Genelec GLM Review (Room EQ & Setup)

[amirm]

Note that you actually can fully control these shelf filters, just not via the “Sound Character Profile” menu for some reason.

I understand this. The UI though is confusing in that if you change them in sound profiles, it will then flat them as unmodifiable in this UI. I am not seeing the justification for this. Other systems give you full filter controls and then an overlay shelving/tonality control. Having them be commonly implementable makes it harder to do this.

This is what I do currently, as in my current room I find the sound character presets to be either too bright or too dark, so I tune it very precisely by just adjusting these shelf filters manually for each speaker.

Good to know. Are you able to go beyond the 3 dB limit when you change it in the filter UI? I did not try to do it.

 

[ernestcarl]

It is just another average (easier for humans to see, but lower resolution). This is needed if you want to interpret the tonality of higher frequencies. But in bass, you want high resolution to find the exact frequencies of peaks and you want to be very careful in providing any type of averaging, spatial or otherwise.

I do agree with you there...

But if the "room correction" software applies some filters in the transition zone and higher frequencies (as some do when allowed), it's easier to verify how awful/good of a job such algorithms perform up there rather than taking many, many measurements and/or anechoic measurements to verify in much more detail which can be a rather tedious task unto itself. Resolution is not very high anymore because it is an average; quite true, but we should be able to get a better idea at how well their calculated correction works above the bass frequencies with much, much less effort.

 

[echopraxia]

The UI though is confusing

Yep. It sure is hard to discover. I don't think I finally figured out how to unlock the shelf filters manually until a few days of using GLM, after trying unsuccessfully to use the "Sound Character Profiler" menu.

Good to know. Are you able to go beyond the 3 dB limit when you change it in the filter UI? I did not try to do it.

Yes it's possible, but extremely counter-intuitive. For reference for others with Genelec GLM-enabled speakers, below shows how to achieve more control than the "Sound Character Profiler" menu itself will allow you.

At first when you open the Sound Character Profiler, you see all these preset curves, along with an option called "Manual". At first you may think, if you want to tune the Sound Character Profile with the most manual control available to you, then this "Manual" option must be it, right?! Wrong.

Believe it or not, in order to gain full control of the target curve, you have to first select "None" in "Sound Character Profiler":

Then, open up each speaker's filters window by clicking on it. Here, you can edit both High Shelf filters however you like. Here is an example of -40db combined treble rolloff from both filters, which of course sounds horrible, but is possible:

Whereas if you had used the "Sound Character Profiler" to edit this (even with the "Manual") option, it will appear disabled like this:

And as Amir pointed out, the "Manual" mode of the "Sound Character Profiler" only allows you a manual tuning up to a certain amount, and with limited granularity. Basically, all the "Sound Character Profiler" is doing is applying values automatically to all of your speaker's High Shelf filter slots (and disabling manual controls of them in each speaker's menu). But for some reason, the "Manual" mode of the "Sound Character Profiler" is significantly limited in the range and granularity of the parameters it allows, even though the filters are capable of much more. So to unlock the full potential, you need to set "Sound Character Profiler" mode to "None", and manually edit the high shelf filter parameters yourself as desired (for full control).

It makes no sense to me why they would design it this way. Terrible UX. But at least it is possible to get full control of the filters, but they sure do make it unintuitive. Just remember that in this case, you need to manually apply the same high shelf filter parameters to every speaker individually, as it does not automatically mirror these parameters when "Sound Character Profiler" is set to "None" to free up them as manually controllable.

 

[richard12511]

Note that you actually can fully manually control the underlying shelf filters to achieve much larger (as well as more granular) corrections, just not via the “Sound Character Profile” menu for some reason. All that menu does is assign a few preset values to the shelf filter slots.

To achieve full control of there parameters, you have to take a completely different approach that is not intuitive IMO: You first have to select “None” in the “Sound Character Profile” menu, after which point the shelf filters per speaker will now become fully user-editable. You can then enter in any parameters you want for the shelf filters after clicking on each speaker. When you use the “Sound Character Profile” menu, all it does is overwrite these shelf filter parameters and disable editing them by hand in each speaker’s filter editor window.

