Genelec 8341A SAM™ Studio Monitor Review

[QMuse]

The more room sound you hear, including first reflections, the less detail you'll be able to resolve.

Is that a science based fact or is it your personal opinion? In case of former can you please throw a link or two supporting this?

Reflections are part of how we percieve sound in the room, important and necessary part. When somebody speaks to you in your room you also hear reflections and the sound of the person's vioce definitely changes to something "strange" once you hear it in anechoic chamber. Of course, many challenges lie there - not doing proepr room EQ, over dumping the room, too much room decay.. But none of these are the reason to think loudspeaker sounds best without refleciotns. Such statements I have heard only fromt he persons who never experienced anechoic chamber and have no clue how strange live human voice sounds there.

 

[tuga]

It also comes down to the convo that was happening at another point about what sounds "real" - how oftentimes that laserfocus precision you get in studios isn't actually what music sounds like at a live event. It's a cool effect but to my imo isn't necessarily realistic. But some people love that.

For me it's not so much the cool effect but the better distiction between the instrument melody lines that is important. This may not matter so much with a jazz trio but try a string quartet, a large choir or an orchestra.

Perhaps we can equate the side-wall generated room-interference in the midrange and treble to channel bleeding of crosstalk. Some people like more crosstalk than others, a few recordings actually benefit from crosstalk.

 

[tuga]

Is that a science based fact or is it your personal opinion? In case of former can you please throw a link or two supporting this?

Science based? How about a bit of logic?
You have a recorded signal that you wish to listen to. When you transduce that signal the room intereferes with it before it reaches your ears. That is called distortion.

Some people may like it, others, perhaps fewer. don't.
I wish people would stop calling research studies of listener preference science... They are merely opinion polls which were conducted in a scientific matter, that is all.

Reflections are part of how we percieve sound in the room, important and necessary part. When somebody speaks to you in your room you also hear reflections and the sound of the person's vioce definitely changes to something "strange" once you hear it in anechoic chamber. Of course, many challenges lie there - not doing proepr room EQ, over dumping the room, too much room decay.. But none of these are the reason to think loudspeaker sounds best without refleciotns. Such statements I have heard only fromt he persons who never experienced anechoic chamber and have no clue how strange live human voice sounds there.

People often confuse sound production with sound reproduction.

In a live event the venue creates those reflections and reverb, strong ones in a church, barely audible ones outdoors in a stadium.
In a studio production the space is embedded in the recording.

When listening at home you are overlapping the recorded ambience cues with the reflections and reverb of your room.

 

[TimVG]

When listening at home you are overlapping the recorded ambience cues with the reflections and reverb of your room.

The same thing happens during mixing and even mastering. Studios, even the highly treated ones, are no anechoic chambers. It is a rather pointless discussion with no asbolute truth as there are too many variables. Once you get a couple of basic things right in terms of loudspeaker performance and calibration, the differences in spatial presentation one gets with loudspeakers that have good, but different directivity properties, become much less important. Not saying you cannot have a preference or hold an ideal of what is right to you, but most people have much more serious problems when it comes to reproduction than this.

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

Is that a science based fact or is it your personal opinion? In case of former can you please throw a link or two supporting this?

Reflections are part of how we percieve sound in the room, important and necessary part. When somebody speaks to you in your room you also hear reflections and the sound of the person's vioce definitely changes to something "strange" once you hear it in anechoic chamber. Of course, many challenges lie there - not doing proepr room EQ, over dumping the room, too much room decay.. But none of these are the reason to think loudspeaker sounds best without refleciotns. Such statements I have heard only fromt he persons who never experienced anechoic chamber and have no clue how strange live human voice sounds there.

Why are you bringing up anechoic chambers? All you need to do is sit close to the speakers and away from early reflections. Otherwise too much proportion of comb filtering and room reverberation will hurt detail. Note that I am strictly talking about detail, not what sounds better.

 

[QMuse]

Why are you bringing up anechoic chambers? All you need to do is sit close to the speakers and away from early reflections. Otherwise too much proportion of comb filtering and room reverberation will hurt detail. Note that I am strictly talking about detail, not what sounds better.

Because only in anechoic chambers you don't hear any early (nor any other) reflections. If I wanted to listen to sound without reflections I would have purchased headphones.

Btw, how exactly do you define "detail" in terms of sound wave properties?

