Genelec 8341A SAM™ Studio Monitor Review

[Ilkless]

The measurements are very good, but I would never buy a self-powered and plastic speaker for $ 5,900

Thanks Amir.

Cast aluminium* Far more sophisticated and versatile material than veneered ply boxes suited for superior diffraction performance through edgeless castings.

 

[Sancus]

Max SPL for the 8331 and 8351A (not B) as measured by S&R. 90dB or so at 1m probably when it starts to lose steam on bass-heavy content and clip. Which is not extremely difficult to achieve.

Based on these graphs, seems like you'd gain at least 8-10db by allowing a sub to play under 100hz, which more or less tracks with the additional SPL the 8361A gets by tripling the bass amplification(and larger woofers). So that is useful to know.

 

[Jon AA]

I don't think people realize how crazy it is that such a small speaker controls directivity to such a low frequency. The Gedlee Summa, which uses a 15+" waveguide and 15" woofer, only goes down slightly lower with CD. Of course, it doesn't exactly have the same issues with regard to output.

I hear you. I'm currently building a set of speakers that should control it down to ~500-600...and they use 16" wide horns on both tweeter and midrange.

This Genelec is one impressive speaker.

 

[bobbooo]

There is more than one difference in that measurement so it is not just the manifestation of this issue.

What exactly are the other differences / issues between the original and corrected measurements? If all these issues were present with all previous speaker measurements, that may give hope of retroactively correcting them. By subtracting the original Genelec data point SPL values from the corrected ones, you would arrive at a correction curve for the original measurements. You can then do the same for the next (few) speakers by measuring them using both the original and corrected method, to find the correction curves for them as well. If all the correction curves are the same (or similar enough within the NFS's fitting error), then I think you can safely assume this correction curve is not speaker dependent, and so it can be retroactively applied to all previous measurements, in order to allow for an accurate comparison with the Genelec and all future measurements, and to produce fair, reliable preference ratings across all speakers. By the way, thanks a lot for identifying and attempting to rectify this issue (and thanks to the vigilant forum members who originally spotted the systematic errors in the measurements).

 

[YSC]

Really nice one! But I wonders how their most affordable one like 8020c do as those are their basic model without concentric drivers.

 

[Ilkless]

What exactly are the other differences / issues between the original and corrected measurements? If all these issues were present with all previous speaker measurements, that may give hope of retroactively correcting them. By subtracting the original Genelec data point SPL values from the corrected ones, you would arrive at a correction curve for the original measurements. You can then do the same for the next (few) speakers by measuring them using both the original and corrected method, to find the correction curves for them as well. If all the correction curves are the same (or similar enough within the fitting error of the measurements), then I think you can safely assume this correction curve is not speaker dependent, and so it can be retroactively applied to all previous measurements, in order to allow for an accurate comparison with the Genelec and all future measurements, and to produce fair, reliable preference ratings across all speakers. By the way, thanks a lot for identifying and attempting to rectify this issue (and thanks to the vigilant forum members who originally spotted the systematic errors in the measurements).

Yes, and at risk of sounding overbearing and entitled, KH80 take 3 (way down the road to give priority to first-time measurements) would be a good way to characterise the comparative effect of these systematic errors.

 

[Ilkless]

Klippel have clearly failed here. Significant reflections from their own device have unfortunately sullied and rendered all your previous tests suspect, and it is only the fact that so many measurements have been presented on different speakers, in such a short time, that a clear pattern was observed early on. Imagine some company toiling away trying to produce a perfect speaker and their Klippel rig is giving them erroneous data they can't seem to correct?

A significant re-design of the contact limit switching arrangement for the microphone and/or an increase in distance between the actual mic element and the rig mount itself should be investigated to enable quality measurements at the short distances to speakers you are employing. A extremely small proximity sensor using IR could be a better option?

When you talk about "I added tons of padding around the speaker" what do you mean? Padding to stop the mic hitting the speaker? How can that be acoustically consistent for all sizes and shapes of speakers going forward? What about side ported, side/top firing speakers? Speakers with rear tweeters etc?

Anyway, I'm glad the issue has been identified and investigated earlier rather than later. It was patently obvious there were some issues with the high frequencies in the presented speaker tests.

Neumann KH80 comes to mind. The top octave off-axis was vastly different from all other measurements, both anechoic and gated.

 

[Jimster480]

I'm one of those people who thinks everything is too loud these days in terms of audio.

