Story for minuscule reproduction earlier. This is excellent playing, just difficult to listen to on 8361
Mozart: String Quartets dedicated to Joseph Haydn
Cuarteto CasalsHMC902186
I don't have access to that album on Tidal, but I do have K421 from the same series:
View attachment 167040
I listened to track 3 (Menuetto - Trio. Allegretto) on several different set ups just now. Your observation was confirmed.
Best:
DCA Stealth
Pretty Good:
Senn HD800SDR
Denon D9200
Not bad:
B&W 802D - living room
Just okay:
Genelec 8351B (worst of the 4) - office
The violin on the Genelecs was simply lacking the detail and realism of the others. The term "slightly muffled" comes to mind.
Have a chance to do this yet?
Ok, so I've listened to the same track in the following configurations (all full range, no sub or crossover):
(1) Genelec 8361A x2: calibrated via GLM with my preferred tuning [*]
(2) Genelec 8361A x3 + 8351B x2 : calibrated via GLM with my preferred tuning [*] : upmixed via my Denon's "Dolby Surround" mode
(3) JBL 705P x2 : uncalibrated direct digital SPDIF input with no DSP room correction applied (in another room)
(4) Sennheiser HD650 : uncalibrated (USB -> Topping DX7 Pro -> Topping A30 Pro)
(5) Sennheiser HD800S : calibrated to the Harman target curve via Oratory's filters, derived from ASR HD800S measurements
(6) Sennheiser HD800S : uncalibrated i.e. equalizer filters all turned off
[*] My Genelecs in this case were tuned with exactly +3.0db @100hz low shelf filter and -2.0db @1000hz high shelf filter via the GLM "Sound Character Profiler" menu, which is applied on top of the GLM room correction filters. I always apply this kind of tuning to my Genelec's (and leave it tuned as such for all content), since it gives an overall sound signature I quite like (at least in most average rooms I've tested).
In
all configurations (1-6), the entire album indeed sounds "slightly muffled" and "lacking realism".
System
(6) does stand out from the rest, in that the recording now not only sounds "slightly muffled" and "lacking realism", but
somehow also sounds unbearably piercing and bright, where some frequencies are still too recessed, even while other frequencies are now too bright
(spoiler alert: a telltale sign of poor recording/mixing/mastering). The harshness is no surprise here, since just about everything tends to sound horribly bright on a stock Sennheiser HD800/S (which is obvious if you look at its measurements). Overall, the experience of this track on stock HD800S is awful, unrealistic, and generally just sounds like the result of a very unnatural and uneven treble coloration in the recording. Yet at the same time, other frequencies still remain muffled even as my ears feel like they're about to start bleeding from the HD800S's untamed treble spikes.
I don't know about you, but I don't really need any more proof that
the problem here lies in this recording, not the Genelec (or JBL, etc.) speakers. It's also no big surprise that
this recording's poor quality is revealed on neutral speakers from other brands (JBL) just the same as it is with Genelec.
To my ears, this recording indeed sounds like one of those which was tuned to sound good on speakers with a particular kind of coloration / non-neutral frequency response. It's no surprise then if it sounds more natural on speakers with major coloration flaws which happen to be similar to the coloration flaws in speakers most likely used by the authors of the recording.
There are far, far better recordings out there that sound incredible on neutral speakers (including but not limited to Genelec). But of course, it's totally understandable that
a large portion of your music collection likely consists of similarly badly recorded music (mixed/mastered against a severely colored reference speaker) if you've selected that music using your similarly colored speakers!
This is known as "the circle of confusion" in music reproduction, and so this is not a surprise. But the problem being what it is, it's also understandable that you'd not want to change your entire music collection to fit your speakers (even though that's precisely what you have already done, whether you realize it or not -- just in your case for colored rather than neutral speakers).
There is an alternate (better) solution though: Learn how to use GLM software filter profiles so you can switch between a tonality similar to the coloration you're used to, and neutral, as needed.
P.S. Regarding
(1) vs (2) (stereo vs up-mixed surround Genelec's), there's no question that I prefer
(2) for almost every track with predominantly acoustic or real (non-electronic) instruments and voices. Now with the center channel 8361A back from its field trip to Amir's Klippel, the experience is even better in that the soundstage spatial realism is now much less sensitive about listening position variations. There are some tracks which do sound best with just front speakers enabled, but it's usually amplified or synthesized-style music with very intentional focused stereo soundstage effects. And of course with "spatial audio" (actual multichannel recordings), the multichannel reproduction is of course the best.