Genelec 8341A SAM™ Studio Monitor Review

[tuga]

Simply because on this question, Toole's primary research is not a significant part of the basis of my statement



Well firstly, I wasn't responding to this recommendation, in fact I hadn't seen it til 30 seconds ago

But anyway, my only issue with this new text is that it relates to "conditions for assessment" and "control rooms", not to listening rooms designed for enjoyment.

So let me turn the question around and ask: how does it conflict with what I previously stated?

There are two ways of approaching the "listening for enjoyment" question: one is highest possible accuracy and the other is personal preferrence.

The piece I linked to is in line with my listening experience that reflections affect stereo imaging sharpness, and instrument/sound-source separation/descrimination and even tonal balance.
Some people prefer the effects or byproducts of side-wall reflections (widening of the "soundstage", masking of the speakers as sources and other playback shortcomings, increased "spaciousness" or "3D-ness") and that is fine by me. Same with people who enjoy the BBC dip or a pinch of low-order harmonic distortion.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Did you read the rest of the piece I was quoting from?

Using the Initial Time Delay Gap to design your optimal RFZ

The holy grail of listening is to have your playback system reproduce the localization cues of a live performance — and the spatial impression of the performance space.

Let’s see how to achieve this with a reflection-free zone!

The goal is to create a long enough delay between the direct sound you hear from your speakers, and the first order reflections produced by your room.

This delay is called the initial time delay gap (ITDG) or initial signal delay (ISD) gap. To distinguish the two I’ll use ITDG when referring to the delay you’d perceive in a live performance hall, and ISD gap when referring to the delay in your playback room.

Digital reverb processors have a pre-delay time parameter to model the ITDG.

Your brain uses this cue to estimate the distance to the sound source. If you hear a longer ITDG, you perceive the source as closer (as shown in the animation below).

http://arqen.com/acoustics-101/reflection-free-zone#itdg

I didn't read that particular article but am familiar with that approach.

In my view, the cost of absorbing first lateral reflections tends to outweigh the benefits. My reading of the research (and my personal taste FWIW) is that strong lateral reflections are too important for perceived spaciousness to give up.

The issue I generally have with RFZ approaches is that they tend to end up resulting in live-end/dead-end rooms, with the back wall typically the live wall (as shown in the illustration you linked). Of course, that is room-dimensions and setup-dependent, but it tends to be the case in normal sized listening rooms.

Front-back reflections have high interaural cross-correlation and therefore don't much contribute to spaciousness. The inverse is true of lateral reflections. So my preferred approach is generally to deaden the front and back walls and to have more reflective side walls. It's not the only way of doing it of course.

There are two ways of approaching the "listening for enjoyment" question: one is highest possible accuracy and the other is personal preferrence.

The piece I linked to is in line with my listening experience that reflections affect stereo imaging sharpness, and instrument/soud-source separation/descrimination.
Some people prefer the effects or byproducts of side-wall reflections (widening of the "soundstage", masking of the speakers as sources and other playback shortcomings, increased "spaciousness" or "3D-ness") and that is fine by me. Same with people who enjoy the BBC dip or a pinch of low-order harmonic distortion.

Anechoic chambers provide the highest possible accuracy, if we want to go down this road again, right?

Anyway, yes, I believe in using reflections to widen the soundstage and create a large amount of spaciousness. I appreciate that your preferences differ

 

[tuga]

I didn't read that particular article but am familiar with that approach.

In my view, the cost of absorbing first lateral reflections tends to outweigh the benefits. My reading of the research (and my personal taste FWIW) is that strong lateral reflections are too important for perceived spaciousness to give up.

The issue I generally have with RFZ approaches is that they tend to end up resulting in live-end/dead-end rooms, with the back wall typically the live wall (as shown in the illustration you linked). Of course, that is room-dimensions and setup-dependent, but it tends to be the case in normal sized listening rooms.

Front-back reflections have high interaural cross-correlation and therefore don't much contribute to spaciousness. The inverse is true of lateral reflections. So my preferred approach is generally to deaden the front and back walls and to have more reflective side walls. It's not the only way of doing it of course.



Anechoic chambers provide the highest possible accuracy, if we want to go down this road again, right?

