Thanks, I was wondering if it was an issue or my remote might be faulty.
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Genelec 8351B Review (Studio Monitor)
- Thread starter amirm
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Thanks, I was wondering if it was an issue or my remote might be faulty.
Why do you have those round things on your electronics? [Furnishing the stake in wood and oil intensifies]
Yeah what are those things?
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Lol... I knew someone would notice these... They are just weight to hold them in place. My Pi and the GLM kit boxes are very lightweight... The cables sometimes will be too heavy for then when hanging behind. These are older audio vibration “tweaks” leftovers from previous times... The vibration soft disks under the 8330A do have a subtle subjective effect IMO...
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As in, they look nice?...
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I’m not going there... lol
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Any idea what causes that slight 60-90Hz dip? The 8341 doesn't seem to have it.
I am curious about that, too. The KH310 shows a similar dip in Klippel's measurements and confirmed by Neumann.
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The official Genelec measurements don't show it, which is what got me curious. Maybe someone from Genelec could comment(forget the usernames here)? Not a huge deal at all. I'm more just curious.
Why do I think of this as Joe Exotic's speaker set up?Afraid not, the last Genelecs we had here were the 8260/7320 combination, I did sit further away from those simply because the rooms were arranged differently back then.
If I recollect we were around 2.5 metres away on this occasion,
Keith
Genelec 8351B Listening Tests
Given the size of this speaker and interest in membership to use them in high-fi and home theater applications, I decided to listen to them using my main system in far field listening. From the first few seconds I knew the sound was right and in need of no adjustment other dialing out the one room mode I have around 105 Hz. Track after track has excellent sound with image coming out of a circular halo around the driver. This is what you get when the speaker is well designed and relies on decades of research on what good sound is. All of my reference tracks that were curated on another system like it translated and delighted just as well.
Dynamics and Competition with Revel Salon 2
There has been a lot of talk about how these two speakers compare in the forum. I find the conversion odd as we are comparing a bookshelf speaker to a full blown tower. Still, I decided to compare the two since I own the Salon 2.
The Salon 2 quickly showed its difference in taller image that was not so focused and centered as the Genelec. This of course could be an optical illusion of the Genelec pulling your eye toward its tweeter. Still, I stand by this observation.The other thing that stood out was that the highs were more prominent in Salon 2 bringing more realism to high frequency notes. The Genelec sounded subdued in this front. Perhaps there is some peaking in my Salon 2 (have not measured it yet).
Nice review, it's clear from the distortion measurements that a 4th order high pass at 80Hz would allow the 8351 play louder than 99.9% of people require at very low distortion levels. The only odd subjective comment is regarding the Salon 2's taller image, that is a clearly negative comment in my opinion since we would never say that a singer or an instrument should have a tall vertical image, the point source quality of the Genelec is more representative of most real life sound sources.
I always kind of figured the 8341 would have a wider dispersion than the 8351 due to the smaller midrange and tweeter but they are very close. The larger midrange allows a lower crossover and therefore should sound like a more pure "point-source" and would seem to have no downsides compared to the 8341.
Shades of John Darko's door stops!!!
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I think it depends on the "source". For individual instruments or human voice, a smaller image sounds better and more realistic to my ears. For large scale orchestral reproductions, though, I don't think we really hear tiny point source images in that way. I could see where a taller(and wider) image might sound more real for recordings like that.
It's an interesting point, though, as I also read that comment as a negative point for the Salon2. Might be one of those personal preference things, though, and even the experts disagree. Toole likes a more diffuse image, and finds it to sound more realistic. Geddes likes a much smaller tighter image, and finds that to sound more realistic. Amir's preferences seem to align more with Toole's, which is why he sees that as a plus for the Salon. There's also the issue of what our ears/brains are used to.
Personally, my reference for realistic imaging focuses most on the human voice, which tends to have a very small point source type image in real life. It's a balance though for me, unfortunately. I prefer a wider soundstage, but I prefer a more point source sounding image, and those seem to come at the expense of each other
. Toole/Amir don't seem to have that balancing act, though, as I think they prefer both a wider soundstage and a wider/taller image.
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I think it depends on the "source". For individual instruments or human voice, a smaller image sounds better and more realistic to my ears. For large scale orchestral reproductions, though, I don't think we really hear tiny point source images in that way. I could see where a taller(and wider) image might sound more real for recordings like that.
It's an interesting point, though, as I also read that comment as a negative point for the Salon2. Might be one of those personal preference things, though, and even the experts disagree. Toole likes a more diffuse image, and finds it to sound more realistic. Geddes likes a much smaller tighter image, and finds that to sound more realistic. Amir's preferences seem to align more with Toole's, which is why he sees that as a plus for the Salon. There's also the issue of what our ears/brains are used to.
Personally, my reference for realistic imaging focuses most on the human voice, which tends to have a very small point source type image in real life. It's a balance though for me, unfortunately. I prefer a wider soundstage, but I prefer a more point source sounding image, and those seem to come at the expense of each other
Mostly agree, I focus on vocals as well but most individual instruments are closer approximated by a point source also. I think listening in mono compared to 2 or more speakers is really the differentiator here, a speaker like the Salon 2 should have a wide soundstage with only 1 speaker as Amir listens but with 2 or more speakers it really doesn't matter based on Dr. Toole's study on Mono vs Stereo listening. I've been using KEFs for awhile and I prefer to Upmix to the center for music, so I don't think the "narrow dispersion" matters as much since I'm using 3 speakers anyway.
I used to attend a lot of concerts prior to the current situation. At the symphony, the opera, choral concerts, and unamplified jazz performances I would occasionally close my eyes and imagine I was listening to my stereo and I never heard anything that sounded like focused imaging. I've sat as close as 10 feet from a symphony orchestra, and 5 feet from a jazz combo, my wife is a classically trained soprano and she sings and plays our piano in out living room every day. I've never heard "pinpoint imaging" in the audiophile sense. Is imaging simply an artifact of the recording and playback process?
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This has been my experience too, which is why I think a wider/taller(more diffuse) might actually be more accurate for some genres.
This is exactly why I like wider dispersion speakers (or perhaps stereo unmixed to multiple channels, but I still need to try that) for listening to reproductions of “real” instruments and voices in a room.
And yet at the same time, perhaps the modern UNpopularity of symphonies, operas, unamplified jazz etc. indicates why most people today might prefer medium beam widths from speakers (instead of wide): they sound better for “amplified” style music like EDM, rock, etc. at the expense of the realism of “unamplified” style music.
So I do wonder if the difference in preferences here is explained by the fact many people today may never have actually heard (or simply don’t care for) real instruments or voices performed professionally without amplification in a space with good acoustics? Not that there’s anything wrong with that I guess, but it reflects I suppose a dying type of live music, versus live performances that tend to use PA speakers or big concert speaker arrays that produce very directional sound wavefronts — so perhaps not all that surprising that beam width preference varies per person and per genre.
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Basically yes, many people talk about speaker qualities like "imaging" and "soundstage" but they have no meaning in live music. I personally try to create as close to acoustic live music in my home system, 3 channel with an upmixed center channel is the closest I can get with modern recordings.
This is basically the same difference as between plays and movies.
Closeups of a single tear running down an actor's face don't exactly have IRL parallels either.
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