 

[QMuse]

Let me try to explain myself better. IMO opinion audiophilles often don't udnerstand that room and speakers are ONE acoustic system, in the very same way acoustic guitar housing and strings are. Trying to eliminate room from that equation is like playing electric guitar unplugged (hence no acoustic housing). Now, room has to work with loudspeakers, hence room treating and room EQ filters applied to speakers response helps a great deal to "tune" one to another, in the very same manner premium guitar housings are tuned to premium strings.

Also, as guitar housing affects the entire frequency spectrum of the strings it is the same with room affecting the speakers response. In LF that effect is huge an dominant, in MF (up to 600-900Hz) it is mild and above that limit it is only how much of the HF gets absorbed. Trying to eliminate reflections from the union of the room and the speakers is like trying to play electric guitar unplugged. What you should try, instead of been obsessed with direct sound stripped of any reflections, is tuning the room to the speakers (via room treatment, optimal speakers positioning), and speakers to the room (using room EQ) and enjoy the full sound of that unique union you just created, in the very same manner if you would have crafted your own acoustic guitar and strings. Or use headphones - they are made for enjoying in direct sound with no reflections. But trying to make speakers sound like headphones.. is there really a point in that?

 

[tuga]

Because only in anechoic chambers you don't hear any early (nor any other) reflections. If I wanted to listen to sound without reflections I would have purchased headphones.

Btw, how exactly do you define "detail" in terms of sound wave properties?

Direct vs. reflected sound?

Headphones have many problems.
The only advantage in my view is removing room interference/distortion from the equation.

 

[tuga]

The same thing happens during mixing and even mastering. Studios, even the highly treated ones, are no anechoic chambers. It is a rather pointless discussion with no asbolute truth as there are too many variables. Once you get a couple of basic things right in terms of loudspeaker performance and calibration, the differences in spatial presentation one gets with loudspeakers that have good, but different directivity properties, become much less important. Not saying you cannot have a preference or hold an ideal of what is right to you, but most people have much more serious problems when it comes to reproduction than this.

How low in level are first reflections when listening near- or even mid-field in treated control room?

In a large auditorium wall are designed to reflect sound towards the audience.

In a control room you want the opposite, a reflection free zone.

 

[TimVG]

How low in level are first reflections when listening near- or even mid-field in treated control room?

In a large auditorium wall are designed to reflect sound towards the audience.

In a control room you want the opposite, a reflection free zone.

It is not necessary to have a reflection free zone, although it can work well, especially in combination with speakers that have poor off-axis performance. Besides the biggest problem is often the large console(s) and/or desk(s) near the prime seat. Also, 99% of the home-playback will not happen in a custom built room designed to reflect away off-axis sound from the listener(s), luckily there a plenty of options, using good loudspeakers, multiple bass units that allow for an accurate representation of what is happening on a recording.

 

[tuga]

It is not necessary to have a reflection free zone, although it can work well, especially in combination with speakers that have poor off-axis performance. Besides the biggest problem is often the large console(s) and/or desk(s) near the prime seat.

Not necessary, just preferable.

Also, 99% of the home-playback will not happen in a custom built room designed to reflect away off-axis sound from the listener(s), luckily there a plenty of options, using good loudspeakers, multiple bass units that allow for an accurate representation of what is happening on a recording.

Directivity has little to do with bass and sub-bass so let's leave that aside for the purpose of this discussion.

But since you've mentioned it, why is it right to treat room-generated distortion in the bass but not above those frequencies?

Room-generated distortion from the mid-midrange upwards sounds nice to many people: it widens the soundstage, helps the speakers to "disapear" and increases the sense of spaciousness and even 3D-ness, a bit like the ghosting from the days of old over-the-air analogue TV broadcasting:

That doesn't make it right though.
Even if the research studies of listener preference conducted by a manufacturer which defends wide dispersion suggest that more people prefer more than less room interaction in the mid-mids and treble.

At home it is first and formemost a matter of taste, partly determined by the genres of music you listen to.
And since not many people treat the first-reflection areas in a family sitting room it is nice for those of us who do not enjoy distortion to have speakers with narrow dispersion.

 

[QMuse]

It is not necessary to have a reflection free zone, although it can work well, especially in combination with speakers that have poor off-axis performance. Besides the biggest problem is often the large console(s) and/or desk(s) near the prime seat. Also, 99% of the home-playback will not happen in a custom built room designed to reflect away off-axis sound from the listener(s), luckily there a plenty of options, using good loudspeakers, multiple bass units that allow for an accurate representation of what is happening on a recording.

