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Genelec 8351B Teardown (2nd Disassembled)

Pearljam5000

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Why for example polypropylene is used in the 8000 series if paper is supposedly better?
Screenshot_20210525-234730.jpg
 

voodooless

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PP is excellent material to make cones from. It’s very durable, can be injection molded, remains flexible yet stiff, does not absorb water and also does not exhibit large resonances. And it cheap :)
 

Ilkka Rissanen

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Like I wrote back in 2009, we use the best material and shape available for each design. ;) Three way woofer requires different properties than say a two way woofer used in 8000 series. Polypropylene has its strengths there but for example The Ones racetrack woofers require different material. They both are best for the purpose they are used.
 

dfuller

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Why for example polypropylene is used in the 8000 series if paper is supposedly better?
They have different properties. One isn't necessarily better than the other. Poly cones can be excellent, paper cones can be excellent, and they can also both be crap. Paper has a better stiffness to weight ratio, poly has arguably better internal damping.
 

EJ3

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Not sure about them being less durable. Will they last 50 yrs, probably not. Then again who keeps speakers for that long anyway.
Hey, I too resemble that remark: I bought my Frazier Super Monte Carlo's in 1978, they still look excellent and play excellent with amplification from 12 watts to 1600 watts.
 

G|force

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I love the the teardowns, thank you for sharing those pics Jason K.
Regarding 'paper' - I read this thread throughout , and nobody commented on John Meyer and how he has wood to satisfy his custom drivers. I hope it is helpful.
With the power of memory and no internet, I recall John Meyer of Meyer Sound acquired a few thousand acres of woodland in WA or OR for the sole purpose of having a consistent supply of pulp fibre to satisfy his company's need.
Any flat material tends to be 'flimsy' which is not a real term.
When the material is shaped into a cone it inherently gains orders greater pistonic rigidity.
Producing a PP cone is relatively cheap and easy to acomplish.
Why go to all of the bother to produce a semi-organic cone?
How about a razor thin carbon composite doped with magic goo?
I believe Genelec tried that - get over the paper pulp people.
 

Pearljam5000

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I love the the teardowns, thank you for sharing those pics Jason K.
Regarding 'paper' - I read this thread throughout , and nobody commented on John Meyer and how he has wood to satisfy his custom drivers. I hope it is helpful.
With the power of memory and no internet, I recall John Meyer of Meyer Sound acquired a few thousand acres of woodland in WA or OR for the sole purpose of having a consistent supply of pulp fibre to satisfy his company's need.
Any flat material tends to be 'flimsy' which is not a real term.
When the material is shaped into a cone it inherently gains orders greater pistonic rigidity.
Producing a PP cone is relatively cheap and easy to acomplish.
Why go to all of the bother to produce a semi-organic cone?
How about a razor thin carbon composite doped with magic goo?
I believe Genelec tried that - get over the paper pulp people.
Psychologicaly it's hard because paper is one of the weakest matiriels you come across every day of your life
Take Focals W cone, fiberglass + foam
Feels much more durable
 

617

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I love the the teardowns, thank you for sharing those pics Jason K.
Regarding 'paper' - I read this thread throughout , and nobody commented on John Meyer and how he has wood to satisfy his custom drivers. I hope it is helpful.
With the power of memory and no internet, I recall John Meyer of Meyer Sound acquired a few thousand acres of woodland in WA or OR for the sole purpose of having a consistent supply of pulp fibre to satisfy his company's need.
Any flat material tends to be 'flimsy' which is not a real term.
When the material is shaped into a cone it inherently gains orders greater pistonic rigidity.
Producing a PP cone is relatively cheap and easy to acomplish.
Why go to all of the bother to produce a semi-organic cone?
How about a razor thin carbon composite doped with magic goo?
I believe Genelec tried that - get over the paper pulp people.

Paper in this context is actually a high tech composite material made of organic and inorganic fibers of different lengths blended together, held together with various binders and then coated in a myriad of ways to balance the needs of rigidity, weight and dampening. These fiber composites have been and will continue to be state of the art materials for high end transducers in the 20hz-4000khz bandwidth.

The reason paper is used all over the industry is because it's composition offers more parameters which can be adjusted besides simply geometry. There are not thousands of kinds of aluminum or berilyium or ceramic or polypropylene but there are thousands of ways to compose a fiber cone, which is why it is used for everything from pro sound outdoor subwoofers to scanspeak midwoofers.
 

antennaguru

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It's funny to me that some folks dwell on the paper composite cones as a potential product weakness, when I have personally seen many paper composite cones in perfect condition that have already had a 50 year working life and are still going strong. Meanwhile, these same folks fail to see that the true Achilles Heel is in my opinion the abundant electronics inside of a vibrating speaker enclosure - as the failure of one tiny SMT part, a solder joint, or an internal jumper connection can render the product silent.

After the warranty period runs out, the model has been discontinued/replaced, and then there is an electronics failure will be the time to assess one's expectations of product life, as well as manufacturer support. The paper composite cone would be among the least of my concerns. However, my largest concern would be how long replacement circuit boards will be available for...
 

richard12511

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It's funny to me that some folks dwell on the paper composite cones as a potential product weakness, when I have personally seen many paper composite cones in perfect condition that have already had a 50 year working life and are still going strong. Meanwhile, these same folks fail to see that the true Achilles Heel is in my opinion the abundant electronics inside of a vibrating speaker enclosure - as the failure of one tiny SMT part, a solder joint, or an internal jumper connection can render the product silent.

