Genelec 8361A Review (Powered Monitor)

[Tangband]

Lets talk about the loudspeaker cabinet.

- in Genelec 8361 its made of metal , a guess is that its about ten times ( correction:130 times ) as stiff than ordinary MDF. As a former DIY:er , I know that the stiffness of the cabinet do make a difference when playing music - more stiffness the better sound and the less time-smear of the signal. Very easy to hear when you play a piano recording and listen what the left hand is playing. With MDF each tones get slightly detached because of the resonanses about 400 Hz . Using chipboard is even worse, lowering the resonanses with a lower Q, blurring the exact pitch of every tone.

My own Genelec 8340 loudspeaker with metal cabinet have its resonance in the cabinet wall above 1000 Hz, with very high Q and low level. My former DIY construction, extensive crossbraced in MDF had its resonance about 600 Hz, much higher than most MDF boxes. Inspite of that , my Genelecs sound much more articulated when playing a piano recording - the walls of the cabinet box are apparently making a difference.

This is a very important thing I think, thats mostly underrated - If I would buy a 10 K ( dollar ) loudspeaker it would shurely have a cabinett material thats really stiff, because it makes a difference in sound. Read about Alon Wolf :

Why Should You Use Aluminum Speaker Parts? |

www.kineticdiecasting.com

http://www.bm.rs/Magico%20Alon%20Wolf%20Interview.pdf

 

[Holmz]

Lets talk about the loudspeaker cabinet.

- in Genelec 8361 its made of metal , a guess is that its about ten times as stiff than ordinary MDF.
…

Modulus of Elastisicty (MoE)

• MDF: 0.53 Mpsi
• Aluminum: ~70 Mpsi

So ~130x stiffer.

But bending stiffness goes as R^3, so more thickness helps a lot.
But then again, one can cast alloy to have stiffening webs.

It is a nice cabinet engineering wise. Looks wise, it depends on the beholder’s eye.

 

[tuga]

Are you certain? Can you name some of the halls you've attended?

Also, would you consider all of the shaping architectural techniques used in halls to redistribute sound to be that different from hidden mics and speakers?

Anyway, if there's any reference for music, I'd argue that it's not anchored to some particular event or experience.

Yes to the first two questions.
Gulbenkian, CCB and Coliseu in Lisbon, Casa da Música in Porto, Sheldonian in Oxford, ROH in London. It appears to me that sound reinforcement is probably more of a US thing perhaps?

I agree with your last sentence, I can only speak of ny listening preference. I love the sound of acoustic instruments and vocals, preferably when they are playing in a fit-for-purpose environment; I also love the sound of a good room (I am an architect, a music lover and an audiophile). Synthetic has come a long way but it still tastes synthetic. One of my pet peeves is overly close mic'ing. I can usually tell if a recording has been mic'ed too close listnening through my old iMac's on-board speakers (before I decide whether or not to buy it).
But I understand that other people may prefer a difference soundscape or perspective, just as some may prefer more playback room (side wall) "interference", a different tonal balance or a less resolving system.

 

[tuga]

Lets talk about the loudspeaker cabinet.

- in Genelec 8361 its made of metal , a guess is that its about ten times as stiff than ordinary MDF. As a former DIY:er , I know that the stiffness of the cabinet do make a difference when playing music - more stiffness the better sound and the less time-smear of the signal. Very easy to hear when you play a piano recording and listen what the left hand is playing. With MDF each tones get slightly detached because of the resonanses about 400 Hz . Using chipboard is even worse, lowering the resonanses with a lower Q, blurring the exact pitch of every tone.

My own Genelec 8340 loudspeaker with metal cabinet have its resonance in the cabinet wall above 1000 Hz, with very high Q and low level. My former DIY construction, extensive crossbraced in MDF had its resonance about 600 Hz, much higher than most MDF boxes. Inspite of that , my Genelecs sound much more articulated when playing a piano recording - the walls of the cabinet box are apparently making a difference.