Anyway, yes, I believe in using reflections to widen the soundstage and create a large amount of spaciousness. I appreciate that your preferences differ

Anechoic chambers are a bit too much, though a real stereo (2mic, 2channel) recording of live acoustic music played in a space with natural reverberance may actually sound quite pleasing and realistic.
Open-back headphones in a silent room are probably the closest to an anechoic experience.

There's no need to use ( ), your personal taste is of the utmost importance here. Even Toole knows that.
It is your listening room / system and the ultimate goal is for it to provide listening enjoyment.

In one of your previous interventions you mentioned the importance of SPL vs. directivity.
The way I see it, and because we prefer different amounts of room interference in the mid-midrange and above, a speaker for domestic use should be available with higher and lower directivity.
This would not only cater to taste but also allow us to choose one or the other depending on room width.

By the way, you don't have to use absorption on first reflection zones, you can use diffusion or just deflect them to the back of the room (then use diffusion or not).

 

[andreasmaaan]

Anechoic chambers are a bit too much, though a real stereo (2mic, 2channel) recording of live acoustic music played in a space with natural reverberance may actually sound quite pleasing and realistic.
Open-back headphones in a silent room are probably the closest to an anechoic experience.

There's no need to use ( ), your personal taste is of the utmost importance here. Even Toole knows that.
It is your listening room / system and the ultimate goal is for it to provide listening enjoyment.

In one of your previous interventions you mentioned the importance of SPL vs. directivity.
The way I see it, and because we prefer different amounts of room interference in the mid-midrange and above, a speaker for domestic use should be available with higher and lower directivity.
This would not only cater to taste but also allow us to choose one or the other depending on preference and more importantly on room width.

By the way, you don't have to use absorption on first reflection zones, you can use diffusion or just deflect them to the back of the room (then use diffusion or not).

Yeh I appreciate that.

I've worked in these types of rooms and have never liked them. (Notice that was not in brackets )

I appreciate that they are a necessary evil when it comes to monitoring/mixing - and that some people actually prefer them for listening ofc!

And yeh, I also agree that different listeners are likely to have different preferences when it comes to directivity and room design and that there's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach that works here.

 

[Igor Kirkwood]

There are two ways of approaching the "listening for enjoyment" question: one is highest possible accuracy and the other is personal preferrence.

The piece I linked to is in line with my listening experience that reflections affect stereo imaging sharpness, and instrument/sound-source separation/descrimination and even tonal balance.
Some people prefer the effects or byproducts of side-wall reflections (widening of the "soundstage", masking of the speakers as sources and other playback shortcomings, increased "spaciousness" or "3D-ness") and that is fine by me. Same with people who enjoy the BBC dip or a pinch of low-order harmonic distortion.

I think for the mastering for classical music (especially when only 2 microphones are used) a good RT 60 for control room is 0,2 s (room about 100 m3).

A RT 60 of 0,4 is not bad (Floyd Toole's home)

And an RT 60 of 0,5 generaly recomended for High Fidelity ! is too much

 

[napilopez]

Yeh I appreciate that.

I've worked in these types of rooms and have never liked them. (Notice that was not in brackets )

I appreciate that they are a necessary evil when it comes to monitoring/mixing - and that some people actually prefer them for listening ofc!

And yeh, I also agree that different listeners are likely to have different preferences when it comes to directivity and room design and that there's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach that works here.

Anechoic chambers are a bit too much, though a real stereo (2mic, 2channel) recording of live acoustic music played in a space with natural reverberance may actually sound quite pleasing and realistic.
Open-back headphones in a silent room are probably the closest to an anechoic experience.

There's no need to use ( ), your personal taste is of the utmost importance here. Even Toole knows that.
It is your listening room / system and the ultimate goal is for it to provide listening enjoyment.

In one of your previous interventions you mentioned the importance of SPL vs. directivity.
The way I see it, and because we prefer different amounts of room interference in the mid-midrange and above, a speaker for domestic use should be available with higher and lower directivity.
This would not only cater to taste but also allow us to choose one or the other depending on room width.

By the way, you don't have to use absorption on first reflection zones, you can use diffusion or just deflect them to the back of the room (then use diffusion or not).

Yeah, I don't think there's ultimately that much disagreement here. Lots of us quote Toole's research a lot on wide directivity, but he also spends a significant portion of his book talking about why some people prefer fewer sidewall reflections, especially in the mixing room. Nor is the fact that most people appear to enjoy more sidewall reflections a contradiction to some people having a strong preference for fewer sidewall reflections. Most people prefer chocolate to vanilla, doesn't mean we should only make chocolate ice cream.

