Above: Andy Bensley of Genelec and Andy Jones discuss the 8381As at HHB London.

What is it?
Adaptive Point Source main studio monitors with the advantages of huge dynamic range, power and directivity, but also with the ability to be transported and used in a variety of locations thanks to a free-standing design and cutting-edge GLM and SAM technology.

What’s great?
The soundstage is extraordinary and combined with the dynamic range, will let you place track elements with ridiculous accuracy. The sound is also honest, open, huge and addictive. The relative mobility thanks to their free-standing design is also a win.

What’s not?
Only bigger budgets and rooms need apply.

The bottom line:
Genelec has transferred some of its best technologies into a set of main room monitors that deliver the best of all worlds and an immersive experience that will give you an almost arrogant level of mixing confidence. Of course they are top level speakers, but you can pay a lot more for permanently fixed solutions and the inflexibility that often goes with them.

Price: Price: £59,999 per pair, US $64,000

Where to buy: Genelec

Genelec’s 8381A studios monitors have the full-range power and frequency response of main studio monitors, but also a lot of the advantages of smaller speakers in terms of cutting-edge room correction technology and (relative) mobility. In fact they pack in a lot of the features and some design elements of their smaller siblings, The Ones, and while they are not officially part of that Genelec speaker range, they are known as ‘The Main Ones’.

There’s no getting away from the fact that these are speaker solutions for big budget operations and medium to large sized rooms. They stand tall – around 145cm x 50cm x 70cm – and have a free-standing design that includes a five-way speaker set-up, with no less than three sets of mid- range drivers, and a large Double Low Woofer System on which the top half of each cabinet is mounted, with three possible angled positions.

Genelec says the idea is that they deliver everything that you would expect from studio speakers installed within larger studios – think those that are built into the walls of studios A and B at Metropolis. They can be transported to projects for a semi-permanent set-up giving them and users much more flexibility – and the 8381s can be located freely within a room to create less impact on studio infrastructure.

This is backed up by the fact that the 8381As use Genelec’s ground-breaking but now widely imitated GLM (Genelec Loudspeaker Manager) software combined with the company’s Smart Active Monitor (SAM) technology. These mean the speakers can self-adjust according to a new room environment, moving crossover frequencies and attenuating frequency responses according to data fed in via a reference microphone system. The setup is quick, the results usually stunning, so you effectively end up with a set of high-end main room monitors that can be used in /many/ main rooms, not just a permanent and expensive fixture in one location.

The Main Point
The 8381A’s key technology is called Point Source Continued Directivity (PCD), and a first for the speakers. It essentially means that the main frequencies are coming from a single point source so are in perfect time and space for a highly accurate and wide soundstage. And PCD covers /all/ key frequencies thanks to more Genelec technologies focussed on each part of the range.

Firstly, GLM and SAM are not the only technologies shared with The Ones. The 8381As also share a Minimum Diffraction Coaxial (MDC) coaxial design where a 25mm tweeter sits in the centre of the first 127mm mid-range driver, a single-point source part of the design that results in an accurate image. That is your high and hi-mid frequencies taken care of.

Next up, this coaxial designed tweeter and mid driver setup is surrounded with a Quad Midrange System (QMS), four further 127mm mid-range speakers. Like The Ones – the 8341s, for example – these separate drivers almost join forces, in this case also helping to produce an ultra-precise mid- range imaging within the soundstage.

Mounted at the front of each speaker below the QMS array is a front 381mm driver called a woofer, but acting more like a low-mid speaker. Finally the whole enclosure sits on top of a second cabinet with a ‘Double Low Woofer’ (DLW) system, two 381mm drivers that deliver the sub frequencies and the low end part of the PCD system.

It’s a fairly complex five-way system, then, but all of its component parts combine to provide the highly-directional PCD system, and headline specs that include 5926 watts of power over a vast 20Hz to 35kHz (+/-1.5dB) frequency range. The max short term SPL hits 129db per pair too. It’s also worth noting that the 9320A Reference Controller is included with each pair.