This is a very important thing I think, thats mostly underrated - If I would buy a 10 K ( dollar ) loudspeaker it would shurely have a cabinett material thats really stiff, because it makes a difference in sound. Read about Alon Wolf :

Why Should You Use Aluminum Speaker Parts? |

www.kineticdiecasting.com

http://www.bm.rs/Magico%20Alon%20Wolf%20Interview.pdf

View attachment 165258

It's butt-ugly (for my taste).

 

[tuga]

You wouldn’t have known. Check the venue’s information. Almost every major concert hall have some sort of amplification.

It is something that I give importance to.
For most of my adult life I lived opposite the Gulbenkian Foundation is Lisbon, that was my home venue.
Currently it's the Sheldonian, which has terrible acoustics but I doubt that they use sound reinforcement.
I've also attended opera at the ROH, could that have been amplified?

 

[amirm]

Directivity isn’t a measure is it?

It is. That is what the two contour plots are.

 

[JeanKazamer]

This product is actually quite a lot of things all together . This can really run straight on digital out ??

What a way to ruin ANY DIY DREAMS !!

Do you think the coaxial setup plays large part in the performance of this loudspeaker ?

The good side about active loudspeakers is that the manufacturer can tweak the hell out of it with control on almost every chain components right?


This " end game " situation reminded of how the very large flat screen TV have almost rendered obsolete any projection setup for home use.

No projector setup makes any sense anymore against the recent 75~85" LCD TVs unless you are really aiming for that 120" or more screen size
because your setup is for a large number of peeps.


As for audio , is this really the " end game "goal ?
aside from the price to come down with time, this has to set a crazy bar for everything else right ?

Imagine the sound level in a regular home setup attainable by a pair of those, without even having to think about buying anything other than a pair of loudspeakers , that's quite something i believe .

The " speaker cable " industry will not like this ....

 

[Moosi]

Interesting. I've compared them to the LS50 Meta review. "Estimated in Room Response" is overall better on the Genelec no doubt, but the LS50 seem to be superior from 7-8khz onwards which I find astonishing consindering the Genelec are about 10 times as expensive. Seems like this absorption disc KEF invented is really doing something big. Seems actually nearly unbeatable (from 7-8khz). Link

 

[Tangband]

This product is actually quite a lot of things all together . This can really run straight on digital out ??

What a way to ruin ANY DIY DREAMS !!

Do you think the coaxial setup plays large part in the performance of this loudspeaker ?

The good side about active loudspeakers is that the manufacturer can tweak the hell out of it with control on almost every chain components right?


This " end game " situation reminded of how the very large flat screen TV have almost rendered obsolete any projection setup for home use.

No projector setup makes any sense anymore against the recent 75~85" LCD TVs unless you are really aiming for that 120" or more screen size
because your setup is for a large number of peeps.


As for audio , is this really the " end game "goal ?
aside from the price to come down with time, this has to set a crazy bar for everything else right ?

Imagine the sound level in a regular home setup attainable by a pair of those, without even having to think about buying anything other than a pair of loudspeakers , that's quite something i believe .

The " speaker cable " industry will not like this ....

Owning the much cheaper Genelec 8340 with digital inputs, I found that having a good digital signal is important, and if you regulate the volume from the digital source, this must be made in the right way if the sound Quality is to remain high.

This, and finding the correct place in the room for the loudspeakers is the only thing that one can fiddle with.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

So, why do they cost so much?

Is it the research that hit them to this stage? The materials? Manufacturing costs (other than materials)?

Or, put another way, would it be possible to do this, only cheaper?

 

[Moonhead]

I too wonder how close In8 v2
comes to the one series.

- I do admire the craftsmanship of Genelec.

 

[KMO]

Interesting. I've compared them to the LS50 Meta review. "Estimated in Room Response" is overall better on the Genelec no doubt, but the LS50 seem to be superior from 7-8khz onwards which I find astonishing consindering the Genelec are about 10 times as expensive. Seems like this absorption disc KEF invented is really doing something big. Seems actually nearly unbeatable (from 7-8khz). Link

I'm a bit sceptical about the impact of the metamaterial on response - particularly at that high a frequency. All KEF's own diagrams of absorptions crop at 5kHz, and how much does the absorption impact frequency response as opposed to distortion?

