• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Why the love for genelec and neumann?

makinao

Member
Joined
May 11, 2019
Messages
62
Likes
84
What is "nearfield hifi listening"? Is this opposed to "nearfield studio listening"? How?
 

jae

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 2, 2019
Messages
1,208
Likes
1,508
I have 2 burning questions which made me register at this site.

First, regarding the overwhelming love for genelec and neumann on this site.

I owned both and used to love the speakers a lot. But as I explore more, I found these speakers to be flawed for nearfield hifi listening.

The genelecs are great for first impression. But as I live longer with them, they appear too bright. The treble too hot for me. I saw a thread on desktop setup and is amaze that so many uses them for a desktop setup. Genelecs with YouTube videos is just too unbearable.

Neumann is even worse than genelec in my opinion. The bass is great and it's treble not as hot as genelec, but the sound is so sterile. Listen to voices and the neumann suck all emotions out. If you don't listen to acoustics I guess it's fine then. The neumann is very suitable for hip hop.

Now, I know both speakers measures very well (especially the neumanns), but I personally cannot live with them in my setup.
If you are able, try sitting a number of feet back from where you normally listen to them. Does it sound better?

It sounds "bright" which is technically flat and accurate because you are listening to studio monitors which are optimised for a flat FR in the nearfield. This will feel even more exacerbated if you are listening without subwoofers or listening to content that does not have a lot of LF content. What you are most likely looking for is a downwards treble tilt and/or perhaps a LF boost which will be more along the lines of how a good loudspeaker will sound like in a good room and what people prefer for typical "hi-fi" domestic listening.

room-target-curves-1024x683.png


index.php

Range-of-adjustments-to-taste-and-preferences-1100x728.jpg


People like Genelec and Neumann because they are engineered well and have good directivity/dispersion characteristics, good FR accuracy, low distortion, good extension for their size. Good radiation characteristics are essential in having a well-performing and versatile speaker and translate to true and consistent timbre in real working conditions. They also EQ the best, so if you did want to tilt your FR as shown above, these speakers respond best to those corrections without compromising much.

You can find a collection of objectively scored speakers here: https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/scores.html and read the help section https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/help.html to understand how they are scored. The help section also has links to relevant videos and literature to understand this more.
 

makinao

Member
Joined
May 11, 2019
Messages
62
Likes
84
Minimum distance for hifi listening, maximum of studio monitor? not sure.
AFAIK in the recording studio, nearfield monitors usually sat on top of the meter bridge of an analog mixer. This means between 1 to 1.5 meters away from the engineer, because that's the range of depths for most mixers. This is true even with todays desktop workstations, in which the nearfield monitors are aligned with the LED monitors, which is my case is 1 meter away.

But I don't know if and how "nearfield hifi listening" differs.
 

Pearljam5000

Master Contributor
Joined
Oct 12, 2020
Messages
5,125
Likes
5,355
Genelecs have the best tonailty I ever heard, it's scary transparent and sounds closest to real life sound ( to me)
On the other hand Focal is more "musical" but I like their sound too.
As for being bright, I don't think that's the case I just think they're detailed
If you want to hear what bright sounds like then listen to PMCs... Omg
 

kongwee

Major Contributor
Joined
Jan 22, 2022
Messages
1,024
Likes
276
But I don't know if and how "nearfield hifi listening" differs.
Traditionally, hifi is put on the living room. Normally the loudspeaker are to throw off at longer distance. Minimum distance the least distance to hear for all the driver interaction. Usually it is further than studio monitor.
 

dfuller

Major Contributor
Joined
Apr 26, 2020
Messages
3,338
Likes
5,056

kuf

Member
Joined
May 22, 2021
Messages
41
Likes
31
Bit of a thread hijack, but any chance you can share a bit more as I'm looking at this exact set-up. Does the sub add much (for casual listening, not necessarily mixing and professional applications). Also do you have much hiss or white noise from the set-up?

