Genelec 8361A Review (Powered Monitor)

[srrxr71]

I can confirm they are an absolute pain to move single person. Main worry is because of their size, shape, and weight they feel slippery and liable to fall out of the hands. There are no sharp edges on their sides, so nothing to wedge into. I’d ask for help from someone else to avoid having an expensive whoopsie.

One hand on the strap and one in the port or better (for me) hold the isopods. But be careful. The isopods move too.

I was able to get them on the K&N stands. Not easy but doable.

 

[Karu]

@srrxr71 would you be willing to share your table 2.1 from the GRADE report for your w371 system?

 

[srrxr71]

As you requested. The early reflection is hurt by the proximity of the mic to my arm chair’s headrest.

I’ve had reports with all green if I keep the mic further from the headrest.

That dip between 1khz-2khz is my problem but Trinnov sorts that out for me. It’s also a headrest issue.

 

[Karu]

Interesting with the headrest. Thank you.

 

[srrxr71]

Interesting with the headrest. Thank you.

This was my previous one. Probably I should calibrate again.

 

[srrxr71]

This is what it looks like if I use a foam roller to move the microphone away from the headrest.


I’ve gotten lazy about optimizing. It’s funny my previous calibrations were better. One thing I did was to move them apart more to get a wider soundstage. I like that much better even if the number look worse. I think I need to work on getting better results.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Just for talking about cabinets, usually, asr don't tend to focus much more and i was curious to see what results give a alum small cabinet vs a floorstanding MDF for example
While the R11 is not the best cabinet u are going to find, i see the genelec to look worse, what about that?

 

[tmtomh]

Just for talking about cabinets, usually, asr don't tend to focus much more and i was curious to see what results give a alum small cabinet vs a floorstanding MDF for example
While the R11 is not the best cabinet u are going to find, i see the genelec to look worse, what about that?

It appears the scale of each graph is different. For the Genelec each main division in the dB scale is 10dB whereas in the KEF each one is 5dB. Not sure how that impacts the comparability of the graphs, but thought it was worth mentioning.

 

[RobL]

Just for talking about cabinets, usually, asr don't tend to focus much more and i was curious to see what results give a alum small cabinet vs a floorstanding MDF for example
While the R11 is not the best cabinet u are going to find, i see the genelec to look worse, what about that?

The plots aren’t really comparable as the vertical scale is different. The 8361’s scale is 110 to 75 (35), the R11’s is 80 to 60. (20). Redraw the Genelec’s at the same scale and all those resonances disappear into the floor…

Stereophile tested the cabinet of the G3 (8030) for resonances and I believe it was one of the (maybe the most) inert cabinet they ever measured.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

The plots aren’t really comparable as the vertical scale is different. The 8361’s scale is 110 to 75 (35), the R11’s is 80 to 60. (20). Redraw the Genelec’s at the same scale and all those resonances disappear into the floor…

Stereophile tested the cabinet of the G3 (8030) for resonances and I believe it was one of the (maybe the most) inert cabinet they ever measured.

But the genelec because is very loudly in that measurements, floor noise is irrelevant


I saw the 8030, looks great. But i think tame a 5'' mid range shouldn't be that hard, to be honest i consider a woofer 6'' and above

 

[RobL]

But the genelec because is very loudly in that measurements, floor noise is irrelevant


I saw the 8030, looks great. But i think tame a 5'' mid range shouldn't be that hard, to be honest i consider a woofer 6'' and above

I don’t mean “noise floor”, I mean the floor of the chart.
You can make those charts look clean or dirty simply by the vertical scale you choose to use.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

I don’t mean “noise floor”, I mean the floor of the chart.
You can make those charts look clean or dirty simply by the vertical scale you choose to use.

Well, the problem is the standardization with cabinet measurements, so they are useless. Best for now is Stereophile i think.

 

[srrxr71]

This is my waterfall. I have a room mode on both at 33.3Hz. I just notch that out with a high Q filter in GLM.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

The plots aren’t really comparable as the vertical scale is different. The 8361’s scale is 110 to 75 (35), the R11’s is 80 to 60. (20). Redraw the Genelec’s at the same scale and all those resonances disappear into the floor…

Stereophile tested the cabinet of the G3 (8030) for resonances and I believe it was one of the (maybe the most) inert cabinet they ever measured.