And as I said before, speakers being available in both wide and narrow directivity seems to be exactly the philosophy Harman has adopted. JBL generally does narrower directivity in both its pro and home speakers, infinity and revel do wider. It allows the harman group to follow the science while having substantially different sounds.

My only disagreement is that reflections causing image spreading is necessarily perceived as less accurate or that it will "ruin your soundstage." It is different and perceptions of enjoyment and accuracy will likely depend on the recording and your room geometry.

On a separate but related note, one interesting bit of research cited by Toole on the difference between listening in a control room vs at home as it relates to the precedence effect.

"Perrot et al. (1989) and Saberi and Perrot (1990) observed that, with the practice that inevitably comes from prolonged exposure in experiments, listeners appear to be able to learn to ignore the precedence effect, detecting the delayed sounds almost as if they existed in isolation. A recording engineer can adjust the level of a sound component upwards to the point where it is clearly audible, reduce it, and at any time turn it on or off. Under these circumstances, where the component can be aurally “tracked,” it is highly probable that it can be heard at levels below those at which it is likely to be audible when listening normally to the completed mix. Thus, sounds that may be gratifying to the mixing or mastering engineer may be insufficient to reward a normal listener, or worse, simply not heard at all.

Toole, Floyd E.. Sound Reproduction (Audio Engineering Society Presents) (p. 207). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition. "

 

[infinitesymphony]

It stands to reason that if you are not planning to treat your room, and the walls have hard, varied, or asymmetrical surfaces, or the room is reverberant, you should strongly consider a speaker with narrow directivity.

 

[richard12511]

Yeah, I don't think there's ultimately that much disagreement here. Lots of us quote Toole's research a lot on wide directivity, but he also spends a significant portion of his book talking about why some people prefer fewer sidewall reflections, especially in the mixing room. Nor is the fact that most people appear to enjoy more sidewall reflections a contradiction to some people having a strong preference for fewer sidewall reflections. Most people prefer chocolate to vanilla, doesn't mean we should only make chocolate ice cream.

And as I said before, speakers being available in both wide and narrow directivity seems to be exactly the philosophy Harman has adopted. JBL generally does narrower directivity in both its pro and home speakers, infinity and revel do wider. It allows the harman group to follow the science while having substantially different sounds.

My only disagreement is that reflections causing image spreading is necessarily perceived as less accurate or that it will "ruin your soundstage." It is different and perceptions of enjoyment and accuracy will likely depend on the recording and your room geometry.

On a separate but related note, one interesting bit of research cited by Toole on the difference between listening in a control room vs at home as it relates to the precedence effect.

"Perrot et al. (1989) and Saberi and Perrot (1990) observed that, with the practice that inevitably comes from prolonged exposure in experiments, listeners appear to be able to learn to ignore the precedence effect, detecting the delayed sounds almost as if they existed in isolation. A recording engineer can adjust the level of a sound component upwards to the point where it is clearly audible, reduce it, and at any time turn it on or off. Under these circumstances, where the component can be aurally “tracked,” it is highly probable that it can be heard at levels below those at which it is likely to be audible when listening normally to the completed mix. Thus, sounds that may be gratifying to the mixing or mastering engineer may be insufficient to reward a normal listener, or worse, simply not heard at all.

Toole, Floyd E.. Sound Reproduction (Audio Engineering Society Presents) (p. 207). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition. "

I like to have(and use) both narrow directivity and wide directivity speakers. I prefer narrow for multichannel music and movies, and wide for stereo or mono music. For multichannel music, narrow gives a much better sense of exactly where sounds are coming from, whereas wide directivity kinda "blends" together. That said, there are multichannel recordings that I prefer wide directivity(easy listening jazz). For movies, narrow directivity makes it much easier to understand dialog over all the other sounds. With my wide directivity speakers, I tend to have to boost the center channel a bit to get clear dialog like I'm used to. For stereo music(which is 70% of my listening), I prefer wide directivity. The wider directivity gives a sense of spaciousness, a wider soundstage, and a wider sweet spot. The imaging is not quite as good, and it's not as clear, but I think the pros of wide directivity outweigh the cons.

