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Genelec 8361A Review (Powered Monitor)

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 6 0.9%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 4 0.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 28 4.1%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 638 94.4%

  • Total voters
    676

dfuller

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How does it makes sense that the ATC SCM100 has a 12 inch, and is gigantic and weights about double the 8361A but is close in specs?
View attachment 169958
Simple: ATCs are not particularly known for their bass extension. This is intentional, their ports are designed more to reduce excursion than to extend linear response.
You can't compare specs between manufacturers, for one thing. For two things, buy them and send to Amir so we can MAFO(measure and find out). :)

Thirdly, the bass amplifier on that ATC is only 200W. That's not a lot especially for a 12", KH420 is only 10" of normal-ish design and it's got 300W. Seems a bit odd the driver can't handle more power but that may be related.
It's an old school discrete AB amp that has to fit in a smallish "amp pack" with two other separate amps. Probably just isn't space for more transistors. The bass driver can handle more power, up to 300 watts.

The KH420 uses I think 4 TDA7293s in BTL for the woofer, fwiw.
 
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preload

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Toole tells us that a well-managed traditional living room can be a good room.
I hope you understand that Toole is speaking in correlations, not absolutes. He is also providing plain-language summaries in this thread.
 

preload

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Why do people keep giving credence to sighted listening reports?!?! :facepalm:
Simply because at the end of the day, the science and understanding of how measurements correlate with perceived sound quality is not complete. The gold standard for each individual is what sounds best to him/her. If the measurement seem to suggest Speaker A will sound better than Speaker B, but it doesn't, what are you expecting the end listener to say? "I will keep Speaker A even thought it doesn't sound as good to me because the people on ASR say it's supposed to sound better?"
 

Newman

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I wouldn't mind a plain-language summary of what "speaking in correlations" means. ;)
 

preload

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Since Floyd Toole said, in this thread just recently, that Olive’s recent work persuasively shows that the most preferred headphones are the ones that sound most like good speakers in a good room, and the Genelec’s measurements are sure to qualify them as good speakers, your comment above can only be explained in ways that you didn’t intend:-
  • Your room is not a good room
  • Your sighted listening reports are useless to anyone reading them
The second one can be taken as a given, making the first one moot, but also entirely possible.
I'm actually not the first person to point out that violins don't sound great on the Genelecs. You are more than welcome to disregard any sighted listening tests you read anywhere, and that's your business. And you absolutely cannot draw the conclusions you're trying to draw from Toole's comments, sorry to be the one to point it out.
 

Newman

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Simply because at the end of the day, the science and understanding of how measurements correlate with perceived sound quality is not complete. The gold standard for each individual is what sounds best to him/her. If the measurement seem to suggest Speaker A will sound better than Speaker B, but it doesn't, what are you expecting the end listener to say? "I will keep Speaker A even thought it doesn't sound as good to me because the people on ASR say it's supposed to sound better?"
You are confusing sighted and controlled listening conditions. In controlled listening conditions, your hypothetical is extremely rare. In sighted listening conditions, it is extremely common.

You misunderstood the entire point of my comment, repeated here:-
Why do people keep giving credence to sighted listening reports?!?! :facepalm:

I have no issue with people going by their own sighted listening impressions. It is your imagination, run with it! I have said so, many times. But I have issue with people giving credence to the sighted listening reports of others.

To quote someone you would respect, "sorry to be the one to point that out". ;)

cheers
 
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preload

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I wouldn't mind a plain-language summary of what "speaking in correlations" means. ;)

You can start by reading the JAES papers from the Harman group, specifically any of the studies involving human subjects and blind listening.

You are confusing sighted and controlled listening conditions. In controlled listening conditions, your hypothetical is extremely rare. In sighted listening conditions, it is extremely common.
[/QUOTE]

We all recognize the existence of bias when listening. Thing is, when listening to transducers, the actual audible difference are large, relative to the contribution of internal bias. It's different from listening to SOTA devices, like DACS, where the actual audible differences are miniscule or non-existence. I could understand why you might want to disregard sighted listening tests when it comes to SOTA electronics. But that does not necessarily carry over to speakers and headphones.