Talking about the cabinet, this measurement also refer to cabinet, but i see the genelec is not the best. It's the Q acoustic concept 300 bookshelf the best for what i see ( talking about bookshelfs.. )

vs
Genelec

 

[RobL]

Talking about the cabinet, this measurement also refer to cabinet, but i see the genelec is not the best. It's the Q acoustic concept 300 bookshelf the best for what i see ( talking about bookshelfs.. )

vs
Genelec

Well, cant say I agree with you. The accelerometer spectral decay tells a better story about the cabinets imo: (images courtesy of Stereophile’s reviews)

Genelec G3

Q Acoustics Concept 300:

Again, look at the vertical scales in the images. The Genelec was measured -6 dB lower in level than the Q Acoustic else nothing would show up on the plot!

 

[richard12511]

To help with carryng the speakers, you should get into rock climbing/bouldering, and focus on sloper holds.

this guy can probably carry them single handed.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Well, cant say I agree with you. The accelerometer spectral decay tells a better story about the cabinets imo: (images courtesy of Stereophile’s reviews)

Genelec G3




View attachment 370011
Q Acoustics Concept 300:
View attachment 370012
Again, look at the vertical scales in the images. The Genelec was measured -6 dB lower in level than the Q Acoustic else nothing would show up on the plot!

Yeah but if i think correctly, put a accelerometer in the cabinet doesn't tell you much about what are you going to hear but the behavior between the accelerometer with the surface, wood by itself translate more the sound to the object that touch. This is not even much of a real test.
By other hand, doing an alum enclousure without any more solution ain't going to kill the mid and highs frequency stuff, this is clearly translate into reality-measurements at the '' cumulative spectral-decay plot on HF axis '', this is pretty much what are you going to hear and more of a reality test.

The concept clearly shows a much better measurements there <comulative spectral decay HF axis>, and if you take a look at the solution made by Q acoustics it's just better, and this translate exactly at the measurements in the cumulative spectral decay ''. My take is the cumulative is more of a real test rather than a raw measurement.
For example, the amir benchmark salon n°2:

genelec:

Is just a mess vs the Genelec, and i don't think in any day at the week the genelec 8030 is better cabinet in real listening vs the salon n2.
And these are the cumulative from Salon n°2

But this looks kind of similar, which again is more connected to the reality.
And this Genelec 8030.

---
That's my take. Sorry but I'd say the cumulative spectrial decay worth a lot more than the other one, i'd say it's only usefull for find huge resonances in the enclouse and see if is going to be problematic in the real world, but not for test how clean the whole cabinet is, or more specific, are not going to tell you how clean the mids and highs are going to sound in real listening.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Yeah but if i think correctly, put a accelerometer in the cabinet doesn't tell you much about what are you going to hear but the behavior between the accelerometer with the surface, wood by itself translate more the sound to the object that touch. This is not even much of a real test.
By other hand, doing an alum enclousure without any more solution ain't going to kill the mid and highs frequency stuff, this is clearly translate into reality-measurements at the '' cumulative spectral-decay plot on HF axis '', this is pretty much what are you going to hear and more of a reality test.

The concept clearly shows a much better measurements there <comulative spectral decay HF axis>, and if you take a look at the solution made by Q acoustics it's just better, and this translate exactly at the measurements in the cumulative spectral decay ''. My take is the cumulative is more of a real test rather than a raw measurement.
For example, the amir benchmark salon n°2:
View attachment 370014
genelec:

Is just a mess vs the Genelec, and i don't think in any day at the week the genelec 8030 is better cabinet in real listening vs the salon n2.
And these are the cumulative from Salon n°2

But this looks kind of similar, which again is more connected to the reality.
And this Genelec 8030.

---
That's my take. Sorry but I'd say the cumulative spectrial decay worth a lot more than the other one, i'd say it's only usefull for find huge resonances in the enclouse and see if is going to be problematic in the real world, but not for test how clean the whole cabinet is, or more specific, are not going to tell you how clean the mids and highs are going to sound in real listening.

i haven't noticed but you pointed the incorrect measurements from the concept 300.

