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Genelec 8361A Review (Powered Monitor)

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 9 1.2%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 4 0.5%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 35 4.6%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 705 93.6%

  • Total voters
    753
Tovarich007

Heh heh hee..., yes I often get confused/forget about these new models sometimes, and it's not that dangerous. And it's not always interesting to be completely right. Someone always corrects me later. It just happened to catch my eye. My friend and I talk about these things to the point of boredom almost every day. As if there was nothing else to do.

I really don't do material worship at all, but I try to utilize very hard consumption and utility. There is simply no better knowledge in all of humanity than what Genelec can really achieve in terms of sound quality reproduction. If someone claims otherwise, then just put your own dream speakers side by side and fight. As long as the body size of the speakers is at least the same comparison level, then in a comparative sense. Because the lungs determine a lot of what the speakers are capable of. And whether the sound stays together in good quality.

And whether you can listen to them for several hours with reasonable sound pressure levels. Quality is measured in sound purity and duration and balance with the coexistence of all music genres. Light and heavy fighters in the boxing ring shed sweat, tears, pain and blood. And yes, sound quality can be compared to how diverse a food genre it can make and how good it does to your stomach.
 
Tovarich007

Heh heh hee..., yes I often get confused/forget about these new models sometimes, and it's not that dangerous. And it's not always interesting to be completely right. Someone always corrects me later. It just happened to catch my eye. My friend and I talk about these things to the point of boredom almost every day. As if there was nothing else to do.

I really don't do material worship at all, but I try to utilize very hard consumption and utility. There is simply no better knowledge in all of humanity than what Genelec can really achieve in terms of sound quality reproduction. If someone claims otherwise, then just put your own dream speakers side by side and fight. As long as the body size of the speakers is at least the same comparison level, then in a comparative sense. Because the lungs determine a lot of what the speakers are capable of. And whether the sound stays together in good quality.

And whether you can listen to them for several hours with reasonable sound pressure levels. Quality is measured in sound purity and duration and balance with the coexistence of all music genres. Light and heavy fighters in the boxing ring shed sweat, tears, pain and blood. And yes, sound quality can be compared to how diverse a food genre it can make and how good it does to your stomach.
I know you are a fan of the Genelec 12xx line of the speakers but what do you think of The Ones? In my small room, the 12xx won't be a good fit but The Ones will be.
 
Kain

I have the 8260a models. So it resembles the 8361a model in accuracy very much. It is its older brother.

From what I have heard, the 8361a model has stronger bass power and the sound image structure / stereo resolution is very, very bright. The 8260 is compared to the 8361 like a dim candle next to the brightly burning 8361a candle, if it could be described by a side-by-side comparison.

Both models draw the sound image with the same character, and compared to the master series 12xx, the 8361a sound image field is like a long, long green meadow or, for example, an airport whose depth and resolution reach very far when you look at it. But it doesn't do it in the midrange so you can use the difference in dB's intensity variation to your advantage when hearing an event on the horizon like the master series does better, i.e. if a car passes by a meadow or airport 10 meters away from you, its intensity is evenly blended into its surroundings but as weak as the 8361a models, while the master series' midrange enhances the object being passed, making the situational picture more full, to be honest.

The 8361a is high quality and very functional in the near field and a little further away, but it doesn't produce live sound events as believable as the master series does. Of course
live recordings work quite well in the 8361a models, but they are still a bit light on creating a believable sound field/atmosphere
of the events.

The 8361a is a very good speaker overall.
 
8361a is like a sunny day shining almost at full brightness, but shows all the events in the environment at the same time with very natural accuracy.

8260a is a grayer cloudy day overall, where events stand out like in the 8361a model, but everything that happens on the horizon is slightly grayer and more joyless to perceive and experience.

12xx series products are like a sunny day but there are also big thunderstorms in the background
approaching clouds that change from time to time to gray visible day, but with a larger sound image size and the most sensitive light fluctuations. The smallest details blur in the background, unlike the 8361a models they are visible
 
Pearljam5000

Heh.. when you have been a fan of that brand for a long time and own old models from time to time, you know what the champion nature of this brand is.