I have no issue with people going by their own sighted listening impressions. It is your imagination, run with it! I have said so, many times. But I have issue with people giving credence to the listening reports of others.

cheers
That's your business.
The ability of measurements to explain differences in sound quality perceptions of speakers is good but not perfect - and that's with computerized analysis. The ability of an ASR member to eyeball a series of speaker measurements and predict how it will sound - probably "just okay." This is why I want to hear about the subjective impressions of others. When multiple individuals independently express the same listening observation, it's very possible that it's true.
 

Newman

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It has all been done and it is indeed true.
 

Pearljam5000

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I'm actually not the first person to point out that violins don't sound great on the Genelecs. You are more than welcome to disregard any sighted listening tests you read anywhere, and that's your business. And you absolutely cannot draw the conclusions you're trying to draw from Toole's comments, sorry to be the one to point it out.
If violins sound off, than many other sounds on them must be off to you as well.
Maybe their tonality is just not for you.
 

Mnyb

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You can start by reading the JAES papers from the Harman group, specifically any of the studies involving human subjects and blind listening.

We all recognize the existence of bias when listening. Thing is, when listening to transducers, the actual audible difference are large, relative to the contribution of internal bias. It's different from listening to SOTA devices, like DACS, where the actual audible differences are miniscule or non-existence. I could understand why you might want to disregard sighted listening tests when it comes to SOTA electronics. But that does not necessarily carry over to speakers and headphones.


That's your business.
The ability of measurements to explain differences in sound quality perceptions of speakers is good but not perfect - and that's with computerized analysis. The ability of an ASR member to eyeball a series of speaker measurements and predict how it will sound - probably "just okay." This is why I want to hear about the subjective impressions of others. When multiple individuals independently express the same listening observation, it's very possible that it's true.
[/QUOTE]

I understand that one migth think with such obviusly non perfect products like speakers bias would be a smaller factor.
But what ive read about the actual test done , its a huge factor . Tooles book is full of such tests.
Nowadays speakers are better and also more similar between brands as they adhere to the same science . Much of the weirdnes seems of the past seems to abandoned in “normal” speaker brands . Some Uber expensive high brands still do very odd things.


If violins sound off, than many other sounds on them must be off to you as well.
Maybe their tonality is just not for you.

I think this is odd for another reason . Yes many others sounds would be equally coloured . It would even be beyond the power of DSP to single out a particular instrument and distort that ?

It’s similar to folks claiming soundstage differences in DAC’s the device does not contain any mechanism that can do that ?
 
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preload

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If violins sound off, than many other sounds on them must be off to you as well.
Maybe their tonality is just not for you.
It's not the tonality. It's the resolution and realism of the reproduction.
It's very common here to attack the listeners as somehow "flawed" when they do not hear what you think the measurements say they should hear. The reality, if you're not blinded by group think, is:

A) even Harman's own studies demonstrate that measurements do not come close to predicting all the variation in blind listening preferences
B) the group think here doesn't understand Harman's research as well as it thinks it does (but is very good at perpetuating myths)
C) there IS human variation in preferences, even when excluding listeners with hearing loss.

But it's much easier to assume that someone is an idiot with flawed hearing than to question your own understanding about measurements, your ability to interpret them, and how predictive they truly are.
 
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RobL

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It's not the tonality. It's the resolution and realism of the reproduction.
It's very common here to attack the listeners as somehow "flawed" when they do not hear what you think the measurements say they should hear. The reality, if you're not blinded by group think, is:

A) even Harman's own studies demonstrate that measurements do not come close to predicting all the variation in blind listening preferences
B) the group think here doesn't understand Harman's research as well as it thinks it does (but is very good at perpetuating myths)
C) there IS human variation in preferences, even when excluding listeners with hearing loss.

But it's much easier to assume that someone is an idiot with flawed hearing than to question your own understanding about measurements, your ability to interpret them, and how predictive they truly are.
Do they sound strident to you on the Genelecs? I see the mid/tweeter crossover is at 2800hz…right in the middle of the violins upper register.
 

maverickronin

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A) even Harman's own studies demonstrate that measurements do not come close to predicting all the variation in blind listening preferences
B) the group think here doesn't understand Harman's research as well as it thinks it does (but is very good at perpetuating myths)
C) there IS human variation in preferences, even when excluding listeners with hearing loss.

All those points are non-sequiturs. How is the reproduction of a single instrument problematic without affecting any other instruments which overlap its range?

