Genelec W371A + The Ones : My quest for the Grail is over

[srrxr71]

Sorry, I am still catching up with the fascinating 31 pages . You and I are on the same page. The new Trinnov Nova is a new milestone for Trinnov, and I am also fond of Rythmik subwoofers. I have only heard the F12SE and was seriously impressed with its tactile response.

So, despite reaching flat to 20Hz, you still miss the room-shaking sub-bass? I can echo this. My current SVS PC-4000 Excel (in my room) is between 15Hz. and 25Hz. This region is rarely present, but when a movie scene provides it... boy, you are in for a treat!

I’m not really looking for more bass. In fact the amount I currently have causes wall resonances. I have to run the bass drivers independently to hear it.

I don’t watch any movies either.

My goal is simply to have the bass come from all around me. I imagine the Trinnov will actually attenuate the output from the w371 and fill it in with the other subs.

I wonder if it will make a big difference or not.

If I were to get really fancy I would even try the Rythmik FM8 midbass unit. But really I don’t want to mess with the standard design of the w371. So I will only use the extra subs under 60Hz at which point they lose their controlled directivity.

One way or another the 8361+w371 will run into a limit at any frequency range. So the solution to that is the 8381a. No good way around that.

There is a reason every single drive unit on that system is a fresh design.

 

[onion]

I have separate systems for music and movies and have a multisub setup for the latter (SVS and M&K Subs) that is much better for LFE and movies than the Genelec system.

I've tried playing multichannel music (atmos) through the AVR with a 5:4:4 setup. It is not a patch on the Ones+W371a stereo setup.

 

[Sebastiaan de Vries]

I’m not really looking for more bass. In fact the amount I currently have causes wall resonances. I have to run the bass drivers independently to hear it.

I don’t watch any movies either.

My goal is simply to have the bass come from all around me. I imagine the Trinnov will actually attenuate the output from the w371 and fill it in with the other subs.

I wonder if it will make a big difference or not.

If I were to get really fancy I would even try the Rythmik FM8 midbass unit. But really I don’t want to mess with the standard design of the w371. So I will only use the extra subs under 60Hz at which point they lose their controlled directivity.

One way or another the 8361+w371 will run into a limit at any frequency range. So the solution to that is the 8381a—no good way around that.

There is a reason every single drive unit on that system is a fresh design.

You are probably right. For your (SPL) requirements, the 8381a's had it. I can only imagine how the 8381a will sound, and it's likely the best system money can buy. I will let you know how I experienced the W371A when I finally heard them in Beijing.

 

[Sebastiaan de Vries]

I have separate systems for music and movies and have a multisub setup for the latter (SVS and M&K Subs) that is much better for LFE and movies than the Genelec system.

I've tried playing multichannel music (atmos) through the AVR with a 5:4:4 setup. It is not a patch on the Ones+W371a stereo setup.

Thanks for confirming. I was afraid of this already. I am both a music and movie lover. What I appreciate about the current SVS-Trinnov-Genelec setup is that it does both without compromise. It makes two-channel music so well, with very tight controlled bass (You can't hear in any way there are subwoofers in the system), and with movies, you are simply there! You are in the bubble, in the scene, making watching the movie so engaging. Likely when Trinnov releases the multi-sub software next year, and two more sub's that be the holy grail.

 

[Fredygump]

Exactly that! I always believed in the concept that one should sum all bass below a certain frequency and utilize all woofers to correct by bass-steering. Kinda what DIRAC does and the upcoming Trinnov active bass steering/absorbing.

Thanks for sharing. I will study your creation!

I got the idea from Dave Rat of Rat Sound Systems. He talks a lot about de-correlating left and right channels to minimize comb filtering. So he advocates using multiple mics for each instrument, and mixing the mics together differently for left and right channels, creating two signals are different enough that comb filtering is reduced.

Multiple subs are the opposite, so they should reproduce the same signal so they do interact.

 

[jhenderson0107]

My theater uses W371+8351B for L/R, 8361 for C, LS, RS, LR, RR and three JTR RS1 subs. I use a preset which disables the subs for music, and nearly always prefer an upmixer to simple stereo for nearly all music genres. Full-range drivers for all surround channels is the way to go, IMO.

