- Thread Starter
- #21
Since my last post I've used the KH80 and 8331 for music and gaming and had a few more intense comparison sessions. Now the deadline for returning one of the pairs is approaching and I still can't decide.
Both have higher noise floor than I would like. The KH80 also didn't increase their hiss after calibration, it was always there, I just didn't notice. During the day the environment can be a bit noisy, which masks the hiss. But at night I can hear the hiss very clearly at my listening position (70-80cm). This is with only power plugged in, no audio input and no network. My power could be "polluted" by the many switching power supplies in my room, but I would expect the speakers to be able to handle that. They seem to be roughly at the same level, but the KH80 hiss is brighter. I don't understand how serious studio monitors with this much self noise are deemed acceptable or even great. I don't think I would be able to dial in noise reduction in iZotope RX with this. I wouldn't expect anything better from some cheap home recording grade equipment, but from the genelecs this is quite disappointing.
If there was a KH80 with digital input, preferably AES XLR, and significantly lower self noise, I would choose that one immediately.
The 8331 are bit bulky for my desk, but it's still acceptable and size aside I really like the aesthetics of coaxials. The KH80s size is pretty much perfect.
Some small nitpicks: The KH80 makes noise when entering and leaving standby. The 8331 doesn't always respect LED settings.
Both do a somewhat decent job when autocalibrated, but with flaws. Both correct mostly in the bass, but do set filters up to ~1kHz.
It's annoying that I already have a Audix TM-1 Plus, which is probably as good or better than the GLM and MA1 mics, but I still have to buy their stuff. And with the GLM, I have to actually have a box always connected to both the speakers and PC if I want to change settings. The MA1 approach of just using my existing network and audiointerface is much more to my liking. Sadly the good things about the MA1 stop there. The software is frustratingly inflexible and slow. The GLM software is, from a workflow and feature perspective, vastly better than MA1. If there weren't tools like khtool out there, I would just ignore the DSP aspect of the kh80 and use my own DSP. I was suprised that GLM by default only wants you to make a single measurement at the listening position, and even if you do more, it suggests only taking measurements around your head, but still at the same height. The MA1 also wants measurements above and below your listing position. But as the GLM is as flexible as it is, you can just measure whatever you want and it will somehow deal with it. Probably just takes an average of all measurements.
I made all listening test with the GLM/MA1 calibration active. While I probably should compare with manual EQ, so far I was too lazy for that.
Contrary to my expectation, I didn't hear a big difference in soundstage between the two. I prefer the 8331, but as I didn't compare that directly but from memory, that could be autosuggestion.
When directly A/B testing the 8331 on the left and KH80 on the right, the difference in tonality is also surpising. I expected them to sound almost exactly the same except for the genelecs to be brighter, as they should have wider dispersion and the same free field on axis frequency response -> more high frequency energy in the room. Instead the KH80 sounded brighter and the 8331 sounded a bit hollow.
The 8331 sound much bassier, to the degree that I might consider using them without a sub. I don't understand how that can be, as my measurements of the auto calibrated speakers doesn't show louder or lower bass on them.
Also pretty confusing to me, the 8331 have a dip at ~15k, while the KH80 have a boost in that region. I would expect the opposite, as the KH80 should have higher directivity in that region leading to less reflections.
Tonality aside, I wasn't able to confidently discern any differences in quality. Should I be able to EQ the tonality exactly to preference, they would probably sound the same to me. I assume the reflections in my setup mess up the sound so much, that any difference in distortion is masked.
This is a REW moving microphone measurement with 60 averages and psychoacoustic smoothing of the speakers after applying the vendors autocalibration. Due to some mistake on my part I didn't measure at the exact same level, so I also used SPL alignment.
As you can see, the Bass is very similar, so from my understanding it should sound similar. It doesn't.
The only thing in line with my perception is the measurement of the uncorrected speakers. These are the rms averages of the left and right speakers without calibration, using the same MMM method and smoothing as above. As you can see, the 8331 have significantly more bass. Below 60Hz this makes sense to me, as the KH80 have a 12dB/oct high pass at 61Hz. But above that I would have expected a similar amount of bass from both. The only explanation I can come up with is the position in the room. Both speakers are positioned with the tweeter at the same height, but the KH80 have their bass driver at the bottom and the genelecs both the bottom and top. Maybe this is enough to get more room gain out of some vertical modes.
