some of the most unbelievable prejudice

[Ianm2]

I was doing a bit of research for buying some active monitors.

I was looking at Genelec, the rolls royce and industry standard, and mackie, that created a stir and are the 'home project studio standard'.

People on forums universally love the genelec, whereas the mackies are love them or really hate them, they really divide opinion, but its a prejudiced opinion, not a hate as such, more a frown upon them

They are thought of a bit as a ford vs a bmw, people look down upon them, as they aren't a kudos prestige brand, or hifi wise, like say a rega deck v a linn, that kind of comparison, only more so, or an australian shiraz vs. a pomerol chateau petrus, or living in belgravia vs battersea, you get the picture

Indeed, they suggested the bass was bloated, inaccurate and the tweeter harsh.

Well I have auditioned both at home and found the mackies are better, there is no way on earth the tweeter is harsh, its a top quality seas metal dome similar to that used by harbeth in the hl compact 7s.

Some of these people on forums really don't have a clue what they are talking about and a STRONGLY biased and prejudiced, you really have to watch what you read out there. There was a lot more to it, but that bit about the tweeter really is total utter tosh. I wouldn't be surprised if these types are slating things without actually hearing them.

Just a word of warning, its like a religion with followers that have been brainwashed and will commit suicide for there hifi masters. It reminded me somehting of how peverted and fervant some naim/linn types are. It really is a cult that you will be murdered for leaving, such is the psychology of this game.

I think to sum up, the problem is that the mags. and people are strongly 'biased' towards having to say something is 'best', there is only one way to do it, and all other ways are inadequate, marketing, too will emphasize this, put all other methods down.

Another part of the problem is that we SO want to believe it, almost as if we are conditioned to believe a big makers wild claims, the way audionote sold their zero oversampling dac as if it utterly destroyed any regular cd player, and it didn't, it was negligibly better, an alternative, yes, I have become so disheartened by this, I am glad I am getting away from the snake oil, really relieved.

In the mags we get....This months champion trounces all others, then you try a 20 year old amp and realise its pretty good.

In audio, there are myriad of different approaches, philosophies, all valid, and its part of the rich tapestry of the genre, to limit saying ours is the only worthwhile is philosophically wrong, unhelpful, incorrect, and misleading, and its part of the enterprising spirit that many crazy approaches exist to do something and have been done.

The only truth is your own truth..

[Paul Barker]

Yes, it's not too bad here, but many forums with a bigger world wide audience are rife with industry toad of toad halls. Anything you say that might discredit their sponsor and you get flamed to extinction.

Stuff them, if they don't want the truth they can have nothing.

[Paul Barker]

Yes, it's not too bad here, but many forums with a bigger world wide audience are rife with industry toad of toad halls. Anything you say that might discredit their sponsor and you get flamed to extinction.

Stuff them, if they don't want the truth they can have nothing, and they'll be left praising themselves and their mates.

[Black Stuart]

Theakstone,
the sad but awful truth is that far too high a percentage of bipeds are terrified of responsibility for their own thoughts, words and actions. They spend their existence (not LIFE) desperately searching for someone, anyone to offload that responsibility onto and anything the Leader says must be THE TRUTH.Of course when it all comes on top - I was only obeying orders. Why should Hi-Fi be any different from Religion or Politics?

When I was younger I wasted valuable living time ranting against this type of biped, just as you are now. Basically one day you will realise that when you urinate into the wind you will not smell of Boss/Givenchy/Armani/Jean Paul Gaultier or even Brut - just urine.

Black Stuart

[Paul Barker]

By the time you realise that you will smell of urine whatever you think.

[dave dove]

never whistle while you're p*****g

dave dove

[John Caswell]

Hi all,
Genelec, Klein & Hummel, Lockwood etc active monitors are generally designed for monitoring work in studios and control rooms and tend to be "neutral" so quite often do not sound as well in a home.
In my working days I was able to borrow both Genelec and K&H L/S to try at home and found them not to my liking, too dry and sterile. Of the two I preferred the K&H.
Try before you buy!

John aka dr John

[NickG]

I once heard a demo of a 7.1 system using huge Genelec active monitors, the installation came with a studio tech with a laptop and mic to set it all up. It went very very loud, was very very transparent, and measurably very flat, but to my ears sounded dreadfull. But then as Jr John has said, the role of a studio monitor is not to make the music sound nice, they are designed to allow the user to hear any hidden flaws.

Doesn't address the fact that people have views that have no basis in personal experence, but they do, and to be fair its actually quiet hard to not do it, I started the year having decided not to talk about valves and kit that I hadn't personally heard, and its rather hard to do, but I am still working at it. It does give me a excuse to buy valves and build stuff though :-).

The Internet is great at allowing memes like this to expand and grow.

[Ianm2]

I would totally concure with that analysis of the genelecs, the snobbery is unbelievable.

the mackies do sound quite nice, categorically without doubt better than the gens., still a remnant of the dry sterility but they manage to sound quite good domestically.

[NickG]

You will find exactly the same snobbery and blinkered attitude if you talk to many pro audio folk about valve amps. As Paul said, their loss.