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Genelec 8361A Review (Powered Monitor)

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 6 0.9%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 4 0.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 28 4.1%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 638 94.4%

  • Total voters
    676

pozz

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I'm not recording instruments for a living, but as a listener I'm not sitting on top of the violin, either. Wouldn't a recording sound more natural with the microphones capturing the sound as the listener might be seated in order to hear it?

That said, when I attended concerts (at least in the seats I could afford) I never heard pinpoint imaging, front to back depth, space between the instruments and so forth. Pace and timing depended upon how fast the conductor ran the score, and how well the players kept up with each other. There was never plankton in the hall.

One side point: with mono recordings I find that one speaker, placed along a wall, tends to spread out the sound. One loudspeaker is fine for monophonic, however the addition of the second stereo loudspeaker tends to reinforce bass, since you have twice as much LF energy going into the room. I'm not advocating 'back to mono', but I get as much enjoyment out of the old stuff, maybe more, as I do the newer.
Mono's excellent honestly. The imaging takes really well to reflections from nearby walls. At some point I'd like to hear those three speaker mono setups from the past. A restored example is discussed around the end of this video IIRC:

I'd like to write about recording techniques but it will have to wait for another day.
 

pozz

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In this thread, HairyEars reported that he preferred the mdf genelecs over the aluminum versions. He felt there were audible “resonances” that he found objectionable. The watefall plot of the 8361 does in fact show several resonances:

View attachment 168318

Do you think any of these resonances are what he was referring to?

Edit: prett strong resonances at 3k, 6k, and 12k….the bridge on the violin is shaped to emphasize 3k (a singers formant). Maybe this is related to @waldo2 ’s issue?
Those resonances are: noise from the garage and likely vibration from the Klippel fixture itself. To figure put which ones are real you'd have to see if they correlate to FR or compare across several reviews. In fact, you'll find the same ones come up every time and that some of the small FR notches are correlated from speaker to speaker. @amirm has written about this in the past.

Waterfall graphs in general aren't very revealing.

Here's another version done in an anechoic chamber by S&R:
Screenshot_20211127-182151_Chrome.jpg
 

preload

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Great sound. I like it. Both.

The first track - trio ensemble in my room, with slightly increased size and reverb, intimate compared to a concert hall, dry compared to a church. Violin is crisp and clear, but not too bright, always pleasant. This is with flat measured fr, in Room2. Nice at low volume, nicer at normal-loud, which for this recording and music I choose to be -10dB on the master.

What is good here is that there is a presentation of instruments and soundstage that does not collapse when I move around - even outside the L or R speaker. Not all recordings are like that.
Thanks and just to clarify, these two tracks were intended to be used for comparison between the Genelecs and HD800 headphones. My impression was that both sounded far superior on the HD800 (with the usual HD800 EQ of course).
 

Pearljam5000

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Why doesn't Genelec just make an 8363A or something and add built in subs like DD 8C and Kii 3?
 

Pearljam5000

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Thanks and just to clarify, these two tracks were intended to be used for comparison between the Genelecs and HD800 headphones. My impression was that both sounded far superior on the HD800 (with the usual HD800 EQ of course).
What was lacking on the Genelecs compared to HD800?
 

Kvalsvoll

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Thanks and just to clarify, these two tracks were intended to be used for comparison between the Genelecs and HD800 headphones. My impression was that both sounded far superior on the HD800 (with the usual HD800 EQ of course).
I have neither, just wanted to share my humble impression from listening on a quite different system. And to me, the sound is fine. Even with nearly flat fr, and controlled directivity (think "horn").
 

preload

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What was lacking on the Genelecs compared to HD800?
HD800 = brighter, with beautiful harmonic detail of the strings
Genelec = strings sounded strained and fatiguing

When listening to these two recordings on the Genelecs, they sound okay (i.e. you don't know if that's just how the recording was made). But in comparison to the HD800 and a couple of other headphones I have (DCA Stealth and Denon D9200), the Genelecs come in last, and by quite a bit.

