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Genelec 8351B Review (Studio Monitor)

Sparky

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So apparently, the attached files are the DAC that the 8 series Genelec uses.
Anyone who knows anything about DACs will understand this as I certainly don't.
It would be great if these DACs are literally just "passthrough" so to speak as, if they are (or if such a thing even exists) then we are able to buy whatever external DAC we please as we know that what we are hearing is the DAC we just spent a lot of money on.

It would be nice if a rep from Genelec could shed a bit of light on this.......
 

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lherrm

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So apparently, the attached files are the DAC that the 8 series Genelec uses.
Anyone who knows anything about DACs will understand this as I certainly don't.
It would be great if these DACs are literally just "passthrough" so to speak as, if they are (or if such a thing even exists) then we are able to buy whatever external DAC we please as we know that what we are hearing is the DAC we just spent a lot of money on.

It would be nice if a rep from Genelec could shed a bit of light on this.......
It can't be passthrough because it has to convert the signal into digital to do the Digital Signal Processing.
If you don't want the DSP you probably don't want the Genelec at all.
 

YSC

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So apparently, the attached files are the DAC that the 8 series Genelec uses.
Anyone who knows anything about DACs will understand this as I certainly don't.
It would be great if these DACs are literally just "passthrough" so to speak as, if they are (or if such a thing even exists) then we are able to buy whatever external DAC we please as we know that what we are hearing is the DAC we just spent a lot of money on.

It would be nice if a rep from Genelec could shed a bit of light on this.......
if you do pass through you don't get the DSP, which is the core of the 83xx series.. if you don't want it better off just go my way of getting the 80x0 and the sub and do DSP in computer
 

lherrm

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From the 8351B operating manual : https://assets.ctfassets.net/4zjnzn...3286ab27d0a0/8351B_operating_manual_rev_b.pdf

1644849028682.png
 

echopraxia

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So apparently, the attached files are the DAC that the 8 series Genelec uses.
Anyone who knows anything about DACs will understand this as I certainly don't.
It would be great if these DACs are literally just "passthrough" so to speak as, if they are (or if such a thing even exists) then we are able to buy whatever external DAC we please as we know that what we are hearing is the DAC we just spent a lot of money on.

It would be nice if a rep from Genelec could shed a bit of light on this.......
People need to escape from this flawed way of thinking — it is entirely false/misguided to hope that any of us can infer anything meaningful about the performance of an active digital crossover speaker, based on internal components like DAC and amp specs.

These speakers are designed as a cohesive system, and it’s foolish to think you can infer anything meaningful about their performance by what chips they contain. You can’t even predict the SINAD of a dedicated DAC from its parts list (i.e. the same chips in two products will yield wildly different measured performances), so why in the world would you hope to predict anything meaningful this way about an even more complicated system design like these digital tri-DSP tri-amped active crossover speakers?

The ONLY meaningful way to measure a speaker system is ultimately to measure its end-to-end performance, and compare to the end-to-end performance of other speakers.

The inner components here do not matter at all (except maybe from the perspective of reliability), because you have no choice to change them for something else anyway (which IMO is a strength, not a weakness).

The only reason some of us obsess over DACs and Amps is really for purely theoretical purity and emotional reasons, when we want to be comfortably reassured that our analog passive speakers or headphones or whatever are living up to their fullest possible potential (by feeding them with complete overkill components).

Unlike passive speaker systems, a digitally-fed Genelec 83x1 is always living up to its fullest potential. There is no point in worrying about anything but the end-to-end performance (how the sound pressure waves that hit you physically measure vs the input digital signal). Everything in between is taken care for you by Genelec, and they know what they’re doing. If you don’t like trusting their engineering, then perhaps buying commercial speakers isn’t for you (vs DIY) — because IMO if any company’s engineering excellence can be trusted without second-guessing their internal design choices (if you even could change their intervals, which you can’t), it’s Genelec.
 
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echopraxia

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Your love makes you a little or even a lot exaggerate. I hope that genelec rewards you for your commercial activity.
Your English is so bad that I am not entirely sure what you are saying. (Perhaps if you wrote in your original language it would be clearer?)

In any case, if you’re accusing me of being biased for Genelec, I think this implication is neither fair nor correct. I’ve owned many speakers, and am very open in my opinion that Genelec has strong competitors (Neumann, Revel, KEF, etc.)

My emphasis of how exceptional the Genelec 8351/8361 is stands on its own as a true statement IMO, but in this context was also used to emphasize how absurd it is to hyper-focus on theoretical DAC performance when the distortions introduced by even the best speakers in the world will completely dominate and overshadow the distortion introduced by even a mediocre DAC.

I could just as well make the same argument using the Kii Three or D&D 8C as an example, but this is a Genelec thread so I used Genelec as an example.

The point is very simple: Independent of internal DAC details you shouldn’t be worrying about, the Genelec 8351/8361, Kii Three, and D&D 8C are examples of exceptional speakers that will sound vastly better than an inferior passive speaker even if the latter is fed with the world’s best DAC and amp. So it’s pointless and irrational to worry about internal DAC specs in an active digital crossover speaker.
 

Pearljam5000

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Your English is so bad that I am not entirely sure what you are saying. (Perhaps if you wrote in your original language it would be clearer?)

In any case, if you’re accusing me of being biased for Genelec, I think this implication is neither fair nor correct. I’ve owned many speakers, and am very open in my opinion that Genelec has strong competitors (Neumann, Revel, KEF, etc.)

My emphasis of how exceptional the Genelec 8351/8361 is stands on its own as a true statement IMO, but in this context was also used to emphasize how absurd it is to hyper-focus on theoretical DAC performance when the distortions introduced by even the best speakers in the world will completely dominate and overshadow the distortion introduced by even a mediocre DAC.

I could just as well make the same argument using the Kii Three or D&D 8C as an example, but this is a Genelec thread so I used Genelec as an example.

The point is very simple: Independent of internal DAC details you shouldn’t be worrying about, the Genelec 8351/8361, Kii Three, and D&D 8C are examples of exceptional speakers that will sound vastly better than an inferior passive speaker even if the latter is fed with the world’s best DAC and amp. So it’s pointless and irrational to worry about internal DAC specs in an active digital crossover speaker.
Question is, if you make a passive version of the Ones, DD 8C and Kii3 and add an external DAC and amp, will they sound better than the active versions?
 

Sancus

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So what basically justices those huge monblock amps that weigh a ton and cost tens of thousands?

They're audio jewelry, mainly. They are like that because class AB(or whatever) is inefficient and needs to sink huge amounts of heat. But there is no good technical reason to design amps that way anymore.
 

mightycicadalord

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Making a passive version of these also gonna reveal the true FR without any filter.

You'd have to define what the true response of a system is first then compare it to that, and what even is the true response of a speaker? No crossover at all? You can do a considerable amount of shaping with passive xovers.
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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You'd have to define what the true response of a system is first then compare it to that, and what even is the true response of a speaker? No crossover at all? You can do a considerable amount of shaping with passive xovers.
I'd say i didn't clarify enough my point



The thing that i wanted to say is, with passive speakers the problems in the design are more evident
For example with actives speakers you can do some filters to reduce the resonances in their FR, but in a passive design you cannot, it will show itself as a peak in the FR


This makes sense?
 

Pearljam5000

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If actives are so good then why don't all audiophile(non pro) brands make all of their speakers active? It's weird
 
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