Audio professionals looking for a free-standing mains monitoring system will be impressed with the single Genelec 8381A, an adaptive point source main monitor system with smart active technology that empowers engineers and creators to perceive every sonic detail, offering true-to-life sound level and dynamics with the full flexibility of free-standing monitor placement and advanced room adaption.
The 5-way monitoring system includes a dual 15" subwoofer, while the full-range top features a 15" woofer, four 5" midrange drivers, and a 5"+1" coaxial midrange/tweeter. Two RAM-81 power rackmount power amplifiers are included as well as an accessory kit with incline wedges, and the GLM calibration kit.
Benefits
- Adaptive five-way with SAM Technology
- 5926W total amplifier power
- 129 dB SPL per pair maximum output
- Frequency range 20 Hz to 35 kHz
- On-axis response accuracy better than ±1.5 dB
- Minimum listening distance <3.1 feet
- Point Source Continued Directivity operating principle for excellent in-room sound quality and precise imaging
- Constant delay and phase
- Each 8381A includes two RAM81 amplifiers, each uniquely calibrated at the Genelec factory in Iisalmi, Finland, to match its assigned cabinet
Tailored Precisely to Your Room
- Interacting with our Genelec Loudspeaker Manager (GLM) software, the 8381A monitor system intelligently adapts its response to the monitoring room in the optimal way. This offers great flexibility to tackle even the most challenging environments, delivering precise presentation, including low-frequency reproduction that integrates perfectly with the complete sound content.
- The 8381A has been engineered to deliver the complete audible content, with a response extending to frequencies beyond the standard audible range, and fully aligned in the time domain, it delivers precise understanding of all the minute details in recorded waveforms. With its high SPL capacity, the 8381A makes even very low-level details audible, creating an uncompromising tool for monitoring.
Imaging Your Can Trust
- Quickly arrive at the right mixing and mastering decisions through uncompromising imaging detail. The point source operating principle of the 8381A offers the unique advantage of maintaining precise sound color and imaging at all listening distances, enabling exceptional freedom of placement, and removing the vertical sound color change, typical of larger monitors.
- The carefully designed Directivity Control Waveguide ensures clean off-axis sound color, reducing the impact of the reverberant sound in the monitoring room on mixing decisions, while improving the accuracy and reliability of monitoring work in all rooms. Standing on the floor, the 8381 locates the soundstage at the natural listening height, while supporting traditional high main monitor positions with the included incliner system. This enables the acoustic axis to be optimally configured towards the listening position for all installation heights.
A Liberating New Solution
- The innovations of the 8381A push the limits of free-standing monitoring solutions, creating a powerhouse that deeply envelops the listener in flawless, true-to-life sound images. The monitor excels at revealing the finest details of audio by combining immense, controlled power with pinpoint imaging precision, even in challenging monitoring spaces.
- The point source design principle combined with optimized directivity control maintains the frequency balance in off-axis positions, supporting correct understanding of the sound color when moving, standing, or sitting in the monitoring room.
Advanced Design
- High SPL Ultra-Linear Coaxial Driver: the novel Ultra-Linear Coaxial Driver, fitted in a precision-engineered Directivity Control Waveguide (DCW), is supported by the Quad Midrange System to enable point source characteristics, controlled directivity, and precise soundstage imaging at the sound levels needed for main monitor applications
- Quad Mid-Range System: the Quad Midrange System continues the controlled directivity of the Coaxial Driver in the DCW and maintains its capacity for high SPL. It reproduces low-midrange audio from the same location as the Coaxial Driver to extend the point source further down in frequency.
- Easy System Integration: intelligent room adaption, advanced system management, and premium acoustic reporting from Genelec Loudspeaker Manager software enables Smart Active range to smoothly cooperate and create monitoring systems of any size.
- Adaptive Woofer System: supports positional freedom to achieve ideal placement of the 8381A in the monitoring room for precise, powerful monitoring in any environment, and using any loudspeaker layout, from stereo to immersive.
Key Technologies
- Point Source Continued Directivity (PCD): premiered on the 8381A, important frequencies are experienced radiating from the same location and in perfect time alignment, creating precise sound imaging, natural soundstage presentation, and enabling the lowest frequencies to be reproduced at their intended source locations.
- Minimum Diffraction Coaxial (MDC): driver technology delivering mid and high frequencies from a single point source for extremely accurate sound images.
- Quad Midrange System (QMS): acoustically coaxial woofer solution that supports the MDC driver output and maintains directivity in lower frequencies, enabling the point source to work down into the woofer range.
- Double Low-Woofer (DLW) System: recoil-compensated adaptive low-woofer solution that combines with the PCD for the freedom to place the 8381A in the desired room location, with no compromise in performance or imaging detail.
- Smart Active Monitoring (SAM): SAM Technology enables monitors and subwoofers to network for automated system calibration and room adaption utilizing digital signal processing.