Hey folks!
Lucky me, will be going to southern Portugal for two months in the spring. Will take my laptop, guitars and stuff and finish my new album. Have a place to stay there where I can do my music, singers will be popping by (I hope ^^) and I also want to do the mixing there.
My current speakers are rather rubbish and I have some cash left, so I definitely want to buy new speakers for this project. Did some listening and narrowed it down to these two shiny candidates:
The 8040A are more expensive, of course. But this is not my main concern. The financial effort I would do for this project. The thing is, they are a whole lot bigger and much more heavy than the 8030As and it’s also a matter of logistics and transport (I’ll be driving, my car is rather tiny); and back home, my studio is rather small and merely from a point of view of size, the 8030A would fit better into it. If the 8030As give enough low end response, I’d rather take these. But I don’t want to be sitting there in the beautiful spring, recording and mixing, enjoying myself, but not being able to hear the low end and wishing I had a subwoofer.
So, can somebody give some advice here? Do you know these speakers? How do the smaller ones (8030A) translate in terms of low end and overall volume? Is it worth to spend more money and transport the big ones all the way down there?
If they’re going to ultimately be in my main studio, there’s no question I’d get the one’s that sound best to me in that space.
(I sooner cut holes in the roof of my car to haul them around than live with main studio monitors that weren’t right.)
The 40’s don’t seem to present that much greater a transportation issue over the 30’s…certainly not enough to sacrifice their better sound, if those were the one’s I chose.
Years ago, when I house sat for relatives for a month and a half, I hauled a set of 33lb Behringers 8"ers to their place.
I only noticed their size the two times I had to heave them in and out of the car.
Fundamental (no pun intended ) physics issue here. If you need bass, generally the larger the drivers, the deeper the bass will go (it’s a matter of moving more air). If you are staying away from drums, bass guitars, and such, you can probably use the smaller system. But if you wish to have these puppies for awhile, I’d recommend the larger Genelec’s. B.T.W. Genelec has a good reputation for excellent monitors, so you have focused in on a good choice for a manufacturer!
F.Y.I. My studio here in the “states” has a pair of Klipschorns
[ Klipschorn AK6 | Klipsch ]
that go flat (+/- 4 dB) down to 33 Hz:
DIMENSIONS, EACH: 50 .75” H (128.91 cm) x 31.25” W (79.38 cm) x 28.25” D (71.75 cm)
WEIGHT, EACH: 175 lbs unboxed
And I still have a HSU subwoofer to get me flat down to 18 Hz!
Needless to say, I don’t travel with the Klipschorns too much(!), but I guess they’d be a pretty impressive car audio system in the back of a pickup truck!!! They can go very loud with very little power to drive them!!!
I had the good fortune of meeting their designer before his death, Paul Klipsch, and he understood how to make efficient, full range loudspeakers! The hard part was trying to find adequate space to fit them into, and also to handle the sound they produce!
New Genny 8030’s in the house here. Crikey, these are sweet units!
My room isn’t even treated and I’m not getting any weird resonances in any part of the spectrum.
And, how the heck did Genelec get so much bass pumping out of these little guys?!
It’s amazing.
And, two most critical aspects (for me) - zero hum and essentially inaudible levels of idle hiss.
(And believe me, I have a maniacal intolerance for hiss.)
Detail and imaging are excellent.
They’re a little bright out of the box, but they respond excellently to EQ’ing, with no wobbles showing up in other parts of the frequency range as you tweak one part.
They sho 'nuf ain’t cheap, but my goodness you gets what ya pays for!
Absolutely brilliant monitors!
I generally hate Genelecs. I borrowed my mates a while ago and they are WAY too toppy. The stuff I mixed on it sounded dull because I had removed too much treble to compensate. V. Overpriced and NOT flat…
Not flat?
Are you sure your room is not the one to blame? Or maybe your ears have just adopted to your own monitors?
And you did not tell which genelecs you borrowed. Genelecs are without no doubt one of the best monitors out there. Especially 8040…
I have no experience of 8020 or 8010, but those are not for professional sound studios anyway…
What I’ve discovered with these Genelecs is that room treatment is a absolute necessity.
I moved my desk to a different location in my studio and the sound became very focused on the top end.
The new location is way too live, and I am getting a whack of Auralex to treat the bare walls behind the monitors.
The quality of space is definitely a critical point. In the small well treated space in the store, they sounded way more mellow yet retained detail.
) physics issue here. If you need bass, generally the larger the drivers, the deeper the bass will go (it’s a matter of moving more air). If you are staying away from drums, bass guitars, and such, you can probably use the smaller system. But if you wish to have these puppies for awhile, I’d recommend the larger Genelec’s. B.T.W. Genelec has a good reputation for excellent monitors, so you have focused in on a good choice for a manufacturer!
