You might need a subwoofer

I think I'm trying to justify this massive 1k EUR unnecessary spending to the internet but I want to document my feelings the day after hooking everything up and get everyone else to do the same ;)

So... it is well known that I'm broke (af) but I really want good audio setup to play osu! (well not only osu! but maybe watch some anime/movie and other stuff but I don't do any pro audio work), and being broke is at odds with having good audio setup...

I spent almost all my savings for the past couple months on a Genelec 7050 CPM to pair with my current 2 x Genelec 8030 CP. I've been reading articles on how a sub would change the perceived sound profile and that's definitely true and an understatement.

On the 8030 specsheet, the linear frequency range is from 54 Hz to 20 kHz and I remember seeing some forum discussions and there seem to be a consensus where even though its a phenomenal speaker, the bass roll off below a certain range (was it 60Hz?) was basically non-existent. I've been using this pair for about 9 months now while I can't complain but I didn't realize how much I missed until I've hooked up this sub.

The sub has a frequency range from 24 Hz to 85 Hz, and Genelec has some special handoff feature where it uses a lowpass on the input signal and pushes smoothed 85 Hz+ signals to the monitors and handles the low frequencies itself.

The setup is quite easy, follow the quick setup manual to adjust the dip switches (for phase alignment), and set the gain to -4 because its placed at the corner of my room (ofc I did the subwoofer crawl before that). And change the TRS to XLR cables originally hooked to the monitor to the sub, and route the XLR to XLR cables from the sub to the monitors. I also used SoundID Reference to do a room correction (REW for my Linux machine). Since my room is very small, I usually listen at around 10% ~ 30% volume. Human hearing is less sensitive to bass at low listening levels (equal-loudness contour / Fletcher-Munson) so at low volume the perceived bass is also quite low. I added a Harman like 3 point target curve in SoundID to do a low shelf on 45 Hz with 3.5 dB gain to compensate, bell on 250 Hz -1 dB, and 9000 Hz high shelf +1.5 dB (well also I mostly listen to heavily processed ACG music so pro audio folks please don't dunk on me).

I don't have enough vocabulary to describe the sound like those reviewers (probably because of brainrot?), but overall it sounds more grounded, and overall more pleasant especially for anime and j-altrock songs I really like. And I even got 2 new badges (750 and 1000 combo badges) on my first osu! session with the sub.

Just to sum it up, money well spent! I'm happy! If you already have a pair of studio monitors and want to maybe throw more money in it, consider getting a subwoofer or two ;)