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R/E/P => R/E/P Archives => Reason In Audio => Topic started by: JDSStudios on January 09, 2005, 06:55:05 AM

Title: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios 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...
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: bobkatz 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
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Level 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.

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: ammitsboel on January 09, 2005, 04:07:03 PM
interesting, let's hear how it turned out with the adams.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Level 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.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios 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
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: ammitsboel 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
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios 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".

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem 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
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Timeline on January 09, 2005, 07:43:22 PM
Hey!  I wanna know what John heard.  

Gary Brandt
engineer/Producer
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: eightyeightkeys 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.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: HankBrice 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.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: djui5 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.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: djui5 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.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 10, 2005, 11:49:47 AM
hey hey hey relax a bit....

ammitsb
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: skiboy on January 10, 2005, 12:22:34 PM
neither he nor i are adam haters but we both feel that adam speakers are misleading alot of people into beliving they have an accurate or neutral monitor. of course it's a matter of taste or rather color..... the problem is that one may be choosing color but none of the speakers of the kind tested here are uncolored!


Zigackly, you're ferpectly right....(quote from where ? .1000000$ reward for right answer....never mind)

Adams ? Addams family more likely....neither I nor my staff can handle Adams hi-freq response, although we "learned" mackies and gennies we're on the lookout for something more revealing, unbiased, .....a quest for the Holy Grail (hey...it's underneath the Louvre...)

Currently, we are evaluating the Dynaudio "Air" speakers - despite the hype there maybe something to it - or not.
I've grown wary of my mixes sounding good on gennies and mackies - even ns10's

I'm looking for something that will really be harsh and unforgiving Very Happy  Very Happy


Adams.....now there's a thought.....might fit the bill for "harsh and unforgiving" ....................I..dunno..................ugh........... head hurts........


Peeohtr Cockoshinski - transcribed phonetically from Piotr Kokosinski

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Tim Gilles on January 10, 2005, 12:24:22 PM
ZETTERSTROEM wrote on Mon, 10 January 2005 11:49

neither he nor i are adam haters but we both feel that adam speakers are misleading alot of people into beliving they have an accurate or neutral monitor.



The ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS concept that little wooden boxes with cardboard cones in them are somehow going to be able to bring you REALITY.... and the equally hilarious contention that a COMMON or DE FACTO 'Standard' of "REAL WORLD REFERENCE" acually exists among the millions of little boxes/cones out there is a 'fear exploitation based' marketing whammy that is beyond dreadfullly tired at this point.

Is this the only way designers can get folks to buy their speakers....?

Personally, I find it sad and humiliating that so many of us apperantly embrace this utter nonsence.

Get real.

We are in the Stone Age of Sound Transduction.

We're a century or so in....

This is all a bunch of profoundly ugly and bitterly low yield spear sharpening.

Let's make some joyous noise, capture it and fool around with it.... and make it come out of our pitifully rudimentary BOXES.

BOXES.

LOL.

We make our sound come out of BOXES.

Find a BOX ya like.

Use that one.

Tim "Rumblefish" Gilles
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: ammitsboel on January 10, 2005, 01:37:43 PM
Tim Gilles wrote on Mon, 10 January 2005 17:24


The ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS concept that little wooden boxes with cardboard cones in them are somehow going to be able to bring you REALITY.... and the equally hilarious contention that a COMMON or DE FACTO 'Standard' of "REAL WORLD REFERENCE" acually exists among the millions of little boxes/cones out there is a 'fear exploitation based' marketing whammy that is beyond dreadfullly tired at this point.

Is this the only way designers can get folks to buy their speakers....?


I think that it's for the best for me to stay out of this discussion.
But a small note to you would be, please don't comment on references that you simply have never heard.
Your statements speaks clearly to me... I've been there too.

Best Regards
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Tim Gilles on January 10, 2005, 07:08:02 PM
ammitsboel wrote on Mon, 10 January 2005 13:37

But a small note to you would be, please don't comment on references that you simply have never heard.



Spoken like a true "speaker guy".

Which is great.

Find joy in audio where and when ya can.

Best regards and wishes.


Tim "Rumblefish" Gilles
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: bobkatz on January 10, 2005, 07:45:11 PM
djui5 wrote on Mon, 10 January 2005 04:32

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.


Well, I certainly want to hear as many details about the shootout as possible. Regardless, let's remember that the 1031's and the 8050/8040 are COMPLETELY different animals. It's as if they weren't even made by the same company. Genelec has completely changed their line, and their sound (for the better, I feel).

I've heard the Adams and have heard their weaknesses on material I know extremely well. However, I have NOT had them side by side with the Genelecs so you can compare "lesser of two evils". The Genelec 8050s are certainly NOT the world's greatest speaker, and all I can think of is "for a good mix speaker", that is the key. I wouldn't use them for mastering, for example, though I could conceive of a mid-level mastering studio using them. (I'm not trying to be egotistical here; the costs of my Lipinski/Genesis subs are really not that high! I think that what I have done with the Lipinski/Pass/Genesis/room/stand/ancillary equipment combination is maximize the performance to far more than the apparent retail price.)

Anyway, back to the 8050 versus Adam comparison. I'd like to hear about your onsite comparison, speaker versus speaker. Also, was the comparison nearfield? And how far from the back wall and any interfering objects were the loudspeakers placed? And how optimum was the supports/stands?

All of this weighs in, as in my experience, a fair-quality speaker can be made to sound like shit in the wrong environment if it has been designed to work in one environnment and placed in another. I'm not trying to make excuses here, just trying to set the stage to look as closely and objectively as possible at your listening test!

Thanks,


BK



So for me the considerations of John's listening test that
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 10, 2005, 08:41:45 PM
bob...

what kind of mids are in the lipinsky's?

i know the tweeters..... they are in my speakers too.... one of the greatest things i ever heard.

but the woofers..... are they danish too.... scan-speak maybe....

respect

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: bobkatz on January 11, 2005, 01:36:37 PM
ZETTERSTROEM wrote on Mon, 10 January 2005 20:41

bob...

what kind of mids are in the lipinsky's?

i know the tweeters..... they are in my speakers too.... one of the greatest things i ever heard.

but the woofers..... are they danish too.... scan-speak maybe....

respect




Hi, Zetterstroem. The tweeter is the famous Vifa tweeter. Reportedly it can sound very wrong and/or very bright if you don't cross it over properly. Lipinski's implementation is better than others but the loudspeaker is VERY unforgiving and requires extensive good choice of ancillary equipment. I don't know what brand or model the midrange driver is. Years ago I used to be a "driver geek", but these days I truly believe it is the implementation and the sum of the mechanical and electrical of the speaker system designer that make it sound good. I've heard so many people say, "oh you can't possibly get a good-sounding speaker with that driver" contradicted by the skills of the designer if you know what I mean.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: bluespark on January 11, 2005, 01:53:49 PM
Level wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 13:34


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.

....




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..





Some thoughts..

The 'smoothing over' you describe is something I hear, too.  I hear it to different degrees in all monitors.  The 1031s inparticular sound much more constrained to me.  You have to really punish transients to get things to punch out of them.  I can't stand working like that.   To me, getting things sounding right on them makes everything a jagged piercing atrocity on 'real world' systems.  I much prefer the transition from 824s and the Event P8s, despite their shortcomings.

I have tested Blue Sky systems and if they have the one-ness of a single sound, it is only because they are absolutely incapable of providing any separation or clarity of elements.  I have never heard a more nebulous and ominous representation of my reference recordings.  In fact, I think I took a shower afterwards.



Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: bobkatz on January 11, 2005, 02:31:56 PM
bluespark wrote on Tue, 11 January 2005 13:53



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.





Yeah, my friend Gary Baldassari used to say, "Who needs a speaker with a built-in compressor?" about the various Genelecs. The 8050/8040s are much better in that respect, with better headroom for transients and less of that "hands cupped in front of your mouth" sound. But they still have a Genelec family resemblance. Nevertheless, they are so much less colored and have so much less distortion than previous Genelec models that they get a thumbs up from me.

BK
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Level on January 11, 2005, 02:43:08 PM
Quote:

 have tested Blue Sky systems and if they have the one-ness of a single sound, it is only because they are absolutely incapable of providing any separation or clarity of elements. I have never heard a more nebulous and ominous representation of my reference recordings. In fact, I think I took a shower afterwards.





I tested them with full scale classical peaking at about 90dB with a STSR (signal to signal ratio) of 70dB

Perhaps they get muddy and ugly and dirty on compressed audio dynamically..and if they do, well they should! (because it is)
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 11, 2005, 08:15:44 PM
hi bob

"but these days I truly believe it is the implementation and the sum of the mechanical and electrical of the speaker system designer that make it sound good."

precisely!

that why bluesky's speakers(same tweeters) and yours (and mine) sound very different...

i was just curios about the woofers as i am going though a driver geek phase.

mine use the scan-speak sliced paper cone... the ones that krell uses... although i use the 6"

as soon as i can scrape together some money i'm going to make a d'appolito configuration of them... lipinsky killers! (just kidding)

respect and regards
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: mike chafee on January 11, 2005, 10:12:49 PM
Hi, John,
I am the Genelec rep in Florida who took the 8040's and 8050's to my friend Bob Katz's facility.

Having represented many great speaker lines over the years-Kef, Spendor,Pmc, Quad, And Tannoy etc,I have learned to never leave speakers, and to insist that I participate in the demo.
This is especially true of the Genelecs, given the tremendous power of the on board eq.
The biggest mistake I see even Genelec users make is to ignore this.
Having set up many great systems, I can tell you they seldom end up with the out of the box setting.
I know you did exhaustive tests, and look foreward to your in depth post.
The only thing that counts is the sound.

Mike Chafee
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 12, 2005, 06:48:35 AM
Hi everybody

Only now am I able to post- I have been taking care of my sick 1 year old baby girl, and I have been working long hours in studio projects under dead line pressure.

So here is part 1.

Let me first make 2 points:
1- I am looking for monitors that translate, and NOT speakers that simply sound good. Why? As we all know, if it sounds nice and sweet and forgiving in the studio, and then in the car or MOST people's homes, or even the multi-compressed radio it sounds awful, then we have the same old common  problem. So translation is my first priority.

2- I am looking for monitors that allow me to hear immediately when the mix is off, [snare too loud, vocal too low, hidden violin too recessed, etc.] and NOT a forgiving speaker, that requires too long, and listening to a song [or sound] several times before I notice something wrong, or make a correction.


The test:

1. Adams, Mackies and the Genelecs were connected from Aux outputs 1&2, 3&4 and 5&6 respectively from the Yamaha O2R [I will leave out  YSM1s and the entry level Sonys for now]

2. White noise from the O2R was measured equidistantly for all speakers, at 88 dB SPL, for 3, and 6 feet [those were the main two distances we care for now, even though we came back up to 12 feet because the Genelecs are also considered mid fields]. We used an Ultra Curve Spectrum analyzer and the SPL meter from Radio Shack [gulp excuse me].

3. We rechecked continuously with different musical material for the same SPL, at the same distance, before each comparison.

4. We used the same cuts or boosts in all 3 pairs at the same time. So, if we used a 47 Hz roll off filter, all 3 pairs would undergo through the same or closest adjustment before next round of songs.

5. The songs were everything from Steely Dan, to Santana, Latin, Josh Groban, a lot of 70s oldies like Kool and the Gang ladies night, Gloria Gayner I will survive [go ahead and laugh, but I like that Kik bass mix-combination in some dance ocasions, and some really screwd-up mixes like Whitney, and some Christina Aguillera. We wanted to know what bad sounded like in all 3 pairs, as well as the good well mixed sounds.

I am no stranger to Lab work, after studying electronics for over 4 and a half years, but this was good enough, considering how most of us mix and master. We didn't feel we had to be more scientific than this.

The room:
It is a 17' by 23' by 7.5 and 8' [ceilings are uneven].
there are basically no parallel walls, with Prime Acoustics treatment- 5 bass traps several mid absorbers, carpet and wood.


The procedure and conclusions:

We would measure the SPL for 88 dBs for a steady 10 seconds, and then play several songs listening first on the exact triangle spot, and then several varied distances.

Folks, some conclusions are really not that complicated:
keeping in mind that all filters had the same settings and equal SPL, distance etc, the Genelecs were always the ones lacking in upper mids, always the bassier, and the ones that sounded really nice, with all material we listened to. Vocals always sounded lower, and quite sibilant, snares always softer, and bass and kik louder.