Should someone be interested, I attached the zipped mdat file.
Both have higher noise floor than I would like. The KH80 also didn't increase their hiss after calibration, it was always there, I just didn't notice. During the day the environment can be a bit noisy, which masks the hiss. But at night I can hear the hiss very clearly at my listening position (70-80cm). This is with only power plugged in, no audio input and no network. My power could be "polluted" by the many switching power supplies in my room, but I would expect the speakers to be able to handle that. They seem to be roughly at the same level, but the KH80 hiss is brighter. I don't understand how serious studio monitors with this much self noise are deemed acceptable or even great. I don't think I would be able to dial in noise reduction in iZotope RX with this. I wouldn't expect anything better from some cheap home recording grade equipment, but from the genelecs this is quite disappointing.
If there was a KH80 with digital input, preferably AES XLR, and significantly lower self noise, I would choose that one immediately.
The 8331 are bit bulky for my desk, but it's still acceptable and size aside I really like the aesthetics of coaxials. The KH80s size is pretty much perfect.
Some small nitpicks: The KH80 makes noise when entering and leaving standby. The 8331 doesn't always respect LED settings.
Both do a somewhat decent job when autocalibrated, but with flaws. Both correct mostly in the bass, but do set filters up to ~1kHz.
It's annoying that I already have a Audix TM-1 Plus, which is probably as good or better than the GLM and MA1 mics, but I still have to buy their stuff. And with the GLM, I have to actually have a box always connected to both the speakers and PC if I want to change settings. The MA1 approach of just using my existing network and audiointerface is much more to my liking. Sadly the good things about the MA1 stop there. The software is frustratingly inflexible and slow. The GLM software is, from a workflow and feature perspective, vastly better than MA1. If there weren't tools like khtool out there, I would just ignore the DSP aspect of the kh80 and use my own DSP. I was suprised that GLM by default only wants you to make a single measurement at the listening position, and even if you do more, it suggests only taking measurements around your head, but still at the same height. The MA1 also wants measurements above and below your listing position. But as the GLM is as flexible as it is, you can just measure whatever you want and it will somehow deal with it. Probably just takes an average of all measurements.
I made all listening test with the GLM/MA1 calibration active. While I probably should compare with manual EQ, so far I was too lazy for that.
Contrary to my expectation, I didn't hear a big difference in soundstage between the two. I prefer the 8331, but as I didn't compare that directly but from memory, that could be autosuggestion.
When directly A/B testing the 8331 on the left and KH80 on the right, the difference in tonality is also surpising. I expected them to sound almost exactly the same except for the genelecs to be brighter, as they should have wider dispersion and the same free field on axis frequency response -> more high frequency energy in the room. Instead the KH80 sounded brighter and the 8331 sounded a bit hollow.
The 8331 sound much bassier, to the degree that I might consider using them without a sub. I don't understand how that can be, as my measurements of the auto calibrated speakers doesn't show louder or lower bass on them.
Also pretty confusing to me, the 8331 have a dip at ~15k, while the KH80 have a boost in that region. I would expect the opposite, as the KH80 should have higher directivity in that region leading to less reflections.
Tonality aside, I wasn't able to confidently discern any differences in quality. Should I be able to EQ the tonality exactly to preference, they would probably sound the same to me. I assume the reflections in my setup mess up the sound so much, that any difference in distortion is masked.
This is a REW moving microphone measurement with 60 averages and psychoacoustic smoothing of the speakers after applying the vendors autocalibration. Due to some mistake on my part I didn't measure at the exact same level, so I also used SPL alignment.
As you can see, the Bass is very similar, so from my understanding it should sound similar. It doesn't.
The only thing in line with my perception is the measurement of the uncorrected speakers. These are the rms averages of the left and right speakers without calibration, using the same MMM method and smoothing as above. As you can see, the 8331 have significantly more bass. Below 60Hz this makes sense to me, as the KH80 have a 12dB/oct high pass at 61Hz. But above that I would have expected a similar amount of bass from both. The only explanation I can come up with is the position in the room. Both speakers are positioned with the tweeter at the same height, but the KH80 have their bass driver at the bottom and the genelecs both the bottom and top. Maybe this is enough to get more room gain out of some vertical modes.
Should someone be interested, I attached the zipped mdat file.
