Genelec 8361A Review (Powered Monitor)

[Pearljam5000]

Any 8351/61 owners considering upgrading to 8380?

 

[Mort]

Any 8351/61 owners considering upgrading to 8380?

I'm not as I listen midfield, have all the spl I need, and I prefer the looks of the ones.

I'm eager to hear them reviewed nonetheless.

 

[dfuller]

Yep, mine were pretty flat to 26Hz in my room.
I know you have a pair of 420’s…was looking around and I can get a new pair for about US$4500/each. No-brainer?

Personally at 9k/pr it's an exceptionally good choice.

 

[tw99]

Hi all. Question to the 8361 proud (and less proud) owners: what kind of source do you use? I was thinking of a WIIM Ultra considering the wide range of inputs. I am just not sure of how to connect them to the speakers: are these optical to AES converters any good? It would need to be fairly user friendly since my wife and kids will be using the setup as well... Thanks.

I use a cheap (few £ or $) AliExpress SPDIF (coax) to AES converter with my active speakers and it works fine, no issues at all. There are actually more options out there for optical to AES.

 

[Martini]

I'm not as I listen midfield, have all the spl I need, and I prefer the looks of the ones.

I'm eager to hear them reviewed nonetheless.

Yep, same here, I'm with the 8351Bs and 7370A. It's all the speaker I need at this time. Though I still need to dial it in a little bit more.

 

[Mort]

Personally at 9k/pr it's an exceptionally good choice.

8351b's for that price no? =D

 

[Tovarich007]

Genelec 8361 A are defintely great speakers ! Sure GLM improve things, assuming it's properly used and you don't expect it can turn a very bad room acoustics into a super good one (no magical tool, just good expertise and algorithms well done).
And the new big Genelec 8380 are even better if bass and SPL max matter for you.

I listened to both of them in demos run by Audio Technica officials (AT is Genelec's distributor in France) in the same not good and not large room, they were both calibrated using GLM. The results were very good though, so I can imagine what it would be in a larger and better room acoustics.

Their abilities that striked me are :

1) their transparency leading to very precise and accurate timbres and layers of sound
2) their ability to be played at low SPL or up to very loud level without real tonal change
3) the fact they can be listened to at a relatively close distance with good results for such big speakers, this is particularly impressive for the very big 8380 wchich is anyway designed primarly for main monitoring. Of course, it should have been even better (I mean : particularly excellent) at a longer distance in a better room.

I can't see any overall better speakers on the market now. Of course, a few ultra expensive and seriously designed highend speakers (for instance, KEF Blades or Magico or Vivid Audio) could beat these Genelec on some criterias, (I'll never say a speaker is THE ONLY ONE nor PERFECT) but the Genelec are a whole system by themselves, which the best hifi speakers are not, and the latter are more expensive and less versatile.

 

[RobL]

8351b's for that price no? =D

Haha, I can get 8351b’s for quite a bit less but I like to play loud and my wife hates subs! I sold my 8361A’s and I’d love to hear that Neumann dome as I had a pair of speakers with dome midranges in them years ago and I remember the sound was quite compelling.

 

[dfuller]

8351b's for that price no? =D

Yeah the question was re: KH420s which are if anything a little more dynamically capable than an 8361.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Yeah the question was re: KH420s which are if anything a little more dynamically capable than an 8361.

Yeah but they sound completely different
To me

 

[Mort]

Haha, I can get 8351b’s for quite a bit less but I like to play loud and my wife hates subs! I sold my 8361A’s and I’d love to hear that Neumann dome as I had a pair of speakers with dome midranges in them years ago and I remember the sound was quite compelling.

Genelec subs are ugly, huge and expensive.

 

[Behrelec 37]

For many, the first impression of these speakers locks their minds into a certain sound image, but because GLM microphone measurements are taken in several completely different environments before Genelec speakers are officially put into use, the sound image and the emphasis on rhythm and tempo are always different, even though the overall picture is very clear and similar in terms of sound reproduction within the different models.

Many people deliberately forget that there are hundreds of thousands of different paths to express the sound image structure. Yes! You can further improve the clarity of the sound yourself by adjusting and listening with your ears, using the GLM controls to set the Q and gain values for different Hz levels, resulting in an even more precise ((((TIGHTER ))) and much more intimate sound reproduction if you still feel the need for it from your point of view.
The first measurement is often mediocre (good, but a lot is left out), which these models could really improve on with fine adjustments. The difference is a very powerful feeling and, in terms of perceiving the correct sound, it is more impressive to experience the whole thing in your own living room.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Sounds like experience with most room corrections. Nothing magical.

 

[Behrelec 37]

Alice of of Old Vincennes.

What part of my writing did you not understand?

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Alice of of Old Vincennes.

What part of my writing did you not understand?

I thought I understood all of it. My my.

 

[Behrelec 37]

If your worldview is black and white or somewhat limited, I recommend visiting art exhibitions, which often feature elements that appeal to different senses, created through form, light, and color.

The same applies to larger Genelec speakers: when the light hits the right frequencies, the experience is overwhelming and unforgettable. However, you only have to pay for this dream once, whereas you have to pay for every visit to an art exhibition, unless you have personal connections that allow you to get in for free.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

If your worldview is black and white or somewhat limited, I recommend visiting art exhibitions, which often feature elements that appeal to different senses, created through form, light, and color.

The same applies to larger Genelec speakers: when the light hits the right frequencies, the experience is overwhelming and unforgettable. However, you only have to pay for this dream once, whereas you have to pay for every visit to an art exhibition, unless you have personal connections that allow you to get in for free.

Please. Calm down.

 

[kharan]

The Father Genelec, his Son the Mains, the Holy Spirit GLM.

Ite missa est.

 

[Heinrich]

... Genelec speakers: when the light hits the right frequencies, the experience is overwhelming and unforgettable. ...

Those speakers select certain frequencies? Please compare to KEF R3 (non meta) having a better score attached to it, with or w/o a sub, being a coax likewise, is way cheaper.
The Genelec is perfect, but the KEF is better--just kidding. I think at some point a speaker is just and simply fit for the job, all doubt is settled, and the music speaks as loud and clear as it gets.

When it comes to the eq/ module, I can't imagine to use a speaker of this caliber w/o little adjustments to taste--subjective preference. Maybe from record to record with tiny differences. But the proprietary solution from Genelec isn't the only way to do so. Automatic tuning isn't appropriate, see perfectly justifiably subjective assessment.

In short, the differences between speakers from some position on the score on are neglegible compared to subjective preferences, the differing record's tonality and arrangement, and room acoustics. You can praise a certain model, but that misses the point. Perfect is perfect, isn't that good enough?

 

[Tovarich007]

His Grandeur Behrelec 37 , Undisputed Messiah of the Holy Genelec Church, excommunicates everybody who tends to disagree, or only tries to express some humoristic traits His Grandeur doesn't understand ("nobody's perfect" courtesy of Osgood Fielding Alias J.E. Brown in "Some Like it Hot").
Well, I largely share his point of view about the excellence of Genelec speakers and systems, as I wrote several times here and there, but too much is too much.
Yeah, try to calm down a bit, Behrelec... But we like you anyway.