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High End Munich 2025 - May 15-18

END WAY said:
I completely agree that GLM can be a useful tool, especially when combined with a good room. But like any tool, it has a defined scope.
Improving acoustics always adds value—that's not up for debate—but even with an optimized room, GLM still operates within the physical limitations of the system: the cabinet design, the behavior of the drivers, dispersion, diffraction, how the cabinet handles the rear wave, whether or not it has a lot of internal fill, temporal coherence, and resonances generated by the cabinet itself. Perhaps one of these variables made me more excited about a well-designed passive system.

It's not about disregarding GLM, but about not overestimating it. It can correct certain defects, but it can't produce qualities that aren't present in the original transducer design. And in many cases, the excitement generated by a well-resolved passive system without any digital processing is still unparalleled.
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It has nothing to do with passive vs active. Any passive speaker can be made better active. And in case you're wondering: Active doesn't neceassarily imply internal electronics.
 
END WAY said:
Genelec sounds good, it's precise, adaptable, but it lacks that organic naturalness and emotional three-dimensionality that I've heard in other very high-end passive systems without DSP.
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Have you heard the speakers in YOUR room?

You're going off the rails if you lump the music itself in with the speakers.
Yes, music can and should give you goosebumps in some moments.

But this is only possible with loudspeakers that are capable of reproducing this emotional acoustic information as accurately as possible.

These are two different issues.

However, I completely agree with you that flawless reproduction is not only possible with Genelec loudspeakers.

Furthermore, it is nowadays possible to measure loudspeakers completely and comprehensively.
The trick is to interpret the measurements correctly.

I can do it to some extent, but not completely.

More important than the measurements, however, is the interaction of the loudspeaker with the listening room.

As I've written before, the loudspeaker and the listening room are acoustically one unit and you can't really judge them separately.

The loudspeaker, the very good loudspeaker, must also match the listening room in order to sound perfect, to be able to create goose bumps.

On the other hand, a very good passive loudspeaker can also fail completely in an unsuitable listening room.

Active DSP concepts offer more possibilities.
 
Salt said:
Maybe we are a little derailing the thread's topic?
Perhaps a fork to "Why I Hate Generec" thread could be generated? :cool:
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Thanks for the correction. It's always helpful to have someone check your spelling. The interesting thing is that you get excited about this kind of thing, at least I don't.
 
Audionaut said:
Have you heard the speakers in YOUR room?

You're going off the rails if you lump the music itself in with the speakers.
Yes, music can and should give you goosebumps in some moments.

But this is only possible with loudspeakers that are capable of reproducing this emotional acoustic information as accurately as possible.

These are two different issues.

However, I completely agree with you that flawless reproduction is not only possible with Genelec loudspeakers.

Furthermore, it is nowadays possible to measure loudspeakers completely and comprehensively.
The trick is to interpret the measurements correctly.

I can do it to some extent, but not completely.

More important than the measurements, however, is the interaction of the loudspeaker with the listening room.

As I've written before, the loudspeaker and the listening room are acoustically one unit and you can't really judge them separately.

The loudspeaker, the very good loudspeaker, must also match the listening room in order to sound perfect, to be able to create goose bumps.

On the other hand, a very good passive loudspeaker can also fail completely in an unsuitable listening room.

Active DSP concepts offer more possibilities.
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I agree on several points. The room and the loudspeaker form an inseparable unit, and DSP can be a useful tool for managing that interaction, especially in challenging environments.
But I also believe there are designs that, even in moderately treated rooms, manage to excite without digital correction because their temporal coherence, resonance control, and physical linearity are already addressed by design.
 
END WAY said:
Thanks for the correction. It's always helpful to have someone check your spelling. The interesting thing is that you get excited about this kind of thing, at least I don't.
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You had the courage here to say that you didn't appreciate the Genelecs; worse, you said you prefer passive speakers... Unless you apologize immediately, your trial will begin, and the sentence will be severe!;)
 
fredoamigo said:
You had the courage here to say that you didn't appreciate the Genelecs; worse, you said you prefer passive speakers... Unless you apologize immediately, your trial will begin, and the sentence will be severe!;)
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No need for him to apologize. It's his preference. Not up to us to tell him his preference is wrong. Some people don't like neutral, and that's fine.
 
How do we know it's "neutral" he doesn't like?
What about aspects of the speaker plus room integration that doesn't make it neutral? Or is that an impossible thought here?
 
Keith_W said:
No need for him to apologize. It's his preference. Not up to us to tell him his preference is wrong. Some people don't like neutral, and that's fine.
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Thanks for the condescension disguised as respect. But I'd like to clarify: it's not that I don't like neutrality, it's that I don't confuse neutrality with a lack of dynamics.
A system can be flat in frequency and still sound dull, because neutrality isn't everything: temporal coherence, transient resolution, and microdynamics also count. And that's not always achieved with a DSP and a driver with average specs.

