Genelec 8341A SAM™ Studio Monitor Review

[spacevector]

Hello Amir - if you still have the speaker on your desk, can you please grab an SPL meter and furnish following:

• SPL level when listening at what you consider to be a comfortable listening level.
• SPL level when you get the red light to come on.

Program material used to get it to distort may also be helpful.
Many thanks for this TOTL performance review. I kind of feel sad now knowing only a few future reviews will please like this one.

 

[QMuse]

I don't think so.
The Devialet maps the movement of the actual bass driver, compares it to the ideal output, generates the transfer function of the error inverts it and applies the correction on playback.

Devialet also applies dynamic (volume related) EQ to reduce LF so woofer excursion will always stay within acceptable pre-measured limits in which it will not generate distortion.

P.S. @Matias beat me to it. He also explained that Devialet boosts LF at lower volumes to extend LF range to the limit excursion allows.

 

[Hephaestus]

Hello Amir - if you still have the speaker on your desk, can you please grab an SPL meter and furnish following:

• SPL level when listening at what you consider to be a comfortable listening level.
• SPL level when you get the red light to come on.

Program material used to get it to distort may also be helpful.
Many thanks for this TOTL performance review. I kind of feel sad now knowing only a few future reviews will please like this one.

I am not Amir - but I do own a pair of these.

@ 1.5 meters and 78db average (Z-weighting) I have not experienced blinking LEDs or noticeable distortion on any material. I listen mostly bass heavy music. These are designed for ultra nearfield / nearfield use, as you can learn from Genelec´s materials.
As a remainder a stereo pair means +3db....

Hope you find this information useful.

 

[infinitesymphony]

We've had several samples of low cost performance, now the high bar is set on measurements. That said - those Genelecs at $6K are out of most peoples price range (and to me ugly). I'm waiting for the middle ground

Exactly, this is the first speaker tested that yields the performance one might expect for the high cost. We've seen similarly expensive speakers with far worse performance, and we've seen cheaper speakers with fairly good performance. Can we find speakers somewhere in the middle ground between Neumann KH 80 and Genelec The Ones? KH 310, maybe?

I would be curious to see how Genelec's conventional two-ways perform in comparison, as examples of those can be found on the used market for prices more accessible to most people. Thinking the 1030 series or the 8000 series (the latter having similar speaker enclosure construction to the SAMs).

 

[thewas]

The KH310 is imho a fantastic loudspeaker due to its very clean and low distortion 3" midrange dome, but I doubt it would shine in the spinorama here due to its not as perfect horizontal and vertical directivity as a great coaxial driver like the 8341 or a small optimized non-coaxial DSP loudspeaker like KH80:

That said I would every time prefer it to quite some other speakers with more perfect directivity but not having such a fantastic midrange driver, but since here the measurements only look at FR it wouldn't be graded as high as the 8341.

 

[napilopez]

Not so.
You can equalise so that there isn't a peak in the response at that frequency but the cabinet will still be resonating and a substantial proportion of the sound you are hearing will be radiating from the cabinet, not the drivers. The likelihood of that being as accurate (ie not there) is absolutely zero.

It goes back to the question of audibility for me. I did say "for all intents and purposes"

I know you said your friend is very particular about minimizing cabinet resonances so perhaps you can provide some insight.

If the resonance doesn't show up in the frequency response at any angle after EQ, how audible could that resonance possibly be? I mean, a resonating cabinet looks bad on paper, but if the spectral peak is reduced, so is the ringing, so a speaker equalized to be perfectly flat on and off axis shows minimal evidence a resonance ever existed in the most meaningful metric for assessing a speaker's performance.

Would the cabinet resonance show up as distortion, then? Transient response? Would any remnant time-domain misbehavior be audible given we don't seem to be particularly sensitive to it relative to frequency domain issues (with the exception of bass)?

It's a tautology that if a resonance is EQd out of the frequency response, it can no longer affect the frequency response. So it has to show up elsewhere, no? The issue of audibility seems further complicated by the fact that music will usually excite a resonance less than a test signal.

 

[tuga]

That said I would every time prefer it to quite some other speakers with more perfect directivity but not having such a fantastic midrange driver, but since here the measurements only look at FR it wouldn't be graded as high as the 8341.

And the larger woofer in a sealed cabinet.

 

[infinitesymphony]

The KH310 is imho a fantastic loudspeaker due to its very clean and low distortion 3" midrange dome, but I doubt it would shine in the spinorama here due to its not as perfect horizontal and vertical directivity as a great coaxial driver like the 8341 or a small optimized non-coaxial DSP loudspeaker like KH80.

Still impressive for a speaker design first released in 2006 (as the Klein + Hummel O300 D). The Genelec 8050A/8050B/8250A/8350A (2005+) would be in the same production year and price ranges (their 3-ways seem to be far more expensive) and could make for an interesting comparison / history lesson.

 

[Jukka]

Now this is one of the interesting speakers that I was speaking of, thanks @amirm !
There is another studio monitor company from Finland, it's Amphion: www.amphion.fi If you could get your hands on any of them from studio line monitors and see how it compares, it would be highly interesting!

 

[thewas]

Still impressive for a speaker design first released in 2006 (as the Klein + Hummel O300 D). The Genelec 8050A (2005) would be in the same production year and price range (their 3-ways seem to be far more expensive) and could make for an interesting comparison / history lesson.

True, although the KH310 is almost a completely new design with different drivers and optimized waveguide. Imho and non-blinded and biased opinion the 2 way Genelec with the large woofer would have no chance in the cleanness and "finesse" of the mids and that is said by me who is a Genelec owner. The Harman spinorama is of course very important too, but when it comes at best of the best comparison also other things matter that otherwise are buried behind tonal problems.

