I've been building up to this for quite awhile. I upgraded my SAC/SAW software and so I also upgraded my converters and pres. In the process, I discovered that Sweetwater was having an end-of-fiscal-year sale on several brands of studio monitors. So, really getting in the spirit, I arranged with my salesman over there, Ed Nystrom, to buy three monitor sets, along with cabling, stands, and etc, that I was especially interested in with the understanding that I would only keep one of them by the end of the month. It's time for a shoot-out! I want to say at the outset that I have been really impressed with both Ed, and Sweetwater generally, throughout this process. They've bent over backwards to help me through any difficulties that cropped up along the way. I think they're good folks to do business with.
For those who are just starting to follow my efforts now, the three sets of monitors are:
Focal SM9 - a three-way near/mid field, powered, studio monitor. The SM9 has an 11" passive radiator as well as an 8" bass driver. These can be bypassed using a button on the side of the monitor, resulting in a 2-way monitor, with just the 6 1/2" mid driver, and the 1" beryllium tweeter - with more pedestrian bass response that allows one to check one's mix without changing speaker systems or mounts. You buy these in distinct 'left' and 'right' models whose drivers are arranged as mirror images. An obvious reality about them, when you pick them up, is that, although they are not that large, they weigh over 75 lbs each. I mean: seriously heavy. Presumably that is as a result of large rare earth magnets.
Adam S3H - a three-way mid field, powered, studio monitor. The S3H has two 7" bass drivers, a 4" mid-range driver, and, of course, the S-ART folded ribbon tweeter that has made Adam so famous. They can accept either an AES/EBU digital signal, or a more conventional balanced analog signal. At over 58 lbs each, they seem very heavy - until you pick up an SM9. If the Borg manufactured studio monitors - this is how they would look.
Genelec 8341a - a three-way, powered, near field studio monitor that can also accept either a digital AES/EBU or an analog balanced input. It comes with a shock mount (that's gotta be the wrong term...) bolted on so you can put it on a desk without fear of it becoming acoustically coupled with it. If you prefer horizontal mounting, it's design allows that even to the point that you can re-bolt the shock mount to the 'side' of the monitor to support horizontal, rather than vertical usage. Blessedly, they weigh 22 lbs. Besides being a high quality near field monitor, the additional selling point to these monitors is the option to purchase the (reasonably-priced) 'GLM' package to help automatically tune the monitor to your room(s). More on this later.
I plan to do this shootout in three phases. The room has been treated with 72 sq ft of 4" OC 703 acoustic insulation. In the first phase I'll arrange for the monitors to be tuned to be as flat as possible for my room in my mixing position. I have some recorded white and pink noise that I'll use, along with the 12 parametric equalizers available within each dedicated SAC output channel (one output channel for each monitor set). I'll use Voxengo Span to monitor the frequency response of the noise on the way into SAC, and another copy to monitor the frequency response as registered by a flat, wide frequency, microphone (a Shure SM81) picking up the output of the speakers from my listening position. Then, I'll use as many of the 12 parametrics as required to shape the sound coming out of the speakers to cause the second copy of Voxengo Span to look as close as possible to the first at my listening position.
However, I won't be doing this for the 8341a's because Genelec GLC does this automatically. Each Genelec speaker, in their SAM series, has 20 parametrics built into it that GLC, along with a supplied reference microphone, uses to accomplish the same thing at the push of a button. This is a nice trick for a pair of loud speakers, such as the ones I am reviewing, but it's also capable of doing it for a room with literally tens of Genelec speakers, including sub-woofers - which is an even better trick.
There's a little plastic box with places for connections. For a setup like mine, you run a USB cable from it to your computer (within which you have installed the GLC software you have downloaded), and from the box to one of the speakers, using supplied CAT5 cable, and from that speaker to the other one using another run of CAT5, and from the box to a little plastic reference microphone (also supplied) that can attach to a mic stand. There're lots of videos on YouTube demonstrating actually accomplishing it, but the bottom line is that it is easy and quick and, to my ears at least, does a good job. If you approve it, the 'fix' is stored in your monitors so you don't necessarily need GLC again. But, apparently, some engineers carry everything with them on the road and use GLC to routinely set up a mixing room wherever they are - like in and out of hotel rooms. You can see the 'before' frequency analysis, the applied fix via the monitor's parametrics, and the 'after' result in a graph - as well as see the parametric settings it sent to the monitors. GLC does more stuff that I'm not interested in at this moment that maybe I'll get into later if I keep the Genelecs rather than one of the others. Anyway, it's cool and takes the effort out of accomplishing adjusting the monitors for the room.
My original intent was to setup all six speakers in my space in front of my mixing position and switch quickly between them, using SAC, for comparison once they were all adjusted for my studio. But, there's just not enough room in Crowded Corner to do a decent job with all three at once. in particular, the Argosy Xi monitor stands I'm using for the SM9s and the S3Hs take up a lot of floor space in their base (to keep them from tipping over...) and - both the Adam and the Focal are landscape-style cabinets. It just isn't going to work with three at once. So, instead, in phase two I'll be comparing the Genelecs with the Adams (using both digital and analog input signals). And in phase three - the Genelecs with the Focals using whichever (d or a) signal was superior - if either. Hopefully, after that, it will be clear to me which ones I want forever.
At this point, the Genelecs have completed phase one. GLC applied six parametric adjustments for my room, out of the 20 it has available. I'll try to finish phase one for the Adams tonight. The Focals will take a little longer because the set that were originally shipped to me have problems that Sweetwater is graciously and generously resolving, which involve shipping time. So, I might well move on to phase two before completing phase one for the Focals.
More later...
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