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$20-25k budget. Currently eyeing Genelec 8361A, KEF Blade One Meta, and the B&W 801D4.

Thank you everyone for the input! I’m going down the slippery slope now and considering increasing my budget to $30k or so now…

Still trying to pore through hundreds of pages on other threads but front runners for me now are Genelec 8351B/W371A vs a used set of KEF Blade One Metas with maybe a subwoofer if necessary.

Seems like both have hugely loyal fan bases and both companies are top notch. I’m planning to use them in stereo listening fashion. But if I ever did decide to move into a home with a large enough room, I may consider a 7.1 home theater setup and it seems Genelec with their GLM would be the easiest option for future proofing. Am I correct in that assumption? I understand active speakers have more wiring and components at the risk of needing separate maintenance in the future, but it seems Genelecs have top notch construction and repairability so this doesn’t really concern me.
 
Thank you everyone for the input! I’m going down the slippery slope now and considering increasing my budget to $30k or so now…

Still trying to pore through hundreds of pages on other threads but front runners for me now are Genelec 8351B/W371A vs a used set of KEF Blade One Metas with maybe a subwoofer if necessary.

Seems like both have hugely loyal fan bases and both companies are top notch. I’m planning to use them in stereo listening fashion. But if I ever did decide to move into a home with a large enough room, I may consider a 7.1 home theater setup and it seems Genelec with their GLM would be the easiest option for future proofing. Am I correct in that assumption? I understand active speakers have more wiring and components at the risk of needing separate maintenance in the future, but it seems Genelecs have top notch construction and repairability so this doesn’t really concern me.
It’s really tough to go wrong with either, both are excellent designs, but they will have differences. PLEASE, do yourself a favor and listen before signing that (big) check. Spending that kind of money I would certainly not leave it to chance. And if you are going to go to the trouble to listen, you really should try to hear both the D&D 8C and Sigberg offerings. And I think I mentioned it prior, but with your budget, there is the larger D&D model that I would hope is coming sooner than later (reach out to @Martijn Mensink directly on that topic).

Even better, try to get an in home audition! Where are you located?
 
I live in downtown Austin, TX. Planning on staying where I’m at for another 1-2 years but unsure where I’ll end up after that. Considered buying speakers last year but passed because I figured I’d wait until I moved into a house somewhere. But some recent tragedies made me realize how short and uncertain life is so I’m deciding to finally go for it.

I’ll have to see what speaker dealers are near me then to try to audition some at their stores. To be honest, I’m coming from headphones and feel even just a pair of Genelec 8361A would blow me away hahaha so I’m not super worried about being disappointed with whatever choice I end up making.

Genelec dealers unfortunately appear to be located pretty far away. I’m actually in Las Vegas for the weekend and it seems the nearest dealers are in Los Angeles lol.
 
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I live in downtown Austin, TX. Planning on staying where I’m at for another 1-2 years but unsure where I’ll end up after that. Considered buying speakers last year but passed because I figured I’d wait until I moved into a house somewhere. But some recent tragedies made me realize how short and uncertain life is so I’m deciding to finally go for it.

I’ll have to see what speaker dealers are near me then to try to audition some at their stores. To be honest, I’m coming from headphones and feel even just a pair of Genelec 8361A would blow me away hahaha so I’m not super worried about being disappointed with whatever choice I end up making.

Genelec dealers unfortunately appear to be located pretty far away. I’m actually in Las Vegas for the weekend and it seems the nearest dealers are in Los Angeles lol.
I have no doubt you would be satisfied with most of the speakers that have been suggested, and not disappointed. But that is not the point, for that kind of money, you want what will be the MOST satisfying for YOUR personal taste and preference. Some manufacturers and dealers will allow in home auditions, try to take advantage of this as much as possible.
 
Resale value is another thing worth considering when making such a substantial purchase. I just sold my 8361’s, that I thoroughly enjoyed for the last 2 years, for about 80% of my initial investment (and I had several interested buyers). That’s not always the case with audio equipment.
 
