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Revel Salon2 vs Genelec 8351B - Blind Test Preparations

Chromatischism

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Another way to describe the Genelec in this big reflective room is that it makes the 'echo' in the room sound much more obvious and distracting. Of course any speaker will be interacting with room's reflections, but in terms of the physics it does make sense that a broader dispersion would 'smear' or 'blur' the reflections out a bit more, creating an effect that rings less like a sharp echo and more like a soft atmospheric spaciousness. For example, imagine the integrated response of 1000 weak reflections at slightly different time delays, versus 1 single reflection at a single time delay reflecting back the same sound power. A single reflection would be obviously more noticeable and unpleasant, where more overlapping reflections at different time delays should average together in a way that at least smooths out the negative effects (and to some extent may add some positive 'euphonic' soundstage effect).
Interesting observations and hypothesis.

Each reflection won't be softer because the SPL at least in the frontal hemisphere will be the same if both speakers are level-matched. But you are probably onto something with your thoughts about reflections coming from greater angles. The Salon2 will activate a greater surface area of your room. That means for a given SPL, the "mix" includes a greater ratio of reflected sound. It's possible all that sound "fills in" the room better and reduces localization. It's also possible that reducing side wall reflections with the Genelecs means the rear-wall reflection would be more noticeable and perhaps in your space that is undesirable. So it's about ratios and reflections masking the location of the speaker. I'm sure omnidirectional speakers do the same but to the detriment of imaging.

This is all applicable to your room, which looks spacious. It may not translate to a smaller room. In fact, there is reason to believe it is beneficial to reduce beamwidth and reflections in a small room, but I can't say for sure.

Note that according to Dr. Toole, there is almost no reflected sound above 10 kHz, so we're talking below that.
 
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HooStat

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Given level matched signal levels, is there information about the proportion of direct vs. reflected sound on sound preferences? In this case, I would expect the ratio to be higher for the Genelec than the Revel (i.e., direct as a % of total volume).
 
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echopraxia

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When is the test happening!
As soon as a significant percentage of members here can agree on what test procedure would make the results meaningfully useful to them :)

The Salon2 will activate a greater surface area of your room. That means for a given SPL, the "mix" includes a greater ratio of reflected sound. It's possible all that sound "fills in" the room better and reduces localization. It's also possible that reducing side wall reflections with the Genelecs means the rear-wall reflection would be more noticeable and perhaps in your space that is undesirable. So it's about ratios and reflections masking the location of the speaker. I'm sure omnidirectional speakers do the same but to the detriment of imaging.
Yes, and it's not just any simple ratios that matter, but how the dispersion interacts with the room geometry to shape the character of the reflection. For example, you could certainly construct some sort of paraboloid reflector that creates the worst possible echo effect for any given speaker, if you really wanted. But if we assume rectangular room geometry (or other typical geometry variations), it would be interesting to see what the math/simulations would model in terms of the reflections heard for different dispersion patterns. I suspect what I already wrote above, i.e. that the wider the dispersion, the less 'in focus' the reflection waveform heard will be in the worst case, no matter where the listener is. I of course agree that if your goal is to eliminate all reflections, narrower dispersion makes that objectively easier. But it's not clear to me that eliminating all reflections would be desirable.

But to achieve a similar amount of energe at your position, you'll need to dump much more energy (be it sound or light) in the room.
Sure, but why does that matter? Are we assuming that the psychoacoustic preference of distortion/noise (reflections included) can be determined exclusively by its total energy? I don't think so -- I think the content of an extraneous signal matters at least as much as its magnitude, and especially when we're talking about reflections (which our brain doesn't just filter out, but expects to some degree).

Imagine for the sake of example if the reflected energy sum was indistinguishable in content from white noise, versus a much weaker but perfect echo (delayed copy of the direct sound). I am quite confident that the echo example would be much more distracting than noise. What I can't easily prove to you mathematically is whether the wider dispersion echo is truly more favorable subjectively, but it would be interesting to try simulating it. Or maybe a recording would be interesting?
 
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Ron Texas

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I've heard LS50s in-store, and owned a KEF R3 briefly, and don't really find that their sound quality compares to either of these speakers. The KEF R3 is the closest contender (much better than the LS50 to my ears, except for the slightly 'boring' sound that was difficult to describe at the time but in retrospect is probably attributable to the now-known upper midrange dip seen in its measurements).