I also think the type of music you listen to plays a role. I mostly prefer wide directivity for stereo music, but for certain genres of music, like some classic rock, heavy metal, some modern pop(music that has a bunch of stuff going on at the same time), I prefer narrow directivity.

 

[amirm]

There are two ways of approaching the "listening for enjoyment" question: one is highest possible accuracy and the other is personal preferrence.

The piece I linked to is in line with my listening experience that reflections affect stereo imaging sharpness, and instrument/sound-source separation/descrimination and even tonal balance.

In psychoacosutics, every reflection plays a different role. You are mixing them together and then concluding something has no basis in research.

There is nothing in science that says put a system in a big empty box full of reflections and that would be optimal.

 

[tuga]

In regard to intelligibility I was surfing Griesinger's website and came across the following:

What is “proximity”, how do early reflections and reverberation affect it, and can it be studied with LOC and existing binaural data?
D Griesinger

Abstract
Lokki has recently shown that there is no correlation between most current ISO 3382 hall measurements and preference, and that the most prominent perception preferred by his listeners is currently unnamed and unmeasurable. He chose to name the perception “Proximity” because he found it was related to the auditory sense of being close to the performers. This paper proposes that proximity arises from the phase alignment of the upper harmonics of speech and most musical instruments. We present data from other fields that shows that the loss of phase alignment due to early reflections or masking can greatly decrease the ability to separate signals from noise and other signals. We will then show how convolving some existing binaural data from Boston Symphony Hall with Lokki’s anechoic recordings can create a realistic binaural rendition of an instrumental ensemble, which can be used to test the effects of early reflections on proximity, localization, and loudness in these seats. We find that in all our seat positions attenuating the side wall reflection in Boston either improves the sound, or is (in very good seats) inaudible. These effects are predicted by the author’s binaural measure LOC.

http://www.ica2016.org.ar/ica2016proceedings/ica2016/ICA2016-0379.pdf

 

[amirm]

In regard to intelligibility I was surfing Griesinger's website and came across the following:

What is “proximity”, how do early reflections and reverberation affect it, and can it be studied with LOC and existing binaural data?
D Griesinger

Abstract
Lokki has recently shown that there is no correlation between most current ISO 3382 hall measurements and preference, and that the most prominent perception preferred by his listeners is currently unnamed and unmeasurable.

Careful to not confuse research for large performance spaces with what happens in home listening rooms.

 

[Igor Kirkwood]

tuga said:
In regard to intelligibility I was surfing Griesinger's website and came across the following:

Careful to not confuse research for large performance spaces with what happens in home listening rooms.

Griesinger speak olso about home listening rooms.
He notices than recording with 2 microphones in a concert hall are not able to record enough velocity of laterals reverberations.
So for listening in a control room he preconizes to have on basses more L-R than l+R.
Jean-Luc Ohl arrives, using by managing 4 subs in M/S position have a L-R upper than L+R as you can see on the mesures of my Mastering Studio.

 

[HairyEars]

I own the 8341.
Amir must have made a mistake because those speakers can blow your eardrums with no trouble.

In fact, I made a mistake once and lost my DSP settings. Along the way, I lost my hearing for ten long days after a ten-seconds exposure to full gain...

 

[infinitesymphony]

I own the 8341.
Amir must have made a mistake because those speakers can blow your eardrums with no trouble.

Ouch. I think Amir likes listening loud in the far-field. What's your listening distance and room size?

 

[HairyEars]

Ouch. I think Amir likes listening loud in the far-field. What's your listening distance and room size?

Thanks for your question.

I use the 8341 strictly in nearfield duties, 1.75m from the listening position, as recommended by Genelec. My space is 64sm, a fact that has bearing only on room influence—in my case minimal, as most of my walls are insect screens (read, no reflection)

To enjoy Genelec speakers to the full, the company's placement guidelines should be followed. https://www.genelec.com/correct-monitors

As you can gleam from the charts, for the 8341, when the distance is over 2.2m, the room influence dominates, and sound quality is degraded.

If I’m allowed to digress:
I often run into installations where Genelec nearfields are placed too far. I suppose it's fine for ambience and TV sound, but a waste of an exceptionally precise monitor.

