Ableton Forum

hiss without signal connected? strange.., you run them unsymetrical? or do they work on a switched power supply? in this case better grounding might help..

for you country side people.. nothing is better than giving your studio a real ground point.. that is a 3-4 meter long steal nail you hammer into the ground..without hitting any city infra structure, hidden bunkers or not detonated bombs.. and connect that to your main studio ground point, usually the console, with at least 16 qmm copper cable... and from this point you build a star to any Rack/Amp,active Speaker, in your studio with 4 qmm copper cable.. and from there you go with 2,5 qmm to any other machine...

you might be able to leave some not important out.. but in geneal any machine gets a strong connection toth studio ground. and you isolate from the mains ground than.. but when your real ground is thick enough you even can leave that without hum problems
as thicker the better..

its called grounding.. but you also can reffer to it as noise reduction..

The hiss is a well known 'issue' with the Opals. My Focals had it too though, and it's not interference.

timothyallan wrote:The hiss is a well known 'issue' with the Opals. My Focals had it too though, and it's not interference.

Is it a feature? U know like washing a colour over a blank canvas?

Totally is a feature. It's called "Ocean Breeze" and it soothes you as you mix and relaxes all your muscles while you take a breather. Event really covered all the bases on this one.

and do all you muscles totally relax? inclusiv the ones where the sun never shines?

SubFunk wrote:

Tarekith wrote:(upgraded from HR824's, I think those are SubFunk's real favorites...).

:lol: :lol: :lol:

no comments on the 'hiss' issue.

Obviously the hiss is internal- due to ear damage cause by using HRs, he should sue Mackie, any (ex) user should be entitled to at least 2 weeks ayurvedic hear recovery treatment in Kerala (including flight). HR - No.1 most hated audio product on my list, to me it is like nail on blackboard painful. I am not kidding, I am allergic to HRs, if I see them anywhere I politely request " can I just use my in ear Shures" which I always carry with me
BTW. interesting discussion, I cant imagine anyone would have ungrounded dislike, chances are there could be some tricky disadvantage due to the unconventional design. Considering price and the longterm use associated with monitors it is way much more reasonable to invest in well established, less controversial brand.
My decision to choose Genelecs over other similar quality brands couple of years back was that 80% of studios I work have Genelecs. For good or bad they have their own sound from 8020 to build in the wall monsters, so it made practical sense to me. Other than that I find them "easy on the ear" important factor for me.

rikhyray wrote:

SubFunk wrote:

Tarekith wrote:(upgraded from HR824's, I think those are SubFunk's real favorites...).

no comments on the 'hiss' issue.

Obviously the hiss is internal- due to ear damage cause by using HRs, he should sue Mackie, any (ex) user should be entitled to at least 2 weeks ayurvedic hear recovery treatment in Kerala (including flight). HR - No.1 most hated audio product on my list, to me it is like nail on blackboard painful. I am not kidding, I am allergic to HRs, if I see them anywhere I politely request " can I just use my in ear Shures" which I always carry with me
BTW. interesting discussion, I cant imagine anyone would have ungrounded dislike, chances are there could be some tricky disadvantage due to the unconventional design. Considering price and the longterm use associated with monitors it is way much more reasonable to invest in well established, less controversial brand.
My decision to choose Genelecs over other similar quality brands couple of years back was that 80% of studios I work have Genelecs. For good or bad they have their own sound from 8020 to build in the wall monsters, so it made practical sense to me. Other than that I find them "easy on the ear" important factor for me.

+1

another important 'issue' for me is longevity, if i invest some serious money (which a real decent pair of monitors usually costs) then service and general built / design qualities are important, and even if some of you might be already tired of it, but some new eyes might read that...

with genelec and some other brands like neumann mics for example you get products where every single bit in them goes through a hardcore quality test, about 80% of the parts manufactured or bought that go into genies or a neumann mic fall thru the quality control and end up in the rubbish bin... a genelec speaker is tested 16 hours under full blast (the maximum volume possible) pink noise continuously before leaving the house, etc. NO other company assures such a tight quality control, if you buy a 8040 now in germany or in 4 years time another one in the USA it is tightly the exact same speaker with the exact same sound and characteristics... absolute no other company withstands that kind of quality assurance, plus they assure a minimum of 10 years service / replacement on ANY part AFTER the model is discontinued! bam! it's an investment for life.

well, there are simply reasons for the fact why they are pretty much the most widespread monitors in commercial studios around the world, like those mentioned.

and the genelec service and response is by far the best off all companies i ever dealt with in my life (not just audio, any product... mercedes or whatever else)


a 3000 euros pair that has some slight 'hiss'

made in australia by imported chinese kids or what?

