Genelec 8351B vs Mesanovic RTM10 - AB Test Preparation

[Senior NEET Engineer]

Which stand are the Genelecs using?

 

[Jason K]

Which stand are the Genelecs using?

It’s custom stand.

 

[Purité Audio]

Plus a lot of these companies like D & D and Kii have not been in business a long time. Kef's LS 50 was put out 8 years ago to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their founding. Only Genelec and possibly Neuman can claim anything nearly like that in terms of company longevity.

Genelec, KEF and every manufacturer we’re ‘new’ at some point, companies attain longevity by producing reliable, innovative designs.
Failure rate of the kii/D&D has been extremely low, almost non-existent in the case of D&D, Jon’s cracked enclosure which was immediately exchanged, failure of the front LED, very minor ,and any issue is taken seriously, investigated and rectified.
Keith

 

[q3cpma]

Genelec, KEF and every manufacturer we’re ‘new’ at some point, companies attain longevity by producing reliable, innovative designs.
Keith

But for Genelec, they started with pretty big orders in markets where reliability is king (broadcast and sound reinforcement), unlike small-scale companies with rich audiophiles as primary market producing exponentially more complex speakers than the analogue S30. Personally, I think D&D can be trusted on the hardware level (though the warranty is too short for a 10k product, in my view) but I'm not comfortable with too much complex software in it.

By the way, weren't there some Pascal board failures in 8cs?

 

[thewas]

Only Genelec and possibly Neuman can claim anything nearly like that in terms of company longevity.

Neumann studio monitors were called till few years ago Klein + Hummel and that company was founded after WW2, so quite older than Genelec and even KEF, same holds for the Neumann microphones and Sennheiser parent company.

 

[Purité Audio]

But for Genelec, they started with pretty big orders in markets where reliability is king (broadcast and sound reinforcement), unlike small-scale companies with rich audiophiles as primary market producing exponentially more complex speakers than the analogue S30. Personally, I think D&D can be trusted on the hardware level (though the warranty is too short for a 10k product, in my view) but I'm not comfortable with too much complex software in it.

By the way, weren't there some Pascal board failures in 8cs?

Genelec were fortunate to receive a small order from Finnish broadcasting I believe, no 8C amp failures that I am aware of.
Keith

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Genelec, KEF and every manufacturer we’re ‘new’ at some point, companies attain longevity by producing reliable, innovative designs.
Failure rate of the kii/D&D has been extremely low, almost non-existent in the case of D&D, Jon’s cracked enclosure which was immediately exchanged, failure of the front LED, very minor ,and any issue is taken seriously, investigated and rectified.
Keith

Not saying they're not terrific products, and that they look like excellent, customer focused operations. But people should nonetheless be aware of the risk. After all, in my lifetime I've, and many of the people on this blog, have witnessed the bankruptcy of Penn Central, Sears, Shearson Lehman, General Motors, Chrysler, Harley Davidson, and a host of banking and financial service companies. No company is immune or immortal, particularly a small niche audio speaker company.

Perhaps the greatest risk is the proprietary firmware. Companies like D & D and GGNTKT use off the shelf Pascal amp modules which any competent electronic repair service ought to be able to replace, but if for some reason the unit requires the firmware be re-flashed, the owner of these units could be SOL if one of these newer companies give up the ghost.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

RTM10 is finally arrived.
What a huge box!
Tomorrow I’ll upload the measurements with 8351B.
Thanks Deni.

View attachment 104356View attachment 104357View attachment 104358View attachment 104359View attachment 104360View attachment 104361View attachment 104362View attachment 104363View attachment 104364

Looking at these I see all kinds of discolorations in the finish. Are those fingerprints, photographic artifacts, or blemishes?

 

[Jason K]

Looking at these I see all kinds of discolorations in the finish. Are those fingerprints, photographic artifacts, or blemishes?

Because it is winter, it is condensation due to temperature difference indoors and outdoors.

The finish is spotless and resembles a promotional photo.

