Genelec vs Customary Hi-Fi Passive Speakers

[dagfinn]

the best sound resolution is achieved completely digitally, directly from the speakers' own DAC.

Hm, I wonder about this. If you run it flat - without GLM, I would think there would be no difference vs for instance Topping E70V, which is absolutely transparent (along with many other DACS). I don't think Genelecs has a "more transparent" DAC. The other explanation would have to be an issue with the AD conversion happening in the speaker, but this also seems unlikely to me.

 

[Behrelec 37]

It's super transparent when the glm is balanced with adjustments. All the thinnest curtains disappear.

 

[EJ3]

It's super transparent when the glm is balanced with adjustments. All the thinnest curtains disappear.

Another nice one (I know that it takes work but more people won't just block you).

 

[Ktacos]

Eh. I’d take THIS SPEAKER over the Genelec any day.

Oh god the resonances, the diffraction, what a disaster of a speaker.

 

[Martini]

It's super transparent when the glm is balanced with adjustments. All the thinnest curtains disappear.

You have no proof that the DA converter in the Genelecs is more or less transparent than any other decent DAC on the market. All you have is what is stated in their literature. I've seen no testing of the DAC used in the speakers themselves. Have you? We have seen that the speakers do measure exceptionally well, and we know that DSP for room correction and preference tuning, when done correctly, yields significant improvements in music reproduction. However, I do have my doubts that the Genelec has developed and implemented a DAC to the degree of a Benchmark DAC3 or Topping D90-III. Perhaps with the sum of the individual mono-focused units they have, but the fact is we don't know. Also, which room correction implementation is best for us, is also debatable. I've had good success with Dirac and others with REW, etc. I own a full Genelec system withGLM (new to me) and I'm still trying to dial in GLM. I also own a Revel/Benchmark/Dirac system, and I'm not willing to say one is better than the other. That said, a near-field system is a better fit for my room, so the Revel/Benchmark system may soon be up for sale.

 

[Torin Krell]

To return to address the OP's original topic: Sharing my experience, I can say I am very pleased with my Genelec 8341a monitors configured with dual stereo subs. The 8341a reaches down to the subs with more clarity (less distortion) than the smaller 8331a and doesn't need the additional bass capacity (nor the added cost, weight, bulk) of the 8351b or 8361a because of the dual subs.

 

[MattHooper]

Oh god the resonances, the diffraction, what a disaster of a speaker.

Heh. Kind of the point. But they sound wonderful to me. This is why I don’t restrict my interests to only speakers ASR would approve of. If I’d decided from the measurements the speaker was a disaster and not worth checking out, I would have missed out on one of my all-time favourite loudspeakers.



Not that the Genelecs aren’t terrific of course.
I’d recommend the Genelecs to a newbie before I’d recommend those other speakers. (Unless somebody’s interest went beyond ASR-approved designs).

 

[anlin]

You have no proof that the DA converter in the Genelecs is more or less transparent than any other decent DAC on the market. All you have is what is stated in their literature. I've seen no testing of the DAC used in the speakers themselves. Have you? We have seen that the speakers do measure exceptionally well, and we know that DSP for room correction and preference tuning, when done correctly, yields significant improvements in music reproduction. However, I do have my doubts that the Genelec has developed and implemented a DAC to the degree of a Benchmark DAC3 or Topping D90-III. Perhaps with the sum of the individual mono-focused units they have, but the fact is we don't know. Also, which room correction implementation is best for us, is also debatable. I've had good success with Dirac and others with REW, etc. I own a full Genelec system withGLM (new to me) and I'm still trying to dial in GLM. I also own a Revel/Benchmark/Dirac system, and I'm not willing to say one is better than the other. That said, a near-field system is a better fit for my room, so the Revel/Benchmark system may soon be up for sale.

Genelec seems to use AKM for AD/DA conversion:

I disassembled my Genelec 8351B

I just wonder what ADC/DAC chip is in there. On the online, There is no answer about it So I opened my 8351B. After all the processes, I realized that the chip is just in back panel..But I'm satisfied to see what's in there. Anyway, the chip is AKM AK4621EF. Not so high end chip but fairly...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The datasheet for the AKM chip lists SNR at 115dB and THD+N at -102 dB(AD)/-100 dB(DA). Good but not SOTA. That being said I highly doubt better conversion would make an audible (or even measurable) difference

 

[LTig]

It's super transparent when the glm is balanced with adjustments. All the thinnest curtains disappear.

But not because of better DACs, but better EQ.

 

[Ilkka Rissanen]

Hello,

I hope you all understand that you can't bypass the internal DAC no matter what. So in other words, if you have an external DAC before the speaker and you feed the speaker with an analogue signal, the speaker will first convert the signal back to digital for its signal processing and then back to analogue for the power amplifiers. Whether you have any filters activated in GLM or not does not affect this at all, signal processing is always done in digital domain.

If you want the least amount of conversions, you should feed the speaker with a digital signal.