New Genelec 8380 main monitors

[Moti]

^this is interesting topic. When you loose highs with age, is your brain compensating it and your hearing is better in other areas?

 

[feitaishi]

ChatGPT said:

• You don’t gain sensitivity in other frequencies.
• Your brain becomes more resourceful at interpreting incomplete sound information.
• This “compensation” relies more on cognition than on improved raw hearing ability.

 

[sigbergaudio]

^this is interesting topic. When you loose highs with age, is your brain compensating it and your hearing is better in other areas?

To begin with you mostly lose the very high frequencies (beyond 10k), which is an exaggerated problem, there's not much music content there anyway.

But in the end when it becomes so bad you have to talk louder when you sit next to someone for them to even hear what you're saying, I would suggest their ability to hear the finer details in music is lost as well.

I accompanied my old aunt (may she rest in peace) to the hearing doctor at one point, and her loss was something like 40dB(!). It was comparable to having ear protection like the ones below on at all times. If we had her over for dinner she basically couldn't hear anything anyone were saying.

 

[stoneeh]

Hehe yeah @sigbergaudio . I performed a impromptu hearing test (just sines) on my dad some day. He's over 80 and has worked with machines a lot in his life. He tapped out around 7 kHz!! Quite ridiculous. I'm in my 40s btw and can still hear to the same ~14,5k I used to in school, and am also quite sensitive to quiet sounds, so despite having listened to a lot of loud music in my life, though always respecting a few simple rules like "stop when it gets painful", hearing loss hasn't caught me yet.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

ChatGPT said:

• You don’t gain sensitivity in other frequencies.
• Your brain becomes more resourceful at interpreting incomplete sound information.
• This “compensation” relies more on cognition than on improved raw hearing ability.

lol no, you just get worse at hearing (and should also get correspondingly humbler about it, but not everyone gains wisdom with age).

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I accompanied my old aunt (may she rest in peace) to the hearing doctor at one point, and her loss was something like 40dB(!)

The average hearing loss for someone Uchinuma's age is around 39dB(!)

 

[kendall]

12 years!!! Still, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Well in that time I was busy building an AI company so I'll take the win of eventuality over the loss of quitting any day!

 

[Pearljam5000]

Same setup but with 8380 instead of 1238(not soffit mounted)
How critical would be the diffraction?

 

[welwynnick]

Nice to see Genelec moving to coaxial designs also in their more affordable main monitors, reducing the radiation/directivity issues their older conventional ones had.
Some more measurements from its owner manual which show its qualities:
View attachment 479737

Following what Neumann have been doing, Genelec latched onto the significance of time / phase / group delay audibility after they got involved in research a few years ago into Audibility of Group-Delay Equalization by Aalto University, Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics. Since then, they've been introducing speakers with switchable "Extended Phase Linearization".

The advantage of this is much better time domain response, and the 8380 looks like their most successful venture yet. The phase response is held to within +/-45deg right down to 100Hz. Fantastic. Notwithstanding the grunt and the directivity refinement, I think these things will image like electrostatics.

I always thought the 1237 and 1238 were too often overlooked. This sounds bang up to date, and even the price is reasonable.

 

[Behrelec 37]

The Masters series is a dream come true for many bachelors and family men when it comes to listening to music, provided that the room allows for it.

I am very satisfied myself, and now that I have finally acquired the Genelec 7380a subwoofer, with AES/EBU digital cables, I can hear everything louder, just like with many smaller 83XX series. There is not the slightest crackle or disturbance in the stereo sound. Just pure, beautiful sound art created with a broad brush. Glm- is what makes the sound beautiful and velvety majestic with fine adjustments. And I can say with confidence that it works convincingly with every genre of music that humans have created in every country.

If you want something better, you need to know more precisely what the difference ratio is. For many people, this master series is already sufficient for enjoying music or other audio content.