IMO we should distinguish 2 different scenarios of using speakers: nearfield, when speakers are up to app 1.5m and farfield where the distance to LP is >2m. By the nature of the nearfield setup you will receive more direct sound and sweet spot will probably be narrow down to single seat. Farfield scenario, on the other hand requires different speakers which IMO should be able to spread sound wide in a linear fashion and be able to fill room with sound.

 

[tuga]

I once designed an academic lecture hall, back in the early 90s, assisted by an acoustics consultant.
I was stuck with the acoustically terrible cylindrical shape that was determined by the master plan and ended up with some large fins on the side walls, in order to deflect the sound towards the center-back seats which would otherwise be getting proportionally very little direct sound and too low in level.
It didn't look very nice then and it looks even worse now to be honest... Not my finest moment.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I once designed an academic lecture hall, back in the early 90s, assisted by an acoustics consultant.
I was stuck with the acoustically terrible cylindrical shape that was determined by the master plan and ended up with some large fins on the side walls, in order to deflect the sound towards the center-back seats which would otherwise be getting proportionally very little direct sound and too low in level.
It didn't look very nice then and it looks even worse now to be honest... Not my finest moment.

Um... I actually quite like the look of it

What do you mean by "cylindrical" shape? It looks rectangular in what little I can see in that picture.

 

[tuga]

Um... I actually quite like the look of it

What do you mean by "cylindrical" shape? It looks rectangular in what little I can see in that picture.

I no longer have the floor plan of the room, but this is was the masterplan (the hall is inside of the cylinder and has groundfloor level corridors running around it).

 

[andreasmaaan]

I no longer have the floor plan of the room, but this is was the masterplan (the hall is inside of the cylinder and has groundfloor level corridors running around it).

Now I see! Thanks.

 

[maverickronin]

It also comes down to the convo that was happening at another point about what sounds "real" - how oftentimes that laserfocus precision you get in studios isn't actually what music sounds like at a live event. It's a cool effect but to my imo isn't necessarily realistic. But some people love that.

I love the laser precision, but that probably depends on what your primary genre(s) is/are. If you primarily like acoustic genres and enjoy live events then you may want your recordings and your system to best replicate a live performance.

OTOH, most music produced today doesn't have and isn't designed to replicate an original live performance. I happen to like that better. You can do all kinds of thing in a mix that that are more or less impossible IRL.

IMO it's like comparing a play with a movie. Close ups of the actor's faces, quick cuts, scene changes, and all kinds of other things aren't realistic by those standards either.

 

[ferrellms]

Is there any evidence to substantiate this claim? As far as I'm aware above the transition frequency the direct sound always becomes dominant regardless of DI. All the evidence, when it comes down to preference, points towards wide horizontal directivity being prefered in normal sized listening spaces by a majority of listeners.

Other than this is what Genelec and other pro monitor makers/users mean by near-field and so on, I am sure there are, but in any case, they should know. Remember, pros are interested in absolute accuracy and detail. Perhaps others are not interested in this level of accuracy, but any contribution from the room is detrimental for critical listening. Given the reviews of highly directional speakers (Genelec, Kii, Dutch&Dutch, Beolab) in both pro and consumer publications, it seems that many people like low room contribution. For me, it would be very hard to go back to room colorations (such as a system with wide horizontal directivity would offer), now that I have a system with few.

Note I am a stereo guy, not a home theater guy - maybe the requirements and preferences are different.

 

[andreasmaaan]

A soloist singing a song may sound great with more room reflections. But if he's having a conversation and you're trying to understand what he's saying, those reflections won't be helpful.

Perhaps surprisingly, early reflections actually tend to aid speech intelligibility, so long as they arrive early enough for the precedence effect to occur (which inevitably is the case for first reflections in small rooms).

 

[TimVG]

Other than this is what Genelec and other pro monitor makers/users mean by near-field and so on, I am sure there are, but in any case, they should know. Remember, pros are interested in absolute accuracy and detail. Perhaps others are not interested in this level of accuracy, but any contribution from the room is detrimental for critical listening. Given the reviews of highly directional speakers (Genelec, Kii, Dutch&Dutch, Beolab) in both pro and consumer publications, it seems that many people like low room contribution. For me, it would be very hard to go back to room colorations (such as a system with wide horizontal directivity would offer), now that I have a system with few.

Note I am a stereo guy, not a home theater guy - maybe the requirements and preferences are different.

If pros would be that interested in absolute accuracy they'd have to start by discarding some of the most used equipment and practices out there. The fact is that many people, and that includes pros, have their priorities backwards. Yes we need a decent room, no one is claiming the opposite, but claiming that any contribution from the room is detrimental is simply not true.