But the even bigger headline is the resulting sound. After a number of listening tests we travelled through several opinions and emotions, all of them ranging from impressed to actually slightly overwhelmed. With the right mix, the stereo imaging was extraordinary, almost to the point that we thought some detail was around us. But the biggest takeaway was not just the horizontal soundstage, but the vertical height and the depth of the field.

No doubt helped by the physical size of the speaker – they are the optimal level (or can be adjusted using an incliner) for listening – and also that 5-way driver system, you get an extraordinary ‘height’ in the listening experience. It’s almost like you are presented with a much more accurate, high resolution grid of your mix moving left/right and up/down so you can place everything with extraordinary detail.

I expected to hear more in the mix – as you so often can when going from consumer to studio monitors – but with the 8381s it wasn’t so much that, but becoming more immersed within all three dimensions: left/right, up/down and partially ‘within’ the mix. We noticed the sweet spot was wide, but there was definitely a position where it was best enjoyed.

Another interesting test was when the SAM/GLM system was switched back to revert to a non adjusted set-up. The non room calibrated mix was noticeably less buoyant and lively, unusually flatter and less absorbing. As we have always found in previous reviews, Genelec’s GLM system really does work and is a lot simpler to employ than you might think.

We’re obviously not going to pretend these speakers are in any way for everyone, but the extraordinary detail in playback has already won them places in regular audiophile set-ups as well as the more studio orientated projects for which they were designed. Genelec has filled a gap in the market we hadn’t considered – main room monitors you can take anywhere and ones that will adjust to wherever you go. If you want to get to an (almost!) arrogant level of confidence with your mixing – and doing it anywhere you like – the 8381As are demanding to be heard.

Q/A with Andy Bensley, regional business development manager, Genelec.

So last year was our 45th anniversary. We wanted to do something special and thought, essentially, what could we do? And the 8381A is kind of an evolution on from The Ones.

What if we could do that on a main monitor scale, offer precision, accuracy as well as high performance high SPL, and the flexibility to place these things anywhere within the room?

If we look at what we’ve done in the past with our in-wall systems, there was a lot of work that would need to be physically done to the studio space to accommodate these larger monitors. So it would require a monitor wall, and a lot of work with acousticians. A lot of factors would have to be known ahead of time – what console is going to be in there, what’s going to be happening with the furniture in the room, where is the listening position because the monitor focusing will be dictated by that listening position.

What we’ve seen over the years is people moving into different rooms on shorter leases, for example. And if the monitoring set up comes with the facility, they’re not really in a position to redesign the room. Working within the space that they’ve got seems to be the order of the day. So that’s where we’ve seen these adaptive technologies, specifically with our GLM calibration software, where you can freely place these systems and get excellent results.

In a similar vein to The Ones and the W371A adaptive woofer system, everything is modular. Each element is calibrated individually with crossovers assigned based on the acoustic properties of the room. So the combination of the system and GLM will then decide which woofer is going to play up to which frequency. And the idea is to give you a frequency response that’s complete, so that we are reducing the influences of the room due to placement . But also, we’re able to control the directivity as well. So we’re able to deliver as much direct sound in the listening position as possible.

These are the two main goals of this system. And then finally, a huge amount of dynamic range in it as well – we’ve got something like a total of six kilowatts of power driving each 8381A.

That adds up to 129 dB of short term SPL per pair. So we’ve got systems that are very capable, with a huge amount of dynamic range, a huge amount of information that can be presented.

But the killer thing with this, because it’s a point source system – with the combined tweeter/midrange and the four midrange drivers – it adds up to an acoustically coaxial system.

Yes, you can listen at less than a meter, or 10 meters. So these are super flexible in terms of where you place these within the room, as well as the point source design, you’ve got so much flexibility. In this room, with a traditional three way design, the usual listening position would always be further back in the room, where each individual driver comes into focus together.

But equally, you could tuck these in even further and listen at the best position as well. You’ll be able to hear how firm that phantom center sounds as you start to move.