The only downside is the size of the speakers or their black appearance. I understand very well that such high-end monitors are not very well accepted in many homes, even though the sound is pure 24-karat gold every single day.

 

[patoulol]

A day of testing and listening in Paris, in a permanent Genelec showroom

 

[Pearljam5000]

A day of testing and listening in Paris, in a permanent Genelec showroom

View attachment 496469View attachment 496470View attachment 496471

How did the 8380 compared with the 8361+W371?

 

[patoulol]

-W371A clearly faster and more articulated .
The 8380A is a bit more “round” deeper and more impactful at the plexus
-Imaging: 8361A slightly wider sweet spot and sweeter off-axis; 8380A a touch more “in-your-face” but razor-sharp.

 

[welwynnick]

-W371A clearly faster and more articulated .
The 8380A is a bit more “round”.
-Imaging: 8361A slightly wider sweet spot and sweeter off-axis; 8380A a touch more “in-your-face” but razor-sharp.

Thanks.
Was the demo done using GLM?
Did you have extended phase linearization switched on?
Cheers,

 

[patoulol]

With and without GLM
Yes, of course, with the extended phase linearization

I also own a The One series car at home.

 

[Pearljam5000]

8380 is $10K less than W371 +8361
So I still think that they're a good value
Obviously if budget is unlimited I'd go with W371+8361

 

[welwynnick]

8380 is $10K less than W371 +8361
So I still think that they're a good value
Obviously if budget is unlimited I'd go with W371+8361

Agreed. Or a W371 + 8341. The extra 8361 bass isn't needed when paired with the W371, and the 8341 & 8351 MF & HF amps are the same power as the 8361.
The real reason for this post, though, is the size of the voice coil on that 8380 15" bass driver, compared with the mid driver.
I can't help wondering if Genelec could beat Kef at their own game and develop a three way concentric driver, with the HF in the centre of the MF in the centre of the LF?

 

[Behrelec 37]

Genelec is superior in terms of balancing glm settings Hz/Q/Gain joint editing customization options compared to even the most expensive models in the passive KEF series.

Many people don't realize what a monster machine they are working with now. Glm- is a BIG, sharp-toothed PREDATOR that turns a chameleon into an effective predator with many different colors and many different blends for different types of room environments.

Most of you enthusiasts, even studio workers, have only heard a few nice sounds from these, but I would argue that once you have heard dozens of different sound patterns, modified with completely different settings, only then will you understand the potential and benefits of these speakers much better.

Keff and other passive series speakers are more susceptible to the various effects of the room and have to resort to competitors' room calibration solutions, which are more general than glm software. This GLM is integrated into each speaker separately at the factory. It has a significant synergy advantage.


8361a and w371a. Unfortunately, these models tend to run out of steam quickly, which means they are not suitable for louder listening when you want to get the most out of your music. If you are a true hi-fi enthusiast or own a larger studio, it is worth buying a Genelec subwoofer for each of these models, as it significantly increases the stereo sound in your room and evens out the sensitivity/sound structure in the midrange even more effortlessly than without a subwoofer. This rule also applies to the older Master series and the newer 8381a series. It definitely needs a subwoofer so you can enjoy it longer with a smile on your face.

 

[Sinad O'connor]

It seems that Genelec is going towards slightly rising DI on their latest models (8380 below and also 8381)

Compared to a more flat DI on the older ones (8361 below)

Have you seen any explanation as to why?

Constant directivity and thus having the reflections with the same frequency response as the direct sound makes more sense to me than having the reflections with less high frequency than the direct sound.
It seems nevertheless that the DI on the new models is more smooth/regular than on the older ones (with dips around 1k and 8k). There might be some value in it?

 

[Sinad O'connor]

To ttry to answer my own question, Earl Geddes, who doesn't seem to be a member here, wrote this on diyaudio.com

Only once did I ever deviate from the "ideal" and that was to lower the HFs a few dB because I came to realize that CD puts way more HF energy into the room than normal and that makes the speakers sound bright