But yeah for a small-ish room, the Genelec 8351B (plus optional sub) are really quite perfect IMO. I use them as my home office speakers, to listen to music while working etc. As a result I probably have spent at least 10x of my 'ear hours' listening to the Genelec's than the Revel's. It would be curious to see how the Salon2's sound in my much smaller home office room, but it would be too much work lugging the Salon2's around to find out unless there's a really good reason. I don't think they'd necessarily sound bad, but definitely overkill.

Well, you answered the question without answering the question. Are you planning a run for office? I was mainly wondering about the M106 and JBL 708. One a passive with the Revel sound, the other a highly regarded active studio monitor. Honestly, I found your impressions of the Genelecs to be describing a speaker which doesn't do the "disappearing act".
 

jonfitch

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They really don't, but I think someone should do a listening test with the L stands with the speakers in a horizontal orientation. My theory is it has to do with the bottom woofer venting out all that content from 500hz down directly under the speaker, it's like having another port right against a wall which might be causing the peaked response in Amir's measurements, and may be contributing to the lower mids being bumped up in the power response in all the Ones models. Although looking at the measurements of the 8351, it's much less bumped up than the 8341 and 8331 down there.
 
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echopraxia

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Well, you answered the question without answering the question. Are you planning a run for office?
Your response seems unnecessarily rude. I did my best to answer your question: "I wonder are these big guns really better than LS50's with subs?" My answer to this is a definitive yes. Let me repeat the opening sentence of my original response, in case you missed it: "I've heard LS50s in-store, and owned a KEF R3 briefly, and don't really find that their sound quality compares to either of these speakers."

I was mainly wondering about the M106 and JBL 708.
But this thread is about neither of those.

What is it that you want?
 
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Sancus

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Honestly, I found your impressions of the Genelecs to be describing a speaker which doesn't do the "disappearing act".

For what it's worth, I think descriptions of the "disappearing act" and soundstage phenomenons are highly room-dependent and often subjective. I was worried, buying my 8351Bs unheard, that they would "sound small". Especially since I previously used Magnepan 1.7i, and I had compared them to KH80s, which sound great but definitely don't do the "disappearing act" outside the very-nearfield. However, I found that the 8351Bs do this just fine in my room at 2m, even just in stereo. Perhaps they might not in a larger, different room at 3-4m, but that's sort of my point. Of course, they're better with Auro3D enabled, but ALMOST everything is :p
 

Chromatischism

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But it's not clear to me that eliminating all reflections would be desirable.
It just depends what you're going for. When I listen to my IEMs I get a superbly intimate listen. Speakers in a room are more for scale, soundstage, imaging, movies, and rocking out in my experience. Both are very enjoyable.
 

Frank Dernie

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It seems to me when we start speculating about anything we are in the realm of subjective reviewing and something I would prefer to take with a pinch of salt.
I see speculation about room reflections and position of ports to have neither a better nor worse foundation than any other speculation about DACs, turntables and amplifiers in the subjective audio press.

Mind you when it comes to speakers in rooms I fear we are a long way from having anything like as simple a way of evaluating things than we do for all electronics and maybe we will only ever just get better statistical data on preference over time.
Maybe from a scientific approach pov this is more like biology than physics.
 

Juhazi

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Scientific level study of subjective preference of stereo loudspeakers is extremely difficult. Studies done or referred by Toole & Olive et al. are not statistically fully reliable, so the findings are preliminary and subject to discussion, and authors know that well.

Echopraxia's test plan is nice and I'm sure that common trend for "sound character", but not preference between two samples could be found. OP described sound difference well and my personal experience fits well within those. Two different rooms can change preference naturally, because speakers have different positioning of driver elements and different 3D directivity profile. Findings fit well also with Toole's comparison of JBL M2 and Revel Salon2

It seems like it takes a quite long hifi experience to accept the role of the room, listening distance and positioning of speakers, as well as accepting personal preferences. Even with experience, predicting which speaker sounds best is only guessing. One can tell his preference and describe it, but any other person can disagree with good reasons. I have now three different hifi/HT setups at home and they all sound very good but different despite I use DSP to eq spl response. Different type of speakers in different size and RT value rooms... Nice to have options!

