Rank studio monitors/active speakers you have heard

[liquidlino]

I was lucky enough to audition a huge range of monitors when I bought my new ones recently. Went in prepared to spend genelec money, and left with 305p. A short list below, but I listened to many more:

1. ATC , I think they are the 80, but the smaller ATC. Absolute dynamite. Just amazing in every respect. But they should be at that price. Used them as my reference when a/b ING the other monitors.

2. Genelec 8030. Really nice and great sound, wide sweet spot for imaging and fr.

3. JBL 305p. I literally was shocked how well these stacked up back to back against the ATC. To the point where i decided, keep my genelec money and just bought the jbls. Haven't regretted it, they replaced my 20yr old dynaudios, and it was like I could hear twice as much detail of what was going on in my mix. Suddenly I can hear what the compressor attack is doing to the bass sounds, even tiny adjustments. There's no false good-sound, they just sound neutral, basically like genelec and ATC, but at fraction of price.

4. Neumann three way ( can't remember model). Sounded ok, but had somewhat muted mid range, just didn't sound punchy or exciting at all.

5. Neumann 5 inch. Was pretty good, but really, when played back to back with the JBL and genelec, it was clear they weren't quite as good.

Interestingly, the salesman warned me off the krks, saying they are highly coloured and overly pleasing, masking what's really going on in the mix. I didn't even audition them on his advice.

 

[sandymc]

Interestingly, the salesman warned me off the krks, saying they are highly coloured and overly pleasing, masking what's really going on in the mix. I didn't even audition them on his advice.

KRK Rokit and V series are very different animals.

 

[nat1]

1.Neumann KH80 (currently using)
2.Swan T200C
3.JBL LSR305 Mk1
4. Edifier S1000DB
5.KRK Rokit G3's
6.JBL LSR305 Mk2
7.Edifier R1900TII

 

[soundwave]

1. Dynaudio Focus XD600 (using in living room)
2. Adam Pencil MKIII
3. Adam T5V (using in computer room)
4. JBL LSR 305 MKII
5. Presonus Eris E4.5
6. Presonus Eris E3.5 (using in bed room)

 

[stevenswall]

Today, my main setup would be from "the Ones" series, but the advantage are too marginal to trade up my current rig.

Sufficient to say that Genelec 8260's always won over all other monitors of any price until "the Ones" came around.

Probably a combinations of Genelec's excellence, but mostly co-axial drivers and GLM - Genelec's DRC and sub integration tool.

Have you compared The Ones (any model) with a regular 7 series sub to an 8260+7271?

At NAB it's too loud, and they were using their new high SPL monitors, but based on measurements I looked up, The Ones seem like a marginal improvement indeed:

+Better vertical dispersion.
+Better DSP and room correction capabilities.
+Higher SPL (8361)

-Less extended bass.
-Narrower dispersion.
-More ragged off axis response.
-Less accurate frequency response (worse racetrack woofers and MDC driver? Perhaps it's no longer minimal diffraction with the ridges on the driver.)

PREFERENCES: Excellent horizontal AND vertical dispersion, no major port chuffing playing Reconsider by Jamie XX at 2:10, (the rest applies to headphones too ideally not go silent playing Why So Serious at 3:33, not too piercing with triangles or peaky wkth trumpets in Jurassic Park Main Theme from John Williams Greatest Hits, not so bright I want to rip my inner ear out with the bright tinkly sound during the creshendo of Circle of Life from Lion King, vocals need to click and sound natural in both "7 Years" by Lucas Graham, and "Down to the River", Solar Sailor from Tron should have every descending bass pitch audible, and needs to be cohesive and not sound like there's bloat anywhere.

Bass extension is a pretty big thing I like, but I'll take a little less bass if the speaker has a coaxial driver so that it doesn't sound broken when I'm off axis. (I play Mario kart on the floor, do yoga with my head constantly moving, sit on a couch, or stand up if the movie is long. If my TV looked broken off axis, I'd be very bothered. Most would. They just don't notice/care with speakers.)

In general I want my speakers to be like my 77" OLED: works at many angles, excellent contrast, excellent accuracy, nothing blown out, plenty loud/bright/detailed. High SPL monitors would be like a stupidly bright LCD (which includes QLED, etc.) that is somewhat worse in every way my eye can see. Hopefully main monitors have a coaxial solution one day which is the ONLY drawback of coaxial drivers: they can't use as larger a magnet and get massive SPL according to genelec. Audible diffraction, Doppler distortion, air gap issues, etc. have been solved since the 8260, and I've not had a single company give me a legitimate excuse for not using coaxial drivers.