Possible tweeter areas KEF may still have the edge on (and all patent protected?) are the two layer stiffened-dome tweeter, the tangerine waveguide, and the tweeter gap damper.

 

[Holmz]

So, why do they cost so much?

Is it the research that hit them to this stage? The materials? Manufacturing costs (other than materials)?

Or, put another way, would it be possible to do this, only cheaper?

I would think that it is maybe 2k in materials and assembly… maybe less.
The retailers need to make a profit, there is shipping, and there is paying for the development.

So yeah if one started with what they have and outsourced it from Finland as an engineering copy effort, then maybe it would be less.
(In fact I can almost guarantee that we will see forgeries appearing on the market. I am not Nostramous, but like Carly Jean’s mother in “No Country for Old Men”, “I prevision it”… 00:03-00:06 seconds)

But it is their product, and they can ask whatever they want for it.


On the other hand if one was to use similar drivers, and Hypex or Purifi amps, add in DSP, and case construction it could be around 3k for a pair. Then speakers could be costing another couple of kilobucks… and there is no user interface, but maybe some raspberry pi work could happen, so it should be possible to replicate then to some extent with ~5k$ and some weeks of software… if one was good at the software part.
(Remember a DIY is not getting bulk discounts on the speakers)

That seems like a lot of maybes and DIY risk.
So I would be talking them up to “my friends” and buying them used in a few years.
But I am not too enamoured with their looks, and I have not heard them.

 

[DanielT]

Lets talk about the loudspeaker cabinet.

- in Genelec 8361 its made of metal , a guess is that its about ten times ( correction:130 times ) as stiff than ordinary MDF. As a former DIY:er , I know that the stiffness of the cabinet do make a difference when playing music - more stiffness the better sound and the less time-smear of the signal. Very easy to hear when you play a piano recording and listen what the left hand is playing. With MDF each tones get slightly detached because of the resonanses about 400 Hz . Using chipboard is even worse, lowering the resonanses with a lower Q, blurring the exact pitch of every tone.

My own Genelec 8340 loudspeaker with metal cabinet have its resonance in the cabinet wall above 1000 Hz, with very high Q and low level. My former DIY construction, extensive crossbraced in MDF had its resonance about 600 Hz, much higher than most MDF boxes. Inspite of that , my Genelecs sound much more articulated when playing a piano recording - the walls of the cabinet box are apparently making a difference.

This is a very important thing I think, thats mostly underrated - If I would buy a 10 K ( dollar ) loudspeaker it would shurely have a cabinett material thats really stiff, because it makes a difference in sound. Read about Alon Wolf :

Why Should You Use Aluminum Speaker Parts? |

www.kineticdiecasting.com

http://www.bm.rs/Magico%20Alon%20Wolf%20Interview.pdf

View attachment 165258

I take this from another forum, it probably applies mostly to subwoofers, I can guess.In which case MDF is taken up.

A completely non-braced box in 16 mm MDF can be a problem if it is reasonably large and you are unlucky with mod shapes. The baffle is very important, but you have to bring the whole box to get the whole structural sound radiation. If you as an amateur without advanced calculation possibilities want to be sure that there will be no problems, you should stiffen the box properly and / or use the so-called constrained layer attenuation (MDF attenuation adhesive MDF). In practice, stiffeners are usually sufficient between the baffle and the back piece and between the side walls (pieces of wood that run vertically in the middle of the surfaces and are connected across the box) because this moves the resonant frequencies so high in frequency that they decay fast enough for the structural noise inaudible.
I-or
Technical consultant in acoustics and audio technology

By the way, he knows the people at Genelec (what he wrote on that forum), but that's a different story.
(probably nothing he for obvious reasons wants to tell in detail what it is about)

 

[Sancus]

Is it the research that hit them to this stage? The materials? Manufacturing costs (other than materials)?

