea if I really need a sub but the 7050 is a big investment I'm not willing to make, especially after reading some specs and comments here.

Besides the obvious brand blasphemy. Will this really deter the signalpath audibly from a balanced id14 out?

It's for critical listening (production/mixing/mastering) from low to upper moderate levels in a (yet) barely treated attic room 2 with slanted ceilings to floor.

I haven't received them yet but I am interested in letting the gennies go easy on the lows with a sub for checking deep low end balance. I know some treatment will be needed for that.

Save up for the 7050 or go with the mrs10? Or any other better choices in that pricerange advised. Looking forward to your take on this.

Best,

Danny

 

[JeromeP]

With the max SPL being a limiting factor of the 8030c. What impact would adding a high pass filter and sub to relinquish bass duty. How much SPL could be gained?

I’m interested in where the bottlenecks are and which order. Limiting factors on SPL would be amplifier power, efficiency of the drivers, power compression, driver excursion, driver unit protection circuit. Genelec specifies Long term SPL as ≥96 dB with IEC weighted noise. IEC weighted noise, is this descriptive enough?

Music varies in its distribution over frequency. With bass often having more energy.
However energy can be concentrated in frequencies often reaching higher than the normal 80-100hz crossover up to 200 - 400hz. With some genres having energy much higher in the frequency band. So this would give an additional increase on SPL on bass heavy tracks.

Frequency Spectrum Miles Davis.

Frequency Spectrum Jeff Buckley Grace

Driver excursion would be handled by crossing over at 200hz. Therefore the limiting factor above these frequencies would be amplifier power or a limiter on the amplifier. If the efficiency of the drivers and output of the amplifier was known then the headroom could be calculated.

Excursion in mm vs frequency: 124mm woofer 50w input power. 9 Litre tuning frequency 50hz.

I did find a graph for the Neumann KH 80 which shows max SPL over frequency which might answer some of my questions. If I've understood this correctly would show not wanting to use the speaker below 80hz. Getting a 5db uplift in SPL crossing over at 200hz and few more db at 300hz.

Maximum SPL at 1m (Blue: 3% THD, Green: 1% THD )​

It would also be interesting to know the reduction in distortion across the frequencies as cone excursion is reduced by cutting bass frequencies.

Corrections and input would be most welcome.

Thank you,

Jerome

 

[MaxRockbin]

This doesn't fully answer your question, but this is what Genelec told me about getting more headroom on the monitors by high-passing. I do recommend contacting them. They were very helpful to me before I bought my 8030Cs - and very patient.

Andrew Zannetos (Genelec USA)

Jun 17, 2021, 19:40 GMT+3

Hi Max,
You likely won't get more than a few dB out of each speaker from their maximum stated SPL specification while high-passed, regardless of the model - you'll likely run into the subwoofer's limit first before you reach any SPL limits from a high-passed monitor.

 

[JeromeP]

Thanks for you response. Interesting that they only suggest a few db. I will get in touch and see if they have any additional insights.

 

[MaxRockbin]

Thanks for you response. Interesting that they only suggest a few db. I will get in touch and see if they have any additional insights.

For what it's worth, I have mine crossed over at 82hz and find them to be way more than loud enough in my small room at 1.4m ear to driver.
I've never seen the red light come on. I don't listen to them at high levels too often though.

 

[Pearljam5000]

How loud can they get when you're sitting a meter away, without a sub, with bass heavy music (metal, electronic music)?

 

[JeromeP]

How loud can they get when you're sitting a meter away, without a sub, with bass heavy music (metal, electronic music)?

This would be a case of looking at the specifications of the speaker (95db).


However the peak SPL would reached in the bass before the other frequency's as illustrated in the frequency analysis.

Frequency Spectrum Kode9

This Dubstep track by for instance by Kode9 is an extreme example. This have the speaker reaching max SPL in the bass with higher frequency's therefor being 18 - 24db lower. Therefore adding a sub crossed over at 100hz would give you 18db more headroom.

Frequency Spectrum Bon Iver

This track by bon Iver has much more even distribution of frequency's and more frequency's reaching the 95db headroom of the speaker would sound louder than the Dubstep track.
(I don't have scientific evidence for this statement)

Thanks,

Jerome

 

[Walter]

So, reading trough all the comments, would the mackie mrs10 be a good companion for the 8030c's? I have no idea if I really need a sub but the 7050 is a big investment I'm not willing to make, especially after reading some specs and comments here.

Besides the obvious brand blasphemy. Will this really deter the signalpath audibly from a balanced id14 out?

It's for critical listening (production/mixing/mastering) from low to upper moderate levels in a (yet) barely treated attic room 2 with slanted ceilings to floor.

I haven't received them yet but I am interested in letting the gennies go easy on the lows with a sub for checking deep low end balance. I know some treatment will be needed for that.

Save up for the 7050 or go with the mrs10? Or any other better choices in that pricerange advised. Looking forward to your take on this.

Best,

Danny

A bit late, but wanted to mention that the JBL LSR310S seems to be a well regarded choice.

 

[changer]

How loud can they get when you're sitting a meter away, without a sub, with bass heavy music (metal, electronic music)?

They get plenty loud when you really turn the volume up, the bass is getting more wholesome, while the highs do not get harsh. This is what I can tell from listening to the 8030A's, that are installed at my workplace, where at night shifts, when nobody can complain about some bass heavy UK dance music tracks filling the wing, I have "tested" them a couple of times. No seriously, I have tried to listen to tracks that I do know quite well to understand what they can do.
At home, I have DIY 12-inch + waveguide active speakers which are really good, appart from edge diffraction that cannot be worked on with DSP alone. I often think that I should have saved me the troubles, not being a carpenter, and have picked up a used pair of 8030X with a sub. I didn't know then, how good they actually are. Very clear, very fresh. All this sighted and with obvious reasons for being biased, I still like my big speakers more. There is something about the (room corrected) low-end reproduction, that I do favor over the Genelec, and this advantage might just go away with a sub connected to the Genelecs (my home speakers have f3 @ ~36 Hz), but I mean that what I do enjoy and hear is a bit higher, in the actual bass and the lower mids, where the sub is not working. If this is trickery of my mind or the old saying about "no replacement for displacement" is correct, I cannot decide for obvious reasons. Also, soundstage depth is much deeper with the waveguides. Still: the Genelecs with a sub, I could have had used for about 1k (Euros) and would have been done. That is an easy and affordable way to great pleasures.