 

[Jason K]

After opening the box, I took a picture in a hurry and there was a stain from condensation. The finish is very clean and flawless. It is sturdy and luxurious.

 

[YSC]

But for Genelec, they started with pretty big orders in markets where reliability is king (broadcast and sound reinforcement), unlike small-scale companies with rich audiophiles as primary market producing exponentially more complex speakers than the analogue S30. Personally, I think D&D can be trusted on the hardware level (though the warranty is too short for a 10k product, in my view) but I'm not comfortable with too much complex software in it.

By the way, weren't there some Pascal board failures in 8cs?

maybe, but maybe that's coz we are too poor to be the target audience.. they need to keep themselves profitable and avoiding batch failure bankrupting them to some point, until they gain enough to cover the R&D and then likely they will need to do something drastic to strengthen their reliability image if any rate of failure reports appears on web, if not the market will just kill them off with 10k rip off which only live for say 3 years.

My concern when I bought the Genelec is their repair promise, not so much in terms of warranty (3 years when I purchase from Thomann excluding shipping back from HK to Germany), but the fact they are dedicate enough to offer paid repair even for 20+ years relict products, which don't exist to similar expense products like cameras. To me and most of my friends they are able to be repaired say 20 years later is a very great guarantee for purchasing with big money

 

[YSC]

View attachment 105598View attachment 105599View attachment 105597View attachment 105600View attachment 105601


After opening the box, I took a picture in a hurry and there was a stain from condensation. The finish is very clean and flawless. It is sturdy and luxurious.

it looks brilliant as is! but I didn't notice that it have only got 1 bass driver on 1 side only, I thought the side bass drivers would always be on both sides

Any suggestion on which side the bass driver on each channel or it doesn't matter at all?

 

[Jason K]

it looks brilliant as is! but I didn't notice that it have only got 1 bass driver on 1 side only, I thought the side bass drivers would always be on both sides

Any suggestion on which side the bass driver on each channel or it doesn't matter at all?

The manual recommended that place the woofer inside first, but I think it will be difference by the room dimensions and placement of the speakers.
They are sold in pairs. Each of them has subwoofer left and right.
And since the subwoofer crossover point is 150Hz, it has no symmetrical issue. It can be shown as horizontal directivity.

 

[richard12511]

@Jason K
Are you gonna try to equalize the bass, or just run them full range?
Also, will you being doing a stereo or mono comparison?
BTW, thank you so much for doing this. I imagine this will be very useful for folks that are looking to buy SOTA speakers.

Finally, just want to mention how impressed I am with @deni. Not even 30 years old, and you've already designed an objectively SOTA loudspeaker . It really makes me wonder why other much more experienced designers, with much larger budgets, can't seem to make something this good. Many vets that have been at it for 20-30 years have never made something this exceptional, and most not even close. What was your mindset going in to this when you decided you wanted to make a loudspeaker(after doing mics)? Did you expect to be competing with SOTA speakers(like the 8351b) right out of the gate? Sorry, it's a bit off topic, but just wanted to mentioned how impressive this is.

*Edit: I made a fairly detailed prediction originally, where I went into detail looking at dispersion width and bass differences, but I erased it, as I don't want to bias the results in any way. I did save it locally here so that I can compare afterwards to see how close I was in my prediction.

 

[richard12511]

View attachment 105598View attachment 105599View attachment 105597View attachment 105600View attachment 105601


After opening the box, I took a picture in a hurry and there was a stain from condensation. The finish is very clean and flawless. It is sturdy and luxurious.

I like the finish. It has the same sparkly look that my 8030c(in gray) has, which tends to look much better in person. Also looks similar to my JTR speakers finish, which grew on me over time.

 

[samysound]

View attachment 104653
I brought some measurements.
They were in living room (about 8.6 x 3.7x 2.4m).
And listening distance from the speakers is about 3m. I played the pink noise 500 to 2kHz, matched the level to 85dB at listening position. And sweeped.
Though It looks like there were some room mode gains, but the RTM10’s bass extention is quite deep.

