As the title suggests I am comparing these three examples of monitors. I've been deliberating over the past couple of months and have had the chance to listen to these speakers, however only briefly and excluding the Mackies.
I've heard equally fantastic things about each from different sources and different people ranging from helpful shop assistants to trusted friends but I really cannot grab any clear winner from the choices.
So I put the question to the SOS forums!
Which ones?
Thanks in advance for any help
PS. this is my first post here so I apologise in advance if i've broken any unspoken etiquette's
As massive generalisations from my experience: Genelecs if you prefer bright and sweet; Adams if you prefer absolute truthfullness (as far as any nearfield at this kind of size and price can provide).
Hi Calum I haven't heard the Mackie's but I use the first two regularly, Adam's at my Studio and Genelec 8030's at another, I am really impressed with both; lower mid range detail and a nice bottom end I haven't had the opportunity to try them both in the same room; but that would be interesting.
One thing though and there have been other threads on sos about this; room size is a factor (I didnt take this into account at the time) with the Adam's; they have a fairly extended bass response and with my small studio it took a bit of tweaking to get the best from them, having said that Adam A5's are out now and they are slightly smaller.
It really is down to your peronal taste, I hope that helps though.
Not sure where you are located but the best thing to do is to contact some dealers and get the speakers delivered to your room for a few days for side by side comparison. This really is the only way to decide. Everybody's ears/room/perception is different and only you can know which speakers will float your boat.
I made the same choice last week with the addition of the Yamaha HS80s and some JBLs although I think the Genelecs may have been the 8040s.
These are purely my views based on listening backed up by reviews.
Genelec 8040 -there seems to be a lack of mid range.
The JBLs had a slightly strange sound after a while.
Mackie 624, I really liked them but the bass seems slightly prominent. They are probably not available in the U.K. for several weeks though.
Yamaha HS80 Too big for a small room and apparently betray their NS10 lineage
Adam A7 - I bought these - the high mids are very slightly prominent but that is good for me as I frequently need to attenuate the high-mids in my electronic music.
As I said, these are personal opinions but I think the A7s are excellent, I am certain I made the right decision..
I have the A7's and a pair of genelec 8020A's. The genelecs I have are smaller, but they have the same "family" sound as the bigger 8030's. Personally I think they both turn out fantastic mixes, but for some reason I'm edging towards the sound of the genelecs. It seems slightly more transparent and the stereo imaging seems a bit better to me. It's worth noting that the genelec are rear ported and the A7's are front ported. Worth considering if you don't have the room to move your speakers away from the wall....
James Percival wrote:Entirely personal preference.
As massive generalisations from my experience: Genelecs if you prefer bright and sweet; Adams if you prefer absolute truthfullness (as far as any nearfield at this kind of size and price can provide).
+1
When I got some new monitors in at the start of the year I budgeted around £3k...and ended up going for the Adam P11a's, they just really brought out everything wrong with the mixes I put through them. The majority of my clients monitor through Genelec's which is great as I know if I get something sounding ok to my ears on the Adams it will really shine through and round off any nasties in the edit/dub.
Glasgene wrote:
Funny tweeters but they sound very good and amazingly transparent bit more than the a7's and 8030's though.
Funny tweeters? Well they never told a gag I laughed at. But seriously (folks), the AE22 tweeters are 25mm "Ring Radiators" made by Vifa. The Vifa ring radiator is a novel variant of the dome tweeter that offers quite a few advantages - its dispersion holds up well, its time domain and distortion performance is good and, perhaps most importantly for the AE22, its power handling is high and its fundamental resonance is low - which means a lower than usual crossover frequency is viable.
Thanks for the fantastic and very prompt response!
I almost got them today after Uni but have decided to procrastinate until Monday so I can talk to all my lecturers. The studio in my Uni has 5 Genelec 8030s set up for surround sound and near-field so I'm swithering towards them at the moment, and considering they're the only ones the shop has available to listen and pickup on the spot, I am very tempted.
Thanks again for the help, if there's any more opinions out there then I'm more than happy to receive them, I shall get back to the thread over the weekend and let ya'l know what happens on monday
i don't have any experience with the Genelecs, but here are my thoughts.
The Mackies are pretty nice, but they sound to "good" i.e. embellishing to the sound in some way sometimes. Never less, if I had a pair, I think I'd be pretty happy with them.
The JBLs, I want to love, but I only like. They have a character to my ears, that can be a problem in monitors. Plus, the whole room correcting eq thing just seems to be a bit of marketing. I guess it can help, but from my limited knowledge, you can't really eq out the serious problems you may encounter in some rooms. Like wave build up and phase issues. But again, if I had a pair, I wouldn't be disapointed.
The Adams are really near-field monitors to my ears. They sound best when you sit fairly close to them like 2 feet/half a meter away or less. Of course the bass probably puts out some waves that don't peak until they are behind you at that distance! (Based on my entirely amateurish knowledge.) The Adams also seem much more suited to a small space for these reasons, to me.
In short, if your room is small, I would at least try the Adams. Of course, I've never heard the Genelecs.
Swithering is a Scottish verb.
The English equivalent would be "one finds its awfully difficult to make a decision but it occurs to one to wonder if one should perhaps decide on those. After Lady Maud Behrbottle speaks awfully highly of them and she's descended from Lord Tweeter".
Swithering is a Scottish verb.
The English equivalent would be "one finds its awfully difficult to make a decision but it occurs to one to wonder if one should perhaps decide on those. After Lady Maud Behrbottle speaks awfully highly of them and she's descended from Lord Tweeter".
I got the Mackies, and as I write this I'm beasting some Mastodon through em!!
Not had a chance to do any mixing on them as of yet, since I am literally just able to set em up, but I am over the moon already, they are most definitely one of the best sets of speakers I have so far come across and definitely the best I have personally owned!
Thanks for all the help advice guys!
I hold a very high opinion of ya'l
Thanks!
oh and for those vocabularies I unwittingly added to; haha! Scottish 'Patter' for the win !
