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Author Topic: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A  (Read 63380 times)

JDSStudios

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Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« on: January 09, 2005, 06:55:05 AM »

The Genelec rep here in Canada [Chris Brooks] just droped off a pair of Genelecs 8050A.

We plugged them to Aux 1 out of an O2R, factory defaults in the back panel [no filters on, no boosts or cuts]

Plugged the Mackies HR824 to Aux 2 out, also no cuts or boosts.

Another producer friend of mine will be coming with the Adams in a few hours.

So far, the big differences are the mids, and imaging.
The studio is acoustically treated, 17' by 23', by 7.5'.

The material we have been listening varies from Steely Dan to Latin, Classic and Jazz... whatever sounds good.

The main objective is to get a pair of monitors that will translate, not color the sound, and enough power to please any young volume crazy costumer, but high precision to properly place any vocal or instrument, from Opera to Rock or Dance material.

{Well what else is new? We all want something along these lines, right?}

Besides the Mids difference [Mackies have much more mids than the Genies] one surprise was how much noisier the Genelecs were just idling.. specially at over $4000.00 CDN. I was expecting quieter amps.

Are you guys interested in knowing the rest of the comparison?
:}

John Ferreira
PS My little background experience- performing professionally since 1972 and still do every weekend. Number of albums arranged produced and mastered- over 40. Number of songs done to date- around 470 and more to come.
Ears were tested about three months ago, and surprised the audiologist and myself with an excellent range, and no loss of high end [even after all the ridiculous volumes in concerts and live playing]
8 more hours for the Adams to come...
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bobkatz

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2005, 01:12:51 PM »

JDSStudios wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 06:55

The Genelec rep here in Canada [Chris Brooks] just droped off a pair of Genelecs 8050A.

We plugged them to Aux 1 out of an O2R, factory defaults in the back panel [no filters on, no boosts or cuts]

Plugged the Mackies HR824 to Aux 2 out, also no cuts or boosts.

Another producer friend of mine will be coming with the Adams in a few hours.

So far, the big differences are the mids, and imaging.




Well, based on the context of your report, I'm guessing you preferred the Mackies to the Genelecs. Of course we want to hear more! I assume you put the 8050's at a reasonable distance, as they really do not sound good when used nearfield, in my opinion. I would set them at 8 to 9 feet to the ears on good stands, at the least.

Associated electronics and preamps are critical. The 8050's have a bit of a potentially-fatiguing presence boost which is mollified by suffient listening distance, good DACs, preamps, monitor controllers, etc.

If you're going to be comparing to the Mackies and Adams nearfield, I would suggest comparing to the Genelec 8040s, which have a smoother response, but less headroom than the 8050's. Regardless, of course we all want to hear your reactions and comparisons!

BK
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Level

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2005, 01:34:51 PM »

FWIW, and I do not intent to jade your comparisons and will only comment on the Mackies VS other well establsihed monitors.

Mackie 824 issues:

A. Room interaction with the passive radiator. What comes from the rear of the 824's is detrimental to the upper bass causing erratic frequency response. They may work well in an anechoic chamber but in a room, one must be aware of this and position accordingly.

B. Tendency to "smooth over" powerful transients. Some of the rougher mixes tend to sound "good" on them. This is not a high enough level of accuracy for my usage.

C. Midrange to tweeter exchange has a null. This would include the power and consistency of the sound of a snare, the male vocals and vocals in general. A well balanced loudspeaker should give as smooth a transition through the crossover frequencies as a full range driver does. The "whole snare" tends to have some "tweeter edge" and a tad of unnatural "thud" to it on 824's compared with more precision devices. It is a work around issue.

D. Power response. If you take equal input levels with bursts and run up the spectrum, you will see what I am taking about. I don't know if this is amplifier overshoot or just phase anomalies but some smearing is occurring.

I think my main gripe is if you have a mix that needs a 1 to 1.5dB adjustment on a single channel or channels to balance, the mackies simply do not deliver this resolution to me. To clarify, if I breath on a fader with my monitors, I hear a pretty big difference whereas with 824's, you have to make a pretty large move before the mix sounds fouled up.

Mackie 824's make for a decent "after the fact" fun to listen to tool but during a mix, even for those who have gotten quite used to them, they lack the precision incrementation that is required in the 200 to 3K area. The tweeters tends to have an artificial "shiny" quality about it as well. Cloudy if you will.

Not trying to pick on the 824's. These are simple observances compared to more precision Monitors like ATC, Upper level dynaudio and even the Blue Sky monitor systems. One-ness of a single sound..they lack.

Just a kick drum sounds separated into a "woofer" Tweeter" quality.

Disclaimer, this is my opinion only. YMMV. I have used them in 7 different rooms now..always trying to like them.

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ammitsboel

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2005, 04:07:03 PM »

interesting, let's hear how it turned out with the adams.
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Level

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2005, 04:18:34 PM »

Quote:

Besides the Mids difference [Mackies have much more mids than the Genies] one surprise was how much noisier the Genelecs were just idling.. specially at over $4000.00 CDN. I was expecting quieter amps.



Have you tried this with the inputs unplugged? If so, it is indeed the amplifiers, if not, something upstream and input sensitivity issues could be the culpret.
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JDSStudios

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2005, 04:48:12 PM »

Thanks all of you for the comments.

I don't have the time right now to put in all the details [2 very very long days and nights with a few other pro - producers helping out].