Bill here at the forum had mentioned the term " Hi-Fighish";  we confirm that. They would be excellent to show customers your final masters or mixes, but, no doubt they simply do NOT translate.

This finding got frustrated, because my budget and hope was to get the Genelecs; I even had already worked the price with Long and McQuade in Toronto. So, in essence I was a touch biased to go with the Genelecs, but if you read points 1 and 2 at the beginning of this post, "nice" and "sweet" is not what we need to do our work.

Different filter configurations, would not bring back the upper mids, around 1.0KHz to 4KHz [roughly]  no matter which of the back panel switches we tried.

The Mackies, had louder low mid range [around 200 Hz to 350 Hz]
always causing, what we normally call mud in vocals, snares, and upper bass part of the material.

The highs were not as airy or clear as the Genelecs, [always keeping in mind the switches in the back panel], but the upper mids easier to work in mixing. Slightly less bassier than the Genelecs, and mids were louder, allowing us to know a lot better where to place vocals snares etc.

I know this is all just our opinions, but that is all I have for you, and that is what I need and learned for now.

The Adams:
Last Summer I went to Steve's Music Store in Toronto, and heard the only Adams they had- the P 10. I made a brief 1 hour comparison with Mackies HR824s right in the store, [simply because I own a pair, and know them better] and the first impression was that they made all vocals sound like 4 feet behind the monitors, and everything else brighter. So from then on, I kind of did not take most opinions about the Adams too seriously.

Well the Adams S2.5A were a completely different set of monitors.
They definitely sound brighter from all 3 pairs [again, filter configurations as close as allowed in the speaker panels].

At first, I did not like the mids, High mids, and highs all "in your face". So I commented,"I like the sound of the Genelecs way better".

Then the first little surprise:
Several hours into listening, comparing, measuring, spectrum analyzing and switching between Aux 1, 3 and 5, we came across a particular song, that had a snare with a wood "ring" type of sound, for lack of a better word. Well, for the life me and the other audio pros present, we could not hear that same ring in the Genelecs, or the Mackies, mo matter how long or hard we tried.

This was my turning point.
a- How can we possible adjust or EQ a sound we cannot possibly hear?
b- Is it worth the price of having to get used to hearing music a little more on the bright side?
Absolutely yes.

Adams did not have near as much bass as the Mackies or Genelecs.
But bassier tracks, would be perceived as such. Bass mud would come trough exactly as mud.

And the vocals, or just about any instrument for that mater,  could be heard and analyzed at a microscopic level, for lack of better words.


So one huge big point for Adams.
But there is more.

2nd surprise:
[To be continued...]
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: George Massenburg on January 12, 2005, 06:54:52 AM
Tim Gilles wrote on Mon, 10 January 2005 11:24

[...]
BOXES.

LOL.

We make our sound come out of BOXES.

Find a BOX ya like.

Use that one.

Tim "Rumblefish" Gilles


Well said.

George
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 12, 2005, 07:37:45 AM
Part 2.

2nd surprise from the Adams:

A while back I read some posts on Adams bass response,, and one by Lee Flyer comes to mind, in which she mentions the lack of, or quite forgiving [using my own words]  bass pockets in her room, when she was using Adams; at the time I thought, "it does not make much sense, a bass pocket is always a bass pocket".
Well, sorry Lee, you were absolutely right.

There is a spot at one corner of my control room where I often check for bassy frequencies; that spot was barely active with the Adams, keeping in mind Adams were generally less bassy. Still, what happened to my bass pocket? Gonne!
Switch back to the Mackies or the Genelecs- BOOOM there it is!
Bass pocket would be back and active. More active with the Genelecs than Mackies.

3rd surprise:
Those bright very very fast, high velocity ribbon tweeters.
I knew from before, that if you flattened one of those ribbon tweeters, that the surface would be several times larger than the regular diaphragm HF driver.

The owner of the Adams asked me to observe and compare the sound of all 3 pairs, right at 180 degrees.
So we went right to one side, hears facing the side of the speaker and with the Adams the high frequency remained.  
I am not an acoustician, only an Electronics Engineer, specialized in audio, but this surprised me!

So, no worries about sweet spot, since my head is turned to the side [DAW computer] quite often, and I do not always sit right at the center triangle position.

Well now I began asking again for the price of the Adams.

The contest is for now over.

Comb filtering from wall distance, and other artifacts, were not really a factor here, since all was the same for all speakers.
My ears were tested at the Hospital in the Audiology department last Summer, and all was well, specially high end frequencies [actually I was expecting some damage, from a 44 year old with 32 years of professional loud playing and going to many live concerts in the 70s, 80s and 90s]. But looking back, I avoided sitting right in front of speakers many times.


Adams S2.5A will be on order shortly.
The price... well let's just say I now fully understand the few that mentioned "mixing faster". Of course you can mix faster, because it is like being able to see with magnifying glasses.
Even though this "view" is not ultimate to just enjoy sweet music, it is the best [for me] to work on.

And as you know, in this business, time is money.

Best regards
John Ferreira
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 12, 2005, 02:18:56 PM
i've removed my post...

this is so far off we''ll get into an argument... and i don't want that

respect
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: jgreenlee on January 12, 2005, 04:20:24 PM
I'm curious about monitors as well.  I'm not really in the market for a new pair but having used the 824's for a couple of years I'm starting to find things I don't like about them.  For one I tend to mix things kinda dull as the Mackies seem bright to me (even with the -2db HF switch engaged).  They also tend to smooth out transients and sound generally "spongy."  I've gotten much better at making things sound "tighter" though.

So in the less than $4k a pair speaker (and amp if needed) range what is out there that I should look at.  I don't really mind buying used gear as long as I know it's good stuff and can get support if needed.

Thanks,

James
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: jwhynot on January 12, 2005, 06:10:24 PM
James -

In my experience the best option one has in deciding on monitors is an extended demo.

I took 3+ months to decide on my most recent monitor purchase, and the last month of that was with the system I ended up with.  I tried hard to satisfy my personal requirements one by one - firstly, to have an enjoyable experience working.  First-and-a-halfly, to have predictable results when the work was taken elsewhere, either to mastering or to a client's iPod.  After that came significant but negotiable other factors, such as customer service, availablility of replacement parts, cost, and of course whether my clients were enjoying them as well.

I can PM you if you like and tell you my choice - I prefer not to post it on this thread because there are some here who think that harshly criticizing another person's considered choices is somehow enlightening.

I happen to think that choosing monitors is a very personal thing - there is plenty of hype and bullshit coming from every angle, but the bottom line is to understand what your personal criteria are and stick to them on your own terms.

Those forum posters who are generally in touch with me will eventually find out what I'm using!

JW
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: jgreenlee on January 13, 2005, 02:39:24 AM
JW,

I agree with the whole personal choice thing.  I still find it interesting to know what others are using and why they like them.  There's alot of stuff out there that I've never heard of and this is how I find out about it. Smile

Peace,

James
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 13, 2005, 06:52:48 AM
Thanks to all for your comments and info.

I still have the 8050As, because the Genelec rep [Chris Brooks] could not come by Monday, and will be picking them up today [Thursday].

I must point out that Chris Brooks was extremely helpful and very informative about the Genelecs, their construction, panel switches, etc.. I ended up apologizing because after all his work, I ended up choosing the Adams.

So, since Chris has not been able to pick up the 8050A, I had a few more days to listen and compare some more.

The opinion is still exactly the same.

I understand how some talk about the "color" of most monitors, but I don't believe it will be an issue; the issue is, translation, and, as I already mentioned in my previous post, the only pair of monitors in this test that allowed us to hear certain sounds [like that snare with a wood tone] that we could not discern with the other monitors.

This single reason is enough for me to chose the S2.5A, even though there were a few other reasons, already mentioned in my previous posts.

To make a longer story shorter, with the Adams, I would be able to, for example, EQ [or any other process] that particular wood tone on that snare I just mentioned. But with the Mackies or Genelecs, it was just a snare  buried somewhere in the mix.

I found this particular experience [and the whole test] exciting, because I came across a tool that let's me hear clearer into a mix.

I am not saying that there aren't any other monitors that can reveal and translate as well or better; I am no stranger to expensive monitors and mastering rooms, one of which George M. was in recently [Metal Works, Mississauga].
[George I hope you got the Sync problem fixed :} ]

Sometimes I end up in the mastering room with a client, and very little is adjusted. Other times [but not lately]  I can be a bit bass heavy :}.

I am just pointing out my preference, knowing what I know up to now [which is never enough :}  ]

Best regards
John F.

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Ivo on January 13, 2005, 08:33:13 AM
Dave @ D&D wrote on Mon, 10 January 2005 02:39

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



I too purchased B&W but 801 Matrix S3  some time ago (before I had Genelecs and also had an opportunity to hear Adams S3 and P11).
Comparing all those to Matrix is kind of night and day ... Matrix is simply a huge clean transparent mirror - like if musicians are sitting just inside ...
Now I understand what Rich Mays wrote to me before: "these may be the last speakers you will ever need". He was probably right. I have absolutely no desire for any other speakers any more. And those small Genelecs (still have them) / Adams sound almost like a (nice) children toy comparing to Matrix (which BTW I got for 1800 EUR a pair)
Smile
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: eightyeightkeys on January 13, 2005, 01:53:33 PM
Ivo :

Jak se mas ?

I calibrated the level to make sure the two monitors were the same level. A/B'ing between the two was quite interesting :

The B&W's are extremely open with a huge sound stage. It's like someone pulled the cotton out of your ears. The Mackies were muffled and positively small sounding in comparison.

However, the Mackies did have more bottom, but, not necessarily the kind you "need". More like a big, boomy, good time, fun bottom IMO. (Insert smiley face) Seductive, but, I found it extremely challenging getting the bottom end right on the Mackies.(I think it had something to do with the passive radiator.)

Anyway, not to go overboard here but these are my observations FWIW.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: recordista on January 13, 2005, 03:20:25 PM
bobkatz wrote on Sun, 09 January 2005 18:12


I would suggest comparing to the Genelec 8040s, which have a smoother response, but less headroom than the 8050's.
BK


Agreed.  I've had a pair of 8040A's here for a couple of weeks and I think I'm going to keep them for location work.  I need something I can carry without a hand truck and setup in less time than my current rig.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: recordista on January 13, 2005, 03:24:12 PM
jgreenlee wrote on Wed, 12 January 2005 21:20


So in the less than $4k a pair speaker (and amp if needed) range what is out there that I should look at.



Here in the US, MAP for the Genelec 8040A's are under $2k per pair and I consider them quite a good value.

I have some opinions in the $6k+ per pair range but have not spent a lot of time auditioning products inbetween these prices.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: bobkatz on January 14, 2005, 01:15:58 PM
It sounds like you have a very good room from the dimensions. As for the Genelecs sounding "bassier" than the rest, I don't know how to relate. Once we positioned the 8050's here at the right distance from the walls, around here the bottom end was accurate down to the rolloff of the 8050 and not exagerrated. Is it possible that the Adams are lacking in bottom end and that was the perfect match for a resonance in your room?

As for the "making everything sound beautiful" but not accurate argument. I must admit it was Genelecs I was referring to when I discussed loudspeakers of that "ilk" in my book. But I found the 8050's to be FAR LESS in that vein than any previous Genelecs that I have heard.

I'd like to do a similar shootout Adams versus Genelecs here, however, in the end, this is a mastering room, not a mixing room. My goals as a mixing engineer are well known, to have the most accurate, uncolored loudspeaker possible, yes, one which has some of the attributes you are describing, which reveals what is there. And it seems that are some of the goals you are using as well in your criteria for a mixing speaker.

However, my devil's advocate response about your comment that the Adams revealed a particular character of a snare drum that none of the other monitors did is this: What if the Adams are adding a coloration of their own that is making the speaker produce (or exagerrate) something that is really not on the recording? To help settle that I would suggest you listen to the most natural classical and jazz recordings around and see which of the loudspeakers you are comparing sounds most natural. When you listen to pop recordings, they themselves often have been hyped in one frequency range or another and you can get off-base.

All these are possbilities I bring up. I certainly agree that the 8050's are not the world's most "natural" speakers. But is the (possibly exagerrated?) high end of the Adams the right response to that? And then there is the question of which speaker is most suitable for mixing, and since I'm not working in the trenches, only time will tell. I would like to have been a fly on the wall in your room, as I am also a very experienced listener and know a few tricks about placement and associated electronics that help to get the most balanced sound from a loudspeaker.