The sub made the 8020 to sound quite bigger than they are. Before having the sub I thought the speakers were more than enough for me, but the sub added a lot even if I don't listen to bass heavy music.

What was more impressive for me since this was my first sub,
is that even if the sub is on the left of my feet on the ground,
I would swear that I hear all the low frequencies from the monitors on my desk.
The integration is impressive. I don't know if it is the Genelec setup and guides or if I was just lucky with my placement.

I don't hear any hiss or noise from my setup, but keep in mind that I have this connected to a Presonus Audiobox One which has a volume control.
 

beagleman

Major Contributor
Joined
Sep 24, 2020
Messages
1,157
Likes
1,577
Location
Pittsburgh Pa
I'll agree that Genelecs are voiced rather bright. It's popular (though not necessarily what you want) for studio monitors, while speakers for domestic playback tend to be tilted down a bit more.

Keep in mind, most of the Genelecs have really pretty looking measurements, and there are a lot of people here who will buy whatever measures best on the Klippel and force themselves to listen to it. As a hint, setup and room acoustics are everything, and you can make a Genelec speaker sound like an absolute dumpster fire.

For monitors, it's more even more complicated. Keep in mind, a typical control room != a typical listening environment. Most studios will have some real thought put into acoustic treatment, and it's seldom as simple as "buy a monitor and chuck it on the meter bridge". Tweaking of active crossovers is not unheard of. Monitors should also be able to handle recordings that have not had dynamics processing yet - power compression is a real issue.

Long story short, speakers are complicated. Measurements and models are a useful tool, but as is so often the case with engineering, it's easy to go down the modeling rabbit hole and spend a month doing theoretical computations, only to be slapped in the face by reality. The best speaker for one room is not necessarily the best speaker for another room.

I've heard speakers that ASR hates sound absolutely fantastic, and I've heard speakers that ASR loves sound like dog dung. Everyone has a different room and different preferences. Does that mean you should ignore the measurements? Absolutely not - they're a good place to start, but you have to learn exactly what they mean for your particular use case. The fact that you dislike both the Genelecs and the Neumanns is not surprising, since they have very similar characteristics.
I have to agree with the bolded part.

I have a set of some fairly low rent speakers, that I am sure are not absolutely accurate, but are VERY enjoyable to actually listen to. Flat measuring with Pink Noise, will never guarantee, it will actually sound Flat with ones room OR how most music is Eqed or mixed. It may be accurate TO what was recorded, but what was recorded usually is not accurate................A chicken or egg type of thing


I have heard a few very flat measuring speakers sound thin and annoying.
 

oversky

Active Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2021
Messages
182
Likes
178
Make a measurement at the listening position.
It's not only the speaker, but also the room that matters.
 

napfkuchen

Active Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2022
Messages
295
Likes
397
Location
Germany
At least with GLM-equipped speakers you can use the "sound character profiler" to adjust the sound to your liking (at least to some extent). Also you can alter the glm filters manually. I really like the genelec sound and use different presets for bass-management-frequency which can add some oomph.
 

AudioJester

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 7, 2020
Messages
913
Likes
1,213
They measure well and are engineered excellently. That's about it.

I completely share your sentiments for Neumanns, notably the KH120. Lack of resolution and lack of stereo depth/width for me. For a monitor this is not a bad thing, though.

Curious. Neumann provides measuements, and these monitors have been around and measured over 10 yrs.
What part of the measurements point to lack of resolution / stereo depth?
Or am I misunderstanding a subjective experience?
 

KSTR

Major Contributor
Joined
Sep 6, 2018
Messages
2,690
Likes
6,013
Location
Berlin, Germany
What part of the measurements point to lack of resolution / stereo depth?
Or am I misunderstanding a subjective experience?
Resolution, depth, etc are things that are hard to measure, the standard suite of measurements can give only hints IME.
I was referring to my subjective (but controlled) listening impressions, notably in comparison to small 3-way speakers. No statistical relevance, fair enough.
 
Top Bottom