Genelec W371A + The Ones : My quest for the Grail is over

[Purité Audio]

Stereophile, our own Napier and Erin have also measured the 8Cs, right appointment booked with the W371’s
What should I be asking, what would you like to know?
Keith

 

[richard12511]

Sorry to break the mood. The 8Cs measured with professionalism

https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...&catid=77:loudspeaker-measurements&Itemid=153

Those measurements look fantastic. Note that soundstage measurements are not accurate below 100Hz.

For even better(more complete and presented better) measurements, see Erin's review.

 

[spacevector]

What should I be asking, what would you like to know?

Dealer pricing on the speakers and how to avail of it please.

 

[Purité Audio]

That’s easy you start a company and become a hi-fi retailer, I would not advise this course of action based on my own experience.
Keith

 

[richard12511]

Stereophile, our own Napier and Erin have also measured the 8Cs, right appointment booked with the W371’s
What should I be asking, what would you like to know?
Keith

Is this going to be a test of the W371 + 8351(or other Ones)? or just a test of the W371 on its own?

I'm curious about what the dispersion of the complete system(Ones in horizontal orientation sitting on top) looks like from 100-500Hz. Would be great to see in room measurements of 8351 vs 8351 + W371. I'm also curious how well the complimentary mode is able to mitigate room issues.

 

[Purité Audio]

Richard I imagine and hope they have a suitable ‘one’ atop of each 371, I want to see/hear how effective the various options are.
Placement close to walls works for most domestic users, releases some of the room etc etc, full-range cardioid uses a lot of real estate/headroom.
How effective is the cancellation, better than cabs/sink source, PSI’s traps etc, I can see the advantage in studios where speakers might have to be pulled away from the front wall.
Keith

 

[fluid]

I loved how you broke apart several different aspects of preference and showed the differences for each. Also interesting to me is that the test was done in stereo, and many of the benefits of the narrower LF dispersion showed in the perception of the phantom stereo image.

Just to be clear the thesis is not mine, I was just aware of it's applicability to your question

 

[Frank Dernie]

Appointment to hear these at the London Gen UK ( Wells Street )centre initiated.
I would really like to take my mic and laptop, it would be really interesting to have some real room comparative measurements.
Keith

Perhaps they will demo the GLM software too and part of that will give room compensation and the various choices. It looks like you can get whatever FR you want in GLM. Some people complain about the default, such as it is, being a bit bright but I am sure they will show you! I think they give the possibility for the user to adjust to taste rather than impose the FR.

You can also choose cardioid or even FR I believe. In fact I can't imagine a demo of this system without experiencing what GLM can do with it would be much point.

I would like to just hear them and the Geithain 901 at the same time in the same room

 

[Tovarich007]

To start, just go look at the specs and info on Genelec’s website: https://www.genelec.com/w371a

The W371A is not marketed as a subwoofer; they call it a “woofer system” that achieves (cardioid) directional bass via two opposed bass drivers (one facing forward on the top, and one backward on the bottom of the rear). These two (sub?)woofers do not play the same signal, but the back woofer will be playing a DSP processed derivative which when combining in the room with the pressure waves from the front woofer, forms a directional beam of bass pointing forward. That controlled directivity is what is special about this — because this is in contrast to the omnidirectional sound that most “traditional” subwoofers have, which also has the notorious problems with interacting with room modes, making it nearly impossible to achieve perfect bass for more than one or two carefully tuned precise listening positions.

The Genelec W371A claims to solve the notorious room interaction issues that subs have, achieving a far more consistent sound throughout the room which I also expect may have a far more preferable subjective quality as well due to the narrower directivity causing the pressure waves to be more frontal and consistently distributed across the listeners body when feeling the tactile sensation of bass.

This Genelec W371A bass system is certainly excellent, though way too expensive, but I completely disagree with the term "cardioid" used to describe his functionnality. By physics, cardioid sound directivity cannot be achieved in the bass region, whose directivity is very large (fully omnidirectionnal at 20/30 hz or so, and still very large up to about 150 Hz. So I consider this is an abuse of terminology for speaker makers like Kii or D&D to use the term "cardioid". I notice by the way that Genelec doesn't use this term for his W371A, which is far more honest.

