Genelec 8341A SAM™ Studio Monitor Review

[XpanD]

Genelec has some time domain measurements for 8331A&8341A available here:
https://downloads.ctfassets.net/4zj...l_Loudspeakers_with_Integrated_Waveguides.pdf

Thanks for this! I've been gathering as much info as possible on these speakers for a while, but I hadn't seen this file yet. Lots of detail on the differences between the internals of the 8331A/8341A (speakers A/B) and 8351(A? speaker C) there too, which has been quite difficult to find otherwise.

 

[Sprint]

I'm not saying they're not detailed, I'm saying the consensus is that they're analytical and not "warm sounding " and a touch cold sounding (similar to Sennheiser HD800)
To me detailed sound + excellent tonality= musical
But most audiophiles look for more warmth in the sound that's why they buy a tube amp that costs thousands and turntables that cost the same.

Complety agree that detailed sound + excellent tonality = musical but that is excatly Genelec character when set it up with GLM. I can imagine that D&D 8C due to its cardioid properties and controlled directivity to the lower frequencies has a different sound signature or tonality. That being said, Genelecs are no sloths either. I can completely also agree with you on Sennheiser cans. I never liked them. I always preferred Beyerdynamics sound. IMO, Neumann monitors come closer to Sennheiser sound character but even there a 3 way like KH310 though analytical but was still superbly musical. But Genelecs were a bit more musical when I did AB sound test between Neumann Vs Genelecs. With GLM on top, I went for Genelecs as doing a surround set up was easier with Genelecs. Wish there was a chance to demo my set up especially movies as I still do not have a proper source for 2ch music .

Dont get my wrong. I myself was considering heavily to D&D8C a year ago. I was even offered a very good price. But I could not afford it as a surround set up. For me surround was more important than 2ch as it had more value for my needs. But for a 2ch set up, I would have definitely gone for D&D due to its excellent cardioid properties.

My point here is that Genelec are even though termed as analytical which could be true but they sound detailed and musical as well.

 

[Sprint]

Easy enough to get a warmer sound by playing around in GLM.

Every time I start a listening session, I'm always taken aback by how detailed they sound. I love it, and it never seems to get old.

That's my individual preference - fair enough that the Genelec 'house sound' may not be for everyone

completely agree. I too love them...Without GLM I would say that they are very good. But with GLM, Genelecs are completely in a different league and the sound amazing.

 

[kma100]

I somehow personally do not agree to this statement that Genelecs are not musical. Genelecs in my opinion in combination with GLM were more musical and detailed to my hifi floorstanders yamaha ns777 which had 2 8” inch woofers, 5” inch mid and a tweeter. The yamaha had waveguide as well. The kind of details that i get from my 8340 and 8330 especially for movies is really insane in my untreated room especially when my source is a blu ray. For 2ch music, the issue is my combo of old AVR and the apple music source.

How do you connect the Apple TV/Yamaha to the Genelec? Assume Apple TV HDMI into Yamaha, and then Yamaha Coax or something to the Genelec?

 

[Sprint]

How do you connect the Apple TV/Yamaha to the Genelec? Assume Apple TV HDMI into Yamaha, and then Yamaha Coax or something to the Genelec?

Apple TV via HDMI -> Yamaha AVR RX-V775 -> via Preouts RCA - AES/XLR Cable -> Genelec Analog input. Since I already have the AES cable, I can also feed digital input to Genelec. But since Yamaha AVR has only analog preouts, it is analog input to Genelec. But I plan to use another digital input from Raspbery PI to feed digital input to Genelec as the Genelecs can take a second input as well. The Raspberry PI is for pure 2ch music streamed from Qobuz or Amazon HD. The AVR set up will be for movies to be streamed from Apple TV (Netflix/Disney +) and panasonic Blu Ray player.

 

[madchillunited]

Sadly, we can't extrapolate using the 1st generation Ones for the 2nd (8341A and 8331A) and 3rd (8351B and 8361A). SAR also did the 8331A, fortunately:

If we try to find a comparison point, the 8331A reaches ~95 dB at 3% THD at 100 Hz while the 8351A does ~98, which does point to greatly improved woofers to me; at least when you consider that the 8331A has 5.8" of woofer area while the 8351A has 9.2".
It can even play louder at 50 Hz!

By the way, here's a little sh script to get SAR's measurements from a review URL:

curl -s "$1" | sed -En '/class="image-container"/{s#.*url\(([^)]+)\).*#\1#; s#-[0-9]+x[0-9]+(\.(jpe?g|png))$#\1#; p}' | \
    tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0 curl --remote-name-all --location --user-agent 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:37.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/37.0'

Hi I was just looking at this graph and was wondering at what distance was it measured at?

Based on the article - The following measurements for frequency response, radiation behavior and distortion values were taken under anechoic conditions. The class 1 measuring room allows measuring distances of up to 8 m and offers free field conditions from 100 Hz and up. All measurements are made with a B&K 1/4 ″ 4939 measurement microphone at 96 kHz sampling rate and 24 bit resolution with the Monkey Forest audio measurement system. Measurements below 100 Hz are made as combined near-field and far-field measurements.

What does combined near-field and far field measurements mean? Is it just an average of 2 or several measurements in different distances to the speakers?
thanks!

