General Speaker Advice and Recommendations

The Genelec 1032C is front ported... also the 1030 and 1031, but they are older while the 1032 is still current and updated. I had a set of the 1030's for a while and never had an issue with them.

Why the requirement for standby? There isn't much of a difference with Class D nowadays (though the Genelecs have their own versions of standby anyhow).

 

As for Genelec, I leave my 8050A's on all the time. Even their Class-AB amps run very low bias, hence power draw is almost negligible. Genny, Neumann are both easy recommendations, same for Dynaudio. These monitors generally also hold their value pretty well.

 

Given your scope I'd focus efforts on finding the right active solution.
Passives and amp is good junk more effort required in searching, matching etc, which can be worth it,
if you are willing to invest effort to it.
Fwiw I have liked ClassAB Genelecs more from sound quality part. There is nothing disturbing in the Class-D units, but there is a certain lack of 'life' to them.

I don't think Genelec rear port is going to be big issue for you.
Genelec port design is really well done, I have no issues placing these fist width from the wall.

 

Rear-ported Genies are not problem. Even 5cm from wall. They do recommend flushmounting for them. I can not confirm/deny that the A/B Genelecs sounded better than the newer class D versions. I remember they said the class D units have less distortion and lower self-noise than the older AB amps. That said I I am not as allergic to Class D amps as others, which is probably a blessing in disguise.

 

Aren’t pro monitors generally better suited and designed for nearfield listening (e.g. on your desk) and not really for home/living room applications? I have no experience with them, so this is a genuine question, not a criticism of the recommendation.

 

Thanks guys. I’ve actually wanted the sort of thing your suggesting from the start, the simplicity and value are highly appealing. But even after reconsidering I don’t feel it’s suitable for prior mentioned reasons and because I need to keep wiring inconspicuous and to a minimum due to the awkward placement. Also, I presume there may be no good technical reason not to but my feeling is that I do not like leaving things powered up when everyone is out or asleep. As for Class D my limited experience with it was not positive, and I’ve read through the arguments for and against.

Regarding the Focal, Eve, and external power management. Focal use BASH for the mid/woofer which as best I can tell is a hybrid Class AB / D, and @Riotvan’s impressions fit with others I’ve read. Eve do not auto sense the input and power on, and if I recall correctly everything gets run through ADCs. The master/slave power strips are a great idea but unfortunately every time I Iook into them they all seem to be finicky at best, with most of them often reported as not working reliably or failing.

It seems the ATCs may need some effort in finding equipment synergy, but one of the things that sounds appealing about the Harbeths is that I am guessing their presentation would be less dependant on it. Though achieving that natural presentation seems to come at the expense of having a degree of issue with fast instruments and less air, I expect due to the highly damped enclosure. I’ll take a closer look at the Amphions, they seem to be the lesser mentioned 3rd option to those two.

On the fence as to whether modern LS3/5A style (ie Harbeth, Proac etc) speakers will be for me, their strengths are clear but they seem to share some negative traits that I’ve found frustrating with some headphones and their amount and type of physical damping. Yeah I know, I need to go and listen for myself. But as mentioned before I may not have that option, on medical grounds.

 

There's different kinds of monitors; near, mid and farfield. ATC produce large floorstanding models.

 

Definitely buy used then if you can, so you can hear them, and flip if you don’t like them (for minimal/no $ loss). There have got to be a TON of used LS3/5A options in the UK - seems like almost every British manufacturer offers their spin on one, although some people absolutely swear by the Harbeths.

 

Ok interesting. Makes sense I guess, but in this case I was thinking more about the bookshelf-sized pro monitors being recommended like the Genelec and Quested. Perhaps there are still near/mid/far variations on those as well?

 

LS3/5a one of the most overrated speakers of all time, unless you listen to male bbc broadcaster voices and nothing else.

 

Don't look so much at labels and more at things like size and available power whether a speaker is suited to a specific task/room. You can use smaller speakers in a big room if you add a sub etc.

 

No good for watching Coronation Street then?? Well shit, what’s the point?

 

Generally the hardest part of making a standalone class D amp is trying to design it against an unknown load for HF filtering purposes; however for monitors, since the amp and speaker are designed together, the HF filter is a well known and tuned "better". I would say don't use the fact that it's class D as a single eliminating factor for the monitor.

My only supporting argument for class D is that I've heard one of these before: https://www.presonus.com/products/Sceptre-S8 and I found it sounding fantastic without any grain or hash. I also found it to have less fatiguing treble compared to the Genelec 8030C. I only wished that you could feed it a digital signal directly instead of having it go through an ADC.

 

if

I had amphion, still have harbeth and atc

I find the atc and harbeth very similar, amphion less similar.

about class d, I think they are decent, especially for the money
something like the Volt+ tpa is amazing for the price of around 100$ for the integrated.

if I was on a very tight budget, id go with a volt+ class d amp, they only lose on transients and attack and treble vs better amps, but honestly very decent nowadays

 

Hey @murphythecat I’ve read a number of your posts, I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you’d be so kind:

1. How would you describe the performance and presentation of the Amphion, as well as other bookshelf competitors like those from Dynaudio, Proac, PMC etc?
2. The ATCs have a reputation for being better at higher listening levels, reportedly due to being designed for high volume studio use. When played at low volumes would you say that the issue is simply due to the equal-loudnes countour, and thus solvable with EQ, or are there other negative traits that manifest?
3. The Harbeth seem to be forgiving of what they’re hooked up to, with the ATC incredibly revealing, and potentially fatigueing. What (EDIT: integrated) amplifiers would you expect to be synergistic with the ATCs, and do around 100w rms p/ch @ 8ohms?

Cheers


Couple of decent discussions on Harbeth and ATC:
https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/harbeth-p3esr-atc-scm-7.185329/
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/your-thoughts-about-atc-loudspeakers?highlight=atc+speakers

 

They are deceptively large because a lot of them carry the same basic design and simply scale up. The larger nearfield monitors can be 18" tall or more. Not huge, but not small either. All the big names also have many mid and farfield sized monitors. If you want to go big, go check out a JBL M2 or Genelec 1236.

 

M2 is $20,000 :>
Even the home version of M2 the 4367 is $15k... is his budget really that high?

 

I have an ATC SCM20. It sounds great, but it's a power pig. Low efficiency sealed speakers tend to be that way after all. It's not that they need to be played loud (quite the opposite), it's just that they need a lot of power in order to have proper dynamic range. Otherwise the music sound squashed.

 

@direstraitsfan98
I was simply pointing out to rlow that the pro audio makers have plenty of "big" speakers too.

 

I have the ATC SCM19 v2 right now, and I run them with a single Vidar. They seem pretty happy with that, but I also have a fairly small room (11’ x 17’).

I have had other amps with slightly less power, and they just didn’t have enough for the ATCs. I had also owned the SCM11 v2s before that and they were a very nice speaker as well, but still needed a lot of power to wake up. The 19s definitely sound their best at moderate or higher volume. Perhaps they would sound better with more power, but I had a 200w/channel Cambridge power amp on them not so long ago, and didn’t notice any improvements at lower volumes (or any volume really).

They can be a bit ruthless in the highs (although apparently better than the previous generation) so you do need to be careful with system and amp pairings. Class D especially (based on my limited experience) did not pair well at all. A/B definitely a better choice and I would probably recommend 80-100w per channel at least. Initially I found Vidar to be very slightly sibilant in the highs with them, but through some recent transport/source upgrades and cable optimizations, I’ve been able to dial them in just to my liking now.