Genelec 8361A Review (Powered Monitor)

[Marin]

Stereoplay: Genelec 8361A measurements

me geithain rl-901k2 vs ATC SCM150ASL vs Genelec 8351b + W371A vs Ultimate Preamp

Here are the measurements from stereoplay for Genelec 8361A: compare with the Geithain 921k:

www.audiosciencereview.com

How come Amir measurements doesn't show that peak 27 000hz?

 

[Marin]

Here is the Spinorama (bass likely wrong) of the Salon2:

As Amir pointed out, the soundstage is wider, the Sound Power DI breaches 5dB around 1500Hz while this Genelec breaches it at a lower 500Hz.

Though we do see a directivity mismatch at 2500Hz

Now I see why Amir like so much parametric equations on ROON.
That bas drop bellow 100Hz

 

[RobL]

Then please ignore me. Do not, please bend my question to fit your argument. I asked for a point very high on the score, from which on speakers may be equivalent. I never said that same ranking makes speakers equivalent regardless of the position on the score.

My statement stands regardless of position on the scale. Kef R3 and Genelec 8361A score very similarly. Why do you suppose eveyone isn’t using Kef R3 in their studio? There’s more to a loudspeaker than tonality.

Regarding the Olive score itself, here’s what Sean Olive had to say:

 

[Marin]

You are probably just hearing bad recordings. Or even bad mixes, because these speakers are better than what is generally used in classical mastering environments. Those tend to skew towards B&W loudspeakers which have clear coloration. So if they mix to make it sound good on their loudspeakers, it might sound poor on these. You are a victim of the circle of confusion.

I wouldn't say that.
A person says exactly what bothers them and correlates it with the measurements.
The piano sounds thin, this is because there is very little bass below 200.
Violina sounds artificial, again the highs are not exaggerated, but it seems that the genelac shot himself in the foot with constant directivity up to 18,000Hz, so it is impossible to too in,out and lower the highs.
The fact that twitter is made of metal doesn't help either...
Again many people like my self like to buy speaker and hook it up with two wires and enjoy in sound, maybe later integrated woofer to add that lovest octave,or to add some 4,5 db in 40-120Hz range to add realisam with live instruments,like body for the sound of piano, not so much for guitar bas because he is so bass heavy...
With this stuff you need another box, days learning how to make this stuff sing.
If it coast 10 000 and in some parts of the world 15 000 dollars that puts Genelac in the rang of Willson audio wich come home to you and adjust their sistem, and that is the only thing I like about Willson audio...

 

[Floyd Toole]

I have been lurking while this discussion has proceeded, and I have a couple of thoughts to add.

First, and most importantly, please, please, please stop trusting the "Olive" single number sound quality ratings. Even Sean Olive, and all of Harman International, where it was created, don't use it. I have said this several times in the ASR forums. It served its purpose as a statistical factor in the revealing subjective vs. objective correlations of ratings, and persuasively showing that the spinorama incorporates much important data about loudspeaker performance. These positional substitution, equal loudness, multiple-loudspeaker comparisons were designed to reveal resonances, the most audible flaws - i.e. evidence of timbral neutrality. In these tests the program and the room were constant factors which is never true in real life. So when Sean talks about the resolution of the calculated scores, it refers to a laboratory experiment. However, knowing that the loudspeaker is free of audible resonances is an important start. Evidence of resonances is seen in the spinorama data set - looking at all curves, not just on axis. It is difficult to find loudspeakers that have NO resonances, even the Genelecs being discussed, but they need to be attenuated to below audible thresholds - and we have psychoacoustic data indicating what the thresholds are.

The results showed that bass performance - alone - accounted for about 30% of the overall ratings. In real life the bass extension of the loudspeaker is a very important factor and it is often the primary cause of single-number rating differences - a subwoofer changes that part of the rating completely. Bass smoothness is also a factor, but in real life that is dominated by adjacent boundary effects and small room resonances. These can only be evaluated and addressed after the system is set up.