Not kids, babies!

timothyallan wrote:Not kids, babies!

of course, i forgot that they are even cheaper.

that you see genelecs in so many studios is the result of a similar hype as we see now with the opals...

but there are differences.. genelecs hype was created more by word of mouth and having the wright concept at the time, than by advertizing via internet forums..

And theire build quality was allways very good.. What was part of the word of mouth hype.
Only drawback for many studio people, theire overly nice sound...
when it sounds good on genelecs there is still a way to go in the mix... it has to sound extra super good to translate on any speaker well.. ok... thats something you can get used too..so they became popular because they give instant gratification and fun in the studio ..and when you work them you can get good results..

the opposite philosophie-the unforgiving magnifiing glass monitor ..
spendors... for example.
Which was, and maybe still is, a british broadcast standard, can be a bit hard for the fun session..
because the slightest bad setting sounds really bad and your mix have to be just spot on to sound good on them,... a very good tool.... but somewhat fun reduced for just jamming arround...very british in way .. i liked that too in way..

But all theese companys had good and better models.. i was for many years on westlake bbsm 10..what turned out to be the only one they still build.. the bigger ones was too boomy..the smaler ones crap..

the ideal monitor IMO combines booth philosophys.. has a big heart and nice highs and is direct in your face fun... but forces you to work the sound..
but without beeing too much of a magnifying glass.. more like a watch tower.. you see the problems coming early... but not in an over excited way.. just a real well translating thing.. best without bass enhancing tricks.. precission is here the key... and precission is of cause also the matching of a pair...

Thats what i liked when testing the Gheitans that they are not too nerdy . unusual for broadcast standards..but very precise.
And they actually became one by word of mouth.. the ex DDR company Geithan wasnt really something the western broadcast industry was after just to help the brothers from the former socialist part of germany..rather the opposite..
They really made it with beeing too good to be ignored.. I like that.

I am actually happy that i dont have a budget for new monitors wright now... there was never more brands on the market than now...
its defently not easy to find the wright partner in crime..especially because the only way to really test monitors is to test them with mixes..and that needs time..
Often the best studiomonitors dont shine in a direct A/B test.. just the work you do on them shines..at least that was they way it used to be before they all started to "shine"...

Its easy to understand that from time to time studio standards have to form, and people want to go for the prooved path just to have any orientation.

Only problem theese days.. we never had more potential candidates out there.. and we never had so much "experts" without a clue out there either... And its still also a matter of taste,..
And everything gets communicated in internet forums where you dont have a clue who is telling the truth, just beeing misserable, fanboy or even employed by the manufactor.. word of mouth between studio owners and soundengineers was a more 1:1 thing..

But that also can lead to horrible results.. The German city Hamburg was famous for falling to funny city internal monitor hypes...
There was times any Hamburg Studio had Aluminium woovered monster cabinets that looked rather like overszised car hifi than studio monitors..pimp style i guess...Havent stopped them to deliver for the german pop industry... But thanks god this hype never made it out of hamburg )

As already you know Neumann bought K&H and they are going to announce the first Neumann branded monitors later this year, should be interesting.

At Gearslutz some of them are raving about Sonics Anima, but i would need more low i think:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-prod ... 000-a.html

danger wrote:As already you know Neumann bought K&H and they are going to announce the first Neumann branded monitors later this year, should be interesting.

At Gearslutz some of them are raving about Sonics Anima, but i would need more low i think:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-prod ... 000-a.html

strange, as neumann was swallowed by sennheiser a few years back... (but sennheiser obviously kept the highly respected brand name), well if it is true that basically means it's bought by sennheiser, and seeing they fucked up quality already big time producing partly in ireland now, not what is produced under the neumann banner, though... (worst thing they ever done, speaking from a lot of experience with sennheiser gear here and a lot of communication directly with them, well parts they already pulled back because of the huge amount of problems they had, awful) besides i think they rather gonna keep K&H as an "el cheapo" brand, to widen the market. i know, i know K&H is partly expensive, but it remains cheap rubbish.

well, see... i don't find it exiting for 'brands' to suddenly jump into a segment just to get a slice of the cake.