So, thank you very much so far echopraxia! If you end up to arranging a listening panel, be prepared to endless debate!
 
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echopraxia

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Yeah, and I want to reiterate also that this is a really difficult room with horrible acoustics. To be clear, I have my Genelec 8351B’s in another room with much better (more normal) acoustics, and they sound obviously much better than anything in this larger room with bad acoustics.

I find that the Genelec’s in a small or medium well-treated room achieves about the best sound quality I’ve ever heard when at its best (and several other non-audiophiles who’ve listened agree as well, as it is a very impressive sounding setup), with the only exception being that the Revels do manage to perform a more “euphonic” rendition of older “low fidelity” recordings or other content that doesn’t already encode much spatial information into the stereo recording itself.
 

PierreV

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It seems to me when we start speculating about anything we are in the realm of subjective reviewing and something I would prefer to take with a pinch of salt.
I see speculation about room reflections and position of ports to have neither a better nor worse foundation than any other speculation about DACs, turntables and amplifiers in the subjective audio press.

In general, I tend to agree. In a more restricted environment (own speakers, own house), one can formulate a hypothesis and experiment to test the hypothesis by moving or re-orienting speakers, reorganizing furniture, ... imho. One is not going to get a definite answer suitable to everyone in every room, but since the goal is self-satisfaction anyway.
 
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echopraxia

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Well some good news, and some bad news. The bad news is that it may be quite a while before I end up doing a really proper blind test between these, because the Salon2’s may have to go into storage for a while, since I am about to move to the east coast a bit earlier than expected — and I really don’t want to have to move the Salon2’s multiple times due to their size, so I will likely want to simplify until 100% sure of their final resting place (which is not yet certain).

The good news (for perhaps someone out there) is that I would consider selling the Salon2’s to someone local to Seattle area for a bit less than the already heavily discounted price I got them for. I definitely don’t want to part with them, but it would also be a shame for them to sit in storage, and a pain to manage too. And due to their bulk and price, it might actually be cheaper in some ways to just sell them and later purchase another pair when I’m done moving around, than to deal with insured shipping across the country. If anyone is interested, PM me.

Otherwise, if there are any subjective or other easily performed comparison tests you’d like me to try, now would be the time to request it before I either put them in storage if I don’t sell them instead prior to the move to the east coast.
 
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RichB

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Well some good news, and some bad news. The bad news is that it may be quite a while before I end up doing a really proper blind test between these, because the Salon2’s may have to go into storage for a while, since I am about to move to the east coast a bit earlier than expected — and I really don’t want to have to move the Salon2’s multiple times due to their size, so I will likely want to simplify until 100% sure of their final resting place (which is not yet certain).

The good news (for perhaps someone out there) is that I would consider selling the Salon2’s to someone local to Seattle area for a bit less than the already heavily discounted price I got them for. I definitely don’t want to part with them, but it would also be a shame for them to sit in storage, and a pain to manage too. And due to their bulk and price, it might actually be cheaper in some ways to just sell them and later purchase another pair when I’m done moving around, than to deal with insured shipping across the country. If anyone is interested, PM me.

Otherwise, if there are any subjective or other easily performed comparison tests you’d like me to try, now would be the time to request it before I either put them in storage if I don’t sell them instead prior to the move to the east coast.

The Salon2s are unofficially discontinued but there may be one more production run.
If you really like them, box them up and move them with your other belongings.

- Rich
 

Pearljam5000

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It's amazing that the Genelecs can even compete with such amazing and expensive speaekrs :cool:
 
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echopraxia

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Oh sorry I missed that question. The subjective comparisons were with no EQ at all for either speaker, so no GLM autoEQ was used.
 
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echopraxia

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The Salon2s are unofficially discontinued but there may be one more production run.
If you really like them, box them up and move them with your other belongings.

- Rich
Yeah that’s a very good point. I am leaning towards just boxing them up and storing them until we’ve settled into a more permanent location then. Plan is to rent initially until figuring that out, so I guess the boxes would likely just go in my home office room at first, unless I figure out a secure enough storage solution. As you can probably tell, logistics is not my specialty :)
 
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