I currently use this approach to manually tune the shelf filters, since in my current room I find the sound character presets to be either too bright or too dark, so I tune it very precisely by just adjusting these shelf filters manually for each speaker.

Very interesting. I currently use Roon to apply a slight shelf filter above 8kHz(-2dB at 20kHz), as - like you said - the GLM shelf filters were too dark to my ears. I also apply a small positive bass shelf filter, as I feel GLM knocks the overall bass tonality down a bit too much. That's what excites me about 4.1, though I haven't had time to calibrate with it. It allows you to add positive gain at low frequencies. I may be able to cut out Roon EQ(at least until I can figure out Audiolense ).

 

[richard12511]

Yep. It sure is hard to discover. I don't think I finally figured out how to unlock the shelf filters manually until a few days of using GLM, after trying unsuccessfully to use the "Sound Character Profiler" menu.


Yes it's possible, but extremely counter-intuitive. For reference for others with Genelec GLM-enabled speakers, below shows how to achieve more control than the "Sound Character Profiler" menu itself will allow you.

At first when you open the Sound Character Profiler, you see all these preset curves, along with an option called "Manual". At first you may think, if you want to tune the Sound Character Profile with the most manual control available to you, then this "Manual" option must be it, right?! Wrong.

View attachment 151822

Believe it or not, in order to gain full control of the target curve, you have to first select "None" in "Sound Character Profiler":

View attachment 151821

Then, open up each speaker's filters window by clicking on it. Here, you can edit both High Shelf filters however you like. Here is an example of -40db combined treble rolloff from both filters, which of course sounds horrible, but is possible:

View attachment 151825

Whereas if you had used the "Sound Character Profiler" to edit this (even with the "Manual") option, it will appear disabled like this:

View attachment 151826

And as Amir pointed out, the "Manual" mode of the "Sound Character Profiler" only allows you a manual tuning up to a certain amount, and with limited granularity. Basically, all the "Sound Character Profiler" is doing is applying values automatically to all of your speaker's High Shelf filter slots (and disabling manual controls of them in each speaker's menu). But for some reason, the "Manual" mode of the "Sound Character Profiler" is significantly limited in the range and granularity of the parameters it allows, even though the filters are capable of much more. So to unlock the full potential, you need to set "Sound Character Profiler" mode to "None", and manually edit the high shelf filter parameters yourself as desired (for full control).

It makes no sense to me why they would design it this way. Terrible UX. But at least it is possible to get full control of the filters, but they sure do make it unintuitive. Just remember that in this case, you need to manually apply the same high shelf filter parameters to every speaker individually, as it does not automatically mirror these parameters when "Sound Character Profiler" is set to "None" to free up them as manually controllable.

Wow, I had no idea I could do this.

 

[txbdan]

Can you set different target responses?

I've measured my Dirac corrected 8030Cs before and after and the after looked much better than this. I'll try to find the plots or remeasure tomorrow.

 

[Cortes]

yes, the lack of post calibration measurement is a bit strange. I remember the first time I used the GLM kit looking for the menu/option where I could measure the calibrated results. It cost me some time to understand that there was not that option.

 

[Cortes]

I would like to see a comparison between the Genelec GLM and miniDSP SHD with Dirac Live. I'm planning on upgrading my Dynaudio BM5 MKIII with Genelec 8341s by the end of next year. My only concern is how I can add my Rythmik Audio E22 subwoofer with the Genelec GLM. As far I know the only subwoofers you can use with the GLM are the Genelec Smart subwoofers.

I don't think you'll find a satisfactory way for no Genelec SAM subwoofers. There's a thread here of someone trying to integrate a KEF subwoofer to some 8341 where you can have an idea of the complications.

 

[Cortes]

Can you set different target responses?

I've measured my Dirac corrected 8030Cs before and after and the after looked much better than this. I'll try to find the plots or remeasure tomorrow.

you have some freedom with presets, no much, or introduce yourself the whole curve. See the previous @echopraxia posts.