 

[JIW]

Now this is one of the interesting speakers that I was speaking of, thanks @amirm !
There is another studio monitor company from Finland, it's Amphion: www.amphion.fi If you could get your hands on any of them from studio line monitors and see how it compares, it would be highly interesting!

Sound and recording did some measurements of the One18 and Amp500 which I summed up here.

From Sound & Recording.

Those are/were quite popular with audio professionals - even hyped. Can't quite see why.

Price is 2700€ for the speakers and 1560€ for the amp. A pair of Neumann KH310A costs about 750€ less and is much more accurate. Similarly, a pair of Genelec 8350 with GLM kit costs about 300€ less and is also more accurate. For 400€ more, one could even get Genelec 8331 with GLM kit which are more accurate and have exceptional dispersion.

Power at 2x4Ohm. Striped: 100 Hz. Straight: 1 kHz. Dotted: 6.3 kHz. Measured with APx555 and AES17- and AUX-0025-low-pass-filters.

SINAD at 5W is between 90 dB and 94 dB and clipping point seems to be around 250 W at SINAD of 60 dB. Residual noise seems to be around 27 µV giving a 5 W SNR of 104 dB and SNR at 1% THD+N (320 W) of 122 dB. While noise is fairly low, this is still far from impressive for 1560€ and the March Audio P502 delivers similar performance at about 60% less price ($1075 is 966€).


Frequency range: 56 Hz – 19,3 kHz (–6 dB)
Deviation: ±3 dB (100 Hz — 10 kHz)
horizontal opening angle: 120 degrees (–6 dB Iso 1 kHz — 10 kHz)
horizontal standard deviation: 18,3 degrees (–6 dB Iso 1 kHz — 10 kHz)
vertical opening angle: 127 degrees (–6 dB Iso 1 kHz — 10 kHz)
vertical standard deviation: 20 degrees (–6 dB Iso 1 kHz — 10 kHz)
max. usable SPL: 101 dB (3% THD 100 Hz — 10 kHz)
Bass ability: 94,3 dB (10% THD 50 — 100 Hz)
Max level at 1 m (free field) with EIA-426B Signal at full scale: 94 dBA Leq and 109 dB Peak
Paar deviation: 1,7 dB (Max value 100 Hz — 10 kHz)
Noise level (A-weighted.): 3 dB SPL with Amp500 at 10 cm distance.
Dimensions / Mass: 191 x 380 x 305 mm (W x H x D) / 12 kg

 

[QMuse]

Not so.
You can equalise so that there isn't a peak in the response at that frequency but the cabinet will still be resonating and a substantial proportion of the sound you are hearing will be radiating from the cabinet, not the drivers. The likelihood of that being as accurate (ie not there) is absolutely zero.

Allow me to disagree. The moment your EQ pushed a peak coming from cabinet resonance down to flat that means that cabinet resonance is not contributing significantly to the response on that frequency range anymore. I cannot really imagine a situation where cabinet resonance so nicely filled a dip in the drivers ressponse so that sum is flat but I don't see a problem with cabinet resonance even in that sceanrio.

 

[rajapruk]

Can you show the spinorama with 50dB graph settings?
Would be nice if 50dB interval could be the default for your spinorama graphs.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I don't think so.
The Devialet maps the movement of the actual bass driver, compares it to the ideal output, generates the transfer function of the error inverts it and applies the correction on playback.

This sounds to me like motional feedback. My understanding of Devialet SAM is that it applies a transfer function to the output signal based on a model of the driver's behaviour derived from previous testing of the same model of speaker.

I don't think any monitoring/mapping of the actual driver is occurring (there are no sensors after all).

 

[edechamps]

...and this review is accurate confirmation that @amirm has a properly calibrated and fully functional Klippel System.

I wouldn't be so optimistic. Because of the way the NFS operates, coaxial speakers are an easy task for it (simple sound field due to single sound source). Things are not so easy with non-concentric speakers, such as the two way Neumann KH 80. Take the issue of the reference axis for example. Some of the concerns around the measurement system (of which, to be clear, only few remain) cannot be confirmed or dismissed by measuring coaxials.

 

[Soniclife]

Hello Amir - if you still have the speaker on your desk, can you please grab an SPL meter and furnish following:

• SPL level when listening at what you consider to be a comfortable listening level.
• SPL level when you get the red light to come on.

I was going to suggest something similar, if he picks a standard test track any notes the point that either the speaker complains (clip light), or be notices the first audible degradation in sound as he turns them up. A handheld spl meter is good enough. It would only take a minute and give a speaker to speaker real world comparison.

 

[Soniclife]

I don't think any monitoring/mapping of the actual driver is occurring (there are no sensors after all).

It does monitor the voltage that will be going to sent to speaker after all DSP and volume setting, and then take preemptive adjustment. It's largely marketing speak the way they write it, but there are elements of truth in it.

 

[QMuse]

It does monitor the voltage that will be going to sent to speaker after all DSP and volume setting, and then take preemptive adjustment. It's largely marketing speak the way they write it, but there are elements of truth in it.

Sure, it monitors output vloltage, not driver exursio, and than it adjusts LF filter to extend or to reduce based on pre-measured driver excursion done with laser. It is a good concept to draw maximum LF response driver can provide at any given volume.

 

[stevenswall]

So if this went louder and had more bass, it would score better?

Sounds like an 8260 would knock it out of the park. Curious how the 8361 would compare.

 

[MZKM]

Hello Amir - if you still have the speaker on your desk, can you please grab an SPL meter and furnish following:

• SPL level when listening at what you consider to be a comfortable listening level.
• SPL level when you get the red light to come on.

Program material used to get it to distort may also be helpful.
Many thanks for this TOTL performance review. I kind of feel sad now knowing only a few future reviews will please like this one.

A better method would be to load up REW and do an averaged RTA.