One approach that we could have taken would be to just put another 12 inch woofer in the top section along with the tweeter in the mid range driver – like a traditional coax – but then you get the issues of interference with the mid range and the tweeter, with modulation and discontinuity in the frequency response. It’s very difficult to predict what the response is going to be from that kind of design.

So because we’ve got such a large area on the front, we were able to space those five inch mid range drivers in a position where acoustically they essentially sum up to one driver. So you get this acoustic coaxial performance, but it doesn’t interfere with the dedicated mid range/tweeter coax in the center. There’s no interaction between them and the sound just adds up and comes at you from one place.

And this is the idea of the system, because none of those component parts operate on their own. A lot of what is happening under the hood of GLM is being informed by the 8381A system, compared to a third party calibration system working with a third party speaker system – where neither of them know what’s happening. In that situation, the calibration can be asking certain things of the driver makeup that they’re not necessarily capable of delivering. Because we know the capabilities of each of the driver crossover regions etc, GLM will never ask the system to do something that it’s not capable of. So we’re able to guarantee a level of performance not only in terms of SPL, but in terms of the frequency response and the quality of the audio, because we know all of the different component parts.

And we know how the DSP is going to manage and drive the system as well. So that’s a big part of the design process, as well, knowing how we can get the best out of each of these elements. With this project, there were a number of different iterations of the mid range system – whether it was going to have a dome design, or a traditional kind of recessed concave driver, and seeing the measurements from the impulse responses of how the intermodulation was being affected.

And all these kinds of artifacts we were seeing from having the concave design, that’s what led us to the dome design of the QMS mid range drivers. It’s given us a huge amount of control in terms of the design and the predictability of what the final product is going to be. And again, that’s part of the work that was done with The Ones, because no one was making that kind of coax element.

The target customers for the 8381A will be those that are recording, mixing and mastering music, along with post houses. They’re super capable, regardless of the genre. So whether you want something that’s incredibly loud and impactful – to provide a vibe for composition and writing – or you want something that’s super accurate for mixing, they can wear many hats. Plus you’ve got all this performance and exceptional imaging, which isn’t necessarily the case with a lot of larger systems.

For those customers wanting to know whether the 8381As are suitable for their room, we receive this kind of request from customers all the time, asking ‘I’ve got this room with this design, what would you recommend?’ We’ve got a team of nine or 10 people, probably more worldwide that are out there visiting rooms all the time.

So we have a huge amount of experience between us in terms of how our systems perform in the real world, what rooms, what they’re suitable for, how the system scales, in terms of whether being a stereo or an immersive system, and what would work in each scenario etc. But we’ve also got a massive amount of information that we’ve received from customers that are calibrating their systems via GLM’s cloud services. We’ve got access to around 10,000 measurements of people’s rooms, so we’re able to see what the common trends are and where people are typically seeing cancellations in their response. From that we’re able to see our customers’ issues with cancellations, and work out how to solve that with a new product design.

That was origin of the W371A woofer system, and now the 8381A, where rather than trying to fix acoustical issues within the room with EQ alone, we’re able to do it by assigning different drivers to fill in the frequency response. If you do it that way, you are optimizing for a larger area rather than just one specific spot. Otherwise, if you fix one area with EQ, as soon as you move out of that area, you’re into another null where there’s a difficulty – and so you’ll have a reluctance to leave that sweet spot.

Interview: Aki Mäkivirta, Genelec R & D Director

The post Review: Genelec 8381A appeared first on Audio Media International.

What is it?

Smart Active Monitors that self-adjust according to your room and now deliver an in-depth acoustic report about that room.

What’s great?

The sound is already fabulous before the technology does its work – and that tech is seamless and easy – but now your room can sound as good.

What’s not?

Monitors with this number of acronyms are never going to be cheap, but actually the price has come down.

The bottom line:

Genelec continues to develop these top range monitors, adding software updates to GLM that make them seem future-proof. They sound fantastic, and with the full range of technology deployed can sound even better, in any room. And now you can even get help to sort that room out too.

