8361A’s - First Impressions

[Axo1989]

Our mate @TimVG measured his pair, some time ago...

Genelec 1032A Measurements (including spinorama)

Today I performed measurements of the Genelec 1032A speaker. This is a model dating back to 1992, and it is the largest 2-way model made by Genelec. It is also the model I'm using as LCR in my small home theater room. The most recent version is the 1032C so in a way, despite it being a 28 year...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Thanks for the link (it's before my time). DYI spin by @TimVG is very impressive.

 

[Axo1989]

I suppose there is always a compromise. We acknowledge even if a fully treated path exists to the ears you can have sounds coming at you from even the sides.

Some phase effects can try to trick you into thinking sounds are coming from behind you. They can work but the level they can convince you would be determined by a lot of factors.it’s more convincing when your mind is at ease and it catches you by surprise. Sometimes when you listen for something you expect it doesn’t present itself.

Would wider dispersion increase the effect?probably. Would it be less focused? Probably.

That's how I see it generally.

Being entirely pedantic I think "trick" is a bit loaded. In every sense, stereo is a trick: the purpose being to conjure a sonic image with degrees of width, depth and height from two data channels and corresponding (approximate) sound playback sources. Techniques more recent (but some older than me) than basic panning and delay (combinations of phase, frequency shaping and reverb) basically emulate natural sonic phenomena wrt the human head and ears and come along for the (somewhat bumpy) ride with certain microphone techniques.

I think it obfuscates to think about stereo as basically panning plus a few phase tricks on some special recordings. Maybe a Marxist collective like GSY!BE records in purist/OG stereo, but I think that's pretty exceptional these days.

Anyway, I know what you meant, excuse the rant.

With respect to the efficacy of those tricks techniques, I agree about the surprised mind. I also notice certain impressions resolve differently on repetition. I expect our mental processing goes "no that can't have come from behind me really" and presents a revised localisation.

 

[Recluse-Animator]

Do coaxials usually have a smaller
soundstage?
I wonder if the KH420 would have a bigger soundstage just Becaue it's a traditional 3-way
Obviously I have no way to hear them both and compare

Coaxials usually have a better soundstage. The closer you sit the more useful a coaxial becomes.
The size of the soundstage I think has all to do with dispersion and room acoustics.
In the end soundstage is a preference thing. Some like the soundstage to be behind the speakers and some like it to extend wider than the width of the speakers.

 

[ahofer]

Coaxials usually have a better soundstage. The closer you sit the more useful a coaxial becomes.
The size of the soundstage I think has all to do with dispersion and room acoustics.
In the end soundstage is a preference thing. Some like the soundstage to be behind the speakers and some like it to extend wider than the width of the speakers.

The BMRs have very wide dispersion and many subjective reviews remarking on their very wide soundstage.

 

[srrxr71]

That's how I see it generally.

Being entirely pedantic I think "trick" is a bit loaded. In every sense, stereo is a trick: the purpose being to conjure a sonic image with degrees of width, depth and height from two data channels and corresponding (approximate) sound playback sources. Techniques more recent (but some older than me) than basic panning and delay (combinations of phase, frequency shaping and reverb) basically emulate natural sonic phenomena wrt the human head and ears and come along for the (somewhat bumpy) ride with certain microphone techniques.

I think it obfuscates to think about stereo as basically panning plus a few phase tricks on some special recordings. Maybe a Marxist collective like GSY!BE records in purist/OG stereo, but I think that's pretty exceptional these days.

Anyway, I know what you meant, excuse the rant.

With respect to the efficacy of those tricks techniques, I agree about the surprised mind. I also notice certain impressions resolve differently on repetition. I expect our mental processing goes "no that can't have come from behind me really" and presents a revised localisation.

I see. So for me the first time I noticed this “behind the head” effect was while playing a video game. Modern games actually use some great techniques.

So I could find for example a speaker playing music in the game and stand in front of it and turn around in place.

The effect was quite convincing at first that for the first time I realized stereo can do that.

Then if you study the effect you realize what it is doing and your suspension of disbelief falters because you now know what they are doing to make it sound like that.

It could still creep up on you later and long as you don’t think about it too much it can be convincing. Which is why I feel like these parts in all the recordings of have heard are very short parts which grab your attention.

The flute in “soul cages”

The thunder in “perfect sense part 1”

Some song I listened to today also played the same trick I mean technique on me.

 

[srrxr71]

The BMRs have very wide dispersion and many subjective reviews remarking on their very wide soundstage.

They are great in HomePods. Incredible. They just full a room with sound.

 

[Axo1989]

Would you agree with:

Recording > room > speaker > everything else?

Personally I think of it as recoding > amp-speaker-room > everything else.

By that I mean the middle part is an interactive system (that works both ways, so a room null can bush back against a speaker and present a different load to an amp, as well as all the normal things). But that system doesn't modify the recording at all (only how it is reproduced). Within that sub-system, room-speaker-amp is the correct order of importance, so maybe better written that way.

Now where's my Nomex suit?

 

[Axo1989]

They are great in HomePods. Incredible. They just full a room with sound.

I've never had omni speakers. Kind of regret not buying a pair of original HomePods. If there was a method to use them as rear surrounds I think I would have.

 

[srrxr71]

I just listened to “amused to death” recoded in q sound. It maintains its effect throughout the song.


Incredible effect! I wish more music was recorded this way.

Also I agree the technique especially on the more recent recordings have very sophisticated techniques in use. Even some late 60s stereo was pretty good.

The level of knowledge and technical skill people have in production these days makes for very nice sounding songs.

 

[srrxr71]

I've never had omni speakers. Kind of regret not buying a pair of original HomePods. If there was a method to use them as rear surrounds I think I would have.