For now, let me just mention Adams won by a  big  a huge margin. I am very very upset. I will have to spend close to $6000.00 CDN for the Adams, versus a little over $4000.00 for the Genelecs... I was hoping so much the Genelecs would be the better ones.

The opinion was unanimous. No ifs or buts, absolutely no doubts.

I will post details on calibration, spectrum analizing, listening tests etc later on... specially listening tests.

Beste regards
John Ferreira
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ammitsboel

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2005, 04:57:18 PM »

JDSStudios wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 21:48

Thanks all of you for the comments.

I don't have the time right now to put in all the details [2 very very long days and nights with a few other pro - producers helping out].

For now, let me just mention Adams won by a  big  a huge margin. I am very very upset. I will have to spend close to $6000.00 CDN for the Adams, versus a little over $4000.00 for the Genelecs... I was hoping so much the Genelecs would be the better ones.

The opinion was unanimous. No ifs or buts, absolutely no doubts.

I will post details on calibration, spectrum analizing, listening tests etc later on... specially listening tests.



Hmmm... something tells me that this was another not so serious test...? please post the details.

best regards
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JDSStudios

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2005, 05:30:42 PM »

ammitsboel wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 21:57

JDSStudios wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 21:48

Thanks all of you for the comments.

I don't have the time right now to put in all the details [2 very very long days and nights with a few other pro - producers helping out].

For now, let me just mention Adams won by a  big  a huge margin. I am very very upset. I will have to spend close to $6000.00 CDN for the Adams, versus a little over $4000.00 for the Genelecs... I was hoping so much the Genelecs would be the better ones.

The opinion was unanimous. No ifs or buts, absolutely no doubts.

I will post details on calibration, spectrum analizing, listening tests etc later on... specially listening tests.



Hmmm... something tells me that this was another not so serious test...? please post the details.

best regards



1. So, you just read I will be giving all the details later, and without knowing F_all of what we did, you already know it is not a serious test?

That is called pre-judging.

2. Define "serious test".

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John Ferreira
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zetterstroem

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2005, 05:46:27 PM »

hey guys....

relax

henrik i think you are a bit quick in your judgement of this test...  

but....

bill bob and henrik.... (and others) i would like you to participate in yet another monitoring post

i will start a new thread and i hope you all stop by

Smile
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Timeline

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #9 on: January 09, 2005, 07:43:22 PM »

Hey!  I wanna know what John heard.  

Gary Brandt
engineer/Producer
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eightyeightkeys

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2005, 08:39:40 PM »

Level wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 13:34

.........

Mackie 824 issues:

..........Room interaction with the passive radiator. What comes from the rear of the 824's is detrimental to the upper bass causing erratic frequency response............

......I don't know if this is amplifier overshoot or just phase anomalies but some smearing is occurring.

I think my main gripe is if you have a mix that needs a 1 to 1.5dB adjustment on a single channel or channels to balance, the mackies simply do not deliver this resolution to me. .

......... they lack the precision incrementation that is required in the 200 to 3K area...........

Cloudy if you will.



John, you've already made your choice but I'll add my two cents anyway.

I just purchased a pair of B&W Matrix 802's Series 3 and have been mixing and listening for about a week. This, after years on the HR824's

Perhaps this is not quite a fair comparison, but comparisons/observations can be good regardless of price.

I agree with all of the statements made by Level quoted above and in particular the "cloudy" or veiled sound of the HR824's when A/B'ing back and forth between the B&W's and the Mackies. This is not a subtle thing.

I've always had issues mixing on the Mackies but I got used to them and "learned" them quite well and mixes translated quite well.

BTW, the B&W's are pretty dawg gone awsome.
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HankBrice

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2005, 12:12:25 AM »

ammitsboel wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 21:57

JDSStudios wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 21:48

Thanks all of you for the comments.

I don't have the time right now to put in all the details [2 very very long days and nights with a few other pro - producers helping out].

For now, let me just mention Adams won by a  big  a huge margin. I am very very upset. I will have to spend close to $6000.00 CDN for the Adams, versus a little over $4000.00 for the Genelecs... I was hoping so much the Genelecs would be the better ones.

The opinion was unanimous. No ifs or buts, absolutely no doubts.

I will post details on calibration, spectrum analizing, listening tests etc later on... specially listening tests.



Hmmm... something tells me that this was another not so serious test...? please post the details.

best regards


Don't worry about this guy.  He's a well-known Adam hater.  

Let us know your methodology.
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djui5

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2005, 04:32:56 AM »

JDSStudios wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 14:48

For now, let me just mention Adams won by a  big  a huge margin. I am very very upset. Beste regards
John Ferreira



Having used all three brands...but Gene 1031's, I have to say the S2.5A's are in a league of their own. Well worth the money. Can't wait to get a pair.
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djui5

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2005, 04:36:59 AM »

Quote:

 title=ammitsboel wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 14:57
Hmmm... something tells me that this was another not so serious test...? please post the details.

best regards



Picking your fav monitors is a tad different than proving whether an AC cable is worth $5,000 or not. It's a personal preference and if you can't tell the difference between the Adam's and the other 2 pairs of monitors...then please don't work in recording studios or in the professional audio community at all.
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zetterstroem

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Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
« Reply #14 on: January 10, 2005, 11:49:47 AM »

hey hey hey relax a bit....

ammitsb
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