Like Mike Chaffee who just reported here, I like to be at a session to make sure that the speaker that I know, in the testing, is placed as optimally as possible to expose its attributes and not bring out its weaknesses. That should be true for the Adams and Mackies as well. The more you know a speaker....  

Regardless, it sounds like you've done a very fine job and I would welcome hearing about more tests done to the rigorous degree that you have done. It will also be interesting to hear the concensus from the marketplace as the months and years go on and more people get to try and use the various new competitors for "best mixing speaker."

BK
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 15, 2005, 04:35:21 AM
bobkatz wrote on Fri, 14 January 2005 18:15

It sounds like you have a very good room from the dimensions. As for the Genelecs sounding "bassier" than the rest, I don't know how to relate. Once we positioned the 8050's here at the right distance from the walls, around here the bottom end was accurate down to the rolloff of the 8050 and not exagerrated. Is it possible that the Adams are lacking in bottom end and that was the perfect match for a resonance in your room?

As for the "making everything sound beautiful" but not accurate argument. I must admit it was Genelecs I was referring to when I discussed loudspeakers of that "ilk" in my book. But I found the 8050's to be FAR LESS in that vein than any previous Genelecs that I have heard.

I'd like to do a similar shootout Adams versus Genelecs here, however, in the end, this is a mastering room, not a mixing room. My goals as a mixing engineer are well known, to have the most accurate, uncolored loudspeaker possible, yes, one which has some of the attributes you are describing, which reveals what is there. And it seems that are some of the goals you are using as well in your criteria for a mixing speaker.

However, my devil's advocate response about your comment that the Adams revealed a particular character of a snare drum that none of the other monitors did is this: What if the Adams are adding a coloration of their own that is making the speaker produce (or exagerrate) something that is really not on the recording? To help settle that I would suggest you listen to the most natural classical and jazz recordings around and see which of the loudspeakers you are comparing sounds most natural. When you listen to pop recordings, they themselves often have been hyped in one frequency range or another and you can get off-base.

All these are possbilities I bring up. I certainly agree that the 8050's are not the world's most "natural" speakers. But is the (possibly exagerrated?) high end of the Adams the right response to that? And then there is the question of which speaker is most suitable for mixing, and since I'm not working in the trenches, only time will tell. I would like to have been a fly on the wall in your room, as I am also a very experienced listener and know a few tricks about placement and associated electronics that help to get the most balanced sound from a loudspeaker.

Like Mike Chaffee who just reported here, I like to be at a session to make sure that the speaker that I know, in the testing, is placed as optimally as possible to expose its attributes and not bring out its weaknesses. That should be true for the Adams and Mackies as well. The more you know a speaker....  

Regardless, it sounds like you've done a very fine job and I would welcome hearing about more tests done to the rigorous degree that you have done. It will also be interesting to hear the concensus from the marketplace as the months and years go on and more people get to try and use the various new competitors for "best mixing speaker."

BK


Hi Bob

Thank you for taking the time to type such valuable and informative points.

I absolutely agree with almost all points, except about the snare ring being a possible resonance from the Adams.

Being an active musician every single week [also, I am multi-instrumentalist], I am very familiar with the snare sound I mentioned.
Let me try to describe that snare sound a little more in detail.

About 30 years ago when I was jamming and learning and developing musically along with other musicians, this particular drummer, which was one of my better friends, was getting this snare sound I that could not,[guitar is my main instrument]... at least consistently.

What he did was, hit the snare half in the skin, half in the rim, exactly and consistently. You have probably tried this before, and as you might already know, the average non-drummer will hit and miss: sometimes more rim, sometimes more skin.

The sound you get when you hit the snare and rim this way, is a metallic ring together with the skin, plus the actual "snare" [under the drum]. that is the sound I was referring to.

You could probably find this sound in a Korg Triton Studio, or any similar keyboard or sound-module.

This has nothing to do with some resonance introduced by this particular Adam model. The Adams are bright, yes, but not resonant.

Also, if it was the Adams, it does not explain why we can also hear it in the Senheiser HD600 headphones. As you probably know, these are one of the best possible set of headphones today.
[feel free to correct me]

Another point is, if it was resonance coming from the Adams, It would show in the same frequency band, in simular instruments and vocals - not the case.

I find the Adams bright [you can adjust it right in the front panel], but definitely not resonant - actually they are very neutral, just as a monitoring mixing-mastering speaker should be.

One more listenning session:
Tonight, after finishing my live performance in a local Restaurant,  I went to my friend's studio [with the Adam S2.5A] , and we listened again to all kinds of material - Jazz, Rock, Classic, Portuguese Fado [very unusual and different sounding small 12 string guitars], commercial CDs as well as our own productions.

We were listening and focusing on vocals levels in commercial CDs, and our own productions done with other monitors [JBLs, YSM1s, Mackies and a few others]. After several  careful interesting observations, one was that we found very easy to hear how much louder some vocals were, compared to similar material, sometimes within the same album.


From my 4 year old experience with Mackies, and his several years old experience with JBLs, we can tell you we would not catch this level difference on those monitors, and definitely not as easy as with the Adams.

I am not in anyway saying that the Adams are the best thing around, because I did not hear many other good monitors in the market.

I am simply stating that our [all studio owners] opinion in this 3 pairs, is the Adams being the better choice, with no way possible for room artifacts or any other interference being the culprit for some distortion in our conclusion [including the Genelecs 8050A extra bass].

I read in one of your posts about "no speaker needing a compressor built-in for this kind of work"; well according to the Genelec 8050A manual, THERE IS a compressor in the output.

I am not sure at what level it fully kicks in, but I can guarantee you they say it is a compressor, and not a limiter.

Most if not all kicks and bass felt compressed to us in the Genelecs. For the type of the monitor we need, which is for a professional recording studio,this is not good to work with, only good to just enjoy colored compressed music. The louder we play the material, the more noticeable the compression becomes.

I don't mean to offend Genelec lovers, but I find it difficult to try to mix or master music that sounds already compressed, before I compress it myself. We never a heard any bass artifacts, or any kind of compression out of the Adams [up to around 95 dB].


O.T. I absolutely love your book, and it never seizes to amaze me the amount of work you put into it. I wish you could sign my copy. Would there be any possible visit to Toronto? if yes, would you let me know?

Best regards

John Ferreira
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: sdevino on January 15, 2005, 09:57:28 AM
How is it that the Earthworks Sigma 6.2 speakers never come up in these conversations. Anyone looking for seriously accurate monitors in the price range of the Adams should at least be aware of these beauties.


Whatever you pick in the end is up to you but I think the Earthworks speaker line should be a part of this kind of debate.

Steve
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 15, 2005, 06:58:58 PM
sdevino wrote on Sat, 15 January 2005 14:57

How is it that the Earthworks Sigma 6.2 speakers never come up in these conversations. Anyone looking for seriously accurate monitors in the price range of the Adams should at least be aware of these beauties.


Whatever you pick in the end is up to you but I think the Earthworks speaker line should be a part of this kind of debate.

Steve


Hi Steve
This is not much of a debate; I just started this thread to post some info on a test involving these 3 pairs of monitors. I think just like me, there must be quite a few people in here interested in [let me dare say this] accurate information, under more or less ideal circumstances [like the room, and specially who is involved in the test]

All I can say is I have confidence in my musical ability and my hears, specially not being a part-timer; I am a full time musician and studio producer/Engineer.

I hope all this helps, even though I do not recommend you purchase anything without listening first, and if possible A/Bing.

I would have never realized all the Genelec's and Mackie's faults without comparing them in the same environment, using the same calibration.

I hope all this helps some of you [at least a little].

Regards
John Ferreira
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: recordista on January 19, 2005, 03:15:13 PM
JDSStudios wrote on Sat, 15 January 2005 09:35

I read in one of your posts about "no speaker needing a compressor built-in for this kind of work"; well according to the Genelec 8050A manual, THERE IS a compressor in the output.

I am not sure at what level it fully kicks in, but I can guarantee you they say it is a compressor, and not a limiter.



I'm guessing this might just be a translation issue.  Remember, a limiter is just a compressor with an very high (sometimes infinite) ratio above threshold.  Some manufacturers use the term "soft clipping circuit"  instead.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 21, 2005, 04:21:57 AM
Kurt you are correct.

To be more precise, a compressor with a ratio above 10:1 is considered a limiter.


I got the Adams S2.5A yesterday, and have been listening to several different productions, some of them mine.

No doubt the word translation and surgical keep on coming to mind.

There are a lot of things [like for example noise on some guitar tracks, and vocal placement] that I did not pay much attention with the Mackies, but with the Adams would have been unacceptable.

Everything sounds much more detailed, separated, clear, and I find it easier to hear something to loud in the mix or to soft.

I have to re-listen to a lot of music [specially productions and songs I am already familiar with], and keep on learning with this excellent tool.

So far big thumbs up.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: lagerfeldt on January 21, 2005, 07:43:34 AM
I've personally used a long range of mix monitors in my studio, including several Genelecs (1031A, 1030A), various Tannoys (Reveal, Ellipse 8 ) , Roland DS90A, Yamaha NS-10, Minipods (cute but useless for mixing), various ADAMs (P11A, S2.5A and S3A).

Without a doubt the ADAM S2.5A is the monitor I've been most satisfied and impressed with for mixing. The only other monitor I liked almost as much is the Klein + Hummel O 300 D.

ADAMs do sound quite different to most other speakers, especially if you're used to Genelecs. Personally, I could never go back to Genelecs after ADAM S2.5A. However, if you've only heard the small ADAMs (P11A, etc.), there's really no comparison to the S2.5A's.

I've done some extended and serious A/B testing and find the ADAMs much more accurate and revealing frequency wise than any of the other monitors mentioned here. I don't find any nasty resonance introducing coloration or such like.

All the problems with the 1031A's or DS90A's are totally gone now, and I'm free from the compressing artifacts from the 1031A's. Again, this is not meant as anything other than my opinion.

While my room is not 100% perfect (but what room is), it is built with great attention to acoustics, using combinations of various absorbing/diffusion techniques. I pay great attention to early reflections and comb filtering, monitor placement (on stands avoiding as much console interference as possible), room symmetry, standing waves, etc.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 21, 2005, 11:53:33 AM
Nice to hear all your comments John!  I have very similar impressions to yours of course (as you noted in one of your posts).

I mentioned this on Brad's mastering forum and people chose to keep arguing rather than respond Very Happy, but I do think that our ears are quite literally different and we hear things differently, therefore our experience of different monitors and what we prefer will vary. What we hear isn't our monitors, so much as the relationship between our ears/brain and the monitors.

Another factor that I think is vitally important is to choose monitors that don't cause ear fatigue.  Regardless how great your speakers' specs are, if listening to them wears you out, it will affect what you hear and therefore the flat specs are useless.  And even if that were the only thing I loved about ADAM's they'd be worth the price.  I can listen to them all day long without ear fatigue, and that's saying something.  I'm pretty sensitive to long exposure to high frequencies - that was why I could never understand how anybody mixed on NS10's, after half an hour the high mids started to feel like somebody was driving a spike through my head. This causes the ear's normal defenses to take over and I'd start getting wax buildup in my ears, which pretty much shitcans my ability to hear anything accurately.  My ears don't rebel against ADAM's, I find them comfortable to listen to even though they are very unforgiving in the level of detail they reveal.

I don't expect that everyone would have the same impression I do, and I'm not going to trash anyone else for using Mackie's (which I hate) or Genelecs (which I love listening to but agree with the consensus that they make things sound "too good").  I've heard people do great work on all of the above, including NS10's.  But I do think sharing impressions is valuable.  And I do pay attention to who hears things how, because I usually do find it useful to read the opinions of folks I know hear things similarly to the way I do.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 22, 2005, 05:04:24 AM
Hi Lee

I was just reading your post and just thinking that several people have said that they wanted to listen to their music library again after listening to this monitors; that got me kind of curious, but I now say exactly the same thing. I do however have another description as to why:

The best analogy I can think of is, as if a whole bunch of compressors got removed from the musical content. Maybe that is the pure spelling of "translation".

This is what I was looking for, for a long time [a few years].

In this particular test, it was as if the Mackies and the Genelecs had an "elastic quality" to the sound- they were much more forgiving, or had less translation.

However in the Adams, a louder snare, or a forgotten softer violin was immediately perceivable. That's what I find so excellent.
I will be saving a lot of time during mixes and mastering, and that means also money, for me, and for the customer.

