Genelec Rules!

Today I went along to the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Conference in San Francisco. The AES is probably the most influential group on the recording side of the music business and the people attending this conference are responsible for the content on those disc you're playing.

At the conference is a trade show of exhibits. Everything from micro-phones, to mixing desks, to speakers, PA gear, components (DAC's, digitial amps) and finally custom knobs (just in case your building your own gear). Now, you can assert that this is a show for a bunch of geeky wankers (I'm pre-empting Bub here), which is fine as far as it goes, but just remember these people are recording your music!

There are several speaker manufacturers present of course. Mackie, Genelec, ATC, Yamaha etc.. However, by far the most popular speaker on demo at booths around the place were GENELEC. They were bloody everywhere, I'd say 90% of the booths with speakers had genelec. I saw maybe two pairs of Mackie's outside the Mackie booth and (sadly) two pairs of ATC's outside of ATC's demo room.

So, if you've got a penchant for monitors, because they are ACCURATE and used in STUDIO's, then they'd better be made by GENELEC

ATC had a nice big demo room showing off a surround system - 5, custom finish, 150's and two bloody great subwoofers. The poor sods in the next room must have hated the organisers for putting them next to ATC. I also got to meet Bob Polly at last - I've spoken to him several times on the phone and he's a good bloke, so it was nice to be able to thank him in person for his help.

I think overall the conference was short of demo rooms, so some of the rooms were shared. ATC were hooked up with EMM Labs, who make extra-ordinarily expense SACD players and DSD ADC/DAC's.

I wanted to hear Dynaudio's AIR range, but they were doublebooked with t.c. electronics, and the latter had the floor when I got there. Pity.

I was also disappointed that NHTPro didn't have a room demo of their new "room eq'd" sat/sub combo (DSP by DEQX - which I might have looked into further had the Tact not shown up on Audiogon.)

I did get a quick chance to listen to the new 8000 series Genelec and they sounded inoffensive. I've been considering their new sub's, so I got chace to eyeball those.

I was toying with buying some AIR 15's to see what Dynaudio sounded like. But I've changed my mind, because ...

...Genelec Rules!

 

Not really. They are very popular, but part of that is because in "pro" audio just as in consumer audio, people act like sheep and slavishly follow the latest trends.
Personally I have found Genelecs to be quite painful. Fortunately, I no longer have to suffer these speakers.
And of course they are not accurate, no speaker is remotely accurate in the way, say, a budget amp can be accurate.

 

If it's not already obvious, it will become clear why I wrote what you quoted in the way that I did.

I can't deny that there are trends. What surprised me was the extreme popularity of Genelec.

If I recall, no one mentioned Genelec in the "Which speakers are liked ?" thread.

There were a few pairs of "Blue Sky" dotted around, which I'd not heard of before.

Quite.

 

agreed.
heard them once in the recording studio and they almost damaged my ears

 

Oedipus,

Did you actually enjoy listening to any of the Genelecs?

The Air 15 is fair, I had a pair on demo about a year ago teamed to the Tact. have you listened to Adam monitors from Germany? I must admit to really liking the ones I have heard.

 

At one of the "editting tools" demo's I heard several ear piercing seconds of music through genelecs. It was REALLY loud and sounded awful. But... it was intended to sound bad, because the tools being demo'd were there to "tame that problem". I didn't stick around to hear the end result. It did sound bad, it could be for several reasons, but mostly (I suspect) because it was way too loud.

In the Genelec demo room, they were being played at moderate level, I heard a couple of tracks (each track on a different model) and there was nothing immediately obviously wrong. [I didn't know either recording which doesn't help..]

I thought they looked interesting, and the digital in, sub processing etc. might be the way of the future. I've only heard dynaudio's in demo's and I didn't get that "I have to have these" feeling (ended up with ATC active 10's on that shopping spree )

They had a stand there yesterday, but on the main floor, so it would have been impossible to hear them (without all the general clatter).

I hadn't heard of Blue Sky until yesterday, but they had a couple of pairsof speakers outside their own stand..

The ATC system I mentioned yesterday appeared on Audiogon last night for $60K. The ad/auction has gone today, so I wonder if someone actually bought it...

 

I've got to agree with the nay-sayers..
I've always found Genelec monitors to be on the piercing side of bright, but then I've tended to find that about lots of different pro-speakers, especially if they're mini-monitors played loud!
That's probably why the Beeb always used to use LS3/5as - firstly because you couldn't play them loud, and secondly there'd be less claims for industrial injury deafness with such a nice-sounding speaker!