That's a completely different question from whether measurements can predict preferences and how much preferences may or may not vary between different people.
 

Pearljam5000

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It's not the tonality. It's the resolution and realism of the reproduction.
It's very common here to attack the listeners as somehow "flawed" when they do not hear what you think the measurements say they should hear. The reality, if you're not blinded by group think, is:

A) even Harman's own studies demonstrate that measurements do not come close to predicting all the variation in blind listening preferences
B) the group think here doesn't understand Harman's research as well as it thinks it does (but is very good at perpetuating myths)
C) there IS human variation in preferences, even when excluding listeners with hearing loss.

But it's much easier to assume that someone is an idiot with flawed hearing than to question your own understanding about measurements, your ability to interpret them, and how predictive they truly are.
I wasn't even talking about the measurements or if someone is an idiot
Basically every speaker has its own unique tonality, and maybeb Genelecs just aren't for you.
Maybe you'll Ike ATCs more
Honestly i don't understand your comment at all.
 

preload

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All those points are non-sequiturs. How is the reproduction of a single instrument problematic without affecting any other instruments which overlap its range?

That's a completely different question from whether measurements can predict preferences and how much preferences may or may not vary between different people.
They are only non-sequiturs if you don't understand the logical argument - and you clearly are jumping in without following. My point is, despite having what people seem to think are "perfect measurements," the Genelecs cannot possibly be the pinnacle of sound quality for every person for every recording.
 

preload

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I wasn't even talking about the measurements or if someone is an idiot
Basically every speaker has its own unique tonality, and maybeb Genelecs just aren't for you.
Maybe you'll Ike ATCs more
Honestly i don't understand your comment at all.
Not you. Just the general sentiment whenever a speaker that measures "perfectly" isn't perceived as perfect by people who actually listen to it - that it must be something different/wrong about the listener.
 

tmtomh

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It's not the tonality. It's the resolution and realism of the reproduction.
It's very common here to attack the listeners as somehow "flawed" when they do not hear what you think the measurements say they should hear. The reality, if you're not blinded by group think, is:

A) even Harman's own studies demonstrate that measurements do not come close to predicting all the variation in blind listening preferences
B) the group think here doesn't understand Harman's research as well as it thinks it does (but is very good at perpetuating myths)
C) there IS human variation in preferences, even when excluding listeners with hearing loss.

But it's much easier to assume that someone is an idiot with flawed hearing than to question your own understanding about measurements, your ability to interpret them, and how predictive they truly are.

I think one difficulty here is that you need to propose some logical explanation for how "resolution and realism" are based on something other than a speaker's tonality (frequency response), dispersion characteristics/directivity, and distortion performance.

As for the "group think here" not fully understanding Harman's research, that might be true of many of us - including you - but Floyd Toole himself has posted here quite recently explaining what the research found and didn't find, and how it did so, and has effectively debunked many of the claims made about the limitations of that research.

That said, I certainly agree with you that different people have different preferences - it's a big world with lots of people so yes, of course. But the Harman research showed that for the most part people's preferences are surprisingly consistent, across geography/culture, age range, and listening expertise or lack thereof.

But again, the main issue here is not the Harman research: it's your invocation of the ill-defined notions of resolution and realism.
 

waldo2

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Life is complicated. Imagine deciding what wine to drink based on chemical analysis formulated by someone trying to sell wine and ignoring your own taste or the taste of experts who have spent their lives learning what good wine is.

I had these speakers in my room for about 2 weeks. I know they measure well. I also know I did not like them on most classical music recordings, especially strings And piano. Apparently I’m not alone in that. Who here has actually listened to acoustic (including violin and piano) music on theses speakers?

Maybe the problem is that the recordings we have of classical music are bright and too close and the speakers were just revealing that. But those are the recordings we have. Should I have put on the hair shirt and suffered with the speakers because the measurements of the day tell me they must be great? The speakers are hugely impressive (crystal clear with excellent bass), but I’m happy to be rid of them. Does evaluating speakers by actually listening to music mean so little here that spinorama trumps experience? I’ll have a bottle of that 63 Lafite please. You guys can drink the kool-aid.
 

Pdxwayne

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Since this is active speaker, would it make sense to check multitones performance?
 
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