So I used 7 set around me as my system. So there was a front pair and the rest were mono but set all around me.

It was a lot of fun!

 

[Axo1989]

So I used 7 set around me as my system. So there was a front pair and the rest were mono but set all around me.

It was a lot of fun!

Oh very cool. From a Mac? How did you set-up/send the signal to the others? Some Audio Midi Setup wizardry or just room sharing?

 

[srrxr71]

Oh very cool. From a Mac? How did you set-up/send the signal to the others? Some Audio Midi Setup wizardry or just room sharing?

You can with some version of airplay. Airplay 2 and some software update to the HomePod will let you play to all of them form your phone itself. Also you can group them in an Apple TV.

That was Apple TV use was a bit buggy. Then the latest Apple TV can use them as default speakers.

So it has “atmos” effect but only uses the front pair to project a stereo atmos. The others could play in mono at the same time.

 

[Recluse-Animator]

The BMRs have very wide dispersion and many subjective reviews remarking on their very wide soundstage.

The problem with wide dispersion speakers in a untreated room is the first and second reflections.
I think the BMR would sound different in a untreated room vs a treated room.
I would also think that the soundstage would be different. Maybe not so much in size, but in depth.
I think a wide dispersion speaker in a small room would have smaller soundstage compared to a big room. A narrow dispersion speaker would not be affected as much of this

 

[ahofer]

The problem with wide dispersion speakers in a untreated room is the first and second reflections.
I think the BMR would sound different in a untreated room vs a treated room.
I would also think that the soundstage would be different. Maybe not so much in size, but in depth.

No doubt. But I'm hypothesizing a relationship between wide dispersion and perceived wide soundstage. Erin says as much in the "Bottom Line" comments in his review. Out-of-phase information is another technique, as I understand it.

And I see plenty of comments that this comes at the expense of image precision.

Oops, I'm referring to a bunch of subjective comments..

 

[Pearljam5000]

The problem is
How can you know what size of a soundstage the original recording has?
If you don't know that you don't know if the speaker is true to source or not

 

[srrxr71]

The problem with wide dispersion speakers in a untreated room is the first and second reflections.
I think the BMR would sound different in a untreated room vs a treated room.
I would also think that the soundstage would be different. Maybe not so much in size, but in depth.
I think a wide dispersion speaker in a small room would have smaller soundstage compared to a big room. A narrow dispersion speaker would not be affected as much of this

Yes I agree for some reason the soundstage of the HomePods always felt very narrow to me. I don’t know why. Also it took some mental effort to get the image.

They are really better as mono speakers which are used to fill a room.

They seem to go into a different mode of dispersion in stereo mode.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Would you agree with:

Recording > room > speaker > everything else?

Pretty well but I would say
Recording > position of speakers and listener in room > room> speakers > everything else.

In the same way a string player can change the timbre of their instrument by where they play the string along its length (ie in 1 dimension), and thereby alter the size of each harmonic and its relation to the fundamental so the 3 dimensional location of the speaker in the room alters profoundly the magnitude of excitation of the 3 fundamental room modes and their harmonics at the location of the listener. Just moving a microphone around the potential listening area illustrates this but I do think we, unlike the microphone, do manage to listen through the room to a large extent, ie if you listen in various locations yourself the difference you notice is (often far) less than the differences you hear listening to a microphone signal from various locations. I interpreted this as your brain has no triggers for listening through the room when listening to raw microphone signals.

 

[Axo1989]

Pretty well but I would say
Recording > position of speakers and listener in room > room> speakers > everything else.

In the same way a string player can change the timbre of their instrument by where they play the string along its length (ie in 1 dimension), and thereby alter the size of each harmonic and its relation to the fundamental so the 3 dimensional location of the speaker in the room alters profoundly the magnitude of excitation of the 3 fundamental room modes and their harmonics at the location of the listener. Just moving a microphone around the potential listening area illustrates this but I do think we, unlike the microphone, do manage to listen through the room to a large extent, ie if you listen in various locations yourself the difference you notice is (often far) less than the differences you hear listening to a microphone signal from various locations. I interpreted this as your brain has no triggers for listening through the room when listening to raw microphone signals.

Yes, positioning the speakers in the room is certainly important. I'd do it before finalising any room treatments and certainly before applying final DSP.

When I cited amp-speaker-room as a sub-system within a prioritisation model—or room-speaker-amp if you prefer to prioritise those elements—positioning the speaker/s within the room is an essential part of setup.

The observation about human hearing versus microphone is pertinent also: it somewhat confounds strict linear prioritisation. To a significant degree, we can hear the sonic qualities of the speaker (including attack/decay as well as tonal aspects of timbre) despite the room's influence, especially in the middle and upper frequency ranges. The room increasingly dominates the bass frequency tonality (within transition/diffusion zone and then below Schroeder) of course (although timbral aspects may still be audible).

 

[RobL]

The more I listen to these, the more I get an appreciation for what Genelec has done here. Just subjective opinion (apologies) but with GLM these things are truly great. The bass is the best I’ve heard in this room, and that goes back a long way and several systems, subs and all. My LFX is -3dB @ 26 hz. I can light up the limiters on occasion though…subs might be on order.

 

[srrxr71]

The more I listen to these, the more I get an appreciation for what Genelec has done here. Just subjective opinion (apologies) but with GLM these things are truly great. The bass is the best I’ve heard in this room, and that goes back a long way and several systems, subs and all. My LFX is -3dB @ 26 hz. I can light up the limiters on occasion though…subs might be on order.

Haha yeah those subs are going to call you. Probably you will need 2 x 7380. It seems overkill but they are $1400 more than the 7370 and twice as beastly. 2 x the power and 1,56 the cone area. Output is +6dB so basically like having 2 x 7370.