Review

Genelec’s 8341A monitors are three-way, compact monitors with a distinctive coaxial design. As part of the company’s The One Series (they are the second smallest of four models) they are packed with pretty much every piece of technology – and acronym – that Genelec has come up with in decades of monitor design. And while they are Smart Active Monitors (SAM) that will adjust their response to your room, they also include a new feature that delivers an acoustic ‘GRADE’ report on that room. Genelec thinks (correctly) that sorting your root-cause acoustic issues can always be a worthwhile exercise, and this new service certainly allows you to identify such issues. Before that, though, let’s see why these are called ‘The Ones’.

The Ones for you?

We explain the SAM system in more detail in our feature about monitor technology (in issue 7), but essentially it employs Genelec’s GLM (Genelec Loudspeaker Manager software, now at v4.2.2), and a measuring microphone connected to a network connector. You play a selection of frequency bursts into the microphone from the speakers and the monitors then adjust their frequency response to tailor to your room according to the results they get back. They are essentially making sure you hear a true version of your mix, even though your room might be countering that by being acoustically awful. It’s a system that Genelec has made famous and similar setups are now employed by the likes of IK Multimedia and KRK. But The Ones have a lot more…

The 8341s have Genelec’s famous coaxial design, where the tweeter sits between a set of dual woofers that essentially act as a single unit, and this helps widen the sweet spot. This dual woofer setup also delivers a bigger bass response than monitors of this size should as it is effectively spread over a wider area. Genelec’s Directivity Control Waveguide helps give broader imaging, and other features like the smoother edges help reduce secondary reflections and flatten the overall frequency response.

Now it’s important to say at this point – before we start looking at even more tech built into the 8341s – that these design elements already deliver the goods, especially when you consider the size. The bass is tight, non flabby nor over-egged but has a power that you really don’t expect. The frequency response is wide (38Hz – 37kHz) and flat (±1.5dB at 45Hz-20kHz), so you are already getting great sounding speakers before any of the other advances have had their say.

The sweet spot is especially broad – one of Genelec’s big aims with these speakers. We’re not sure how much that would benefit smaller rooms, as space might be an issue, negating the availability of a wide sweet spot to physically sit within. But there’s enough power to get these monitors working well in larger rooms too, and certainly generate a wide enough image so that more than one person can enjoy the results.

As we saw with our speaker technology feature, the SAM and GLM systems work a treat, and shouldn’t really be so simple to use bearing in mind the years of development that must have gone into them. But they do work and identified some serious (and seriously embarrassing) issues in our room. Which brings us to the newer GLM GRADE Report – part of the latest GLM 4.2 upgrade – which can identify these issue and remove some of that ‘studio-barrassment’.

Your GRADE Report in detail

You generate a GRADE Report after running the AutoCal feature which is part of the GLM software. It’s simply a matter of clicking an option and asking for it, although the report is not so simple – it’s a truly in-depth summary of how bad (or let’s be positive: well!) your room is impacting your mixes. You get to see the frequency response and how your speakers are having to do to adapt to it with the Peaks Of Compensation. The report details reflection times and reverberation times, all based on your room size, which you do need to enter up front. It’s fascinating stuff, although the most interesting part for us was still discovering the main room peaks and troughs the speakers were compensating for, something we already got with previous versions of GLM.

Obviously it’s a great idea to sort out the cause of any acoustic issues you have, but there may be people who are so happy with the auto-calibration that these speakers provide (and their general sound) that the GRADE Report is an extra they might just not act on, and simply let the speakers do their thing. However you could easily give this detailed 30-page PDF to any acoustic specialist and they would sort your room out… for a fee (or of course you could give it a go yourself). Either way it’s the icing on the cake of some of the best speakers you can buy.

Price: $3095 (each) £2399 (each)

Welcome to issue 7 of Audio Media International

The post Review: Genelec The Ones 8341A appeared first on Audio Media International.

What is it?

Audient’s EVO range of interfaces is designed to offer simplicity, value and a great sound. The interfaces are not perhaps as sonically glossy as those in Audient’s ID range, which all feature the same mic preamps used in the company’s high-end consoles. Instead the EVO range has digitally controlled analogue preamps that allow the interfaces to include features like Smartgain which sets your input signal levels for you.