As for the W371A effect, I prefer to use the expression of "a controlled bass diffusion (in room)", instead of "bass directivity" (these are two different acoustic notions). The kind of double diffusion digitally phase and frequency controlled sub system, to sum up what is basically a W371A, is certainly efficient to a certain extent, probably more in the 60/150 hz region than below, where full omnidirectinnal bass waves don't let much way of controlling their diffusion, but using room treatment or digital room compensation the likes of Trinnov or Dirac pro.

Anyway, considering his specs published by Genelec, this full range high-SPL and dynamics system seems to be intended for relatively large rooms and main monitoring. Not sure it won't be a bit overwhelming in midsize room like Bernard's one.

As I told Bernard, it's one thing to be "blown away" during a short auditionning in an acoustically treated room, and another one to live a long time with such a system at relatively low or moderate SPLs. Sure this system must be and sound excellent, but it remains too expensive for amateur music lovers and too large for a small or middle size room, IMHO.

Anyway, I will soon listen to this system with Bernard in the Chopin Center in Paris to make my own statement and I'll feedback my impressions in this forum.

 

[MarsianC#]

By physics, cardioid sound directivity cannot be achieved in the bass region

And that law is called? I agree with you for very low frequencies, it is hard to achive with small speakers, but it is NOT impossible because physics says so. In PA it is very common to use woofer stacks to shape directity. Nice collection in german to be found here.

 

[Purité Audio]

Kii and D&Ds cardioid is through the midrange, unless you add the BXT modules to the THRees of course, Geithain have cardioid bass.
Keith

 

[Frank Dernie]

I completely disagree with the term "cardioid" used to describe his functionnality. By physics, cardioid sound directivity cannot be achieved in the bass region,

https://www.me-geithain.de/en/rl-901k2.html
Look at the polars under acoustic diagrams, still Cardioid at 32Hz.
They have been doing it for many years using cancellation.
I am pretty sure that is what Genelec do too using out of phase radiation from the rear driver to achieve the cancellation.

 

[Purité Audio]

Wednesday 10.00, if anyone has any questions..
I will ask for measurements of the mains alone and then in conjunction with the various modes, they may agree.
Keith

 

[nai]

one + w371 and 8c cardioid difference is very big, w371 brings 4 low-frequency units, 20 ~ 300hz, after dsp calculation, almost completely flat curve and sound, cardioid only improve 100 ~ 300hz sbir, below 100hz is no help, far from doing the level of w371.
You can see my test specifically
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...elec-8361-w371-evolution-or-revolution.14410/

 

[nai]

one+w371 shows more of 23~300hz, w371's 4 low frequency units bring array speaker characteristics(like as subwoofer array ), rather than the cardioid characteristics

 

[richard12511]

one + w371 and 8c cardioid difference is very big, w371 brings 4 low-frequency units, 20 ~ 300hz, after dsp calculation, almost completely flat curve and sound, cardioid only improve 100 ~ 300hz sbir, below 100hz is no help, far from doing the level of w371.
You can see my test specifically
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...elec-8361-w371-evolution-or-revolution.14410/

I think I agree with you that the cardioid in the low bass is not really a thing in small room(home) listening. I'd rather have extra power and efficiency below 100Hz, like the 8C does(Kii does cardioid down to 50 same as the W371). Note though that the W371 does have another "complimentary" mode that seems to forgo the low bass directivity and uses the two woofers to smooth out the steady state response.

 

[richard12511]

Wednesday 10.00, if anyone has any questions..
I will ask for measurements of the mains alone and then in conjunction with the various modes, they may agree.
Keith

How was it? Would be really cool if you also sold Ones + W371. I think it would fit well with your objectively SOTA lineup.

 

[nai]

I think I agree with you that the cardioid in the low bass is not really a thing in small room(home) listening. I'd rather have extra power and efficiency below 100Hz, like the 8C does(Kii does cardioid down to 50 same as the W371). Note though that the W371 does have another "complimentary" mode that seems to forgo the low bass directivity and uses the two woofers to smooth out the steady state response.

w371 has 5 modes, the most common mode is to use 4 low-frequency units to smooth 23 ~ 300hz, to obtain a flat curve in this range, like as multi-sub

 

[Frank Dernie]

How was it? Would be really cool if you also sold Ones + W371. I think it would fit well with your objectively SOTA lineup.

It is 9.58 in the UK on Wednesday now, so your question is premature

 

[Purité Audio]

Only a week premature though.
Keith