The result was, if you were trying to listen to a particular sound that was buried in the mix, you might have needed 2 or three passes before you notice it in the Gemies or the Mackies or the YSM 1s,[which I also own], but it was way more obvious in the Adams; and I  don't mean color, I mean precision.


Regards
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 22, 2005, 05:16:08 AM
Also:
1. I am using the front panel filters on flat [no boost or cut].

2. I have a Mackie sub that I sometimes kick in and out with a foot switch to hear what goes there in the sub range [crossed at 120 Hz], or if the customer wants to hear the final mix very loud.

I calibrated the sub as per Bob Katz book, but sometimes I tweak the volume to my taste, or to adjust to the different material.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: David Schober on January 22, 2005, 10:10:26 AM
Hi John,

You've obviously done a lot of work investigating how the differing speakers sound in your room.  But did I miss this, or have I not seen a report on how they work?  I've found that sometimes the best working vehicle is not the prettiest or best ride.  Depending on you and your room, sometimes a speaker that sounds a little muddy can make you work a little harder for clarity.  Conversely, a speaker that sounds beautiful and wonderful convince me that it sounds better than it really does.  (The Allen Sides monitors in Oceanway A were that way to me.)

Have you done test mixes of the same song and see how the come out in other environments?  For me, while it's good to have some great sounding monitors to impress the clients, a mixer's needs are IMHO, a speaker system that doesn't fatigue and also helps you make mixes that sound as good (or even better) in the outside world.  Ultimately, that's the real test of a monitor system.

I agree with the "find a box you like and use it."  For me the box I like is the one that helps me make a good mix, more than the one that sounds the best.

One last thought, Are you sure the snare ring in the Adams was an artifact of the speaker?  Or is it possible the ring was being covered by the others and only the Adams revealed it?

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 22, 2005, 03:31:29 PM
by the way.....

spent most of today listening to a pair of adam P11...

among other thing i listened to a thethe record (mind bomb) that i've had for 15 years....

the thing that amazed me the most was the opening track..... there's an acoustic hihat on it than i know is eq'ed a bit thin.... i've heard it on all sorts of speakers.... but on the adam's it sounded like an analog beatbox hihat (eg.cr78)!!!!!!!!!

that ribbon is soooooo wrong..... it sounds nowhere near what is put into it....

another problem was that vocals sounded like they were 2-band compressed.... almost like the timing of the hi frequencies was out of time with the mids..... spooky!!!

so all in all an entirely different interpretation of a record that i know and love...
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 22, 2005, 03:34:55 PM
David Schober wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 15:10


I agree with the "find a box you like and use it."  For me the box I like is the one that helps me make a good mix, more than the one that sounds the best.


I agree, that's my philosophy too (so long as the speaker doesn't induce ear fatigue).  That is exactly what I like about the ADAM's. I don't bother checking my mixes on other sources with ADAM's, until they're done!  And then they sound like I expect them to.  That's about all you can ask of a monitor, I'd say.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Rader Ranch on January 22, 2005, 05:34:15 PM
sounds like you should use different monitors then. ADAM's clearly don't work for you.



ZETTERSTROEM wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 12:31

by the way.....

spent most of today listening to a pair of adam P11...

among other thing i listened to a thethe record (mind bomb) that i've had for 15 years....

the thing that amazed me the most was the opening track..... there's an acoustic hihat on it than i know is eq'ed a bit thin.... i've heard it on all sorts of speakers.... but on the adam's it sounded like an analog beatbox hihat (eg.cr78)!!!!!!!!!

that ribbon is soooooo wrong..... it sounds nowhere near what is put into it....

another problem was that vocals sounded like they were 2-band compressed.... almost like the timing of the hi frequencies was out of time with the mids..... spooky!!!

so all in all an entirely different interpretation of a record that i know and love...

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 22, 2005, 05:51:26 PM
David Schober wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 15:10

Hi John,

You've obviously done a lot of work investigating how the differing speakers sound in your room.  But did I miss this, or have I not seen a report on how they work?  I've found that sometimes the best working vehicle is not the prettiest or best ride.  Depending on you and your room, sometimes a speaker that sounds a little muddy can make you work a little harder for clarity. .....


No no no:
If the music is muddy, I want to hear it exactly muddy.
If it sounds good, I want to hear it sounding good.

I believe this idea of fighting in mud to get things to sound better in another system, to be a myth I won't go for.

If you read the beginning of the thread, I mentioned that I am going for translation; it means I want to hear the content as is, not muddier or prettier.

Quote:


... Conversely, a speaker that sounds beautiful and wonderful convince me that it sounds better than it really does.
I agree with the "find a box you like and use it."  For me the box I like is the one that helps me make a good mix, more than the one that sounds the best.

One last thought, Are you sure the snare ring in the Adams was an artifact of the speaker?  Or is it possible the ring was being covered by the others and only the Adams revealed it?...





We are totally sure it is not an artifact of the speaker... Did you read the part I mention about the sound being there in the Senheiser HD600 headphones? They are one the the best headphones available in the planet.

Trust me, the snare side shot skin ring is there!
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 22, 2005, 06:10:06 PM
Rader Ranch wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 22:34

sounds like you should use different monitors then. ADAM's clearly don't work for you.



LOL... ya think?  Laughing

BTW... awesome job on Steve LeBlanc's record.  Sounds amazing!  So nice and easy on the ears.  You rock. Smile
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 22, 2005, 06:12:22 PM
ZETTERSTROEM wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 20:31

by the way.....

spent most of today listening to a pair of adam P11...

among other thing i listened to a thethe record (mind bomb) that i've had for 15 years....

the thing that amazed me the most was the opening track..... there's an acoustic hihat on it than i know is eq'ed a bit thin.... i've heard it on all sorts of speakers.... but on the adam's it sounded like an analog beatbox hihat (eg.cr78)!!!!!!!!!

that ribbon is soooooo wrong..... it sounds nowhere near what is put into it....

another problem was that vocals sounded like they were 2-band compressed.... almost like the timing of the hi frequencies was out of time with the mids..... spooky!!!

so all in all an entirely different interpretation of a record that i know and love...



First of all you are agreeing with me 100%!

Did you read the thread?
I mentioned how i first heard the Adams, and the "P" series was the first models I came across. I mentioned in the beginning of the thread that they make vocals sound several feet behind or recessed.

You cannot compare the "P" series with the S2.5A!

Even the S3A sounds different!

It is like saying GM sucks because you test drove a Pinto.
and Corvettes are therefore, slow cars.

Please read the beginning of the thread.

These artifacts of the cheaper "P" series are simply  NOT what the S2.5A are all about.

Listen for yourself.

Also, if designed properly, ribbons are amazing tweeters, with little weight compared to regular cones, and frequency response up to 40 KHz [34 KHz @ -3dB].

What is your problem with ribbons? I studied them, and 20 years ago, the only problem was they too were fragile, for the amazing response they had. Technology has surpassed that obstacle, for quite a while now.

If they are high velocity, that is not a bad quality; it only means they must be properly aligned [physically and electronically]
There are no other problems in terms of phase, or distortion, or dispersion.

Just forget about the "P" series.

Also, the price range is not the same; with the price of S2.5As, you can buy three P11s.
Don't bother with this type of comparison.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 22, 2005, 06:21:33 PM
If anything, the S2.5A put the vocals [and the rest of the mid range] very much to the front, not recessed like the "P" series.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: ammitsboel on January 22, 2005, 06:32:11 PM
I think the problem is that you can't pare ribbons with dynamic units.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Bill Mueller on January 22, 2005, 11:00:25 PM
John,

The Pinto was made by Ford. The Corvette was made by Chevrolet, a GM company.

You wrote, and I quote, "Also, the price range is not the same; with the price of S2.5As, you can buy three P11s.
Don't bother with this type of comparison."

The S2.5A's cost $2300.00 each and the Mackie HR 824 cost $700.00 each. Obviously, you change the rules when it suits you.

It seems to me that it is quite a compliment to the Mackie HR824 to be compared with the Adam S2.5A at all, even as a whipping boy.

Best Regards,

Bill
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 23, 2005, 02:10:13 AM
ammitsboel wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 23:32

I think the problem is that you can't pare ribbons with dynamic units.


This is incorrect.

As long as it is properly designed, ribbons can perform really well or better.

They are faster, so time alignment has to be considered among everything else.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on January 23, 2005, 02:55:25 AM
Bill Mueller wrote on Sun, 23 January 2005 04:00

John,

The Pinto was made by Ford. The Corvette was made by Chevrolet, a GM company. ....





LOL!
Hi Bill

I stand corrected on the Pinto creators.

However, within the context, you get my drift.


Quote:


... You wrote, and I quote, "Also, the price range is not the same; with the price of S2.5As, you can buy three P11s.
Don't bother with this type of comparison."

The S2.5A's cost $2300.00 each and the Mackie HR 824 cost $700.00 each. Obviously, you change the rules when it suits you.

It seems to me that it is quite a compliment to the Mackie HR824 to be compared with the Adam S2.5A at all, even as a whipping boy.

Best Regards,

Bill



Again, you are absolutely right about the biggest surprise:
The Mackies are a huge bang [no pun intended Smile ]for the buck.

I don't know if you read the beginning of the thread, but I was very biased toward the Genelecs, because I had also had listened to P11 [or 10s?] last Summer, and thought they were useless.


As for me changing the rules as I go along, think again:

The comparison in this thread is between the 3 mentioned speakers.
Call this the "rule", or whatever you wish.

Now, someone wants to put ALL Adams down because he heard one of the cheapest "P" models and thought they suck.

We don't need to change any rules to say the last statement is quite wrong.

The same thing with the ribbon tweeter statements around the net.
Ribbon tweeters are used in some extremely accurate, high quality, top os the line mastering speakers. No phasing problems, or distortion, or amplitude issues, and they have an excellent frequency response, smooth all the way up to 40 KHz.

Ribbons are fine, as long as they are properly designed.
They are very different from the piston cone type, more fragile,  but that does not mean these obstacles weren't already overcome by several companies.

Again, forget about the Adam "P" series.
But watch out for the S2.5A. Yes they are much more expensive, I know, but they are a very precise, no artifacts, excellent translation and reveal everything kind of tool.

BTW, I have no affiliation whatsoever with the Adam company.

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 23, 2005, 10:34:07 AM
john....

the p11 is not the only adam i heard.....

the guy i worked with bought p33

my pal was about to buy the the s4's.... then he heard my speakers..... and to use his own words "it only took 30 seconds.... they're playing music"

also heard the mp1's sounds like all the others..... too bright and with absolutely no coherence between drivers...

that has been a problem on other speakers too... i owned a couple of acoustats that came with a sub that was a bit too slow..... and how about those martin logan's with built in woofers....

it's always hard to make electrostatics and ribbons plat with dynamics.... and adam doesn't do a very good job...

"As long as it is properly designed, ribbons can perform really well or better."

i don't care how they're designed if they sound like they do..... and btw my tweeters are linear to 40k too.... so what

and since you seem to know the adam series better than me..... isn't that the same tweeter in mostly all models?

i'm not saying that all adam are unusable..... hell as many people say.... great records were done on lesser speakers....but.... IMO they're not worth all the hype nor the money....

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: doughiggins on January 23, 2005, 04:28:06 PM
I've had S2A's now for about a year and a half.  

I think that there are some people who listen to ADAMs and hate them, because their mixes sound horrible on them, because their mixes are horrible.

But in reality, I also believe there are (really good) mixes that sound good on 95% of systems and don't sound (nearly as) good on ADAMs. So what. I don't know! But isn't the point of a good studio monitor to have good translation OUT of the studio, and usable for long hours in a day?

As of last month, I feel like I finally developed my final opinion on them. I've taken them to different studios, I've moved them around at my place, and I (had to) work on numerous pairs of different monitors on the same project in the same and different rooms, while I owned them.

What I still love about ADAMs are:
-very trustworthy to EQ sources, will throw boxiness and sludge in your face, unlike any other monitor I've heard.  This is what has and does attract me to them most.
-easy to work on at low levels, and feel like you are hearing everything
-great imaging and sound stage
-ridiculous amount of detail.  

what I DON'T Like or have had to adjust to is:
-tendency to mix vocal too hot (especially applicable to when people listen to your music on computer speakers, laptop speakers, or car systems)
-tendency to NOT mix the "room/effects/reverb" dense enough, again for translation to above systems.
-even though quite forward, can be a tiny bit too forgiving in the 1.5k-4k range (I like bright aggressive mixes, and the S2's let me get away with a tiny bit more than I should in this area)

Recently I picked up a pair of NS10s, because personally i have always really understood those for what they are. I happily mix on both of the monitors now. I look to the NS10s for overall mix balance and to not let me get away with to "hard or edgy" of a mix.... and then fix the details with the ADAMs.  