I live in downtown Austin, TX. Planning on staying where I’m at for another 1-2 years but unsure where I’ll end up after that. Considered buying speakers last year but passed because I figured I’d wait until I moved into a house somewhere. But some recent tragedies made me realize how short and uncertain life is so I’m deciding to finally go for it.

I’ll have to see what speaker dealers are near me then to try to audition some at their stores. To be honest, I’m coming from headphones and feel even just a pair of Genelec 8361A would blow me away hahaha so I’m not super worried about being disappointed with whatever choice I end up making.

Genelec dealers unfortunately appear to be located pretty far away. I’m actually in Las Vegas for the weekend and it seems the nearest dealers are in Los Angeles lol.
AudioDawg in the Dallas-Ft Worth area sells Genelec.
 
Genelec 8351B/W371A
When I was auditioning, this is as good as it gets - in any type of room. GLM makes it so easy to setup / callibrate, particularly if you move residence every few years.
Obviously, they are "beasts" to transport.
 
I live in downtown Austin, TX. Planning on staying where I’m at for another 1-2 years but unsure where I’ll end up after that. Considered buying speakers last year but passed because I figured I’d wait until I moved into a house somewhere. But some recent tragedies made me realize how short and uncertain life is so I’m deciding to finally go for it.

I’ll have to see what speaker dealers are near me then to try to audition some at their stores. To be honest, I’m coming from headphones and feel even just a pair of Genelec 8361A would blow me away hahaha so I’m not super worried about being disappointed with whatever choice I end up making.

Genelec dealers unfortunately appear to be located pretty far away. I’m actually in Las Vegas for the weekend and it seems the nearest dealers are in Los Angeles lol.
There is ATC dealer in LV. Check if you can have a demo session there. Who knows, you may like their speakers.
 
Oh boy, are you in the wrong place... ;)

Soooooo, do you know those hundreds of thousands of people, could you name at least a hundred first name and last name?

I honestly think when they said 'relaxing rubber' they meant something completely different.
respectfully your comment is obtusely structured in a way that cannot be logically conducive to discussion between opinions.
lets just say since the time stereos were made and sold, all the way through the 90s, to now.....people have talked about speakers getting better after the new "tightness" disappears. and as time goes on from paper cone to reinforced coated paper cone speakers we begin to enter the era of speakers with built in suspensions and other technologies. i mean speakers have become extensively adapted with technology to behave with much more performance than they did in the 70s.. you can even find highly detailed and obviously subjectively descriptive youtube videos and literature that discusses how any speaker generally has a breakin/relaxation period. whatever you want to call it, its not like it doesnt exist. you can take a speaker right out of a box and use your hands to move the suspension or cone back and forth and it is pretty tight and new feeling. you can take a speaker used for a long time....and do same removal and physical touch and see that its moving much easier; forward and back motions are much more relaxed.

there are trusted speaker, cab, crossover, amp companies, designers and engineers online who talk about this. even the contentious "speaker wires dont mater" crowd. i think recently ps audio had a grerat video and by chance i think i saw earlier ones where they discussed these things. they also did admit that in the field of audio sales there is snake oil, and there are audio salon practices for the sale of audio products that arent science based. theres plenty of that. and a earlier comment by saying "let your hardware break in" is just a excuse to get a customer outside the return window is agregious and patently false most of the time. i could probably only think of one or two companies out there that such a comment would apply to.
 
respectfully your comment is obtusely structured in a way that cannot be logically conducive to discussion between opinions.
lets just say since the time stereos were made and sold, all the way through the 90s, to now.....people have talked about speakers getting better after the new "tightness" disappears. and as time goes on from paper cone to reinforced coated paper cone speakers we begin to enter the era of speakers with built in suspensions and other technologies. i mean speakers have become extensively adapted with technology to behave with much more performance than they did in the 70s.. you can even find highly detailed and obviously subjectively descriptive youtube videos and literature that discusses how any speaker generally has a breakin/relaxation period. whatever you want to call it, its not like it doesnt exist. you can take a speaker right out of a box and use your hands to move the suspension or cone back and forth and it is pretty tight and new feeling. you can take a speaker used for a long time....and do same removal and physical touch and see that its moving much easier; forward and back motions are much more relaxed.

