Introduction
This is my first post after I have been reading and benefiting from this forum for roughly two years.
I am no trained listener, and I listen to music purely for pleasure. Thus, everything I post should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, my impressions and conclusions may be helpful to someone with a similar profile, who deliberates about buying a system for pleasure listening without spending an outrageous amount of money.
Background
As my desktop system, I have a pair of Genelec 8030c speakers, an Arendal 1961 1s subwoofer, and a minidsp Flex, which I bought roughly two years ago after a lot of reading on this forum. I listen to this system nearfield at my desk (speakers on desk stands about 80cm / 2.6ft away) in an untreated home office (12m2 / 130 sq ft). I don’t use Dirac, since I wanted to learn how to manually accomplish room correction with REW and a UMIK-1. This system sound amazing and delivers the best sound I’ve ever heard – in terms of delivered joy, it probably represents the best ~3’000 bucks I’ve spent in a long time.
In the living room, I have had a 5.1 system I bought roughly 20 years ago during my graduate studies. It consists of a KEF KHT-3001 set of speakers (non-SE version) on stands and (as the original HTB2 subwoofer gave up the ghost about 6 years ago) a SVS SB-1000 classic subwoofer with a Dayton DSP-LF to knock down the room modes. I listen to this system midfield (LCR are about 2.5m / 8.2 ft away, and the surrounds about 1.8 m / 5.9 ft) in an untreated room (about 50m2 / 540 sq ft). The RT60 time is ~600ms, so the room is lively and certainly far from optimal.
Recently, I replaced the 20-year-old Yamaha AVR with a Denon 3800h as I suspected that room correction would make a substantial difference, which it did. Built-in Audyssey XT32 already sounded much better than the old set up with only the Dayton DSP-LF for the sub. However, I now rely on the free and amazing A1 Neuron from OCA for room correction. I use it with a quasi-Harman target curve with 4db bass boost and Dynamic EQ on. It sounds way better than Audyssey XT32. In fact, the sound is so good that I restarted listening in the living room from time to time, which I nearly gave up after I bought the Genelecs for the nearfield desktop setup.
This got me thinking whether it would be worth upgrading my living room system and replacing the KEF eggs with Genelecs too (e.g., something like 3x 8340 for LCR and 2x 8330/8030 for sourround). However, I was unsure how big the difference would be, given that I would be listening in mid- instead of nearfield. So, before spending roughly 5k on new speakers and stands, I wanted to put the Genelec 8030c and KEF HTS-3001 into a horserace midfield in an untreated room with room correction.
Impression: Genelec 8030c vs KEF HTS-3001 (non-SE) in a 2.1 setup, midfield in an untreated room with room correction
Today, I finally tried out how the Genelec 8030c compare to the small KEF HTS-3001 in a 2.1 setup in my untreated living room roughly 2.5m / 8.2 ft away from the listening position. I placed the Genelecs next to the KEFs at roughly the same height and applied room correction using A1 Neuron. (Since the Denon 3800 has two presets, I could quickly switch between the Genelecs and the KEFs and keep them roughly level matched).
To my surprise, the subjective difference between the KEF eggs and the Genelecs is rather marginal. Objectively, the Genelec 8030c seem to be far superior, but I can only hear a clear difference between them and the KEFs in passages involving hi-hats or complex high-pitched synths. Overall, I can hardly tell them apart in this midfield setting in an untreated room and with A1 Neuron room correction & Dynamic EQ engaged.
Conclusions
Here are my conclusions from this comparison combined with my limited experience. Again, please take all of them (except maybe the first) with a grain of salt.
This is my first post after I have been reading and benefiting from this forum for roughly two years.
I am no trained listener, and I listen to music purely for pleasure. Thus, everything I post should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, my impressions and conclusions may be helpful to someone with a similar profile, who deliberates about buying a system for pleasure listening without spending an outrageous amount of money.
Background
As my desktop system, I have a pair of Genelec 8030c speakers, an Arendal 1961 1s subwoofer, and a minidsp Flex, which I bought roughly two years ago after a lot of reading on this forum. I listen to this system nearfield at my desk (speakers on desk stands about 80cm / 2.6ft away) in an untreated home office (12m2 / 130 sq ft). I don’t use Dirac, since I wanted to learn how to manually accomplish room correction with REW and a UMIK-1. This system sound amazing and delivers the best sound I’ve ever heard – in terms of delivered joy, it probably represents the best ~3’000 bucks I’ve spent in a long time.