So, all single number ratings are limited in value below about 400 Hz in typical rooms, and if EQ is available, and directivity is smoothly changing or constant above that frequency, the frequency response can be whatever one wishes. A slightly flawed loudspeaker can be easily improved, or degraded to satisfy whatever whims prevail. This guidance is available if one learns how to interpret spinorama data rather than relying on distracting calculated ratings.

Equalization can attenuate prominent room resonances, but not all EQ systems do it the same way. One cannot assume that all proprietary algorithms have the same potential for bass improvement. The resonances need to be identified in terms of centre frequency and Q before being attenuated using minimum-phase filters of the same parameters. This done, the resonance is truly damped and both the frequency and time-domain problems are alleviated. If the filter is not matched, and most are not, the resonance is attenuated, but not necessarily rendered inaudible. This method only works for the microphone location - a single head location. If non-minimum-phase equalization is attempted all bets are off.

Chapter 14 in the 4th edition discusses this in detail, including explaining how multiple subwoofers can reduce the energy supplied to resonances, greatly expanding the listening area by literally changing the standing wave structure. For most listening situations this is an advantage.

Near field monitoring gratifies a need while mixing, but is not the way to listen if one is hoping that the experience will "translate" to listeners at home in normally reflective rooms or on the prowl with headphones. Apart from the obvious acoustical mismatches, all the problems of stereo are displayed in their ugliness.

I spend time on this topic in the 4th edition and in the accompanying slide shows. Number 6 is interesting in this context.

Finally, from my perspective, today there are an ever increasing number of consumer and professional loudspeakers that are well past the point of diminishing returns in terms of sound quality. Owners with access to anechoic spinoramas and equalization are well situated to maximize overall system performance, including the listening room. All of them are corrupted by adjacent boundary interactions and small-room standing waves/resonances. Reviewers who maintain consistent listening situations for all products being auditioned are doing what they can, but it is still flawed because of human adaptability - we quickly normalize flaws in loudspeakers we listen to for any length of time. It is often attributed to products "breaking in" but it is really listeners adapting to the new sounds, or just imagining things - humans are good at that

Interpreting trustworthy measurements is very likely a more reliable method of identifying timbrally neutral, technically accurate, loadspeakers than the normal stereo listening situation available to most. My new slogan is:

It is important to like the art heard through neutral loudspeakers.
Liking the loudspeakers is the answer to the wrong question.

 

[Heinrich]

... it is still flawed because of human adaptability - we quickly normalize flaws in loudspeakers we listen to for any length of time. It is often attributed to products "breaking in" but it is really listeners adapting to the new sounds, or just imagining things - humans are good at that
...
It is important to like the art heard through neutral loudspeakers.
Liking the loudspeakers is the answer to the wrong question.

I don’t want to co-opt your statement for my argument, but I do see a great deal of agreement in virtually every respect. Thanks for the pointers.

One might legitimately ask why adaption, as mentioned above, doesn’t already argue against overly critical evaluations of loudspeakers. All that nit-picky criticism evaporates once you have the speakers at home and the direct comparison is gone. But that wasn’t my question.

I’ll just put it out there that quite a few models—when equipped with ‘ideal bass’—reach Genelec-level performance while costing a factor of ten less, disregarding connectivity and so on; in other words, they’re equivalent

 

[kyuu]

Now I see why Amir like so much parametric equations on ROON.
That bas drop bellow 100Hz

That's called a bass shelf and it's there to take into account boundary reinforcement. Kef also commonly uses a bass shelf in their designs.

