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Genelec 8351B Teardown (2nd Disassembled)

G|force

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The 8341A has a slightly different LF driver than the 8351B, if you get a chance, could you shine a light torch on the driver to check if the paper has deteriorated as shown earlier?

Actually my thumbnail is a pic of the inside of the cavity..lol
As you can see the dimples on the surround are absent compared to 8351B
:: :) ::
4DAB56D5-414B-406C-B31D-0AC3480607D3.jpeg
 
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RobL

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Samwha capacitors….yuck. Samsung had a lot of fun with those.
 

G|force

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Samwha capacitors….yuck. Samsung had a lot of fun with those.
Have you any certainly that all Samwha caps are identical as provided to Genelec or other OEMs? Do you have reason to believe that all Samwha caps are 'toy grade'?
 

RobL

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Have you any certainly that all Samwha caps are identical as provided to Genelec or other OEMs? Do you have reason to believe that all Samwha caps are 'toy grade'?
Let’s just say Samwha aren’t on anyones top five cap companies.
 

Scoox

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it's probably exactly like that when it comes out of the factory.
We'll have to wait for Genelec to comment. Without seeing a brand-new one taken apart we can only speculate, but one thing's certain, most people don't tear apart their monitors and in the 8351B the LF drivers are concealed behind the baffle so it is possible that this has gone unnoticed. If the 8351B LF driver is different from the 8351A driver (which it appears it is, see the wavy sides), things may have changed. If this is an issue sooner or later Genelec will know about it, and they would have to retrofit loads of speakers with new drivers, even outside the warranty period.

Actually my thumbnail is a pic of the inside of the cavity..lol
As you can see the dimples on the surround are absent compared to 8351B
:: :) ::
Hard to tell if the paper membrane is in good shape but the little glimpse I get of it looks ok. Indeed, the 8331A and the 8341A LF driver (and maybe the 8351A too) don't have the wavy sides.
 
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G|force

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Genelec could have put an unnecessary 'dust cap' over the VC to hide it's size, which teardowns like this would show- but that would add a little bit of mass.. I like the purple adhesive, just enough applied and not more. Lowest mass. :)
 

RobL

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Have you any certainly that all Samwha caps are identical as provided to Genelec or other OEMs? Do you have reason to believe that all Samwha caps are 'toy grade'?
63507298-CB23-4FE4-8A44-994D9C57D542.jpeg

Could be lighting…not sure but this Samwha cap on the amp board looks bulged already to me.
 

maverickronin

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Could be lighting…not sure but this Samwha cap on the amp board looks bulged already to me.

Seems like bad focus or something to me. The one next to it looks concave and that doesn't seem likely to be "real".

But in yeah, using 3rd tier capacitor brands is something actually worth getting worked up over.
 

pseudoid

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Not much really speaks cheap about this speaker.
Not even the oval speaker with dimples/bumps incorporated to the round sections.
But it seems to have met its age old enemy that is appropriately labeled 'old age'.
I saved a few of these speakers from a center and have no idea why I saved them... until now:
P1100275.JPG

If you want to go for cheap replacements, you can have all 3.
 

G|force

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Let’s just say Samwha aren’t on anyones top five cap companies.
If your new 'lytic caps that you purchased off a BOM have Panasonic Elna or Nichicon heat shrink branding on their bodies, but were manufactured in China among several grades of products, would you have a different opinion?
 

617

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Armchair engineering at its best ...
Yeah I would give Genelec the benefit of the doubt. They probably have the best support of historical products in the market, they are designed for durability.
 

Pearljam5000

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An R&D employee from Genelec already looked at this and said it's fine. I'm not a material scientist, and neither is anyone else in this thread I imagine, so worrying about how it looks in a photo seems totally ridiculous to me. If there was a problem, they would definitely want to correct it, and it's very unlikely anything broken is leaving their factory(compared to most) considering they test, measure, and tune the responses of each monitor individually.

The 8351B is the 2nd revision of a monitor released almost 7 years ago, if there were common woofer material problems then Genelec would have corrected them with this revision. They also have a very strong reputation for reliability in working studio environments to uphold. Looking at photos and saying 'wow that looks weird I wonder if the speakers will break' just seems like self-reinforcing anxiety with no factual basis.
So you have 0 worry about it?
Not even in let's say 10 years from now?
 

YSC

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So you have 0 worry about it?
Not even in let's say 10 years from now?
not really something I would worry too much given their track record of repair (sometimes with good will replacement if it's design flaw outside warranty period, plus, I can't afford it anyway).

from a layman guessing it looked like when you glue a really thin paper to a shaped surface, in some corners or sides it have to warp a bit to make the perfect seal, it does appear to me that is a more or less eclipse shaped paper formed into that shape, and the straight side have to crumble together a bit to make the glue fully bond to the side, anyway hope genelec could shine some light on this
 

Pearljam5000

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not really something I would worry too much given their track record of repair (sometimes with good will replacement if it's design flaw outside warranty period, plus, I can't afford it anyway).

from a layman guessing it looked like when you glue a really thin paper to a shaped surface, in some corners or sides it have to warp a bit to make the perfect seal, it does appear to me that is a more or less eclipse shaped paper formed into that shape, and the straight side have to crumble together a bit to make the glue fully bond to the side, anyway hope genelec could shine some light on this
I guess I'm an old school guy because psychologically these feel more durable to me
1__87041.1568232143.jpg
 
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