Or, put another way, would it be possible to do this, only cheaper?

• A significant amount of the US price is margin, Genelec obviously realizes they can charge more in certain markets, so they do. You were able to get them for about $4K USD/€3.5K in Canada at one point($4250 currently), and I assume this price still allowed for a pretty good dealer margin.
• The drivers are all custom in-house designed and produced, in addition to the R&D for the waveguide, the cabinet, and the overall speaker.
• Genelec builds these speakers in Finland and presumably pays an appropriate wage for their workers in that country. This alone probably adds a large amount of cost.
• In addition to normal QC, the speakers are thoroughly measured and the response of each speaker is corrected to match all the others. So there is no pair matching -- all 8361As match all other 8361As to a high degree of precision. Neumann does this as well, FWIW.
• They include a DAC, 1000W of amplification, and a DSP system.
• Genelec develops their own software in-house for GLM and other functions. This is also a cost center, I suspect, software development is *expensive* especially if you want it to be any good, and GLM is quite good.
• Genelec is famous for their reliability and they maintain parts stocks and repair monitors for 20+ years.

Could you do the same thing cheaper? Sure, cut all the software and repair availability and build it in China. It's going to be very hard to maintain the same level of quality, and it's also probably hard to get cast aluminum cases this big done properly too.

But then, why WOULD you sell that product for much less? It's not like there are competitors beating this speaker at much lower prices. So there isn't really any incentive to sell for less.

Personally I think the pricing is very fair especially compared to many hi-fi products.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Cheaper alternatives

 

[Trell]

In EU/EES the shown price includes VAT (Value Added Tax) that varies between countries from around 19% to 25%, and as I understand it USA does not have VAT but some states have a sales tax and the sales tax are not shown to the consumer directly.

Below is the price in Germany with a VAT of 19%:

 

[thewas]

Modulus of Elastisicty (MoE)

• MDF: 0.53 Mpsi
• Aluminum: ~70 Mpsi

So ~130x stiffer.

That's pure material data though which cannot be compared like that unless both cross-sections are the same, but for example Genelecs aluminum enclosures are much thinner than usual 19-25 mm MDF ones, which reduces that stiffness difference (still they are stiffer though).

Also important when designing enclosures is not only stiffness but damping which relates to how fast the vibration modes decay, here for example for driver membranes:

Source: https://www.auditorium.de/attachment/focal-flax_sandwich-whitepaper.pdf

I am not trying to say that their enclosures are not very good, but that just looking at one material property is not enough, you don't want for example a stiff enclosure that is ringing like a bell.

By the way excellent enclosure behaviour can be obtained also with MDF if you reinforce and damp it (usually with a material sandwich) intelligently:

Source: https://www.stereophile.com/content/kef-ls50-meta-loudspeaker-measurements

Here the same acceleration response of a sub-optimal aluminum enclosure:

Source: https://www.stereophile.com/content...-701-wireless-loudspeaker-system-measurements

 

[MZKM]

I too wonder how close In8 v2

Kali Audio IN-8v2 (Second Wave) 3-Way Studio Monitor Review

Note: Rating meant for far-field listening. Preference Rating SCORE: 5.3 SCORE w/ sub: 7.1 Frequency response: +/- 6.1dB 45Hz-20kHz

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[sarumbear]

It is something that I give importance to.
For most of my adult life I lived opposite the Gulbenkian Foundation is Lisbon, that was my home venue.
Currently it's the Sheldonian, which has terrible acoustics but I doubt that they use sound reinforcement.
I've also attended opera at the ROH, could that have been amplified?

Sheldonian Theatre - B+H Sound

Oxford University gave this brief because a Grade I listed building needed refurbishing with a sound system.

www.bhsound.co.uk

Royal Opera House

A K-array loudspeaker system composed of a long line array of eight Python-KP102 loudspeakers mounted on each side of th...

www.k-array.com