LIST: No or Minimal Treatment:
Genelec 8260
Devialet Phantom Reactor
Mackie HR824
Kali IN-5
Elac Navis
Kali IN-8
Genelec 1031
JBL LSR 308



LIST: Treated Room/Studio

Genelec 8240 + 7260 sub 3/5.1 system (Stewdio, Salt Lake City, larger room than all the others.)

Focal Twin6 Be (Barrus Studio, Rexburg... Picky about soundstage and off axis sound, incredible vocals)

Yamaha HS8 (Slowave Studios, he just got Barefoot monitors I'd love to hear.)

 

[Objectivist01]

Many guys fro m Europe say here that their best was the geithain. I am pretty sure there would be folks from US wondering what is that thing whihc some people place above the genelecs!

Mine too is geithain over genelec. Heard in the same studio/lab. Blown away immediately!

 

[stevenswall]

Mine too is geithain over genelec. Heard in the same studio/lab. Blown away immediately!

I do wonder! Gethain, Cabasse, Genelec, and Devialet are the only companies with three way "triaxial" speakers that don't have lobes in the polar response as much as regular two and three ways.

Curious with the Gethains if the offset drivers and parallel cabinet walls hold them back. I'd love to compare one with a 10" woofer to the Genelec 8260.

 

[Sprint]

I had perceived a different result. I was at Munich Hi-End in 2019. I was at the Geithan booth. I listened to their several models. I really wanted to like their Cardioid models. They were good but did not wow me for their price. It could be that the booth was very small, open and not set up properly or perhaps the surround was bit noisy. Wish I could hear them side by side with Genelecs, Neumann, Kii3, Dutch 8c in a studio. At the end, I decided to go for Genelecs for a pure multichannel set up especially with GLM they sound superb. If it was a 2ch set up, my vote would be for Dutch 8c or Kii3 (more former than later). But even for stereo, a pair of 8350/8351 or a Neumann KH310 will sound excellent.

 

[thewas]

I do wonder! Gethain, Cabasse, Genelec, and Devialet are the only companies with three way "triaxial" speakers that don't have lobes in the polar response as much as regular two and three ways.

Although you don't really need a triaxial woofer when you place it closely enough to the mid/tweeter coax to avoid dominant lobing as the distance is significantly smaller than the wavelength at the crossover frequency (your 8260 and Kalis are such designs which work well). Making a real triaxial driver (not talking about the Genelec ones slot trick) usually causes more problems than it solves, which can be seen in measurements of various Cabasse and Geithain. Also Devialet has the woofers on the side so if you count it you could also count the KEF Blades.

 

[DigiPete]

Have you compared The Ones (any model) with a regular 7 series sub to an 8260+7271?

Sorry, No.

I've had my 8260 / 7271 in 5.1 setup since 2011/2012 and I'm just enjoying the hell out of it.
I retired (frugally) at 45 back then, so I lowered my budget and mainly spend on travels and my boat.
But damn, Genelec did so many things right with the 8260's

Genelec Porn: "Genelec visits Morten Lindberg’s stunning immersive audio studio"
Man, his surround recordings just blows my mind

 

[Deleted member 12642]

1. Behringer 2030p - These have the best imaging I've ever heard, I like the sort of wooly sound to the mids, they help me not mix that that area too hot. Idk, music just sounds right on these to me.

2. My strange 80's RCA speakers with custom xovers - I'll have to measure these and put them but these things are amazing. They're just very enjoyable to listen to with anything. They seem to take crappy mixes and make them great, and make good mixes even better. If there is anything wrong in a song, these tell me better than anything else.

3. KH80 - Everything from the tweeter is nice but the woofer bores me. They sound kind of small in the mid bass and lows, like it's there but it doesn't move around right. Overall these speakers kind of bore me a bit.

5. Focal Alpha 50 - Very nice bass, the extension was always a surprise. Mids are scooped out and the top end sounds like there's distortion in it. They just released a new model.

6. Yamaha HS8 - I hate these, like a lot. Nothing I ever did sounded good on them and they made me not want to listen to music.

7. Yamaha HS5 - I returned these mere hours after buying them, music is represented so poorly on these, everything sounded wrong to me on them.

