GENELEC 8331A

Radically different. Those are the words which come to mind when I consider the Genelec 8331A active loudspeakers. In large part that’s because these are not designed primarily for the home. They are studio monitor speakers. Genelec is a Finnish firm specialising in this market.

EQUIPMENT

Now studio monitors from a company prominent in the field, as Genelec is, have one major advantage over consumer high-fidelity speakers: they are designed to be accurate. Sure, so are many hi-fi speakers, but how do you know they haven’t been ‘voiced’ by a designer with idiosyncratic tastes? Recording professionals know what they want, and won’t pay money for something that sounds too far outside of the mainstream.

And let’s face it, if you’re listening using studio monitors, you’re getting sound very close to that heard by the engineers when preparing the music.

That shows in the specifications here. Their rated frequency response is 58Hz-20kHz, ±1.5dB. The -6dB points are at 45Hz and 37kHz. THD is specified at less than 0.5% for frequencies above 100Hz, for 85dB output at 1 metre. ‘’ at 1m is 99dBSPL. Short-term sine at a metre is 110dB.