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

[dedobot]

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".

I listened to a small MEG years ago, I can't forget it. They don't have DSP but active analog crossover.

 

[Ciobi69]

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 8361	Optional	Recommended
KEF Ref 3 Meta	Required	Required
KEF Blade 2	No	Recommended

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.

got kef blade 2 myself, for movies the sub whatever the speaker are, are essential, why? because the subs are setted 10db louder, you add the high dynamic range of movies, and the equation is done

 

[Kervel]

My 2 cents. Good chance you'll be fully satisfied with a 10k system as well.

If you check out genelec, try the 8350 model with a pair of subs. Compared to 8351+w371, you'll forego point source and cardioid system, but save some 20k. The value proposition is up to you...

 

[Paffi]

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".

And again: they don't use dsp.

 

[Avp1]

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 8361	Optional	Recommended
KEF Ref 3 Meta	Required	Required
KEF Blade 2	No	Recommended

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.

You may underestimate need to have a subwoofer. I use speakers which specked -3dB at 35Hz and were measured 0dB at 30Hz in room. But addition of 18" subwoofer radically transformed the sound of bass frequencies. The ability to place subwoofer in a position required to compensate for some room modes is also very important. I did not believe in that before, but now I would say that if you want to have the full range sound, adding a subwoofer or two is a requirement.

 

[anphex]

And again: they don't use dsp.

Ohhh it's true, surprisingly! Then, if they really reach that kind of perfomance they show on their specs on their website then it's really impressive. I still don't really trust their rather clean 45° off axis measurement. How can this be done with that "clip-on-mid-tweeter-array". This thing screams "diffraction issues".

But anyway, Geithain sure may be up there in the list of candidates for OP if you can get past the limited store options and the - imho - not really pretty, even dated, design.

 

[Esprit]

I just sold my 8361’s

What did you replace them with?

 

[AudioJester]

My 2 cents. Good chance you'll be fully satisfied with a 10k system as well.

If you check out genelec, try the 8350 model with a pair of subs. Compared to 8351+w371, you'll forego point source and cardioid system, but save some 20k. The value proposition is up to you...

If thats the thought process, buy Kali monitors and sub and save a heap more.

The in development Ascilabs MTM and bass modules circa $10k will be hard to beat.

 

[RobL]

What did you replace them with?

As of this moment I don’t have a replacement yet…still thinking on it

 

[richard12511]

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 think you have the right idea and you can't really go wrong with any of these options. I live in College Station, TX for most of the year and I have 8351Bs. I don't have the W371, though. I've thought about getting it several times, but I have some concerns about the directivity match right around the crossover point that I would really want to see some complete measurements for if I'm spending that kinda money. I like the idea that with the Blades, you have the full spinorama available to look at.

One thing to note is that the Blade One and Blade Two do measure slightly differently, so it may be worth trying to hear both. You can always add subs to the Blade 2 if you prefer it's sound character more. The Blade Two's directivity looks to be a bit smoother, and the dispersion is a bit wider(which some people prefer, though others don't). Blade One is closer to what I might call "constant directivity" above 2kHz or so, whereas the Blade Two is more "constantly increasing directivity" over the full range. You can see a great comparison in the following image from https://www.spinorama.org/

Blade One is the solid lines, and Blade Two is the dotted lines.

Feel free to hit me up in DMs if you ever want to come by and listen, and don't mind driving a couple hours. Like I said, I don't have the W371(I'm crossing them over to giant JTR subs atm), but I do have several other great speakers here that you can compare them to side by side(Revel Salon 2, JBL 708p).

 

[thewas]

One thing to note is that the Blade One and Blade Two do measure slightly differently, so it may be worth trying to hear both. You can always add subs to the Blade 2 if you prefer it's sound character more. The Blade Two's directivity looks to be a bit smoother, and the dispersion is a bit wider(which some people prefer, though others don't). Blade One is closer to what I might call "constant directivity" above 2kHz or so, whereas the Blade Two is more "constantly increasing directivity" over the full range. You can see a great comparison in the following image from https://www.spinorama.org/

Well said, I personally also prefer the Blade 2 to the 1 (even their first non-Meta versions) for that and I don't think its coincidence that people like Kal got them and the KEF factory had them in their listening room when I had visited it several years ago. I think the 1s are just a bigger alternative for people who want even more SPL and think bigger is always better but I have the feeling that the main engineering and optimisation had been done on the 2s.

 

[Purité Audio]

The 1’s were the first Blade variant to be released I believe, I remember attending their Munich launch.
Keith

 

[Frank Dernie]

The room they'll be going into is roughly 21'x14' and the listening distance will be about 18-19' back.

Just seen this thread but this implies the speakers are more or less against one narrow wall and the listening position more or less against the other.
This is just about the worst layout for both big bass peaks and troughs and for a poor ratio between direct and reflected sound.

If you have to have a layout like that room compensation will be essential ( to hack off the top of the peaks, deep troughs you are stuck with) and so will good dispersion (so the reflected sound has a similar FR to the direct).

Whatever you do the SQ will be much more limited by your room layout than your speakers IME.

 

[thewas]

The 1’s were the first Blade variant to be released I believe, I remember attending their Munich launch.

True, in the first generation it was like that, the second generation models where released simultaneously.

 

[killdozzer]

respectfully your comment is obtusely structured in a way that cannot be logically conducive to discussion between opinions.

No. In fact yours are. You just haven't read what's been said on the topic on this site already and even after receiving some data and info, you keep beating the proverbial dead horse.

Not being able or willing to accept generously offered data and insight from people who are no longer confused about the subject is as obtuse as it gets.

Asking about break-in is one thing. Pushing your impressions as facts after being given the info is something completely different.

 

[Frank Dernie]

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".

Oh dear.
A the frequencies the 16" bass driver is playing the mid tweeter baffle is invisibly small.
Geithan 901s do not have DSP.

This sort of ignorance is unhelpful on a forum.

 

[Esprit]

As of this moment I don’t have a replacement yet…still thinking on it

 

[anphex]

Oh dear.
A the frequencies the 16" bass driver is playing the mid tweeter baffle is invisibly small.
Geithan 901s do not have DSP.

This sort of ignorance is unhelpful on a forum.

Jup, I was wrong about the DSP. But I did not say the bass has diffraction issues, it's the mid and highs on that array that I mean. I'd love to see an Erin/Amir measurement of that.

 

[MarcT]

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.

Since you are in Austin, you might want to call Joshua at JWM Acoustics and take a listen to his Alyson speakers, just for grins. The sound he gets out of these is pretty astounding, although I have no info on measurements. All hand-built and finished there.

About — JWM ACOUSTICS

www.jwmacoustics.com

You also might want to attend the Southwest Audio Fest in Dallas March 21-23. I attended last year and it was really nice, being at the Anatole. Looks like Joshua will be exhibiting there.

SouthWestAudioFest | March 21-23, 2025 | Dallas

SouthWestAudioFest - Dallas Texas Audio Show

www.southwestaudiofest.com

 

[Pearljam5000]

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.

Why did you sell them?