there are trusted speaker, cab, crossover, amp companies, designers and engineers online who talk about this. even the contentious "speaker wires dont mater" crowd. i think recently ps audio had a grerat video and by chance i think i saw earlier ones where they discussed these things. they also did admit that in the field of audio sales there is snake oil, and there are audio salon practices for the sale of audio products that arent science based. theres plenty of that. and a earlier comment by saying "let your hardware break in" is just a excuse to get a customer outside the return window is agregious and patently false most of the time. i could probably only think of one or two companies out there that such a comment would apply to.
As someone who is an engineering enthusiast, break-in of mechanical parts is 100% true. No material scientist will ever say a part does not have an ideal operating window and no mechanical engineer would ever say machines don't run better once "warmed up".

However, those machines are much more complex and (usually) have cooling fluids running through them. You're really stretching here, pun intended. Going on to quote PS Audio, a company who attaches snake oil to science, doesn't help your case.

Honestly, a speaker is "broken in" in about 20-30min and it makes all of a .1-1db difference at best according to tests performed on the topic. The rest is 100% snake oil.
 
Honestly, a speaker is "broken in" in about 20-30min and it makes all of a .1-1db difference at best according to tests performed on the topic. The rest is 100% snake oil.
theres no empirical data sets on this subject and i had raised questions about the veracity and validity of the claimed results some people have posted with objectively-argumentative data results with very little time applied to the test. you need a much longer gap and a method to quantify it. the comment you made about it being .1-1 db only in change is what i contest in the opinion. its not just about db, i think it has also something to do with how a speaker sounds. how the details and dynamic awesomeness emerge in the music. to perform a test on something like this, it would need to be a method along the side of transitional data sets, as well as identical hardware sets. this is totally annoying to do over a long period of time. so im not holding my breath.
 
part of the initial findings, there was a change. the author claimed it was barely, but it was a change. and it was only after two hours. and i made a comment about there being a objection of volumes, if mild tunes were used, and how a said "break in" was done in two hours. one of my comments was pointing out the person had a "predictive" personality and by reading alot of their content i can judge what "tame" music and volumes were used. i like and enjoy the content i read here that multiple testers have posted. but that's hardly a appropriate and suitable methodology for a "test" about speaker break in. remember the mythological rumor is to run the speakers good and loud with decent dynamic music for 100-200 hours. you cant disprove a "snake oil myth" if you dont actually do it.
 
theres no empirical data sets on this subject and i had raised questions about the veracity and validity of the claimed results some people have posted with objectively-argumentative data results with very little time applied to the test. you need a much longer gap and a method to quantify it. the comment you made about it being .1-1 db only in change is what i contest in the opinion. its not just about db, i think it has also something to do with how a speaker sounds. how the details and dynamic awesomeness emerge in the music. to perform a test on something like this, it would need to be a method along the side of transitional data sets, as well as identical hardware sets. this is totally annoying to do over a long period of time. so im not holding my breath.

For what it's worth (I guess this can still count as anecdotal), on our products I've done some rudimentary tests on this subject:

I've measured brand new and two year old subwoofer drivers, they measure damn near identical.
I switch between used (1-2 years old) and brand new otherwise identical speakers on relatively regular basis, the subjective difference is not enough for me to notice.

There can surely be subtle differences, but if you don't like the speakers from the start, this is very unlikely to change due to burn-in of the drivers. The difference just isn't large enough for that to happen.
 
For what it's worth (I guess this can still count as anecdotal), on our products I've done some rudimentary tests on this subject:

I've measured brand new and two year old subwoofer drivers, they measure damn near identical.
I switch between used (1-2 years old) and brand new otherwise identical speakers on relatively regular basis, the subjective difference is not enough for me to notice.