One of my friends thought it was quite funny and laughed hysterically at me when I told him i picked up NS10s, after paying much more money for ADAMs...but I find them both invaluable tools, as well as my small JVC bookshelf system.....FWIW

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: ammitsboel on January 23, 2005, 04:32:30 PM
JDSStudios wrote on Sun, 23 January 2005 07:10

ammitsboel wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 23:32

I think the problem is that you can't pare ribbons with dynamic units.


This is incorrect.

As long as it is properly designed, ribbons can perform really well or better.

They are faster, so time alignment has to be considered among everything else.


You are incorrect!
And I'm sorry to say that I'm convinced that you don't know what you are talking about.

I've auditioned almost every ADAM speaker there is and they all have this flaw right from the P11 to the masterpieces.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: recordista on January 23, 2005, 09:43:34 PM
lagerfeldt wrote on Fri, 21 January 2005 12:43

The only other monitor I liked almost as much is the Klein + Hummel O 300 D.


Those K&H are wonderful monitors.  The thing that kept me from buying them was that they were priced high enough that I really wanted a little more LF output capability, yet big & heavy enough that I really couldn't carry them around for remote work.


Quote:

ADAMs do sound quite different to most other speakers, especially if you're used to Genelecs. Personally, I could never go back to Genelecs after ADAM S2.5A.


I never cared for the small Genelecs until the 8000 series came along.


Quote:

if you've only heard the small ADAMs (P11A, etc.), there's really no comparison to the S2.5A's.


I've heard a range of the A.D.A.M. models but there was always something that didn't quite work for me about their transition region.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Dave Bryce on January 25, 2005, 12:15:58 AM
ammitsboel wrote on Sun, 23 January 2005 21:32

 I'm sorry to say that I'm convinced that you don't know what you are talking about.

I've auditioned almost every ADAM speaker there is and they all have this flaw right from the P11 to the masterpieces.

So, by your estimation, none of the people who like ADAMs know what they're talking about?  

Here's what I believe - monitors, like microphones, are extremely subjective. As a matter of fact, I believe this holds true for many different pieces of gear (as well as food, members of the opposite sex, places to live, etc).    Some people like some kinds, and some people like others - that's why there's so many different options available.  However, to say that something that has met with significant approval from a fair amount of pretty experienced end-users is "flawed" just because it doesn't work for you may not be the most open-minded point of view.

I also don't understand why you choose to pursue bagging on the ADAMs and the people who like them with as much zeal as you do.  You've made it abundantly clear that they don't work for you, which is fine - as I said, to each his/her own.  What exactly are you looking to achieve by repeatedly hammering on those who don't agree with you?  

dB
ADAM Audio USA
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 25, 2005, 03:14:42 AM
hey dave

to quote i guy i agree with alot  Laughing (me)

"hey all

although this and other forums have been filled with monitor threads i still fell the subject needs to be discussed.

for some 20-something years i spend a lot of time listening to speakers of all sorts shapes and sizes.... i've had and heard everything from electrostatics and magnestats to small dynamic nearfields....

of course i did my share of mixing on ns10's and gene's.... and even did some live engineering for a while...

but i must say that i think the current trend in speakers/monitors leaves me very worried!

i think most of the monitors released by the big companys today have very little to do with transparent neutral monitoring..... speakers that are so heavily coloured that even the smartest engineer will not have a clue what is going on in his mix/master.

not to name anyone as this will start a flamewar.... people are of course very sensitive about their investments.

it's not even because people don't wanna pay for their monitors.... it's not uncommon to see some guy talking about $6000-10000 monitors that severely coloured or even distorted!

i can understand thay maybe it's nice to have some inspirational colouring while you compose/program..... but for tracking/mixing/mastering it is essential to have good speakers (and room).

i am convinced that most people do not even just sit down and listen to cd's and enjoy their speakers and get to know them and get to know neutral sound. and how many people know how instruments really sound? it's a bit like religion.... people say they believe in god.... but they don't go to church or pray! (at least in denmark where i live).

that combined with the fact that i (as a mastering engineer) recieve alot of mixes that need ALOT of fixing leads me to think (or know actually) that the relationship between bad monitoring and bad mixes is no coincidence......

and i don't think that it's a coincidence either that (most) records today are sounding poorer and poorer...

what to do?

are we fighting a losing battle? has peolpe stopped caring? am i losing my mind?

opinions opinions ..... i need opinion"



so all i'm trying to do is try to get people to think twice when buying new monitors.... and maybe not just buy the first "flavor of the week" alu-dome/ribbon/passive radiator equipped speaker....

but i must admit that i'm a little focused on adam speakers right now....... cause several people i know and love have bought adam speakers..... and i think their monitors have some serious issues...... i don't like the fact that eg. a hihat can sound entirely different than every other hiend speaker i ever heard....

i know that monitors are a very subjective issue..... so be it..... just expressing my opinion..... and (maybe a bit naiive) trying to change the world.....
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: David Schober on January 25, 2005, 03:45:17 AM
JDSStudios wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 16:51

David Schober wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 15:10

Hi John,

You've obviously done a lot of work investigating how the differing speakers sound in your room.  But did I miss this, or have I not seen a report on how they work?  I've found that sometimes the best working vehicle is not the prettiest or best ride.  Depending on you and your room, sometimes a speaker that sounds a little muddy can make you work a little harder for clarity. .....


No no no:
If the music is muddy, I want to hear it exactly muddy.
If it sounds good, I want to hear it sounding good.

I believe this idea of fighting in mud to get things to sound better in another system, to be a myth I won't go for.

If you read the beginning of the thread, I mentioned that I am going for translation; it means I want to hear the content as is, not muddier or prettier.





I was trying to make a point more subltly, but I'll make it a bit clearer.

You said you're going for translation.  I presumed you still meant what you said from your original post.  How will your mixes translate to other systems?  You've described the differences between these speakers, and it seems you've found a speaker that to you, sounds the most like what you beleive is there, (for ex.  the ring that appears in the headphones)

So my round-about-question is, have you made mixes on these three speakers and determined which one translated best to other systems?  IMHO that's really the bottom line.  For me, I do want a speaker that sounds great, but it's only a tool I use to make a great mix.  Not an end in itself.  If budgetary concerns are a factor, you might do as well in the end result and save a few thousand bucks.

By the way, what you call a "myth" is hardly that.  It's a reality that many experienced mixers use every day.  And the very reason we don't mix on hi-fi systems.  I'm not advocating that as a principle, and it certainly isn't true for everyone....maybe not your cup of tea....but a myth it ain't.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Dave Bryce on January 25, 2005, 11:31:54 AM
ZETTERSTROEM wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 08:14

all i'm trying to do is try to get people to think twice when buying new monitors.... and maybe not just buy the first "flavor of the week" alu-dome/ribbon/passive radiator equipped speaker....


Understood; however, I feel it pretty safe to say that we've gotten past the "flavor of the week" status.  

I don't want to turn this into an ad for the ADAMS, but in addition to the ADAM owners who have posted in this thread, there are some seriously talented ears with some major credentials using them.  I don't want to do a huge list, but a few of the ones I would pull out would be Peter Cobbin at Abbey Road, Bill Dooley at Paramount Mastering, Bob Taibbi at Juilliard, Bernie Kirsh at Mad Hatter, Randy Ezratty at Effanel, Dave Hampton and Khaliq Glover at Paisley Park and Rupert Neve (who owns three pairs of our monitors...and yes, I know he's 70, but he's still Rupert Neve Cool  ).  None of these people are endorsees - all of them bought their ADAMs.

Surely these people would not be using them if they were flawed, would they?

Quote:

i know that monitors are a very subjective issue..... so be it..... just expressing my opinion..... and (maybe a bit naiive) trying to change the world.....

There's nothing wrong at all with expressing your opinion.  There are obviously others who do not care for the ADAMs, and I have no problem with that - I have yet to find any product that appeals to everyone.   What got me to post was the contention that ADAMs are seriously flawed, and that people who like them do not know what they're talking about.

Based on the plethora of positive reviews and our constantly growing user list, I feel safe in saying this is not the case.

dB
ADAM Audio USA
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: jimmyjazz on January 25, 2005, 12:01:15 PM
Dave Bryce wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 11:31

Surely these people would not be using them if they were flawed, would they?


Careful . . . maybe you should say "surely these people would not be using them if they thought they were flawed, would they?"

It could very well be that the ADAMs are flawed and yet still gain favor with a variety of industry heavyweights.  (I would suggest that of course the ADAMs are flawed -- all speakers are flawed.  I'm being anal, though.)

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 25, 2005, 12:30:23 PM
ZETTERSTROEM wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 03:14


i think most of the monitors released by the big companys today have very little to do with transparent neutral monitoring..... speakers that are so heavily coloured that even the smartest engineer will not have a clue what is going on in his mix/master.


I agree with you.  However, the whole point is (and others have expressed the same opinion in this thread and elsewhere) that many feel ADAM's are VERY neutral and transparent, and that (most importantly) we can trust our mixes to translate elsewhere.  That is the bottom line.  If you don't agree and they don't work FOR YOU, that's fine.  But to say that other people don't know what they're talking about when many of us have gotten exactly what we wanted out of these monitors - mixes we can trust and that translate well - is very bizarre.

I am not saying this because I'm "sensitive about my investment."  I don't, at this time, own a pair of ADAM's, although I would like to and very likely will in the future.  Dave Bryce was kind enough to lend me some so I could demo them for myself.  I not only work out of a variety of studios but also am a product reviewer for EQ, so I get to work with lots of different gear, none of which I have any particular vested interest in.

Quote:


i am convinced that most people do not even just sit down and listen to cd's and enjoy their speakers and get to know them and get to know neutral sound.


Many people don't, but to presume that they don't just because they like ADAM's is ridiculous.  The first thing I do when I start to work with an unfamiliar set of monitors (or even in an unfamiliar room) is to listen to recordings I'm familiar with, so I can hear what they sound like in that room and on those monitors.

Quote:


i know that monitors are a very subjective issue..... so be it..... just expressing my opinion..... and (maybe a bit naiive) trying to change the world.....


Yes, you are not only naive, but egotistical as well.  Although you concede that monitors are very subjective and people hear things differently, apparently you feel that just because YOU hear a set of monitors a certain way, everyone else should too otherwise they don't know what they're talking about.  "Trying to change the world?"  Give me a break.  How can you presume to want to change people's tastes regarding something you acknowledge is subjective?

If you don't like ADAM's, don't use them.  Nobody's forcing you to.  But can you even entertain the idea that people's ears are quite literally different, and that many people are getting exactly what they want out of these monitors in terms of neutrality and translation?  And if people are that stupid that they don't compare different monitors and listen to reference material on them before buying, then they have other problems besides their choice of monitors.  A serious engineer doesn't need you to tell them to do that.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Dave Bryce on January 25, 2005, 12:32:26 PM
jimmyjazz wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 17:01

Dave Bryce wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 11:31

Surely these people would not be using them if they were flawed, would they?


Careful . . . maybe you should say "surely these people would not be using them if they thought they were flawed, would they?"

Subtle distinction, but of course you are correct in that context.  However, my point is that these people are using the same things to determine how "flawed" they ADAMs are as the people who don't care for them - mostly their ears, which one would hopefully be able to say are relatively well trained based on their experience and credentials.  

What makes either of them "right"?  As far as I can tell - nothing.  

My point remains - it's a subjective thing.  That's all I keep trying to point out.  There's a big difference between saying something doesn't work for you, and saying it's "seriously flawed".

Quote:

It could very well be that the ADAMs are flawed and yet still gain favor with a variety of industry heavyweights.

Doesn't that suggest that these industry heavyweights don't know what to listen for?  

Given the variety and credentials of the people I listed above (as well as those who have posted in this and other related threads), is that likely?

Quote:

(I would suggest that of course the ADAMs are flawed -- all speakers are flawed.  I'm being anal, though.)

I would never debate that point at all. As was pointed out earlier in this thread, all speakers are just boxes.  The question was if ADAMs are more seriously flawed than other speakers, though.  

