As I noted in an earlier post on this thread, I have been listening to the 8361s in my room for about a week now. I am definitely not keeping them. Aslo, as noted earlier, I listen primarily to classical music. I am an amateur musician having played in orchestras and chamber groups and also luckily part of a musical family. We have violins, cellos and a piano in the house. I have attended classical music concerts on a regular basis since I was a child. I understand that for many of you here, this is irrelevant, subjective information that gets in the way of appreciating the measurements. I read In this thread somewhere that old people will reject accurate speakers because we (I am in my 50s) are so used to colored sound that neutrality will sound bad. I reject that condescending view. I have listened to and played classical music for decades. I know what a violin sounds like. I have also listened to classical recordings since I was a child. I do not consider myself an audiophile, but have always recognized the importance of audio equipment. I do not need to be told that most classical recordings are poorly engineered. As you might imagine, I know what records I think are beautiful and realistic.
The 8361 before correction with glm was bright, harsh, and synthetic. The sound of a violin is, in my view, one of the most beautiful sounds. I found violins and pianos on the 8361 to actually sound ugly and irritating. Like listening to a child practice violin in a small room. After correction, the bass was definitely improved, but the treble was even worse. So, I knocked down the treble levels. This helped, but still the instruments sounded synthetic and unmusical. It may have something to do with the waveguide dispersion, but I really have no idea. i can say with a fair bit of confidence that many if, not most serious acoustic music listeners, will have trouble with this speaker. The bass is, to be fair, very nice. Cellos and lower notes on pianos were fine. The very low notes were excellent, but from upper mid range on up, I think the speakers are not accurate reproducers of the sound of acoustic instruments to anyrhing approaching the level of bbc style monitors or quad esl speakers.
Anyway, I understand that many here will reject my dislike of the speaker as mere subjectivism. I think there is much confusion about what science is floating around our culture. Observation and description are as important to understanding as measurement and engineering. Robust measurements of speakers are undoubtedly important and even necessary for judging speakers, but it is not sufficient. For too long mainstream audio magazines have relied only on listener reaction. They have pushed snake oil that ASR rightly rejects. Engineering is obviously essential, but it must be combined careful listening by people with knowledge of music. I see very little of that at ASR. How often are pianos, cellos or clarinets mentioned here? As I understand it, Amir’s “subjective” review was based only on listening to one speaker. If that is so, then I think he would be better off just giving us the measurements without trying to tell us if the speaker is good. Does anyone here even listen to classical music or attend classical concerts on a regular basis? Ok, enough, I know. I just wanted to record my observations about my experience with these speakers with classical music. in Sum, I found the speakers to be somewhat shrill and artificial sounding; strings didn’t sound like they do in real life, even on recordings that do much better on other speakers. They will play very, very loud and the bass is great. “There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.