In the living room, I have had a 5.1 system I bought roughly 20 years ago during my graduate studies. It consists of a KEF KHT-3001 set of speakers (non-SE version) on stands and (as the original HTB2 subwoofer gave up the ghost about 6 years ago) a SVS SB-1000 classic subwoofer with a Dayton DSP-LF to knock down the room modes. I listen to this system midfield (LCR are about 2.5m / 8.2 ft away, and the surrounds about 1.8 m / 5.9 ft) in an untreated room (about 50m2 / 540 sq ft). The RT60 time is ~600ms, so the room is lively and certainly far from optimal.
Recently, I replaced the 20-year-old Yamaha AVR with a Denon 3800h as I suspected that room correction would make a substantial difference, which it did. Built-in Audyssey XT32 already sounded much better than the old set up with only the Dayton DSP-LF for the sub. However, I now rely on the free and amazing A1 Neuron from OCA for room correction. I use it with a quasi-Harman target curve with 4db bass boost and Dynamic EQ on. It sounds way better than Audyssey XT32. In fact, the sound is so good that I restarted listening in the living room from time to time, which I nearly gave up after I bought the Genelecs for the nearfield desktop setup.
This got me thinking whether it would be worth upgrading my living room system and replacing the KEF eggs with Genelecs too (e.g., something like 3x 8340 for LCR and 2x 8330/8030 for sourround). However, I was unsure how big the difference would be, given that I would be listening in mid- instead of nearfield. So, before spending roughly 5k on new speakers and stands, I wanted to put the Genelec 8030c and KEF HTS-3001 into a horserace midfield in an untreated room with room correction.
Impression: Genelec 8030c vs KEF HTS-3001 (non-SE) in a 2.1 setup, midfield in an untreated room with room correction
Today, I finally tried out how the Genelec 8030c compare to the small KEF HTS-3001 in a 2.1 setup in my untreated living room roughly 2.5m / 8.2 ft away from the listening position. I placed the Genelecs next to the KEFs at roughly the same height and applied room correction using A1 Neuron. (Since the Denon 3800 has two presets, I could quickly switch between the Genelecs and the KEFs and keep them roughly level matched).
To my surprise, the subjective difference between the KEF eggs and the Genelecs is rather marginal. Objectively, the Genelec 8030c seem to be far superior, but I can only hear a clear difference between them and the KEFs in passages involving hi-hats or complex high-pitched synths. Overall, I can hardly tell them apart in this midfield setting in an untreated room and with A1 Neuron room correction & Dynamic EQ engaged.
Conclusions
Here are my conclusions from this comparison combined with my limited experience. Again, please take all of them (except maybe the first) with a grain of salt.
- Amir and OCA are heroes. Without their contributions, I would still be stuck with mediocre sound and no clear path to improve.
- Room correction makes a tremendous difference (at least in untreated rooms). I would never again use a system without it.
- When it comes to (semi-)automatic room correction, A1 Neuron seems to be way superior to Audyssey XT32 and still relatively easy to use. I think OCA has several Youtube videos where he explains why it is so much better. I strongly recommend trying out A1 Neuron to anyone with a compatible Denon/Marantz AVR (if bass is too weak afterward, turning on Dynamic EQ helps).
- Nearfield: it is possible to get amazing full-range sound with a 2.1 system in an untreated room. The combination of Genelec 8030c speakers, a hifi sub, and a minidsp Flex with REW works great for such an application. I suppose similar setups based on Genelec/Neumann and their proprietary room correction would be great too and easier to setup.
- Midfield: it seems possible to get good sound in an untreated room too – at least to a certain extent. Good room correction appears to be a must, and A1 Neuron is astonishing in that regard. However, the potential gains from better speakers seem to be exhausted fairly quickly (probably as one hears mostly reflected rather than direct sound). Not sure whether it is worth going much beyond a decent set of speakers (such as the KEF HTS-3001) in such an application, unless one needs more SPL.
- Nearfield listening seems to be way better suited for focused listening and hearing details than midfield listening. If I could have just one system, it would be my nearfield desktop setup or something similar from Genelec or Neumann.
- Apart from output capability, I cannot hear any difference between the Arendal 1961 1s and the SVS SB-1000 classic after they have been integrated, phase/time aligned, and room corrected. Hence, any decent sub seems to do the job, but good integration and room correction are crucial.
- The Auro2d/3d upmixer is great fun
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sure, yet it will sound pretty good on most speakers. But then may happen that you put on something like, lol, even teen pop metal such as Slipknot etc and - surprise - get a severe lack of resolution. If my playlist consisted mostly of Lana Del Rey-type stuff (actually, it's in there), I'd unlikely got (minor) audophilia vulgaris and ended up buying neutral/linear speakers 