I ran 8361's for the entire bed-layer previously. IMO, the W371's don't improve performance enough to justify their incremental cost, particularly in a surround application. But they're here and calibrated, so no reason to change now. But I'd never consider the 8381's since the incremental improvement would likely be negligible.

There's just so much you can do in a generic living space.

 

[Fredygump]

My theater uses W371+8351B for L/R, 8361 for C, LS, RS, LR, RR and three JTR RS1 subs. I use a preset which disables the subs for music, and nearly always prefer an upmixer to simple stereo for nearly all music genres. Full-range drivers for all surround channels is the way to go, IMO.

I ran 8361's for the entire bed-layer previously. IMO, the W371's don't improve performance enough to justify their incremental cost, particularly in a surround application. But they're here and calibrated, so no reason to change now. But I'd never consider the 8381's since the incremental improvement would likely be negligible.

There's just so much you can do in a generic living space.

I have to disagree. The 8381s would look an order of magnitude more impressive! I'd be impressed!

But the W371A's will always be a little weak as subwoofers, especially if you want to shake the room. They are designed for a studio application, not home theater.

The 14" woofer in a small sealed box doesn't play very low. It is intended to extend up to 500hz so it can cross directly to the 2 way coax...but it will naturally start to roll off at around 80-100hz based on typical drivers I have looked at. But it seems to me that they need it to extend down to ~50hz to be effective. This can be done with a linkwitz transform, but at the cost of reducing headroom at the lower frequencies.

If you want confirmation, look at the 8381--instead of using a front 15" woofer that plays up to 500hz, they chose a subwoofer driver that only extends up to around 250hz. This lets them get more low frequency output. But the negative effect is that this driver does not extend high enough to cross directly to the wave guide coax. So Genelec were forced to add those 4 mid woofers to bridge the gap. I think it is self-evident that Genelec would not have custom designed such specialized drivers if they were not needed to solve a problem.

 

[onion]

But the W371A's will always be a little weak as subwoofers, especially if you want to shake the room.

Definitely agree with this. I prefer movies to have bass with a tactile thump. But that same low freq energy that is so good for movies does not sound as good for music as the W371a, even if it has been smoothed over the freq response with multi subs and EQ.

 

[Sebastiaan de Vries]

Definitely agree with this. I prefer movies to have bass with a tactile thump. But that low freq energy that is so good for movies does not sound as good for music as the W371a, even if it has been smoothed over the freq response with multi subs and EQ.

I do not fully agree with that. A good (sub-bass) system must reproduce the content as accurately as possible. Therefore, a sound sub-bass system should be able to produce the impact of explosions accurately; earthquake rumbles, gunshots, etc., and a kick drum with a bass guitar, standing bass, etc.

The SVS PC4000 Genelec combination does that extraordinarily. It shakes the apartment if a movie scene requires it, but simultaneously it plays music with true mid-bass slam, which is very controlled and accurate.

You might wonder why I am researching for the W371A then.. well there is always this "what if" feeling and hunger to make something great even better, if possible

 

[jhenderson0107]

...I prefer movies to have bass with a tactile thump...

For movies, I enable the three JTR RS1 18" subwoofers and dual buttkickers in my couch. With the right content - like the battle scenes in Greyhound - it's genuinely scary.

 

[onion]

The SVS PC4000 Genelec combination does that extraordinarily. It shakes the apartment if a movie scene requires it, but simultaneously it plays music with true mid-bass slam, which is very controlled and accurate.

So mid-bass to me means 120 - 350 Hz. I have the SVS SB16 but I don't think it extends into that frequency. So the base layer takes over (M&K speakers). They will never beat the W371a for control of bass at those frequencies.

I love the slam but I think that happens around 80Hz

If I had my time again with the movie room, I'd probably fill it with Genelec Ones . So I am very interested to hear how it will work out for you

 

[Fredygump]

I do not fully agree with that. A good (sub-bass) system must reproduce the content as accurately as possible. Therefore, a sound sub-bass system should be able to produce the impact of explosions accurately; earthquake rumbles, gunshots, etc., and a kick drum with a bass guitar, standing bass, etc.

