it looked to me like that 1 is the main waveguide built for tweeter, 2 is the grill holder and part of the wave guide to form a unified waveguide
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Genelec 8341A spinorama and measurements
- Thread starter napilopez
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I carefully poked my 8351Bs to check, ring 2 seems to have something to do with the tweeter grille, ring 1 is soft and appears to be the suspension for the mid driver.
Sorry if I missed it, but care to give your impression of the 8351B compared to your previous M040 and why you didn't choose the 8341A? Since I have a 8030C and one of the middle Ones as future gift to myself, our situations are very similar.
You didn’t miss anything, I got them very recently and I haven’t updated my original thread about it yet since I still need to take a good picture
My impressions so far:
Compared to Genelec M040 there are a few things that are very noticeable:
- They play lower. the M040s got to around 40Hz in room and the 8351Bs go to about 30Hz for me, if not lower. I’m hearing sub bass information in music I didn’t know was there before.
- The vertical dispersion. This was one of the main points I wanted my new speakers to improve upon. Especially since I’m sitting quite close to them. With the “Ones”, it’s amazing how much you can move around without changing the sound. I can sit up or lean back in my chair and it never feels like I’m missing out on anything. With the M040s the sweetspot was smaller, especially in the vertical plane, and I often felt like I needed to sit completely upright to get the best sound and that gets tiring quickly. I believe Genelec’s RnD director, Aki Mäkivirta, stated in one of their videos that that was one of the design goals with the Ones, to make a monitor that is very non-fatiguing, and it shows.
Things that are somewhat noticable:
- They have less hiss I could barely hear the M040s when they were on. I often noticed the hiss go away when they turned themselves off. I can’t hear the 8351Bs at all when they aren’t playing.
Things that are subtle:
I get the impression that the 8351Bs are “cleaner” somehow. A lot of that is because of GLM I’m sure, which evened out the bass a bit. The M040s had no problem filling my room with sound (I don’t listen very loud I think) but the 8351Bs do it more cleanly and with what appears to be less effort. I’m guessing this is because they have much more power and they probably also have lower distortion.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
I like that volume is controllable through GLM. I knew beforehand that you had to use GLM for volume control if you use the digital inputs on the speakers. What I didn’t know was that volume control through GLM also works for the analog inputs. So now I have the 9310 volume controller placed close to my hand so I don’t have to lean forward to the audio interface to change volume
It’s a nice convenience. I’m still feeding them analog audio, but I’m eyeing the very recently released RME Fireface UCX II which does have an AES output and seems like a good choice.Amir mentioned in his review that they had “excellent sound with image coming out of a circular halo around the driver”. I can only agree, the sound is quite “holographic” in some sense. Even when I’m looking at the speakers, it doesn’t feel like the sound is coming from them, it feels like the sound is floating in the air in front of them. It’s quite special.
Overall, I love them, but I guess that’s quite apparent based on my impressions above
As for the choice between 8341A and 8351B, I was actually planning on getting 8341As in the beginning. That would have been more sensible really, as I would’t have had to save money for as long as I had to
What led me to the 51s was that my room isn’t very well suited for subwoofers, and that won’t change unless I move somewhere else. So in the meantime, I wanted speakers that could dig a bit deeper on their own. And I thought by getting the bigger ones I would be more “future proof” in a way, because the 51s will work in more scenarios, should I want to have them further away from me in the future for example. Or if I, in the distant future, should stumble upon a good deal on a used pair of W371s, the 8351 seems to be a better suited partner to those. I’m just very into the idea of buying stuff that I can use for a long time without feeling the need to upgrade. I also couldn’t get over my own feeling that the 8351B was somehow “cooler” because it is bigger and was released later than the 8341A.
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Yes, that's one of the reasons why I'm thinking about getting the 8350 or KH310+grills as my next speakers (currently 8030C and Aria 906), even if the 8351B are better.
Pearljam5000
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That's exactly my dillema, not to mention the price difference
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The 8350 also seem to be able to play louder, according to the various distortion graphs I saw. At least, THD seems lower. As for IMD, I don't know.
Pearljam5000
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The biggest downside for me about the 8350 is that it feels "old"
I mean it's a 16 years old design, same drivers and everything.
But it's more a psychological thing than anything else lol.
Anyways Im dying to Hear 8351 and 8350 side by side, I wonder how much a coaxial design + a 3-way vs 2-way makes a difference
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I didn't realize it was nearly as old as the 8050.
Pearljam5000
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Well it's not (different amps and GLM)
But the basics are pretty similar to 8050
If they used newer drivers I would have felt better about it
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Have you auditionned the 8050 and 8350 already?
Pearljam5000
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Only 8030 and 8050 unfortunately
I doubt how much GLM and class D amps can make a difference
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You can do what GLM does for cheap with REW/Rephase/a measurement mic.
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Did you like the 8030 or the 8050 better?
Pearljam5000
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Obviously the 8050
It just sounded "bigger" somehow
There's a dip in its FR around 3 kHz, a bit more pronounced than on 8030C, but yes it digs deeper and that must be more impressive.
I'm not sure if the 8341 can play as deep and clean in the bass than 8050 or not. Amir's graphs are not totally comparable. But 8351B is definitely better.
Pearljam5000
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The problem is both 8050B and KH310 are old now.
I don't want to buy it and in a few months later or in a year max 8050C and KH320 would be released.
It's just weird Genelec updated the whole 8000 series except 8040 and 8050
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OP
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I wonder how hard it would be to fashion a fabric grille to cover the 8341's waveguide. I feel like you could take just some acoustically transparent fabric with stretchy edges and stretch it over the woofer slots, like a glorified shower cap or something. That shouldn't cause too many acoustic problems, I think, and the woofers are mostly protected.
I doubt that's a good idea, as far as I noticed, Genelec used to use grills whenever possible to protect their drivers, wo when the Ones don't have it on the mid woofer must have some acoustic reasons to not do so.
Plus the exterior casing have continued the waveguide shaping, adding a cover must affect it somehow
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