 

[Music1969]

A comparison of GLM vs Dirac Live 3 (desktop version) might be revealing

Using AES3 input

 

[richard12511]

A comparison of GLM vs Dirac Live 3 (desktop version) might be revealing

Using AES3 input

I’ve done that. I preferred Dirac, but not by a lot.

 

[Theriverlethe]

Audioholics recently did a live stream with Audyssey, and the representative (Director of Software Engineering and founding member of close to it) stated that simulated responses are “honest”.

Also hinted at a web-based pro version.

Any chance they'll finally drop the worthless default X-curve?

 

[wwenze]

-0.3dB with a Q of 2 lol... That seems oddly specific and I'm pretty sure REW wouldn't have cared

Maybe a quest for perfection resulted in that?

 

[Chromatischism]

perhaps Audyssey showed you the average of all measurements points taken. At least that's how Dirac works, it corrects based on the average of all measurements, regardless of what the average actually is.

Right. Jeff makes it clear that you need to measure in the same locations, apply the same weighting, and use the same smoothing, and your result will match theirs. I have not tried this, and if I did, I am not sure if their weighting is a simple average or puts more weight on the 1st measurement. Would welcome any clues.

Any chance they'll finally drop the worthless default X-curve?

X-curve?

I have my criticisms of the default, but I wouldn't call it that.

 

[Chromatischism]

Warren seems to agree with Amir - he says "there's a huge difference in the vocals".

Which makes sense, considering bass was brought under control and the mids and highs were boosted a couple of dB.

 

[Theriverlethe]

X-curve?

I have my criticisms of the default, but I wouldn't call it that.

Amir describes it here, along with the warning, “Whatever you do, do not, I repeat do not follow the X-curve for your home system.”:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/target-room-response-and-cinema-x-curve.10/

Audyssey attempts to match this curve while throwing in a “BBC dip” for some reason. “Worthless” might be a little harsh, but it’s totally inappropriate for a domestic-sized room or home theater.

 

[oversky]

I truncated the above display as it goes to 16 filters. The system is not different than automated filter creation in Room EQ. The system is simply using a combination of shelving and parametric EQ to build an inverse of the response with some care. For example, the sharp dip around 80 Hz which is caused by cancellation, is left alone sans a constant boost provided by the shelving filter. On the other hand, the peak at 200 Hz is attacked strongly with a complex curve created out of a nearly a dozen filters to invert it. The filter response is in blue and the measurement is in red. Filter applied to measurements is the green.

Amirm, Did you connect to the Genelec Cloud to use AutoCal 2 in GLM v4.1.0?
AutoCal2 introduces positive gain and use it between 100 and 300 Hz.

https://support.genelec.com/hc/en-u...-monitors-support-filters-with-positive-gain-

GLM 4.1 and AutoCal2 introduce positive gain. Which monitors support filters with positive gain?

8320A, 8330A, 8340A, 8350A, 1032C, S360, 8331A, 8341A, 8351B, 8361A and later SAM-monitors manufactured in or after 2021.

 

[amirm]

Amirm, Did you connect to the Genelec Cloud to use AutoCal 2 in GLM v4.1.0?

There was a message that it was contacting the cloud so I assume it was doing this.

 

[Chromatischism]

Amir describes it here, along with the warning, “Whatever you do, do not, I repeat do not follow the X-curve for your home system.”:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/target-room-response-and-cinema-x-curve.10/

Audyssey attempts to match this curve while throwing in a “BBC dip” for some reason. “Worthless” might be a little harsh, but it’s totally inappropriate for a domestic-sized room or home theater.

Amir is not saying that Audyssey uses an "X-curve". He is making commentary on the lack of control of its target response. Of course that changed in 2016 with the advent of the MultEQ editor app. I guess I can see how the two are being entangled.

 

[Theriverlethe]

Amir is not saying that Audyssey uses an "X-curve". He is making commentary on the lack of control of its target response. I guess I can see how the two are being entangled.

Of course that changed in 2016 with the advent of the MultEQ editor app.

No, Amir is not saying that, but it’s pretty obvious that the default Audyssey curve contradicts current Harman research and B&K research from the 70’s. Why should the default curve be so bad that I’m forced to use an awkward, imprecise touchscreen interface to try to work around it?