My contention is that they are not....but then again, I'm hardly objective, which is why I point to others who are more likely to be.

dB
ADAM Audio USA
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 25, 2005, 01:32:08 PM
lee... i was quoting myself from a post regarding monitors in general.... not adam's only!!! read before you loose your head!!!

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 25, 2005, 01:38:43 PM
"How can you presume to want to change people's tastes regarding something you acknowledge is subjective?"

so.... if you review gear for EQ aren't you trying to do the same??? don't you recommend what stuff to buy and what not??

hmmm...
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 25, 2005, 02:23:16 PM
No, I don't.  I say what I personally like and don't like about the product and why.  But for the most part I just describe what the product does and doesn't do, how it works in use, and I may attempt to describe its sonic characteristics.  I don't presume to "recommend" to people whether they should buy something or not, that's their decision according to their tastes, and I presume that if a review prompts someone to check out a product, they're smart enough to actually test the product on their own. Rolling Eyes
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JamSync on January 25, 2005, 02:44:54 PM
ZETTERSTROEM wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 18:38

"How can you presume to want to change people's tastes regarding something you acknowledge is subjective?"

so.... if you review gear for EQ aren't you trying to do the same??? don't you recommend what stuff to buy and what not??

hmmm...




Not really. If I review something for Mix, I make the determination before I sign a contract whether the thing is worth reviewing. I once refused to review a plug-in for AudioMedia until they added dither. It made the company furious, but 16 weeks later, they added dither and I reviewed it.

I don't waste my time, the manufacturer's time, or space in a magazine on something that isn't worth buying. What would be the point? I look at stuff and if I can get into it, do something with it, and I think it's worth the asking price...then I review it. Otherwise, it's left to struggle in a sea of available products that sell without reviews. I'm not convinced that reviews are that influential these days, either. Most manufacturers will give you a demo of something and that's where you get to make the final decision...and that's where you *should* make the final decision.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 25, 2005, 03:22:23 PM
JamSync wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 14:44


I don't waste my time, the manufacturer's time, or space in a magazine on something that isn't worth buying. What would be the point? I look at stuff and if I can get into it, do something with it, and I think it's worth the asking price...then I review it.


Agreed, it is so non constructive and not serving the readership, to review a product that you have no use for.  It's like sending a guy who hates country music to review the latest George Strait record.  It's a given that some people just aren't going to like a product no matter what; IMO the mark of a good review is one that tells someone who may actually be interested in it, what they might expect.  Some of that is always going to be subjective, but I try to make that clear as well.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: ammitsboel on January 25, 2005, 03:28:57 PM
JamSync wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 19:44


I don't waste my time, the manufacturer's time, or space in a magazine on something that isn't worth buying. What would be the point?

So you are only making positive advertising?

This is just the most un natural way to review gear and I'm sure this has a lot to with why many people are "schizophrenic" and don't know what to buy simply because "everything is great", says the magazines!
I once read these magazines... and i refer to that time as "my clouded and depressing days".

Maybe it's not possible to get back to the 70ties ways of reviewing... but could the poor customers please get some more quality put into the reviews??

Best Regards
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 25, 2005, 04:02:14 PM
Well I don't mind saying something negative about a product, by any means, and I'm sure KK doesn't either.  But I still have to feel (before receiving it for review) that I might potentially be able to use it.  Let's put it this way: the market is currently flooded with product.  Trying to decide what to review is one of a magazine's biggest challenges.  This was not the case in the 70's.

Nowadays, if a product has not been reviewed, it means no one was interested enough in it to review it.  That ought to tell you something.  By the same token, there IS a lot of gear that's great. None of it will be great for everybody, which is why a good reviewer will try to describe what the product actually does, who might appreciate it and who might not, and why.  Not just "it's great! or "it sucks!"  I agree with you that it's very difficult to make buying decisions these days because there is an awful lot of good stuff on the market as well as a lot of crap.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Samc on January 25, 2005, 05:41:31 PM
Is it just me, or do almost every review in audio magazines now read like an infomercial?  Some even go as far as using the exact same text used by the manufacturers in their advertising!

And of course there is usually the coincidence of the full page advert. in the same issue.  I just checked my pile of trade mags. (Jan. issue), and could not find one review that had any negetive coments about any of the products reviewed.  Everything is great, a great tool, a worthwhile addition to your arsenal etc.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 25, 2005, 05:54:10 PM
Samc wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 17:41

Is it just me, or do almost every review in audio magazines now read like an infomercial?  Some even go as far as using the exact same text used by the manufacturers in their advertising!


Yeah, well that's just plain laziness, and I agree, there's a lot of that going around.

Quote:


And of course there is usually the coincidence of the full page advert. in the same issue.


I think that usually IS just a coincidence.  Reviews tend to come out around the same time as a new product... and so does a full page ad... ergo...

Quote:


I just checked my pile of trade mags. (Jan. issue), and could not find one review that had any negetive coments about any of the products reviewed.  Everything is great, a great tool, a worthwhile addition to your arsenal etc.


See above... there is a lot of great gear out there, and if something sucks, it's not likely anyone will be that wild about wanting to review it.  It ain't like the old days when there were very few product releases, for a very niche market, so EVERYthing got reviewed, even if it sucked.  And a lot of space got filled by trashing stuff.  As it is now, my editors put out a list of everything they have available for review, and I get to choose from a pretty long list.  It's not like I'm going to pick something I probably won't like or can't use.  Would you?  If you've got a session coming up and you're a reviewer, wouldn't you pick something that you think would really benefit your recording in a real world application?  I do.

Now if I think something is gonna be really cool and it disappoints me, I'm certainly going to say so - I think anybody who's read my forum posts for any amount of time knows that I'm quite forthcoming with my opinions Very Happy. And I don't have anybody at EQ telling me that I can't express my true opinions.  Quite the contrary, they KNOW that they're competing with web forums and zines for readership and that readers perceive people are going to be more "honest" on the net (which is not always the case... cuz as we know there's a lot of BS on the net too). But I haven't been disappointed too often.  Usually if I decide I'm interested enough in something to review it, it's probably from a reputable company and it's probably pretty good.  I'll point out whatever negatives I find if there are any, or at least point out applications where it probably wouldn't work, but just about any product is going to have some negatives.  Which doesn't necessarily mean it isn't worth owning.  Again... that decision is up to the reader.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JamSync on January 25, 2005, 09:04:56 PM
ammitsboel wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 20:28

JamSync wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 19:44


I don't waste my time, the manufacturer's time, or space in a magazine on something that isn't worth buying. What would be the point?

So you are only making positive advertising?

This is just the most un natural way to review gear and I'm sure this has a lot to with why many people are "schizophrenic" and don't know what to buy simply because "everything is great", says the magazines!
I once read these magazines... and i refer to that time as "my clouded and depressing days".

Maybe it's not possible to get back to the 70ties ways of reviewing... but could the poor customers please get some more quality put into the reviews??

Best Regards


If you want to stay in the 70's, be my guest...and take the hairstyles and clothes with you.

What I do is field testing. I've been in the biz for nearly 30 years and I've gone through a lot of equipment as well as studio work, road work, joined NARAS (which means you've worked on stuff for commercial release), gotten a couple of degrees (one in software engineering) and I've been into computers since I used to keypunch cards for an IBM 360. And still I like new music, new technology, new sounds, new interfaces, and I still have fun learning and exploring. In short, I have a lot of experience, yet I'm still open to exploring the future.

So, I think that's the reason why some of my editors have been so willing to put up with me for so long and have let me play with stuff for review.

You sound depressed about the current state of affairs. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't see it from my point of view. There is absolutely no excuse for copying marketing drivel into a review and there's no excuse for believing the marketing hype without testing every statement made in a release. There may be some reviewers who write from press releases, but in my experience, they're quickly recognized in the community and they aren't taken seriously.

You should just really read reviews for statements about what the reviewer DID with the product. The rest of it is info about features, which, of course, the reviewer has to describe.  If I like something--sure, I'm going to say "I like it" or "I bought it". Then you go to the dealer or the tradeshow and make your own decision. A review should be more about information than persuasion. I don't make any money if you buy something I review. The manufacturer doesn't pay me, either. So why should I care about persuading you to buy or decline to buy the equipment? The short answer is that I *don't* care if you buy it, so I'm not in the advertising biz. I do care if I've evaluated the piece in enough depth and spent enough time with it to impart information...but that's as far as it goes. My job is to clarify information and field test the product and report on that. End of story.

Also, the term is more properly "schizoid", meaning "split in two". Schizophrenia is a fairly complex personality disorder which has been misinterpreted by news media to mean the same thing as "schizoid".

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JamSync on January 25, 2005, 09:16:15 PM
Lee Flier wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 22:54


See above... there is a lot of great gear out there, and if something sucks, it's not likely anyone will be that wild about wanting to review it.  It ain't like the old days when there were very few product releases, for a very niche market, so EVERYthing got reviewed, even if it sucked.  And a lot of space got filled by trashing stuff.  As it is now, my editors put out a list of everything they have available for review, and I get to choose from a pretty long list.  It's not like I'm going to pick something I probably won't like or can't use.  Would you?  If you've got a session coming up and you're a reviewer, wouldn't you pick something that you think would really benefit your recording in a real world application?  I do.

.


Definitely. And I've *never* had an editor approach me and say "this really sucks, but they're a big advertiser, so do you want to review it?" That would be so insulting, so off the wall. I'd say, " you want me to basically destroy my reputation, make me feel bad about myself, and LIE for the money you're paying me? Are you kidding?"

Most reviewers got into the biz because they are genuinely delighted when they see something new and clever and elegant, something that works, something that sounds good. It makes them happy, so it's not surprising that's reflected in their writing. People who "don't like newfangled stuff and think the world is going to hell in a handbasket" generally don't review. Good thing, too...that would be a boring read.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Johnny B on January 26, 2005, 02:09:21 AM
This is six pages of info, so I hope I can be forgiven for comming on the last page.

Speaking of tests, did anyone accurately measure the three speakers in the thread's title?

If so, where are the bumps and the valleys?  
Title: Re: Magazine reviews (was: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A)
Post by: Ralf Kleemann on January 26, 2005, 07:55:12 AM
Samc wrote on Tue, 25 January 2005 22:41

[...] could not find one review that had any negetive coments about any of the products reviewed.  Everything is great, a great tool, a worthwhile addition to your arsenal etc.

Much is between the lines. After reading the Sound On Sound magazine for a while, you notice pretty well if they don't like something. Also, their target group extends well into the home studio segment, where you don't want to read that your new budget XYZ piece of gear is completely useless. But they never say "this sucks;" there are subtler ways of expressing it. Much like in 'letters of recommendation' from your HR department: "He always tried to fulfill the given tasks with the best of his skills" is the utmost insult, but doesn't look like it on first sight.

Best regards (really!), Ralf
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 26, 2005, 01:35:00 PM
so it all comes down to being subtle.....

just like politics..... say something without saying anything at all!

that way you don't piss anyone off.... and nothing changes!
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 26, 2005, 06:12:46 PM
Once again you are badly mistaken.  Did you even read KK's post about how she refused to review a product until they improved it?  And how furious (read: PISSED OFF) the company was?  This happens all the time.  Reviewers have a quite a bit of influence over what manufacturers do and often they will change something before it hits the market, because a reviewer encountered a bug or weakness during the review process.  So to say that "nothing changes" would be wrong.

And it IS possible to say things in a subtle way and yet still be saying something.  As opposed to saying things tactlessly but without any substance, as you seem to be doing here.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Samc on January 27, 2005, 03:19:35 AM
I think it would be interesting if lee or KK (or both) would explain the nuts and bolts of the review process in detail.  I don't think most people knows what happens behind the scenes so to speak.  

How are the pieces selected for review, do you or the magazine(s) only review equipment that are submitted by the manufacturer and/or do you/the magazine approach a manufacturer if you think a particular piece of equipment might be interesting?

Do you try, and if so how do you verify claims made by the manufacturers regarding the technical performance of said equipment?  What are your obligations to the magazine and to the manufacturer when doing a review?......etc etc.

Best regards,
Sam  
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 27, 2005, 05:00:42 AM
"As opposed to saying things tactlessly but without any substance, as you seem to be doing here."

what kind of substance would you like?
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 27, 2005, 11:24:00 AM
Samc wrote on Thu, 27 January 2005 03:19

I think it would be interesting if lee or KK (or both) would explain the nuts and bolts of the review process in detail.  I don't think most people knows what happens behind the scenes so to speak.