I'm looking to move to something other than the KH80, they're nice but not quite what I want. Nowhere to demo anything around here.

d.

Interestingly, the salesman warned me off the krks, saying they are highly coloured and overly pleasing, masking what's really going on in the mix. I didn't even audition them on his advice.

He basing that off the older ones or the newer ones? I've heard the gen 4 5" and it was actually really dang good, I could absolutely mix on them and the music pIayed on them sounded great. I hated the generations before this one though.

 

[richard12511]

Have you compared The Ones (any model) with a regular 7 series sub to an 8260+7271?

At NAB it's too loud, and they were using their new high SPL monitors, but based on measurements I looked up, The Ones seem like a marginal improvement indeed:

+Better vertical dispersion.
+Better DSP and room correction capabilities.
+Higher SPL (8361)

-Less extended bass.
-Narrower dispersion.
-More ragged off axis response.
-Less accurate frequency response (worse racetrack woofers and MDC driver? Perhaps it's no longer minimal diffraction with the ridges on the driver.)

PREFERENCES: Excellent horizontal AND vertical dispersion, no major port chuffing playing Reconsider by Jamie XX at 2:10, (the rest applies to headphones too ideally not go silent playing Why So Serious at 3:33, not too piercing with triangles or peaky wkth trumpets in Jurassic Park Main Theme from John Williams Greatest Hits, not so bright I want to rip my inner ear out with the bright tinkly sound during the creshendo of Circle of Life from Lion King, vocals need to click and sound natural in both "7 Years" by Lucas Graham, and "Down to the River", Solar Sailor from Tron should have every descending bass pitch audible, and needs to be cohesive and not sound like there's bloat anywhere.

Bass extension is a pretty big thing I like, but I'll take a little less bass if the speaker has a coaxial driver so that it doesn't sound broken when I'm off axis. (I play Mario kart on the floor, do yoga with my head constantly moving, sit on a couch, or stand up if the movie is long. If my TV looked broken off axis, I'd be very bothered. Most would. They just don't notice/care with speakers.)

In general I want my speakers to be like my 77" OLED: works at many angles, excellent contrast, excellent accuracy, nothing blown out, plenty loud/bright/detailed. High SPL monitors would be like a stupidly bright LCD (which includes QLED, etc.) that is somewhat worse in every way my eye can see. Hopefully main monitors have a coaxial solution one day which is the ONLY drawback of coaxial drivers: they can't use as larger a magnet and get massive SPL according to genelec. Audible diffraction, Doppler distortion, air gap issues, etc. have been solved since the 8260, and I've not had a single company give me a legitimate excuse for not using coaxial drivers.

LIST: No or Minimal Treatment:
Genelec 8260
Devialet Phantom Reactor
Mackie HR824
Kali IN-5
Elac Navis
Kali IN-8
Genelec 1031
JBL LSR 308



LIST: Treated Room/Studio

Genelec 8240 + 7260 sub 3/5.1 system (Stewdio, Salt Lake City, larger room than all the others.)

Focal Twin6 Be (Barrus Studio, Rexburg... Picky about soundstage and off axis sound, incredible vocals)

Yamaha HS8 (Slowave Studios, he just got Barefoot monitors I'd love to hear.)

The more I look at the 8260, the more it looks like a technical marvel. To my eye, the only One that (maybe?) looks to be an actual upgrade is the 8351, and only if you're crossing to subs. The 8361 has some weird off axis problems that I don't see in the 8260. Is the extra output, smoother vertical response and SP enough to overcome that?

Even comparing it to the 8351 + subs, there is the matter of dispersion width. We saw with the M2 vs Salon2 blind that wider dispersion is more important than a smoother LW and ER. Similar thing happened with @echopraxia in his comparison of the Salon2 and 8351b. Would a similar result not happen with the 8260 vs 8351? The 8260 is even wider dispersion than the Salon2, and unlike the Salon2, it doesn't sacrifice LW and ER smoothness to get it.

The Philharmonic BMR tower has me very intrigued for this reason. Could the BMR tower do to the Salon2 what the Salon2 did to the M2? It has even wider dispersion, and LW and ER smoothness look comparable. Extension is also similar. Would be amazing if it could, considering the price.

 

[Purité Audio]

Had a chance last weekend to compare the 8Cs to a very charming chaps 8351Bs and 7380A sub ( which is huge 15” driver) using GLM4 software, it was hugely impressive.
Keith

 

[richard12511]

Had a chance last weekend to compare the 8Cs to a very charming chaps 8351Bs and 7380A sub ( which is huge 15” driver) using GLM4 software, it was hugely impressive.
Keith

Nice, how did it go?

