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Upgrade Focal Aria 906 to Genelec 8340 or Genelec G4 (and minidsp)?

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niesfisch

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We're all waiting feedback :D
Happy holidays meanwhile.
so .... setup finished :)

here are some initial impressions, hope i can describe what i'm hearing.

- connected via aux out with cinch -> analog xlr
- focal aria 906 is already quite good and without glm very similar in sound quality (whatever that means ;-))
- glm setup was very easy
- i (and my wife) can very clearly hear the differences between the glm on/off setup
- when glm is enabled:
> the whole sound becomes more three dimensional
> voices seem to be more forward
> acoustic guitars are more present "in the middle"
> the low frequencies are a lot more tamed and clearer and not so humming/booming (don't the correct english words :))
> i would describe the mid-frequencies as being uplifted like using a loudness buttons (wrong word i know)

final thoughts so far: i am going to keep the genelecs because the glm setup really tames the suboptimal speaker positions and room modes. here are some impressions of the wall mounting and in comparison with the focals. the focals are great speakers and the price-performance ratio is better than with the genelecs. but as i am able to hear clear improvements in my room and im ok with spending the money. would be interesting if i could have achieved a similar setup with the focals and a minidsp with dirac live ....

happy christmas/holidays and greetings from hamburg

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Trell

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so .... setup finished :)

here are some initial impressions, hope i can describe what i'm hearing.

- connected via aux out with cinch -> analog xlr
- focal aria 906 is already quite good and without glm very similar in sound quality (whatever that means ;-))
- glm setup was very easy
- i (and my wife) can very clearly hear the differences between the glm on/off setup
- when glm is enabled:
> the whole sound becomes more three dimensional
> voices seem to be more forward
> acoustic guitars are more present "in the middle"
> the low frequencies are a lot more tamed and clearer and not so humming/booming (don't the correct english words :))
> i would describe the mid-frequencies as being uplifted like using a loudness buttons (wrong word i know)

final thoughts so far: i am going to keep the genelecs because the glm setup really tames the suboptimal speaker positions and room modes. here are some impressions of the wall mounting and in comparison with the focals. the focals are great speakers and the price-performance ratio is better than with the genelecs. but as i am able to hear clear improvements in my room and im ok with spending the money. would be interesting if i could have achieved a similar setup with the focals and a minidsp with dirac live ....

happy christmas/holidays and greetings from hamburg

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If you don't want to have a flat HF response at your listening position you can try out the presets in the "Sound Character Profiler" in the "Group Preset" menu in GLM, or perhaps a low shelf gain for more bass. You'll see the expected response in the "Frequency response" graph.

Just remember to "Store to Loudspeakers" if you want that to survive a power on/off. On the back of the speaker there is a switch to toggle between stored GLM settings or use of the DIP switches.
 

cata02

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Must say these 8340 don't look that big for that space.
I assume you are now feeding them an analog signal?

I'm looking into this setup, but man it's freaking expensive for regular home use; but on the other hand paying any $ for booming bass due to my poor placement seems wasteful.
 

Trell

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Must say these 8340 don't look that big for that space.
I assume you are now feeding them an analog signal?

I'm looking into this setup, but man it's freaking expensive for regular home use; but on the other hand paying any $ for booming bass due to my poor placement seems wasteful.

Booming bass can be fixed with some EQ, which the 8340 has through the GLM Kit.
 

cata02

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Booming bass can be fixed with some EQ, which the 8340 has through the GLM Kit.
Yeah, that's the reason I am looking into this range.
Sorry for confusing you; the booming bass is my concern with regular setups that don't use a DSP.

Just ranting in the wind at crazy Genelec prices for the 8340. :(

What i would have liked is: my sony android tv -> dsp in android -> usb dac (w/preamp) -> amplifier -> speakers.
but my sony android tv doesn't work with usb dacs and dsp on android looks limited to basic eq or just to specific music players....

:(
 
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niesfisch

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I assume you are now feeding them an analog signal?
yes. will maybe try the digital route later. but from what i've gathered from various posts on various places it should not make a big audible difference for me ...
 

Tangband

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yes. will maybe try the digital route later. but from what i've gathered from various posts on various places it should not make a big audible difference for me ...
You have a yamaha wxc50 ( I also have one ) with digital spdif output with volume regulation. Try it, the difference feeding the crossover with a digital signal is clearly audible. Better dynamics, slightly clearer sound.
With an even better digital source ( meaning better than for example bluesound node2 or the Yamaha ) You can gain slightly further in dynamics.
 
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Andrew678

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The author of the post asked a very good question, with a good sub and minidsp can we expect from Aria 906 a high-endish feeling or there is something missing in the sepakers that cannot be augmented with minidsp shd? I have 906+Velodyne DB-12 paired to Topping D70->Rega Elicit-R integrated. Room is 30 m2 with ~3 m high ceiling, floor is tiles and everything else made of drywall panels, I cannot improve it as the house is rented. I am thinking about some upgrade but unlike the author I am considering Focal Sopra 1, simply because I do like the look if my integrated so I do not want to go to active speakers. Sopra 1 seems absurdly expensive.
 

cata02

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The author of the post asked a very good question, with a good sub and minidsp can we expect from Aria 906 a high-endish feeling or there is something missing in the sepakers that cannot be augmented with minidsp shd? I have 906+Velodyne DB-12 paired to Topping D70->Rega Elicit-R integrated. Room is 30 m2 with ~3 m high ceiling, floor is tiles and everything else made of drywall panels, I cannot improve it as the house is rented. I am thinking about some upgrade but unlike the author I am considering Focal Sopra 1, simply because I do like the look if my integrated so I do not want to go to active speakers. Sopra 1 seems absurdly expensive.
After tons of reading this forum the last few weeks, being in a similar situation as yours, i've concluded that unless you go DSP route, it's not worth contemplating too much ab speakers.
What's would be the point of getting super nice speakers, that test well in a test room, only to have them placed close to the wall, or a corner? (bc, you know, life happens). I am sure they will sound different, maybe even better then other speakers, but I get an impression that we're talking ab mild improvement as compared to what you get from the DSP route.

I also have an impression that source DSP cannot deliver the corrections of what Genelec GLM system can.

All above are just my impressions, bc i have exactly 0 experience on this; just reading and speculating; the experts around could shed more light into this topic.

And I also see the monitors are being mostly ugly, esp the Genelec/Adam. But some monitors are maybe less ugly, like Kali, or Dynaudio (simple clean black), so I think I'll go that route.
 

Tangband

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The GLM is not a magic toole, and is only rekommendable if you have suboptimal placement of the speakers.
The same goes for other dsp corrections such as minidsp. In a really good room, with correct placement of the speakers, a very good sound can be gained without dsp corrections.
 

Webninja

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I don’t think I’d ever have a system without some type of room correction. As many people stated, we don’t always get to place speakers symmetrically or optimally.

I’m happy-ish with Audyssey. I liked the simplicity of the Neumann correction. I’d like to try Dirac, but my theater and main listening system biggest improvements were Audyssey and a sub.

Next challenge…Room treatments!
 
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