EVO 16 adds to the range’s 2-in/2-out EVO 4 and 4-in/4-out EVO 8, so you’d expect it to boast eight ins and eight outs and you’d be correct… on the analogue side of things anyway. It is also expandable by way of up to 16 more digital ins and outs via two pairs of optical connectors that deliver 16 channels at 44.1/48kHz or eight at 88.2/96kHz. That’s a maximum of 24 ins and outs, then – an impressive count at this price.

What’s New?

All new for EVO 16 is the Motion UI system that shows parameters on a brilliantly clear display. The other big headline is the loopback feature – available on up to 16 channels – an essential inclusion for podcasters, gamers, and other streamers who demand the flexibility of mixing multiple audio sources from their computer with their own speech.

Build Quality

EVO 16 is compact and well built and uses similar design elements to the original EVOs – the slightly sunken buttons and main dial, for example. While EVO 4 and 8 are designed for desktop use, EVO 16 adds rackable aspirations, with free rack ears available as an option. We used it as a desktop interface and also sat it snugly beneath our laptop, and it performs just as well in these capacities, with rubber feet avoiding slippage and damage.

The eight analogue inputs are all on combi XLR-1/4” jacks with switchable phantom power. You can connect mic, line and instrument level gear to the first two which are located at the front. The remaining six accept just mic/line inputs and are around the back along with the eight analogue outs, which can be connected to studio monitors or outboard gear. Here you’ll also find the USB C connector, power (this isn’t, sadly, a USB powered interface) and those digital connections. The last two outs are two independent headphones on the front of the unit, great for setting up different mixes for two people monitoring or playing.

Day to Day Use

Using the unit is pretty much as easy as Audient intended, especially features like Smartgain. This is an option that we loved on the first two EVOs and it’s present and correct on EVO 16, but with a higher multichannel capacity. Using it is just a matter of hitting the green button, then whatever channel you are levelling and then green again. The channel then sets its input so you don’t clip, and all in less than 20 seconds. Do this across all eight inputs simultaneously if you wish, and you have a very quick multi-input setup for band or drum kit recordings.

The Motion User Interface (UI) feature is based around a bright central display which is very clear across a wide viewing angle. It homes in on specific aspects of the interface – channel input, for example – and displays key parameters which can then be altered with the single main dial on the front of EVO 16. This is a highlight, as clearly seeing what is going on makes you less reliant on having your computer close to hand. However, you will want to use the accompanying EVO Mixer software on your computer for more complex routing tasks.

Sound Quality

Serious studio owners will quite rightly demand the kind of console quality that Audient’s more pro ID range or other high end interfaces deliver. But side by side, the ID specs aren’t too dissimilar to EVO 16’s – certainly on the mic pre side of things – so I think you could end up paying substantially more elsewhere for not that much of a sonic uplift. Certainly for project studio owners and many others, the EVO range delivers the goods. Combined with the digital control, it feels crystal clear and precise, uncoloured and, dare we say, more modern compared to some interfaces that offer all sorts of input colouration.

Bottom Line

Audient’s EVO 4 and 8 clearly have newcomers to music production as a target audience, and those that aren’t bothered about conventional setups nor pristine and legendary console character. EVO 16 takes this core idea but shifts its target further upwards towards studio users who just want to get on with the job with minimum fuss. Then, of course, there’s the growing pro streamer market for which this is an ideal solution across many scenarios. EVO 16 has the answers for when both audiences come knocking, then, and in terms of features, ease of use and bang for buck, there’s very little else that comes close.

The post Audient EVO 16 Review appeared first on Audio Media International.

Arturia V-Collection 9: What is it?

A complete suite of classic synth and keyboard instruments for Mac and PC.

Arturia V-Collection 9: What’s great?

Fine software emulations of most of the best keyboards ever made, and for a fraction of what they would cost you in hardware.

Arturia V-Collection 9: What’s not?

The collection has become quite bulky so the tyranny of choice will become a real issue.