 

[Sancus]

Hi I was just looking at this graph and was wondering at what distance was it measured at?

S&R max spl charts are normalized to 1m. It is stated in the reviews underneath the graphs. Combination of near and far-field measurements can be quite complicated and I don't know if they describe their full approach anywhere, but it's not material to the presentation of the measurements.

 

[Puddingbuks]

Is a 8331 suitable as a hifi stereo speaker in a living room? Listening distance about 3-3,5 meters? Will the stereo image still be good as these are designed as near-field speakers?

Will the output be enough? I rarely listen at high volumes.

 

[samysound]

Is a 8331 suitable as a hifi stereo speaker in a living room? Listening distance about 3-3,5 meters? Will the stereo image still be good as these are designed as near-field speakers?

Will the output be enough? I rarely listen at high volumes.

I would opt for a larger model if possible. How large is your room? I have used the the 8341 with subs at similar distance, which worked really well.

 

[Puddingbuks]

4x5,5 meters. With subwoofer, adam audio sub 15.

 

[samysound]

4x5,5 meters. With subwoofer, adam audio sub 15.

how loud do you listen? Its hard to say but I would opt for at least the 8341 if your budget permits.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Is a 8331 suitable as a hifi stereo speaker in a living room? Listening distance about 3-3,5 meters? Will the stereo image still be good as these are designed as near-field speakers?

Will the output be enough? I rarely listen at high volumes.

Genelec tend not to oversell their models which is one of the things I like about them. Here's what they say about the 8331:

"The smallest in The Ones series, the 8331A is perfect for small rooms or ultra-nearfield applications..."

I would trust their recommendations when considering options at a distance. They have a guide for this:

https://www.genelec.com/correct-monitors

For music at regular to moderately loud volumes you might get away with those and a sub, but you'll want to be careful with high dynamic range material or with playing more than around 93 dB RMS for any length of time (going by long-term SPL between 3-5m in their SPL chart in the linked page).

 

[Puddingbuks]

Just listened to Van Halen’s Jump at loud volume, louder would be hurting my ears I guess.

With an iPhone db meter it was around 85-87 db with a peak of 90,6 at my listening position (3 meters) with my current speakers.

The War on drugs Thinking of a place playing fairly loud but acceptable averaged at 78db with peaks of 83db. Loud enough!

If the 8331 could deliver that same performance, I’m in.

 

[q3cpma]

Just listened to Van Halen’s Jump at loud volume, louder would be hurting my ears I guess.

With an iPhone db meter it was around 85-87 db with a peak of 90,6 at my listening position (3 meters) with my current speakers.

The War on drugs Thinking of a place playing fairly loud but acceptable averaged at 78db with peaks of 83db. Loud enough!

If the 8331 could deliver that same performance, I’m in.

I'd take the 8341A, personally. soundandrecording.de's measurement of the 8331A shows a 95 dB limitation at 200~300 Hz (3% and 10% THD curves are the same, indicating hardware or software compression) that won't be fixed by the sub but will by the massively bigger amp and woofers of its bigger brother. And honestly, the price difference really isn't big; to the point where I'd even consider the 8351B.

 

[samysound]

Just listened to Van Halen’s Jump at loud volume, louder would be hurting my ears I guess.

With an iPhone db meter it was around 85-87 db with a peak of 90,6 at my listening position (3 meters) with my current speakers.

The War on drugs Thinking of a place playing fairly loud but acceptable averaged at 78db with peaks of 83db. Loud enough!

If the 8331 could deliver that same performance, I’m in.

the 8341 or 8351 would give you some headroom and more flexibility with higher levels, more dynamic music and movies

 

[Puddingbuks]

The figures from genelec show that the 8331 can deliver 93db rms at 3 meters for a long time and peaks of 98db.

The 8351b is almost double the price!

 

[q3cpma]

The figures from genelec show that the 8331 can deliver 93db rms at 3 meters for a long time and peaks of 98db.

The 8351b is almost double the price!

Genelec's SPL figures can be misleading, as they're only from 100 Hz onward for the peaks and weighted for continuous. Here's an actual measurement that should make everything clear.

3% and 10% THD at 1 m

I bet the 8341A nicely fills that gap.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Just listened to Van Halen’s Jump at loud volume, louder would be hurting my ears I guess.

With an iPhone db meter it was around 85-87 db with a peak of 90,6 at my listening position (3 meters) with my current speakers.

The War on drugs Thinking of a place playing fairly loud but acceptable averaged at 78db with peaks of 83db. Loud enough!

If the 8331 could deliver that same performance, I’m in.

The two test tracks you selected appear to have very low dynamic range (<6dB). If the only music you listen to is highly compressed pop and rock music, this might be ok, but for other styles of music (especially classical music) the dynamic range may well be >20dB, in which case your peaks will be 15+dB higher when listening at a perceptually similar level.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Genelec's SPL figures can be misleading, as they're only from 100 Hz onward for the peaks and weighted for continuous.

But @Puddingbuks will be using a sub, so we're back to the Genelec measurements.

 

[q3cpma]

But he'll be using a sub, so we're back to the Genelec measurements.

Still, the weighing is probably A or something but doesn't fully account for the usual music spectrum being very bass heavy.