The SVS PC4000 Genelec combination does that extraordinarily. It shakes the apartment if a movie scene requires it, but simultaneously it plays music with true mid-bass slam, which is very controlled and accurate.

You might wonder why I am researching for the W371A then.. well there is always this "what if" feeling and hunger to make something great even better, if possible

I was going to comment previously that the Genelec subs are technically excellent. Probably among the best available. I had a 7060B awhile back, which is very similar to the 7360...and it made zero perceptable resonance while playing 20hz. So if you play a 20hz tone, you hear things rattle, but you barely hear anything from the sub...because it is the limit ouf what we can hear.

I knew it was technically excellent, but it left something to be desired. So I sold my Genelec 8040As + 7060B for cheaper monitors plus 2 subwoofers. I definitely got more bass output, and it was fun to listen to. Less clinical. But the subs were kind of cheap, and without DSP the 2 subwoofers didn't really help improve bass response. It seemed pretty good, but my new [prototype] speakers are night and day better than either.

I am trying to think of how to describe the difference. Can we call it transient response? A 12" sub with 20mm excursion and 3,000 watts is going to do things the Genelec's 8" woofer and it's 120(?) watts just can't do.

The system I'm building has 2 10" subs that take 160watts to reach max excursion, and I don't know why anyone would want something louder. But I would accept that bigger subs can produce a transient better....if a sub frequency can be called a transient.

 

[srrxr71]

True slice of heaven on earth. That’s all I have to say.

 

[onion]

I did a very stupid thing. I have a tv screen in between. Finally I had the sense to put bass traps between them and the TV. Wow.

Huge difference.

I’m getting numbers above 95 in the flatness and correlation.

Here's a question for acoustic experts. My Grade report indicated a high level of early reflections and a few other problems. The room is small, and wider than it is long (3m long by 4m wide by 2.5m high with a window bay left side and piano right side)

I moved the Ones to the back of the W371a and placed some broadband GIK absorbers (242) behind the speakers. This was the result:

This audibly improved the performance of the system. In particular, higher frequencies sounded much clearer. It also improved the performance of Bacch4Mac subjectively even though the XTC measurement has declined compared to before.

My question is would it be better to place thicker absorbers like the GIK 244 bass traps behind the speakers instead of the broadband absorbers? Because the length of the room is so small, there's no possibility to bring the speaker system far away from the wall to mitigate SBIR.

 

[srrxr71]

Here's a question for acoustic experts. My Grade report indicated a high level of early reflections and a few other problems. The room is small, and wider than it is long (3m long by 4m wide by 2.5m high with a window bay left side and piano right side)

View attachment 291147

I moved the Ones to the back of the W371a and placed some broadband GIK absorbers (242) behind the speakers. This was the result:

View attachment 291148

This audibly improved the performance of the system. In particular, higher frequencies sounded much clearer. It also improved the performance of Bacch4Mac subjectively even though the XTC measurement has declined compared to before.

My question is would it be better to place thicker absorbers like the GIK 244 bass traps behind the speakers instead of the broadband absorbers? Because the length of the room is so small, there's no possibility to bring the speaker system far away from the wall to mitigate SBIR.

I don’t know. But I can say that 244 traps are my minimum traps. My mix of the 244 and the monster bass traps.

But you have made a huge difference from just that placement. So i’m sure you can figure out with some experimentation how to get all green.

That last number of the deepest notch doesn’t matter if you have w371. The report only gives the response of the 8351. So whatever deep notch that exists under 300Hz will be corrected by the w371.

Also on the topic of Baach basically how I have my inside 244 traps it sort acts as a light version of sitting a trap in front of your nose.

I think it just cuts off a lot of crosstalk. Because the path from left driver to right ear is effectively cut off.

I might try to out a trap on outside as well. It creates an effective “tunnel path” from driver to ear.

I doubt the outside traps would help in my case as they are far from any walls. However in your room it may matter.

The only downside is just having these visually large traps around the monitors.