But since the HD800 are very common headphones, I figured some of the Genelec owners here might have them for comparison purposes. It's certainly possible that it's just my Genelec set up in an unfavorable room, or perhaps not.
 

preload

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First track sounds a bit too bright on my Genelec, Revel and my JBL, though it's still very much enjoyable. On the HD800s, it's just too bright for my ears.

I'd be curious what it was mix/mastered with.
How about the second track? I'm more familiar with it, and it doesn't sound bright on the HD800, even without EQ.
 

Pearljam5000

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HD800 = brighter, with beautiful harmonic detail of the strings
Genelec = strings sounded strained and fatiguing

When listening to these two recordings on the Genelecs, they sound okay (i.e. you don't know if that's just how the recording was made). But in comparison to the HD800 and a couple of other headphones I have (DCA Stealth and Denon D9200), the Genelecs come in last, and by quite a bit.

But since the HD800 are very common headphones, I figured some of the Genelec owners here might have them for comparison purposes. It's certainly possible that it's just my Genelec set up in an unfavorable room, or perhaps not.
The HD800 is the biggest audio bargain ever made
Basically end game sound for about a $1000
Anyways it's disappointing the Genelecs were that bad in comparison :(
 

Sebastiaan de Vries

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Thank you for sharing. That is my living room. I don't have superlatives enough for how clean, accurate the Genelecs are. And therefore for me enjoyable.

To probably most dislike, I enjoy them with a ruler flat target curve with even more aggressive corrections applied by the Trinnov. (longer FIR flyers, max resolution of correction, etc.)

One would think this will sound overly “clinical,” but it doesn't there the Genelecs distortion is so low and linearity so high. What you get is a fully transparent window into the recording.

Even “bad” recordings are enjoyable because I still taste how the producer, engineers, etc. intended it to be.

After years of audio journey, and have designed several equipment by myself, I can truly say this is the end game.
 

richard12511

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How about the second track? I'm more familiar with it, and it doesn't sound bright on the HD800, even without EQ.

Second track sounded fine to me on both, so I didn't really have any criticism of it. I definitely prefer the way it sounds on Genelec, but that's probably just because I strongly prefer the presentation of loudspeakers. Take any near flat loudspeaker(ex: JBL 308p), and I'm almost always going to prefer it over the 800S, so it's hard for me to really rank speakers against headphones.
 

YSC

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HD800 = brighter, with beautiful harmonic detail of the strings
Genelec = strings sounded strained and fatiguing

When listening to these two recordings on the Genelecs, they sound okay (i.e. you don't know if that's just how the recording was made). But in comparison to the HD800 and a couple of other headphones I have (DCA Stealth and Denon D9200), the Genelecs come in last, and by quite a bit.

But since the HD800 are very common headphones, I figured some of the Genelec owners here might have them for comparison purposes. It's certainly possible that it's just my Genelec set up in an unfavorable room, or perhaps not.
I don't have the HD800 but a Hifiman HE500, it sounded a bit warm on the HE500 but the genelecs are more convincing though
 

807Recordings

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The HD800 is the biggest audio bargain ever made
Basically end game sound for about a $1000
Anyways it's disappointing the Genelecs were that bad in comparison :(
Funny of all the headphones I have had or own these are the ones I find to be the least accurate. Sibilant highs which makes critical decisions on cymbals near impossible and annoying in listening, and a real lack of bass. With eq they are ok though but very far from a game change. They are good though at detective work and trying to hear noises or artifacts in cleaning up audio gremlins.
 

Pearljam5000

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Funny of all the headphones I have had or own these are the ones I find to be the least accurate. Sibilant highs which makes critical decisions on cymbals near impossible and annoying in listening, and a real lack of bass. With eq they are ok though but very far from a game change. They are good though at detective work and trying to hear noises or artifacts in cleaning up audio gremlins.
They are the best in some areas that are the most important to me :
1. Biggest Soundstage of any headphone
2. Being an audio microscope and hearing everything.
 
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