So no, it's not a question of emotional preference versus precision. It's a question of how well you understand what really makes a system reproduce music convincingly, not just correctly.
 
Keith_W said:
No need for him to apologize. It's his preference. Not up to us to tell him his preference is wrong. Some people don't like neutral, and that's fine.
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It was just a touch of humor, but you can love absolute neutrality while having the right not to enjoy the sound of a 'SOTA' active speaker. One does not prevent the other; I love the 8Cs, but I prefer my 4367s for the dynamics and SPL that others cannot reproduce, and I'm not crazy about Genelec. Where is the problem?
 
kolestonin said:
It was my absolute first audio show and I did not at all enjoy it. Extremely crowded, chaotic and very difficult to walk, underwhelming.

Impressed by the amount of stands for cables which I completely ignored. The industry seems to flourish though. Heavily supported by the manufacturers who all used cables with a thickness of gas tubes and cable risers on their listening rooms.

I didn't audition a lot of speakers. Maybe 15.
The best speakers I listened was a Magico pair(don't know the model).
The most impressive the Perlisten S7T Black edition.
A bit disappointed by the new Mofi source point 10 and the big Genelecs, normally due to high expectations.
KII immersive room offers a life time experience. Not useful for conclusions though as the chosen tracks were not adeguate and the sound result was coming from 7 speaker's.
Some sound to be mentioned also by a pair of Marten mingus quintet 2. But these are at 68.000....

What gained my attention and I went to audition twice was a pair of Radiant acoustics 4.2 tiny speakers which produced a jaw dropping base. Their bigger siblings called clarity 6.2 were even better. It seems these purify drivers do a great job. Small ones are at 2600euros and the biggers at 4000. Not cheap for bookshelf speakers given the concurrence, but worth give them a listen if you have the chance.

What stole my heart? A pair of Indiana line Utah 8. I didn't even know the brand. Speaker's will be officially presented in Warsaw audio show. They will be available on October 2025. I had a talk with the guys and got this information. And if I did not misheard, the price will be around 1600 euros. It seems unbelievable to me given how good these speakers sounded. I also went to listen them twice, with the second one being extensive.

I have a ticket for tomorrow as well but I don't know if I will go cause as I said the experience was not good.
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I've been to Munich 2025 show and I was not impressed with Magico M9 due to it's price.
I do not think they are 20x better the S7t BE but they do cost 20x times more.
 
ObiWanKenobi said:
I've been to Munich 2025 show and I was not impressed with Magico M9 due to it's price.
I do not think they are 20x better the S7t BE but they do cost 20x times more.
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I often wonder where the Point of Diminishing Returns passes thru the cost factor.
Eliminating a need to fill a giant sized room with sub 20hz response and 120db SPLs, how much better sound, for an average home living room, can a $5k pair be bettered by $20k, or $100k?
Thoughts?
 
Sal1950 said:
I often wonder where the Point of Diminishing Returns passes thru the cost factor.
Eliminating a need to fill a giant sized room with sub 20hz response and 120db SPLs, how much better sound, for an average home living room, can a $5k pair be bettered by $20k, or $100k?
Thoughts?
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The answer to that question is absolutely not!

The ‘High End’ Show is nothing more than frivolous spending and exaggerated stylistics for the sake of extreme consumerism. It’s nice to see what can be designed and made for the sake of it, but we are not gaining any type of progression, everything’s practically been done in terms of hi-fi and our audible limits, this show is gluttonous showing off. But nice to see nonetheless for us enthusiasts, but there’s certainly nothing cost-effective about it. It can be done for a fraction of the cost and just as good. Maybe it’s not as nice in terms of artistically, but it becomes more about style, art, and effects than actual hifi.
 
Sal1950 said:
I often wonder where the Point of Diminishing Returns passes thru the cost factor.
Eliminating a need to fill a giant sized room with sub 20hz response and 120db SPLs, how much better sound, for an average home living room, can a $5k pair be bettered by $20k, or $100k?
Thoughts?
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If I was setting up a speaker company and I actually wanted to make some money out of it, then I'd look at a retail price of 20 times the bill of materials.

Given that large-ish, expensive speakers are a small market with a lot of competition the marketing and distributor costs would be high. So I can see how a reasonably large size (say 80 to 100 litre) commercial speaker that cannot do 120dB SPL or 20Hz can still get to cost $40K or more without it being into Veblen territory where they just plucked a price out of the air. They'd probably go broke selling it for less.
 
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