These sound right up my alley, though that price... ehh, I'm not too sure

I don't listen to music at loud volumes, my amps are always on low gain with low volume haha.

 

[Jimster480]

Like this.

View attachment 51426

Note also the NS-10 pair, for which I'd like to see measurements. My 3rd album was mixed using NS-10s.

Now that is a nice Studio. I've been in a few and haven't been in one that nice yet!

 

[amirm]

What exactly are the other differences / issues between the original and corrected measurements?

I wanted to speed up the measurements for the mic cage tests (after the review measurements were done without it) so checked the symmetrical option thinking it would half the measurement points. It did not. Instead it completely changed the density of them. This likely changes the wave expansion a bit making it better on one axis, and not so good in another. Until I run more controlled experiments, I won't know.

 

[mitchco]

Kudos @amirm for springing for the Klippel NFS. We finally get to see independent testing of what's real and what's not.

Re:

Beautiful man! While I dig the detailed measurements, this is the money shot!

 

[amirm]

By subtracting the original Genelec data point SPL values from the corrected ones, you would arrive at a correction curve for the original measurements.

We are talking couple of dB errors here. Any computation you make would have to know how close the mic was to the driver, the size of the driver, etc. As I said, you can just file off the tops of those little peaks and be there if you like.

I will emphasize again that we should not be so focused on small differences.

 

[LDKTA]

And that is loudspeaker design at it’s finest folks. I cannot recommend them for home use either unless they’re being used in the “nearfield.” However, the 8351 and 8361 will do the job extremely well.

 

[wwenze]

Oh my god

Who replaced the usual directivity chart with a giant laser beam

 

[Sancus]

And by the way for their price, you could save up an extra grand and pickup a pair of 4367.

Where can you buy JBL 4367 for $7K USD? Even used they seem to be around $9-$10K. Not to mention they're not powered, so that's additional expense. Not saying they're a bad speaker or anything, but it doesn't seem like a fair comparison... Even ignoring their insane size and weight relative to any of the Genelec Ones.

 

[Sancus]

However, if you can budget $6k on speakers, I'm sure you can save up a little bit and budget a bit more to save up for the JBL.

Certainly. The main reason I would never get the 4367 is that I dislike their aesthetics, size, and weight, not price. Additionally, their vertical directivity will never match Genelec coaxials either. The SPL issue(.. if you even need levels that insane) is completely solved by a pair of bass managed subwoofers, which you would want anyway in any normal room. Genelecs also come with room correction built in and will directly take digital inputs.

Essentially, they're two extremely different products in all attributes other than (horizontal) directivity and frequency response.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

I can't help but try to recommend my speakers to everyone. It seems they are shunned by both the audiophile and the objective measurments (ASR) community at large, just because they're JBL brand.

JBL Synthesis... too 'hifi' for us objectivists, yet also still too close to belonging to the Pro Audio/commercial/PA system heritage the brand is associated with. Damned if you do, damned if you dont.

What is vertical directivity by the way? How does that equate to how it will sound in room? If the Genelics are better at that, what would sound better about them if I had them in my room to replace my JBL?

 

[Doodski]

I can't help but try to recommend my speakers to everyone. It seems they are shunned by both the audiophile and the objective measurments (ASR) community at large, just because they're JBL brand.

JBL Synthesis... too 'hifi' for us objectivists, yet also still too close to belonging to the Pro Audio/commercial/PA system heritage the brand is associated with. Damned if you do, damned if you dont.

What is vertical directivity by the way? How does that equate to how it will sound in room? If the Genelics are better at that, what would sound better about them if I had them in my room to replace my JBL?

One can't go wrong with high quality big bore speakers if space and budget allows for it. There's simply no replacing the dynamics and big sound. I'm onboard with big JBLs.

 

[Jon AA]

The 4367's certainly won't have as smooth vertical directivity (no non-coaxial will), but its horn shape should limit the ceiling and floor reflections to a lower volume so they matter less.

 

[andreasmaaan]

@amirm During your listening test, the one that you reported did not go very loud, what were the SPL peaks you were listening to at that moment, and what kind of music?

This post earlier in the thread pretty well sums it up. You can probably reasonably expect about 90dB from each of these speakers @1m, 10%THD, obviously translating to quite a bit more than that for a pair in a room, but certainly a long way from loud.

Do these genelics have a built in dac? I noticed they have AES digital input.

Yeh, they have built in DACs, and the crossover/EQ and user-configurable DSP are all on-board. The AES input can be used to bypass the ADCs on the analogue inputs.