 

[Floyd Toole]

One might legitimately ask why adaption, as mentioned above, doesn’t already argue against overly critical evaluations of loudspeakers. All that nit-picky criticism evaporates once you have the speakers at home and the direct comparison is gone

Yes, ignorance can be bliss . . . until something better is heard. Fortunately for the masses of mediocre loudspeakers in circulation and still being sold, meaningful comparisons are rare. This is why I find pleasure in the increasing number of increasingly neutral loudspeakers in the marketplace - especially those at moderate prices. Slide show 6 shows some TV sound bars and smart speakers that convey more accurate timbre - not sound power - than many audiophile loudspeakers of decades past. Science works.

 

[Mort]

There are very few speaker pairs that match up sonically to the 8361a alone. FR on axis is fine but not perfect. The point source engineering and directivity is as good as it gets. The bass is so much cleaner than even a well crossed subwoofer provides, albeit with less power.

GLM adds quite a bit as well. Built like tanks with high resale value. It's a whole package.

I get that one could see diminishing returns over a lower priced option. That's nothing new.

 

[AudioJester]

Yes, ignorance can be bliss . . . until something better is heard. Fortunately for the masses of mediocre loudspeakers in circulation and still being sold, meaningful comparisons are rare. This is why I find pleasure in the increasing number of increasingly neutral loudspeakers in the marketplace - especially those at moderate prices. Slide show 6 shows some TV sound bars and smart speakers that convey more accurate timbre - not sound power - than many audiophile loudspeakers of decades past. Science works.

Have you had any experience or thoughts on Dirac ART?

 

[Sokel]

Have you had any experience or thoughts on Dirac ART?

Is probably included in the umbrella statement here.

 

[Marin]

To se zove bas polica i tu je da uzme u obzir granično ojačanje. Kef također često koristi bas policu u svojim dizajnima.

To se zove bas polica i tu je da uzme u obzir granično ojačanje. Kef također često koristi bas policu u svojim dizajnima.

That's called a bass shelf and it's there to take into account boundary reinforcement. Kef also commonly uses a bass shelf in their designs.

That is not a bass shelf!
And where do you see the shelf?
I think Erin made that therm because its Klippel machine is set to 2 dB lower than Amirm in bas region.
This is a port that is made like this, like many active woofers and big towers that have 2 or 3 big woofers with port.(if you do near field measurements you will see that port has higher output than speaker at least for woofers)and the pressure off them made that hump.
This is for sure not design so you can put speaker against the wall and get boundary reinforcement only in region 20-100Hz.
If you do that everything from around 20 till 800-1000Hz will have a boundary reinforcement and you and up with bloated mids, muddy sound from reflections and feels that people talk,sing as if they were in a barrel.
And KEF design speaker with that in mind and always said keep you speaker away from walls as much as you can and experiment with distance to prevent muddy sound,so no that is not a bass shelf.
In my opinion, it is a well-designed port, with an emphasis on some frequency, usually 30 or 40Hz.

 

[Heinrich]

Is probably included in the umbrella statement here.

The instructions, or at least the reasoning, may perhaps be derived from the experiences with mono tests. I am referring to the explanation that the auditory system adapts to the room. In my assessment, the localization of a sound source would succeed if the reflections were plausible. However, in stereo playback, the early reflections are generally not plausible in relation to the virtual sound source.

There are very few speaker pairs that match up sonically to the 8361a alone. FR on axis is fine but not perfect. The point source engineering and directivity is as good as it gets. The bass is so much cleaner than even a well crossed subwoofer provides, albeit with less power.

As for the advantage in bass reproduction: for a satisfying sound experience (bass accounting for 30% of perceived quality: dynamics, extension and smoothness), distributed subwoofers are required anyway. Therefore, the argument that the stereo pair on its own already provides good bass carries little weight.

With an equalizer at hand, a few other models can be tuned to match the tonal character of the Genelec 8361A. The distortion values are good, but there are also capable competitors—significantly cheaper ones—even with regard to intermodulation. One could even replicate the small flaws of the Genelec if that’s what one prefers.

Finally one could take a look at the directivity in radiation and will find that the special shape offers hardly any advantages over the Bauhaus-styled angular KEF R3 (non/meta).