Arturia V-Collection 9: The bottom line:

This is about as good a collection of plugins you’ll find and there’s no better way to bolster your access to classic synth and keyboard sounds (not to mention a couple of newer instruments) without spending tens of thousands of pounds on the real deal.

Arturia V-Collection 9: Review

Arturia started producing software synth emulations in the early 2000s with the Modular V and Mini V, both based on classic Moogs. Towards the end of that decade it bundled these plus emulations of the ARP 2600 and Yamaha CS-80 together into what has become the Arturia V-Collection. Now at v9, the collection dwarfs that initial set, with 33 instrument emulations and over 9,000 presets. The collection comprises analogue and digital synths, vocoders, pianos, organs and even samplers, and at €599, it’s a lot less than any single one of these instruments will probably cost you secondhand in hardware.

Arturia V-Collection 9: What’s new in v9?

After eight previous versions you’d think that pickings for new keyboard emulations would be thin on the ground. However, Arturia has managed to add a couple of significant classic synths and also made quite a few enhancements to existing instruments. The company has also added 14 sound banks and there are two final ‘Augmented’ additions that see V-Collection 9 go a little off road, which I’ll come to later.

First of the new classic synths is SQ80 V, a recreation of Ensoniq’s crosswave digital synth. This was a keyboard with a pretty unique sound that covered everything from coarse to lush sounds thanks to its mix of digital oscillators and emulated analogue filter. It’s the kind of unusual synth that you might not risk buying in hardware but will be only too pleased to discover in software, especially with an expanded UI that makes it somewhat easier to wrestle with.

A synth you might well have bought in hardware – thanks to the many reissues made by Korg in recent years – is the MS20. Arturia’s MS-20 V is a faithful looking emulation and sound wise it’s pretty good too. It’s perhaps not quite as gutsy as the original, but there are two filter options (the Mk1 and 2) and enough controls to wrestle sounds that are easily close enough to the original’s often head splitting tones.

Arturia V-Collection 9: Overall sound

The MS-20V typifies what V-Collection has mostly been about over the years – the sound of the vintage synth. And of the other new v9 highlights this sound doesn’t get any more famous than that made by the CS-80 V which has been ‘rebuilt’ for this update. It is now on v4 and models Yamaha’s original synth brilliantly, although is now a little easier to control and less fiddly (and of course won’t set you back five figures). Sound wise, expect those lush pads and strings and a combined electronic oomph you will rarely hear anywhere else.

Other classics to get a refresh include two Sequentials (the legendary Prophet-5 and Prophet VS), and the Piano V instrument, which now has 12 modelled pianos to cover all of your acoustic needs.

Which brings us to those unusual inclusions in v9 that I hinted at earlier, and two distinctly non-emulated and entirely new instruments! Augmented Strings and Voices are sample-based with real-time synth and morphing controls. While they initially feel a little out of place, their rich sound and ‘augmented’ nature means that they can be pushed into unusual sound design and score-based territories. So while they are a surprising inclusion, they do work well, offering a more contemporary alternative over the other sounds in V-Collection which can perhaps be overly nostalgic. And perhaps this is a new direction for a collection that is surely going to run out of keyboards to emulate, and I can see more Augmented titles of this ilk bulking out version 10 in a year or so.

Arturia V-Collection 9: Bottom Line

V-Collection 9 gives a needed refresh to a number of Arturia emulations and the two new classic additions are welcome. The Augmented titles point to a possible future and the sound banks are a great way to get the full ‘V’ experience. I’m not convinced existing users – especially v8 – will /need/ to make the leap just yet, but to newcomers, this is a powerful and attractive suite of instruments. With a single instrument inclusion costing up to €249 alone, getting all 33 and those extras for €599 seems like a steal. The only issue then, of course, is that of plugin bloat – having way too many options – and there’s a ‘tyranny of choice feature on that subject alone. Otherwise this is an essential sonic museum tour with a very decent entry price.

Arturia V-Collection 9 is available now for €599. Upgrade prices vary (starting at €99) depending on your existing version.

Click to buy the fill Arturia V Collection 9.

The post Arturia V-Collection 9 Review appeared first on Audio Media International.