I'd be happy to talk about it... thanks for asking and not just presuming. Wink  

Quote:


How are the pieces selected for review, do you or the magazine(s) only review equipment that are submitted by the manufacturer and/or do you/the magazine approach a manufacturer if you think a particular piece of equipment might be interesting?


Both.  If they submit something, the editors look for someone who's interested in doing a review, and if anyone at the magazine is interested in something specific, the editors contact the manufacturer and try to get hold of a unit.

The editors and a lot of the writers of course frequent the trade shows to get an idea what's coming down the pike and network with each other.  I don't get very involved in that part personally, since I'm a freelancer.  I figure the editors and other folks I talk to regularly will let me know what's coming out that might be cool.  EQ specifically also has a policy that they don't review vaporware; if you can't go into a store and buy something, it won't be reviewed. They might send advance stuff for review but the review won't be published until the product is on the market.

Quote:


Do you try, and if so how do you verify claims made by the manufacturers regarding the technical performance of said equipment?


Well it's impossible to verify EVERY claim, but I personally read the manual from cover to cover and attempt to 1) try out every feature and verify that it works as they describe, and 2) if something doesn't appear kosher in terms of the specs, I'll say something to the editor first so that we can verify that I don't have a defective unit (in which case they'd get me another one), or an incompatibility with my setup (which would be mentioned in the review).

When I say something "doesn't appear kosher" it's a fairly gut level judgement based on experience.  If a manufacturer claims a mic is flat out to 22K and it isn't, I can hear it and I'll say so.  I don't generally sit there and actually measure specs myself (or ask my editors to if I don't have the test equipment) unless I have good reason to think the manufacturer is full of it.  There just isn't enough time to do that, and in any case I don't think I've ever come across a case where the manufacturer outright lied.  They might (and often do) say something misleading in their marketing, which is usually something subjective or misleading by omission, in which case I may well attempt to fill in the blanks.  If something doesn't work as advertised, that should become apparent during the evaluation process.  And we do try to beat stuff up pretty well - that's another benefit of doing this, we get to abuse gear in a way that somebody who paid for it probably wouldn't dare!

Quote:

What are your obligations to the magazine and to the manufacturer when doing a review?......etc etc.



My obligation to the magazine is to do an honest and thorough review, of the length and format we've agreed upon, and to turn it in on time. Smile  Our obligation to the manufacturer is that we send the review to them before it is published for fact checking. Basically that means if we've misstated anything they have the chance to point it out.  And as KK and I both mentioned, oftentimes when they read a review they will hasten to correct something before it goes to publication, in which case we will amend the review.  I think this is a valuable part of the review process which most of the buying public isn't really aware of - I know I wasn't before I started reviewing.

And that's about it really.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on January 27, 2005, 11:31:52 AM
ZETTERSTROEM wrote on Thu, 27 January 2005 05:00


what kind of substance would you like?


How about simply not confusing opinion with fact?  Opinions have substance and facts have substance, but trying to enforce your opinions on others as fact has none.

If you don't like a particular product such as ADAM monitors, it's certainly your right to say you don't like them.  We all have our opinions about which gear is great and what sucks, myself certainly included.  And I certainly share many of your concerns about the declining quality in many recordings these days.  But don't then say that just because you have this opinion about monitors, it's empirical fact and anyone who likes these monitors must not be paying attention to translation or listening to reference material.

And if you think audio magazines don't contain enough negative reviews for your taste, again you're entitled to your opinion, and you can show your dissatisfaction by not reading the magazine, or expressing your opinion to the editors, etc.  But to then make the presumption that the reason you don't see negative reviews is because we're all kissing ass to advertisers, when you have no idea what's really going on... well that has no substance.

I think if you would simply ASK (like sam did) instead of presuming what people's motivations are, you would get more respect and it would further a more interesting discussion.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: zetterstroem on January 27, 2005, 12:03:38 PM
ok.... i hear you....

but i think you put words in my mouth....

but nevermind.....
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JamSync on January 27, 2005, 02:49:57 PM
Samc wrote on Thu, 27 January 2005 08:19

I think it would be interesting if lee or KK (or both) would explain the nuts and bolts of the review process in detail.  I don't think most people knows what happens behind the scenes so to speak.  

How are the pieces selected for review, do you or the magazine(s) only review equipment that are submitted by the manufacturer and/or do you/the magazine approach a manufacturer if you think a particular piece of equipment might be interesting?

Do you try, and if so how do you verify claims made by the manufacturers regarding the technical performance of said equipment?  What are your obligations to the magazine and to the manufacturer when doing a review?......etc etc.

Best regards,
Sam  


Lee stated the process in detail. I couldn't really add much. Generally the manufacturers submit things for review and the editors decide who is most appropriate. I don't generally say, "I saw this; you should review it." As you can probably guess, the magazines I've written for usually have far more products to review than they have space for.

One manufacturer did try to rewrite my review a couple of years ago and I said, "give it to another reviewer". It ended up running as I wrote it, although the manufacturer thought I didn't praise the product enough.

Reviewing doesn't begin to pay enough for me to miss the money it if I never do it again. I enjoy and am grateful for the opportunity, but it's an exceedingly small part of my income.

Also, I don't have any great fears that if "someone doesn't like me" I won't work again because my clients don't come from people who read the magazines. They are in the same biz and are essentially competitors, not clients. My clients pay me because I know how to do things and most of them are not technology savvy...they're artists and creators. Most of the people who read the reviews *are* tech savvy and they have no need for my services. Therefore, I don't lose clients if I tell the truth.

Reviewing allows me to learn about new things and communicate that to others...something I don't get to do much in front of clients because most of them wouldn't know what I'm saying.

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Samc on January 27, 2005, 07:05:16 PM
Lee, KK,

Thanks very much to both of you for responding to my question.  

There is another question I would like to ask both of you;  Are manufacturers required to pay a fee (directly or indirectly) to the magazine for having their equipment reviewed?  for example, is there some kind of unwritten rule that says it's a good idea to buy advertising if you want your product(s) to be reviewed by the magazine?
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JamSync on January 27, 2005, 07:50:15 PM
Samc wrote on Fri, 28 January 2005 00:05

Lee, KK,

Thanks very much to both of you for responding to my question.  

There is another question I would like to ask both of you;  Are manufacturers required to pay a fee (directly or indirectly) to the magazine for having their equipment reviewed?  for example, is there some kind of unwritten rule that says it's a good idea to buy advertising if you want your product(s) to be reviewed by the magazine?


No. Editorial and sales are completely different. As I said earlier, I'd consider it an insult and a strike against the integrity of an editor if she or he ever mentioned the word "advertising" to me. In any reputable journalistic endeavor, editorial and sales separate. THAT'S the "unwritten rule". It's called ethics. I don't even know who works in sales at any of the magazines that have run my reviews.

I'm not saying people can't be bought...I suppose some people will make deals and sell their integrity for a very low price. Fortunately for me, I don't need money that badly and if I never did another review, I'd still be busy doing things I enjoy every day. I think a lot of people in the magazine biz feel that way. There's just not that much money to be made in editorial...and judging from the shrinkage of many of the magazines, there's not much to be made from pro audio advertising, either.

I did have one manufacturer who called me up and told me he was disappointed that   I was doing a review rather than another guy who has his face in a lot of ads. I said, "it's OK if you want to let him review." Then I called the editor who refused to be bullied by the manufacturer, so I did the review. Again, that kind of thing is just insulting and generally people who try to be slimy end up not getting what they want. At least, that's been my experience.

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Bill Mueller on January 27, 2005, 08:52:42 PM
Lee Flier wrote on Thu, 27 January 2005 11:31

ZETTERSTROEM wrote on Thu, 27 January 2005 05:00


what kind of substance would you like?


How about simply not confusing opinion with fact?  Opinions have substance and facts have substance, but trying to enforce your opinions on others as fact has none.

If you don't like a particular product such as ADAM monitors, it's certainly your right to say you don't like them.  We all have our opinions about which gear is great and what sucks, myself certainly included.  And I certainly share many of your concerns about the declining quality in many recordings these days.  But don't then say that just because you have this opinion about monitors, it's empirical fact and anyone who likes these monitors must not be paying attention to translation or listening to reference material.

And if you think audio magazines don't contain enough negative reviews for your taste, again you're entitled to your opinion, and you can show your dissatisfaction by not reading the magazine, or expressing your opinion to the editors, etc.  But to then make the presumption that the reason you don't see negative reviews is because we're all kissing ass to advertisers, when you have no idea what's really going on... well that has no substance.

I think if you would simply ASK (like sam did) instead of presuming what people's motivations are, you would get more respect and it would further a more interesting discussion.


Lee,

Remember I told you I respected you? I knew there was a reason.

Bill
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Tomas Danko on February 04, 2005, 03:56:49 PM
lagerfeldt wrote on Fri, 21 January 2005 12:43

I've personally used a long range of mix monitors in my studio, including several Genelecs (1031A, 1030A), various Tannoys (Reveal, Ellipse 8 ) , Roland DS90A, Yamaha NS-10, Minipods (cute but useless for mixing), various ADAMs (P11A, S2.5A and S3A).



Say, did you mix my Angel track on the Adams? That is a wicked smashing mix, I'll have you know.

All the best,

Tomas Danko
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Loco on February 04, 2005, 06:12:13 PM
Lee Flier wrote on Wed, 26 January 2005 18:12

Once again you are badly mistaken.  Did you even read KK's post about how she refused to review a product until they improved it?  And how furious (read: PISSED OFF) the company was?  This happens all the time.  Reviewers have a quite a bit of influence over what manufacturers do and often they will change something before it hits the market, because a reviewer encountered a bug or weakness during the review process.  So to say that "nothing changes" would be wrong.


Grab the latest "Car and driver" magazine (the one with the yellow Boxster) and look for an old review on the Opel Kadett L. They were unmerciful with it and that earned them the respect of the public, but the hate of the entire GM organization. If the car sucks they say it. And, unlike the 60's when they lost all GM advertising, they get more and more advertising and circulation.

Back to the speakers... comparing speakers is hard because they can't occupy the same space at the same time... so their interaction with the room is different. If the differences are subtle it's gonna be hard to tell.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on February 05, 2005, 04:59:24 AM
Wow, over 5500 views!
When I started this thread I did not think about all this extra commotion.

The last few mixes have been extremely satisfying.
Most if not all of the problems I was having with the Mackies are gone because bass, mids and highs are now extremely well defined with the Adams, for lack of better words.

When I took the first mix into my car, I just smiled... there were no surprises at all. Voice was just where I set it, bass and kick were just right, and the highs were balanced as well.

If I had any problems within 30 days, I could have sent the Adams back.
They are definitely staying.

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: ammitsboel on February 05, 2005, 06:05:01 AM
JDSStudios, it seems like they are a big success for you! Congratulations with them, I hope they will serve you well for many years.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Lee Flier on February 05, 2005, 11:19:03 AM
Loco wrote on Fri, 04 February 2005 18:12


Grab the latest "Car and driver" magazine (the one with the yellow Boxster) and look for an old review on the Opel Kadett L. They were unmerciful with it and that earned them the respect of the public, but the hate of the entire GM organization. If the car sucks they say it.


Believe me, if I review anything that sucks I'll say it too.  Hasn't happened yet though.  Should I submit a review that says something sucks (even though it's not my actual opinion) just to earn everybody's respect?  Or maybe I should go out of my way to request a product for review that I think will suck?

Quote:


Back to the speakers... comparing speakers is hard because they can't occupy the same space at the same time... so their interaction with the room is different. If the differences are subtle it's gonna be hard to tell.


Yes I agree... speakers sound very different in different rooms, or different locations in the room, or to different ears.  Anybody considering a monitor purchase should try several sets in their own room before deciding anything.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: lagerfeldt on March 28, 2005, 12:35:36 AM
Tomas Danko wrote on Fri, 04 February 2005 21:56

lagerfeldt wrote on Fri, 21 January 2005 12:43

I've personally used a long range of mix monitors in my studio, including several Genelecs (1031A, 1030A), various Tannoys (Reveal, Ellipse 8 ) , Roland DS90A, Yamaha NS-10, Minipods (cute but useless for mixing), various ADAMs (P11A, S2.5A and S3A).



Say, did you mix my Angel track on the Adams? That is a wicked smashing mix, I'll have you know.

All the best,

Tomas Danko



Hi Tomas!

Thanks mate, glad you like it! I did mix it on the ADAMs, looking forward to getting it re-mastered for the album.