I always wonder how about the distortion in bass range? Some kind of speakers, like with DSP, sealed cabinet, deep sub bass extention often have high level of distortion. I once saw the even D&D 8C has 10% distortion at sub bass at 90dB in room.

RTM10 also coudn’t be completly away with them, but quite good.

View attachment 104654View attachment 104655

The bass range is 90~95dB in room.
I think the peak 2nd distortion at 30Hz is in room error like rattle noise.

Generally 8351B has low distortion than RTM10, But If 8351B is sealed cabinet, I think the RTM10
Will be better. And RTM10 has low distortion at high order harmonics than 8351B at 30~40Hz (port noise?) and 100~200Hz.

Above bass is quite good each other.View attachment 104660View attachment 104661

Here are the nomalized plots.
Overall, they are under 5% distortion.
And the RTM10’s 3rd harmonics is very low enough. 3rd is can be heard easily more than 2nd. It relative with cliping.

Interesting to see the distortion measurements. mid range to woofer cross-over is 150hz in the RTM10 and 320hz in the 8351B. I was thinking there may be more distortion in the midrange due to the lower cross over point of the RTM10 specially at louder volume but they look pretty simmilar.

 

[Jason K]

@Jason K
Are you gonna try to equalize the bass, or just run them full range?
Also, will you being doing a stereo or mono comparison?
BTW, thank you so much for doing this. I imagine this will be very useful for folks that are looking to buy SOTA speakers.

Finally, just want to mention how impressed I am with @deni. Not even 30 years old, and you've already designed an objectively SOTA loudspeaker . It really makes me wonder why other much more experienced designers, with much larger budgets, can't seem to make something this good. Many vets that have been at it for 20-30 years have never made something this exceptional, and most not even close. What was your mindset going in to this when you decided you wanted to make a loudspeaker(after doing mics)? Did you expect to be competing with SOTA speakers(like the 8351b) right out of the gate? Sorry, it's a bit off topic, but just wanted to mentioned how impressive this is.

This space is not a very good acoustic environment for low tones, so we try to equalize it to the target curve.

But I don't want to adjust the lower base limit.
I'm not going to put in a filter to match the rolloff.

I am trying to test it in stereo, and when I tried it according to the original plan (ABAB), the change in sound image was very sensitive, so I try to arrange it vertically as when compared to the salon.

 

[YSC]

Interesting to see the distortion measurements. mid range to woofer cross-over is 150hz in the RTM10 and 320hz in the 8351B. I was thinking there may be more distortion in the midrange due to the lower cross over point of the RTM10 specially at louder volume but they look pretty simmilar.

I think that's because the 8351s used coaxial for maximum dispersion characteristics, which gave up some of the mids driver area and make it requires a higher crossover point? and the dual oval bass driver as good as they are to minimize the speaker footprint they did lack the overall area, so results in similar distortion characteristics compared to the RTM10?

 

[phoenixdogfan]

View attachment 105598View attachment 105599View attachment 105597View attachment 105600View attachment 105601


After opening the box, I took a picture in a hurry and there was a stain from condensation. The finish is very clean and flawless. It is sturdy and luxurious.

Good deal. I am sure others noticed even if they did not comment. This way everything is cleared up. (Pun intended!)

 

[phoenixdogfan]

maybe, but maybe that's coz we are too poor to be the target audience.. they need to keep themselves profitable and avoiding batch failure bankrupting them to some point, until they gain enough to cover the R&D and then likely they will need to do something drastic to strengthen their reliability image if any rate of failure reports appears on web, if not the market will just kill them off with 10k rip off which only live for say 3 years.

My concern when I bought the Genelec is their repair promise, not so much in terms of warranty (3 years when I purchase from Thomann excluding shipping back from HK to Germany), but the fact they are dedicate enough to offer paid repair even for 20+ years relict products, which don't exist to similar expense products like cameras. To me and most of my friends they are able to be repaired say 20 years later is a very great guarantee for purchasing with big money

That almost sounds like a McIntosh kind of guarantee, and it is no small selling point.