After the warranty period runs out, the model has been discontinued/replaced, and then there is an electronics failure will be the time to assess one's expectations of product life, as well as manufacturer support. The paper composite cone would be among the least of my concerns. However, my largest concern would be how long replacement circuit boards will be available for...

Genelec offers support for all current and past monitors for 30 years+, and beyond that, I really don't care. I won't be using these 30+ years in all honesty.
 

antennaguru

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The stated warranty on the Genelec web site only commits to 5 years of support for spare parts.

Are you representing Genelec as a company employee or authorized distributor when you extend this to 30+ years?
Genelec Warranty.png
 

Sancus

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The stated warranty on the Genelec web site only commits to 5 years of support for spare parts.

Genelec commits to spare parts availability for a minimum of 5 years *after* a product has been discontinued. This isn't a warranty, you still have to pay for the repair if it's out of warranty. That basically means a service lifespan of 10-15 years for most products, as usually a Genelec model lasts 5-10 years before being discontinued, some of them much longer. I believe this minimum is just to protect them against part sourcing problems.

On their previous models page it states "Please note that while the products listed on this page are no longer in production, we continue to offer support for them - and we truly enjoy being able to repair and refurbish vintage Genelec models so that they continue to offer many more years of service to their owners!"

Practically speaking I've heard of Genelec happily agreeing to repair 30+ year old monitors, and you can definitely buy working Genelec monitors that old on eBay and elsewhere from time to time. Which is impressive considering how many hard use hours studio use puts on monitors compared to consumer use.

No, this isn't a 30 or 50-year guarantee, but considering the fragility of modern supply chains and part availability I do think it's very good. Good luck, for example, having Kef service an LS50 Wireless II 15-20 years from now. Most companies don't even state anything about parts availability in the far future.
 
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YSC

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The stated warranty on the Genelec web site only commits to 5 years of support for spare parts.

Are you representing Genelec as a company employee or authorized distributor when you extend this to 30+ years?
View attachment 155294
I think it's their official promise as you can't guarantee all products to be of that service age. but for some ppl I think tried sending back some 20+ years Genelec back and they did repair
 

antennaguru

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Genelec commits to spare parts availability for a minimum of 5 years *after* a product has been discontinued. This isn't a warranty, you still have to pay for the repair if it's out of warranty. That basically means a service lifespan of 10-15 years for most products, as usually a Genelec model lasts 5-10 years before being discontinued, some of them much longer. I believe this minimum is just to protect them against part sourcing problems.

On their previous models page it states "Please note that while the products listed on this page are no longer in production, we continue to offer support for them - and we truly enjoy being able to repair and refurbish vintage Genelec models so that they continue to offer many more years of service to their owners!"

Practically speaking I've heard of Genelec happily agreeing to repair 30+ year old monitors, and you can definitely buy working Genelec monitors that old on eBay and elsewhere from time to time. Which is impressive considering how many hard use hours studio use puts on monitors compared to consumer use.

No, this isn't a 30 or 50-year guarantee, but considering the fragility of modern supply chains and part availability I do think it's very good. Good luck, for example, having Kef service an LS50 Wireless II 15-20 years from now. Most companies don't even state anything about parts availability in the far future.
- and this is why I feel safer with passive speakers, than ones with embedded active electronics. I only just recently replaced one voice coil on a 45 year old pair of passive studio monitors. The company long since gone, but I still found a suitable replacement voice coil. BTW both doped composite paper speaker cones were just fine.
 

YSC

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- and this is why I feel safer with passive speakers, than ones with embedded active electronics. I only just recently replaced one voice coil on a 45 year old pair of passive studio monitors. The company long since gone, but I still found a suitable replacement voice coil. BTW both doped composite paper speaker cones were just fine.
Actually it then depends on the whole cost issue, actives usually can achieve same level of results quite a lot cheaper as you don't need a hell lot of margin in every part of your chain as you have to do in a passive setup. and sometimes, just saying replacing a $1000 amp might be at similar timeframe as you have to replace your $1000 actives.. and that don't even save the world more from pollution, so somehow I am on the active camp. Modern electronics don't remotely last 45 years anyway.
 

Sancus

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- and this is why I feel safer with passive speakers, than ones with embedded active electronics. I only just recently replaced one voice coil on a 45 year old pair of passive studio monitors. The company long since gone, but I still found a suitable replacement voice coil. BTW both doped composite paper speaker cones were just fine.

I mean sure, but if your standard for literally any consumer product is "should last 50 years" then I guess you are limiting yourself to only things you can service yourself, because almost no company actually supports things for that long(and even if they did, risk is high they go out of business). Which is fine, but, definitely not something that generalizes to other people.
 

richard12511

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The stated warranty on the Genelec web site only commits to 5 years of support for spare parts.

Are you representing Genelec as a company employee or authorized distributor when you extend this to 30+ years?
View attachment 155294
I’m talking about getting it serviced, not getting it serviced under warranty. You mentioned concern about taking it in and them not having the parts to repair it. I’m just pointing out that you have to worry about that at all. Genelec goes to great lengths to make sure that doesn’t happen, and there are indeed reports online of people getting service for that long. Being a “pro” brand, they live and die by their reliability, much more so than consumer audiophile brands. Studios need a speaker that will survive 8 hours a day of near reference level use for many years. Reliability and serviceability is often king in the studio world.
 
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