The concept 300 come with it's stand, and this is the measurements mounted as you are going to listen the speaker, it's 5.4dB as the reviwer noted

This mode was the only one present on any of the panels; it is sufficiently high in frequency and Q (Quality Factor) that even without the attenuation provided by the speaker's sprung base, it probably wouldn't have any audible effects.

While the accelerometer acc is fine in both cases, if the measurement is interpreted correctly, it's very good anyway with that high Q peak, if you don't believe lets take a look a highly recommended tower here Revel F228BE:

These High Q are much much much worse than the Q acoustic with it's stand. Just imagine if you were right and the accumulative using acc is the important one, that graph is not a indicate of a quality cabinet neither what are you going to hear in listening, the revel must don't even know what they do with cabinets if having the plot clean using the acc were that important.
And here is the important thing: The on axis HF acumulative indicate the Concept 300 as Outstanding. So as a whole, interpreted correctly, the best cabinet is the concept 300.
So:
Acc: Both are good, because as the reviewer point,
HF acc: Gelenec is fine, concept 300 is impressive.
Who won? Concept 300, genelec use the same solution for the ones tbh.

The G Three's cumulative spectral-decay plot on the tweeter axis (fig.6) is superbly clean, the only significant ridge of delayed energy occurring at the tweeter's dome-resonance frequency

Thanks to Q acoustics for take care this much for a cabinet, let's reconize the speakers companies that do an impressive job too using proper engineering. Cabinet is very important. This MF-HF acc is better, so in real world listening.
So the solution maked by Q acoustic is better than the Genelec. The Triple MDF with dual gelcore layer plus in how the drivers are implemented in the cabinet do a impressive job.

 

[RobL]

i haven't noticed but you pointed the incorrect measurements from the concept 300.

The concept 300 come with it's stand, and this is the measurements mounted as you are going to listen the speaker, it's 5.4dB as the reviwer noted

While the accelerometer acc is fine in both cases, if the measurement is interpreted correctly, it's very good anyway with that high Q peak, if you don't believe lets take a look a highly recommended tower here Revel F228BE:

These High Q are much much much worse than the Q acoustic with it's stand. Just imagine if you were right and the accumulative using acc is the important one, that graph is not a indicate of a quality cabinet neither what are you going to hear in listening, the revel must don't even know what they do with cabinets if having the plot clean using the acc were that important.
And here is the important thing: The on axis HF acumulative indicate the Concept 300 as Outstanding. So as a whole, interpreted correctly, the best cabinet is the concept 300.
So:
Acc: Both are good, because as the reviewer point,
HF acc: Gelenec is fine, concept 300 is impressive.
Who won? Concept 300, genelec use the same solution for the ones tbh.

Thanks to Q acoustics for take care this much for a cabinet, let's reconize the speakers companies that do an impressive job too using proper engineering. Cabinet is very important. This MF-HF acc is better, so in real world listening.
So the solution maked by Q acoustic is better than the Genelec. The Triple MDF with dual gelcore layer plus in how the drivers are implemented in the cabinet do an impressive job.

Hmmm…so your point is what? You started with:

and i was curious to see what results give a alum small cabinet vs a floorstanding MDF for example
While the R11 is not the best cabinet u are going to find, i see the genelec to look worse, what about that?

And now have graduated to:

So the solution maked by Q acoustic is better than the Genelec. The Triple MDF with dual gelcore layer plus in how the drivers are implemented in the cabinet do a impressive job.

That’s a long way from a simple mdf cabinet. Certainly good cabinets can be made from mdf. Also from aluminum. So what?

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Hmmm…so your point is what? You started with:

And now have graduated to:

That’s a long way from a simple mdf cabinet. Certainly good cabinets can be made from mdf. Also from aluminum. So what?

I just trying to understand the whole cabinet behavior, there is some speakers that sound remarkable clean in the MF/HF.. not only great but remarkable

Apparently, only doing cabinet from alum or mdf is not enough for the MF and HF, hence KEF invented stuff like the metamaterial and as you pointed, Q acoustic with it's long way from a simple mdf cabinet