The quality of sound has improved when the coax models came to the market. The biggest connoisseurs are those who get to taste the rich sound food of the Ones series, even as a multi-channel experience. There is enough music to keep you going for years to come and the taste is enjoyable and rich in fiber, unlike passive solutions when you get tired of the sound with the too familiar structure pattern, then the search for a new lucky one is ahead again. The stomach is only ever half full, if that, and a lot of money and time is spent. Well, a hobby is not a real hobby if it doesn't spend all your own and borrowed debt money on it.

Fortunately, there is another path to super nirvana. Studio world super delicacies. Of course, other brands of studio speakers give a lot of joy to many, but the DSP/GLM software is a winning candidate and its super abilities are hard to beat in high-quality speakers from other brands in my opinion. Of course, you can have a different opinion, but it would also be good to have a little justification for how it differs in its favor.
 
Great video footage from the spot in Iisalmi Finland.
I myself have visited there a long time ago, and even got to listen to music from CDs at full volume with a friend in the big cinema room from the 1036a speakers with my tongue hanging out and drooling, oh what a heavenly experience that experience was huh huh! Oh what memories I had from my youth in 1995. Now they are apparently the dsp 1236a series and the multi-channel side and rear speakers are apparently also the dsp 12xx series, and these big master speakers are now even more convincing.

There was also another large listening room where there were once smaller 3-way models from the master series and that was also a Wow! experience overall.

These Genelec people take sound quality very, very seriously (like the military's super alien technology), and I can feel and hear it in my own living room and bedroom and I'm happy every single day if I listen to music from them. After all, all music genres are what humanity makes, so it just works...

It was a great video from the factory and I learned something new myself.
 
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8631a
8010a
 
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"And here, in a rare and heartwarming scene, we witness the seasoned elder - a towering Genelec 8361a - standing guard over the fledgling 8010. The young one, barely out of the box, perches atop the great monolith, observing its surroundings with wide-eyed curiosity.

It is here, under the protective hum of the master, that the novice begins to learn the ways of the waveform. Soon, it will face the world on its own. But for now, it listens. It learns."
 
I asked Genelec which is better
8361+W371 or 8381:


First of all, "better" is a very subjective term.
There are similarities in the complete concept (adaptive woofer system combined with a coaxial system), but the Quad Midrange System adds something very unique to 8381. Having two midrange ways (1.8 kHz to 500 Hz with the inner midrange coaxial driver, 500 Hz to approx. 200 Hz (this crossover can be set in a variable way) for the four dome drivers gives you a fantastic resolution and directivity control in the midrange. But for sure the W371 combinations are very good options as well ... ;-)
 
I asked Genelec which is better
8361+W371 or 8381:


First of all, "better" is a very subjective term.
There are similarities in the complete concept (adaptive woofer system combined with a coaxial system), but the Quad Midrange System adds something very unique to 8381. Having two midrange ways (1.8 kHz to 500 Hz with the inner midrange coaxial driver, 500 Hz to approx. 200 Hz (this crossover can be set in a variable way) for the four dome drivers gives you a fantastic resolution and directivity control in the midrange. But for sure the W371 combinations are very good options as well ... ;-)
As was said earlier: needs, environment and budget are key factors in assessing the Ones. At the level that you're discussing, technological accuracy (hi-fi) is never the issue.
 
For those of us who stream, it is beneficial to ensure that the DSP circuitry of the 8361A and W371A is matched by your streamer (in my case that's both Roon and my Dell XPS-15). This minimizes sample rate conversion. For me, that meant setting both Roon and my laptop to a sampling output rate of 96 kHz (in keeping with the Genelecs).The sonic improvements are obvious and immediately audible.

Gratitude to Genelec UK for the advice!
 
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Really audible differences between sample rates?
Keith
 
If Gens internally convert to 96kHz then standard 44.1 is already being converted.
Keith
 
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