In my opinion, the best-for-the-buck Genelec for 2m to 2.5m distance is the venerable 1032C (114db @1m). The next step up is its offspring, the s360, which shines up to 3.5 meters (118dm @1m). The 1032c costs less than the 8341 and the S360 is priced as the 8351. Personally, I find both more enjoyable than the "Source One" for recreational listening, although the latter produces a more accurate sound.

Genelec offers an outstanding line of main monitors, but it's probably out of the scope of this discussion.

 

[andreasmaaan]

To enjoy Genelec speakers to the full, the company's placement guidelines should be followed. https://www.genelec.com/correct-monitors

As you can gleam from the charts, for the 8341, when the distance is over 2.2m, the room influence dominates, and sound quality is degraded.

This is a big statement

For a start, this 2.2m distance is based on entirely arbitrary assumptions. The distance at which reflections begin to dominate varies widely not only from room-to-room, but also from frequency to frequency in a given room. In other words, Genelec is making an oversimplification that cannot be applied without modification to you or anyone's particular room.

Secondly, it is very arguable that sound quality is actually enhanced by the presence of relatively loud room reflections (of the right kind of course).

Finally, Genelec's recommendations are for control room monitoring. Production and reproduction don't necessarily demand the same criteria be met.

 

[infinitesymphony]

In my opinion, the best-for-the-buck Genelec for 2m to 2.5m distance is the venerable 1032C (114db @1m). The next step up is its offspring, the s360, which shines up to 3.5 meters (118dm @1m). The 1032c costs less than the 8341 and the S360 is priced as the 8351. Personally, I find both more enjoyable than the "Source One" for recreational listening, although the latter produces a more accurate sound.

Definitely would love to see some tests of the venerable 103x series, which have been evolving since the early '90s. Is the 1032C the last holdout?

I'd been hoping for a test of the 3-way 8260A (113 dB @ 1m; 23Hz-40KHz at -6 dB) because I suspect Amir would prefer those, and for many people they would solve both the far-field issue and the need for subs. Looks like that model was only recently discontinued and superseded by the new largest 'Ones' model, 8361A (118 dB @ 1m; 30Hz-43KHz at -6 dB). I would probably sacrifice the 5 dB SPL and a bit of directivity performance for the LF extension of the 8260As.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Definitely would love to see some tests of the venerable 103x series, which have been evolving since the early '90s. Is the 1032C the last holdout?

I'd been hoping for a test of the 3-way 8260A (113 dB @ 1m; 23Hz-40KHz at -6 dB) because I suspect Amir would prefer those, and for many people they would solve both the far-field issue and the need for subs. Looks like that model was only recently discontinued and superseded by the new largest 'Ones' model, 8361A (118 dB @ 1m; 30Hz-43KHz at -6 dB). I would probably sacrifice the 5 dB SPL and a bit of directivity performance for the LF extension of the 8260As.

@Purité Audio had 8260s maybe he can comment?

 

[HairyEars]

Definitely would love to see some tests of the venerable 103x series, which have been evolving since the early '90s. Is the 1032C the last holdout?

I'd been hoping for a test of the 3-way 8260A (113 dB @ 1m; 23Hz-40KHz at -6 dB) because I suspect Amir would prefer those, and for many people they would solve both the far-field issue and the need for subs. Looks like that model was only recently discontinued and superseded by the new largest 'Ones' model, 8361A (118 dB @ 1m; 30Hz-43KHz at -6 dB). I would probably sacrifice the 5 dB SPL and a bit of directivity performance for the LF extension of the 8260As.

Indeed, the 1032C is the last holdout of those bygone days.
25 years old to-date, I believe, although sporting spanking new innards.

My guess it’s still in production since enough old-timers are both used to the sound, like it a lot and are reluctant to move to the aluminum eggs. And since 1032C shares the amplification with the s360 and the drivers are all lifted from the Master Series—the tweeter is common to all monitors in that line, and the woofer is straight from the 1238AC—putting them together is not too difficult.

Going by the SPL, technologies involved and dimensions, the 1032C should’ve probably been re-named 1232C and join the Master Series (as the s360 has). I can attest that the sound is close enough to the 1237A--at least to me.

 

[tuga]

Secondly, it is very arguable that sound quality is actually enhanced by the presence of relatively loud room reflections (of the right kind of course).

I see a lot of disagreement in regard to that subject.