Tl;dr: the Genelec is a safe bet, virtually perfect, but there's competition with equivalent capabilities for actual music playback.

 

[kyuu]

That is not a bass shelf!

Okay.

 

[Marin]

Okay.

No hard feelings, my friend.
There is so much speculation, fabrication in the audio world.
I also fell for that story, but after some thought and confirmation from Elac for debut tower that also has that "shelf"on Erin measurements, and not on Amirm,I see that this not possible, because if one person put 1 feet distance, and the other 2 than beginning of shelf whoud need to start at different locations....
Cheers and enjoy in the good sound!

 

[dfuller]

That is not a bass shelf!
And where do you see the shelf?

It is. That port alignment on the Salon2 (and a bunch of Kefs etc) is called an Extended Bass Shelf.

 

[Heinrich]

It is. That port alignment on the Salon2 (and a bunch of Kefs etc) is called an Extended Bass Shelf.

Extended Bass Shelf, those words are just snapshots from the past, when filter theory circulated around Butterwoth and alike. What we still have today is the need for a bass alignment. What is done with simulations for tuning is to optimize the composition of the bass driver’s excursion capacity, together with the chuffing limit of the bass reflex port, the enclosure volume, the amplifier power and the extension dictated by the tuning frequency considering a limiter / steep subsonic cut-off.

The frequency response is adjusted using an equalizer—tailored to the room. I’m surprised that, given such a high-quality, expensively designed loudspeaker, this isn’t simply taken as a unquestionable given. Debating a non-issue.

 

[dfuller]

Extended Bass Shelf, those words are just snapshots from the past, when filter theory circulated around Butterwoth and alike. What we still have today is the need for a bass alignment. What is done with simulations for tuning is to optimize the composition of the bass driver’s excursion capacity, together with the chuffing limit of the bass reflex port, the enclosure volume, the amplifier power and the extension dictated by the tuning frequency considering a limiter / steep subsonic cut-off.

The frequency response is adjusted using an equalizer—tailored to the room. I’m surprised that, given such a high-quality, expensively designed loudspeaker, this isn’t simply taken as a unquestionable given. Debating a non-issue.

This is word salad.

 

[Heinrich]

This is word salad.

I wanted to illustrate to what extent the term “extended bass shelf” no longer makes sense today. Loudspeakers are designed so that the maxima of limiting factors, as listed, are exploited as fully as possible. The frequency response according to filter theory is secondary, because it is determined by the room and adjusted with an equalizer. The term “extended bass shelf” refers to an alleged deviation from classical filter theory, whereas today such deviation is the rule.

Apologies, I had addressed the comment to a technically versed readership. That was, of course, illogical, because I actually wanted to explain something from an engineer’s perspective to a less experienced audience. If presented to an LLM, the comment would be judged as excessively dense, but entirely correct in content and overall logically structured. But that is not a standard, you are right.

Sorry

 

[Marin]

I wanted to illustrate to what extent the term “extended bass shelf” no longer makes sense today. so that the maxima of limiting factors, as listed, are exploited as fully as possible. The frequency response according to filter theory is secondary, because it is determined by the room and adjusted with an equalizer. The term “extended bass shelf” refers to an alleged deviation from classical filter theory, whereas today such deviation is the rule.

Apologies, I had addressed the comment to a technically versed readership. That was, of course, illogical, because I actually wanted to explain something from an engineer’s perspective to a less experienced audience. If presented to an LLM, the comment would be judged as excessively dense, but entirely correct in content and overall logically structured. But that is not a standard, you are right.

Sorry

All I'm saying is that 98% speakers are designed to be place as much as you can (1 to 3 feet) from front wall.
In my Elac tower manual also said that the distance from the front and side should not be equals because of cancelation.
Aso I found that SBIR of 45-50 centimeters from front baffle to the front wall will boost region of 50 Hertz.