8351 + 7380 obviously has the deep bass output advantage, but doesn't have that 100-500 directivity control.

 

[Berwhale]

1. iLoud MTM (On my desk)
2. Tannoy Reveal 402 (In their box in the attic, wondering what to do with them)
3. JBL 305p MKII (Sent 'em back, couldn't deal with the hiss)
4. JBL 1 Series 104 (In the bedroom, work well with the TV)

 

[stevenswall]

The more I look at the 8260, the more it looks like a technical marvel. To my eye, the only One that (maybe?) looks to be an actual upgrade is the 8351, and only if you're crossing to subs. The 8361 has some weird off axis problems that I don't see in the 8260. Is the extra output, smoother vertical response and SP enough to overcome that?

Even comparing it to the 8351 + subs, there is the matter of dispersion width. We saw with the M2 vs Salon2 blind that wider dispersion is more important than a smoother LW and ER. Similar thing happened with @echopraxia in his comparison of the Salon2 and 8351b. Would a similar result not happen with the 8260 vs 8351? The 8260 is even wider dispersion than the Salon2, and unlike the Salon2, it doesn't sacrifice LW and ER smoothness to get it.

The Philharmonic BMR tower has me very intrigued for this reason. Could the BMR tower do to the Salon2 what the Salon2 did to the M2? It has even wider dispersion, and LW and ER smoothness look comparable. Extension is also similar. Would be amazing if it could, considering the price.

My thoughts are similar. The 8351B with a sub would compete better than smaller version of The Ones due to the larger waveguide than the smaller "Ones" and doesn't have some of the more ragged off axis issues, but the sub is more of a necessity, and if you go even larger, the 8361 has othe rissues.

Didn't know the 8260 was even wider than the Salon 2. Most keep telling me Genelec monitors are narrow dispersion, but I keep looking at the graphs and the 8260 has everything else beat dispersion wise in the 8xxx series, even the new 8351B.

 

[Purité Audio]

Nice, how did it go?

8351 + 7380 obviously has the deep bass output advantage, but doesn't have that 100-500 directivity control.

It was really interesting, the adjustability of the GLM was really impressive, bass was impressive, presentation was very different which surprised me.
I am hoping the owner might add his thoughts here, he prefers a horizontally more or less flat target, so we reduced the bass of the Harman curve I usually prefer, the 8Cs’ image was further back in the room, the Gens very much up front, on some material very similar on some quite different.
Keith

 

[richard12511]

Didn't know the 8260 was even wider than the Salon 2.

I'm not entirely sure it is, as the measurements are different enough to make it hard to compare. That's the sense I get from eyeballing it, though.

Most keep telling me Genelec monitors are narrow dispersion, but I keep looking at the graphs and the 8260 has everything else beat dispersion wise in the 8xxx series, even the new 8351B.

Yeah I definitely don't consider The Ones as narrow dispersion. Compared to Revel, they're narrower, but my JTR towers are what I would consider actually narrow.

 

[richard12511]

It was really interesting, the adjustability of the GLM was really impressive, bass was impressive, presentation was very different which surprised me.

This is something I really appreciate it. I love that you can change the bass/treble tilt in real time. I've always thought tone controls for individual albums/songs was just more trouble than it's worth, but with GLM I actually use it as such. I leave the Sound Character Profile open to Manual and just alt+tab and click the mouse a few times to increase the treble tilt when I find songs to be too bright.

the 8Cs’ image was further back in the room, the Gens very much up front, on some material very similar on some quite different.
Keith

I really wonder what causes this. For me it's a GLM thing. Turning GLM on moves the center image a few feet forward in space. I asked in another thread what might be causing it. I don't really like it or dislike it, but I'm just curious what causes it. I believe @jonfitch has said something similar when he compared the 8341 to the Revel Be.

I'd really like to hear the 8351b + W371 combo. The W371 is just so expensive, but the bass directivity control thing these modern actives do is a concept that I like.

 

[Purité Audio]

That is really interesting, I don’t think I heard the mains without the sub/glm or only very briefly, so the forward presentation really is a thing and not just my imagination.
The 8361B combo did remind me of my old 8260/7270 hugely impressive but quite an aggressive sound, I suspect though it would be easy to adjust that out.
Keith