 

[srrxr71]

Another side effect is that I feel more satisfaction at lower levels. Maybe it’s this or maybe it’s just getting used to the system

 

[Fredygump]

Here's a question for acoustic experts. My Grade report indicated a high level of early reflections and a few other problems. The room is small, and wider than it is long (3m long by 4m wide by 2.5m high with a window bay left side and piano right side)

View attachment 291147

I moved the Ones to the back of the W371a and placed some broadband GIK absorbers (242) behind the speakers. This was the result:

View attachment 291148

This audibly improved the performance of the system. In particular, higher frequencies sounded much clearer. It also improved the performance of Bacch4Mac subjectively even though the XTC measurement has declined compared to before.

My question is would it be better to place thicker absorbers like the GIK 244 bass traps behind the speakers instead of the broadband absorbers? Because the length of the room is so small, there's no possibility to bring the speaker system far away from the wall to mitigate SBIR.

With acoustic treatment, in general it's more about quantity of absorbers than absorbers being in secific locations. Well, obviously placing absorbers at first reflection points is important, but after that the specific locations of panels isn't really critical. I've absorbed a lot of content about acoustic treatment, and I've seen recommendations of something like 20% of wall surface area should be covered with thick absorbers. Thick are better than thin, because they are more broad band. I expect most people are already familiar with this concept?

I have a request for you or whomever is in a position to test: how repeatable is the calibration report? If you run the calibration 2 times without touching the speaker or measurement mic, how much variation do you get in the results? And also, if you move the mic a couple inches and re-calibrate, how much of a difference does that make? What is the biggest variation you can get by moving the measurement mic?

I just don't know if the difference shown here is significant. My thought is that there will be some variation in the results just from moving the microphone. And if we are being scientific, we need to know what a statistically significant improvement is. In the case of the early reflection level, the difference could be down to whether the microphone happens to be located in a standing wave, and rearranging creates a null in the same place.

Of course I am asking as part of my ongoing curiousity! This data is very interesting, but I would also like to understand it better.

 

[Fredygump]

Can anyone calibrate their system with GLM and then run sweeps in REW? I am curious to see if there is a way to use REW data to predict what the GLM score will be. And it would be interesting to see the raw data.

I'm noticing that the "early vs late" data must be a clarity measurement. The standard for speach intelligibility is 50ms, but the numbers are low for a C50 measurement. For example, my setup has a C50 of 20+. If they are using their own measurement standard, like C20 (20ms), that would result in a lower number. So it would be really informative to have the GLM data side by side with REW data!

 

[onion]

Good points Fredygump.

The calibration was very repeatable even with minor changes in the positioning of the mic. However...

I noticed a couple of things. On entering room dimensions in GLM, I had not switched length and width when I changed where the speakers were (originally either side of the piano). The GRADE report is very different just from changing the room dimensions around this way with everything else the same, so I believe some of the parameters are partly calculated based on inputted room dimensions rather than directly measured. This includes early reflection level which was in the green zone without any treatment or speaker placement changes when the room dimension measurements had been entered incorrectly.

The other thing I noticed was some ringing in a couple of bass frequencies when moving back 0.5 - 1m. So I think I'll need to redo GLM using multiple measuring points.

 

[Fredygump]

Good points Fredygump.

The calibration was very repeatable even with minor changes in the positioning of the mic. However...

I noticed a couple of things. On entering room dimensions in GLM, I had not switched length and width when I changed where the speakers were (originally either side of the piano). The GRADE report is very different just from changing the room dimensions around this way with everything else the same, so I believe some of the parameters are partly calculated based on inputted room dimensions rather than directly measured. This includes early reflection level which was in the green zone without any treatment or speaker placement changes when the room dimension measurements had been entered incorrectly.

The other thing I noticed was some ringing in a couple of bass frequencies when moving back 0.5 - 1m. So I think I'll need to redo GLM using multiple measuring points.

That is interesting. Does GLM create a single calibration to even out multiple locations at the same time? From what I have seen, it is just calibrated to a single point, and you have to switch calibrations if you switch listening positions....that is, if you want optimal sound quality.