I think the important thing about the 2.5A's is that the mixes translate so well compared to my earlier speakers.

Cheers,

Holger
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: djui5 on March 28, 2005, 12:49:03 AM
lagerfeldt wrote on Sun, 27 March 2005 22:35


I think the important thing about the 2.5A's is that the mixes translate so well compared to my earlier speakers.

Cheers,

Holger



These are the most honest speakers I've ever heard. Can't wait to get a pair.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on March 28, 2005, 06:38:50 AM
Well, it has been a few months now, and many sessions go well into 15 or 20 hours.

The one thing I can say though, is that everytime I go to the costumer's car, he has a smile in his/her face; bass, mids, highs, voice placement and instrument imaging and details are at a level now, that I could have not possibly match with my old Mackies Hr 824s, or the Genelecs 8050s, or the YSM1s.


In one of my last projects, the client used 3 different studios;
at mastering we were all at Phaze One here in Mississauga [one of the largest and most expensive studios around, and also where GM had a session a few months ago].  The mastering Engineer did some processing on the other two studios' songs [bass, highs, compression, etc] but did not touch my 3 songs.

Adam's 2.5A was one of the better investements I did in my studio. The other one purchase I made 2 years ago, that was also excellent, after 10 pairs of headphones, was the Senheizers HD 600.

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: HankBrice on April 29, 2005, 06:31:59 PM
Does anybody who's worked with both the S3As and the S2.5As have an opinion as to how the two compare?

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on April 29, 2005, 11:13:05 PM
Yes, I read a post somewhere, about some people saying they like the S3A s better, but they miss the mids of the S2.5A.

It has been a while since I read that, so I don't remember any comments about the Highs; as for low frequency, the S3A s are supposed to be louder, logically, but I am using a sub, RTA balanced, so I don't lack any bottom end here.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: Dave Bryce on April 30, 2005, 06:47:00 PM
HankBrice wrote on Fri, 29 April 2005 23:31

Does anybody who's worked with both the S3As and the S2.5As have an opinion as to how the two compare?

Descriptive adjectives can be very subjective, especially when it comes to monitors; however, most people to whom I have spoken who have heard both seem to feel that the S2.5As have a bit more air in the midrange and a rounder bass, where the S3As have a more forward midrange and a tighter (but deeper) bass.

dB
ADAM Audio USA
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: greely on May 02, 2005, 12:51:35 AM
Has anyone had a listen to the passive version of the ADAM 2.5's ?
Are they still available ?
If so, what amp combinations have worked out well & how do they compare to the active version ?

Thanks
Greg
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on May 05, 2005, 02:46:13 AM
greely wrote on Mon, 02 May 2005 05:51

Has anyone had a listen to the passive version of the ADAM 2.5's ?
Are they still available ?
If so, what amp combinations have worked out well & how do they compare to the active version ?

Thanks
Greg


I remember vaguely reading about someone comparing passive Adams 2.0 powered with a Bryston 4B, with Adams 2.5 [active], and the later were much better, even though 4Bs are one of the better power amps in the market, with a frequency response of 1Hz to 100 KHz [no typo here,I have one, and this info is in the manual], and excellent slew rate, and dumping factor.


The keyword is active, because:

1. There is no impedance between the built in amp audio output, of the 2.5, and the speakers [they are directly coupled]

2. "Active" is different from "powered", in that the active power amp input receives feedback info from the output across the speaker; for example, if the speaker begins to distort, the input signal of the active pre-amp is reduced.

This and other type of info [phase, time alignment, etc] are not present if you use a passive speaker box with a passive crossover, and power it with an amp [plus, you loose power across the speaker wires, and crossover network].


Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: jpm3 on May 05, 2005, 06:35:19 AM
The powered vs. passive is interesting because I've recently read where Mr. Lipinski (Bob Katz has these) whose monitors are passive believes that powered monitors create to much second order harmonic distortion.

I don't know much about it but I would be interested in hearing the pros and cons from Mr. Bryce, Mr. Katz or others who have insight into this.
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: bobkatz on May 07, 2005, 09:54:18 AM
jpm3 wrote on Thu, 05 May 2005 06:35

The powered vs. passive is interesting because I've recently read where Mr. Lipinski (Bob Katz has these) whose monitors are passive believes that powered monitors create to much second order harmonic distortion.

I don't know much about it but I would be interested in hearing the pros and cons from Mr. Bryce, Mr. Katz or others who have insight into this.



I've never done the experiment. There may be some truth in this. Mr. Lipinski's claim is an argument about microphonics, that the vibrations from the loudspeaker portion influence distortion in the amplifier components. But if so, then what about the passive crossover components in a standard passive loudspeaker? Are they not subject to microphonic distortion?

Nevertheless, Lipinski claims to have made the comparisons and thus rigidly sticks to his assertion that a physically integrated amplifier/loudspeaker sounds worse than if the power amplifier is separated from the box. Makes you worry, doesn't it?  Smile

BK
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: JDSStudios on May 08, 2005, 04:39:34 AM
bobkatz wrote on Sat, 07 May 2005 14:54

jpm3 wrote on Thu, 05 May 2005 06:35

The powered vs. passive is interesting because I've recently read where Mr. Lipinski (Bob Katz has these) whose monitors are passive believes that powered monitors create to much second order harmonic distortion.

I don't know much about it but I would be interested in hearing the pros and cons from Mr. Bryce, Mr. Katz or others who have insight into this.



I've never done the experiment. There may be some truth in this. Mr. Lipinski's claim is an argument about microphonics, that the vibrations from the loudspeaker portion influence distortion in the amplifier components. But if so, then what about the passive crossover components in a standard passive loudspeaker? Are they not subject to microphonic distortion?

Nevertheless, Lipinski claims to have made the comparisons and thus rigidly sticks to his assertion that a physically integrated amplifier/loudspeaker sounds worse than if the power amplifier is separated from the box. Makes you worry, doesn't it?  Smile

BK



Hi Bob K.

Interesting indeed.

But I would not worry that much about a passive component like a crossover, where the signal going through is on the Volts RMS up to 50 VRMS or more, in the case of live applications with 800 watts or so.

I would however be concerned with the preamps inside the powered
speakers, because they would be amplifying signals in the 300 or so mV range for line level, or even less, and therefore sensitive enough to sound waves inside the speaker chamber, and these would then become a factor.

I never measured it either, but I'd surely love to see some data.

I am assuming [I know, I know, take the first 3 letters, etc..] though, that you would a need very loud signal, before we could actually hear it.


Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: ammitsboel on May 08, 2005, 10:05:57 AM
bobkatz wrote on Sat, 07 May 2005 14:54


I've never done the experiment. There may be some truth in this. Mr. Lipinski's claim is an argument about microphonics, that the vibrations from the loudspeaker portion influence distortion in the amplifier components. But if so, then what about the passive crossover components in a standard passive loudspeaker? Are they not subject to microphonic distortion?

Sure they are, but i wonder how much?
Title: sweet paranoia
Post by: z99 on April 30, 2006, 04:53:35 AM
Embarassed my first post here and already paranoid.. Laughing

// was considering buying S1A or S2A but after reading whole six pages here, i must admit that Mr. Ferreira's passionate enthusiasm made me suspicious  Shocked  

// too bad there's no place to audition those babies here in Latvia
Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: compasspnt on April 30, 2006, 08:47:37 AM
Welcome Zee.

It is always hard when you can't things hear and decide for yourself.

There are a lot of good opinions here, but everyone must make their own decisions.

For instance, I tried the Genelec 8050's, and absolutely could not stand them.  A friend of mine who works at a very high industry level loves them.

Title: Re: sweet paranoia
Post by: JDSStudios on June 27, 2006, 05:19:06 AM
z99 wrote on Sun, 30 April 2006 09:53

Embarassed my first post here and already paranoid.. Laughing

// was considering buying S1A or S2A but after reading whole six pages here, i must admit that Mr. Ferreira's passionate enthusiasm made me suspicious  Shocked  

// too bad there's no place to audition those babies here in Latvia




1. I do not have any connection or work for ADAM Professional Audio.

2. My "enthusiasm" is anybody 's enthusiasm when they come across a good tool.

3. Not that it matters much, but you can hear 10 audio clips of some of my mixes here   www.ryandan.com

(For fun, click on the record-player's buttons * smiles * )

Ryan and Dan are twins, and they were nominated "most promising band in Canada" at the Canadian Juno Awards. They used to be called B4 Four, and their last album went double Platinum in Canada.

4. Not that it matters much, but another client of mine just got a gold CD last month (May 2006) - all arranged, recorded, mixed and mastered at my studio. His name is Marcelo Neves (Brazilian), and you can see it and hear a clip here    www.marceloneves.ca

Now, don't be so paranoid about my enthusiasm.

John


Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: edhamilton on December 09, 2006, 01:14:47 AM
HankBrice wrote on Fri, 29 April 2005 17:31

Does anybody who's worked with both the S3As and the S2.5As have an opinion as to how the two compare?


I'll take a crack at this one.

The 3's are unconventional sounding. They are unlike anything I had ever heard. Definately took some getting used to but was really worth it. I did not have to "learn" them. Just had to get used to a very different sound. It's not just that they are 3 ways. I had Gen S30's before them. You'd figure that S30's being 3 ways with a ribbon tweeter would be similair. The S3A's are more detailed and complete.
With S3A's, 1 db cut/boost is a very audible difference. That same cut/boost is barely noticable on most other monitors I have compared them to. I never pull up a track on the S3's and think "man that sounds beautiful". They are not pretty. But a great mix comes across as "balanced". A bad mix comes across as a "horrible mix".

The 2.5's offer much of what is great about the 3's but in a more conventional sounding monitor. If your used to 2 way monitors you'll feel right at home. They will still do a great job on mix translation but they do sound "prettier" than the 3's.

Now to define convention vs. unconventional.

If you are used to 2 way monitors the S3A's could come as a shock to the system. The mids are more forward. It's like High Def TV compared to a normal TV. It's not unbalanced at all. Just very different.
The 2.5's have balanced mids but not as forward as the 3's.

I have had a bunch of friends/clients move to Adams after hearing my work on them. Specifically hearing how my mixes improved after moving to Adams. I mostly steer them to the 2.5's but for people like me that want the extra clarity in the mids the S3's are worth every penny.


A quick hello to all in this forum. I haven't been here in years (had to start a new id). And before a detractor tries to tie me to ADAM - I have no affiliation and as to web forums lets just say my DUC member number is 4 digits (means I payed digi alot of money a LONG time ago) and I was active on musicplayer back in the 96k thread days. I'm not plugging adams at all. Just a happy user trying to answer a question.  

Title: Re: Genelecs 8050A vs Mackies HR824 vs Adams S2.5A
Post by: atkatana on December 31, 2007, 06:52:23 AM
I first wanted to say thanks to all the posters this has been a thread has been a massive help to me in terms of next steps.  I have been looking at the Mackies, Genelec, and Adam monitors for a couple months now, and while I think each has its own flavor, strong points etc, each seems to have its own list of problems or issues to boot.  
There are a couple points in this thread that caught my attention that I did want to respond to.  As a long time drummer (some 30 years now) I can say the ringing is both real and intentional.  (and you are quite correct not easy to do on a regular basis without work).  First you must play open handed and with a good bit of flex in the wrist to pull it off, and second you have to have a consistent and powerful strike to the same basic spot repeatedly if you don't want a complete mess on your hands. You also need to be prepared for more then a couple broken sticks at the end of the day.  
It can be clearly heard if its intended, and is in the mix.  What you get if its not making the mix is a tighter top end with some bottom end fundamentals.  A bit more snap up front with a lower end (read almost 12 inch tom like sound underneath)  Back in the day I used to loosen the snare head just a bit to get a more stable bottom end ( a bit of sloppiness if you will counting on the rim to give the strike a bit more ring).  So I yes, I have played it heard it, and listen to it all but lost in the mix on recordings.  If you can hear it, I would say that it matters and the Adams get a big thumbs up on that account.

As for the rest I could not agree more that its your work and your ears that matter the most.  I spend a great deal more time decomposing and listening these days then playing, mixing or working with music.  (just the realities of family, work and life in general).  My interest here is more so on the side of being able to hear what is on the recording, what is in the mix, what the musician, engineer, and production folks wanted to put out.  It seems that most if not everyone is leaning towards the Genelec on that account, but I wanted to post the question.  Post production, for the final readout, or playback for your client which monitor would you choose?