There can surely be subtle differences, but if you don't like the speakers from the start, this is very unlikely to change due to burn-in of the drivers. The difference just isn't large enough for that to happen.
agreed
 
For what it's worth (I guess this can still count as anecdotal), on our products I've done some rudimentary tests on this subject:

I've measured brand new and two year old subwoofer drivers, they measure damn near identical.
I switch between used (1-2 years old) and brand new otherwise identical speakers on relatively regular basis, the subjective difference is not enough for me to notice.

There can surely be subtle differences, but if you don't like the speakers from the start, this is very unlikely to change due to burn-in of the drivers. The difference just isn't large enough for that to happen.
i spent a year chasing my tail in circles over upper end audio wire, and thought it was in my head for a while there. recently on xmas i was able to do some testing to at least try and get to where i wanted to be, and even though it was small it was also noticeable. actually more than slightly but i could tell. i recently did the whole swap over on everything and avoided having to pay huge dollars on name brand.
 
Thank you everyone for the input! I’m going down the slippery slope now and considering increasing my budget to $30k or so now…

Still trying to pore through hundreds of pages on other threads but front runners for me now are Genelec 8351B/W371A vs a used set of KEF Blade One Metas with maybe a subwoofer if necessary.

Seems like both have hugely loyal fan bases and both companies are top notch. I’m planning to use them in stereo listening fashion. But if I ever did decide to move into a home with a large enough room, I may consider a 7.1 home theater setup and it seems Genelec with their GLM would be the easiest option for future proofing. Am I correct in that assumption? I understand active speakers have more wiring and components at the risk of needing separate maintenance in the future, but it seems Genelecs have top notch construction and repairability so this doesn’t really concern me.

Hey OP, maybe I forgot to clarify one detail. As long as you are not a movie enthusiast who needs lots of LFE, the Blade 2 Meta will have just fine low end, even more so in room. The 33 Hz @ -3dB point is just insane and unless you have a passion for organ music in the lowest octave, I would say that the Blade 2 Meta do not really need a subwoofer.

I'd even say a subwoofer would lower the music performance of the Blade 2 Met unless it's perfectly positioned and acoustically decoupled from floor and falls.

Speaker Subwoofer for music?Subwoofer for movies?
Genelec 8361OptionalRecommended
KEF Ref 3 MetaRequiredRequired
KEF Blade 2NoRecommended

Another thing I noticed lately since I am inches away from buying a used pair of Blade 2 Meta - they are surprsingly light! Before I only focussed on the shape but even the Ref 3 Meta are 60 Kg, which is somethig you can't really move alone for longer distances. The Blade, if done carefully, 35 Kg is pretty managable.

The very best thing to do would getting all those speaker and listening to them at home, on axis and off axis. But no one in their right mind would want to have that logistics hassle and get on bad terms with the retailers. It's a tricky situation.
 
2x ME901k + 2x Basis 14k (low end extenders), miniDSP SHD.
You are left with 2-3k for MEGs stands.
My personal holy grail system and it fits in your budget.

edit :
2x 14ks don't fit in the budget, so they are dropped, without regret.. I put them in the list just for the WOW factor anyway.
 
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2x ME901k + 2x Basis 14k (low end extenders), miniDSP SHD.
You are left with 2-3k for MEGs stands.
My personal holy grail system and it fits in your budget.

edit :
2x 14ks don't fit in the budget, so they are dropped, without regret.. I put them in the list just for the WOW factor anyway.
Unless I've seen a measurement from Erin or Amir I don't trust Geithains to have a reasonable clean radiation pattern. The weird baffle with the "clipped on" mid and tweeter can't help to have a weird frequency response and radiation. Turn the DSP of the speaker off and I bet this speaker would measure horribly.

Genelec at least has a design that should work pretty well even if it wasn't for a DSP. But with Geithain, from the looks of it, it's full on DSP "cheating".
 
Do Geithain use on board DSP?
we had the 944k’s here and they weren’t bad, just not the extension or clarity of the contemporary active cardioid designs.
Keith
 
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