Back in May 2023 we reported Genelec’s announcement of the impressive 8381A full range monitor. This 200Kg free standing main monitor system was designed for high-end music recording, mastering and audiophile listening, and represents the pinnacle of what is possible from the point source philosophy represented by the ‘The Ones’ range of 83 series monitors.

What Is The Concept Behind The Ones?

The benefits of a point source design are well known. Using multiple drivers to create a full range monitor is necessary if a reasonable sound pressure level is to be created, and to avoid the phase errors caused by time of arrival issues from drivers located in different points in space. The Ones are intended to be acoustically co-axial through the whole frequency range. They do this by placing the HF driver in the centre of the midrange driver which itself is placed coaxially between a pair of bass drivers which are close enough together to maintain this point source performance across the crossover frequency between the midrange and bass drivers. This minimum distance between drivers is related to the wavelength of the frequency being reproduced and while at low frequencies this is possible by placing drivers adjacent to each other, at high frequencies the distances become too small, necessitating the drivers being arranged coaxially - one within the other.

Two way coaxial speakers have been around for decades. They are prone to distortion as a result of doppler shift caused by the bass driver also being the waveguide for the HF driver. All of the previous The Ones models are three way designs and avoid this issue as a result. We’ve checked out most of these monitors in the past, from the big 8361A down to the diminutive 8331 they all impress, with the principal difference between the models being max SPL and bass extension. I can confirm that having tried the 8331A with a sub and the larger 8361A, for me I’d favour the former in my little studio, the form factor suits my purposes far better and they share fundamentally the same family sound. This is one of the reasons that they are as popular as they are for immersive use, another being their use of SAM technology and their tight integration with Genelec’s GLM software.

Statement Monitoring

But what if you want statement monitoring? Very high SPLs and truly full range performance? Combining any of the 83 series with the clever W371A SAM Woofer gives full range performance and adaptive technology which can assist in the reproduction of deep bass by tailoring its performance to the room it is in. With a quoted maxSPL of 118dB the 8361A would fulfil most monitoring requirements but for those who to really want make an impact with their monitoring the 8381A is Genelec’s answer to what would happen if they took their The Ones concept to its natural conclusion. And the results are impressive!

I was recently invited to audition a pair of 8381A at HHB in London. Definitely falling into a size category of being too big to try at home I was suitably impressed when I first saw these imposing monitors. I’ve been a fan of the design of The Ones since their release. Some find them rather ‘monocular’ with their hidden bass drivers and single combined MF/HF driver but I’ve always liked hardware designs which are a result of form following function and to get a truly coaxial, point source, three way design, they have to look like that.

Form Follows Function

The 8381A is another example of form following function, but it also happens to look awesome. Rather than a three way design, the 8381A is a five way monitor. The HF and upper midrange are handled by a combined coaxial driver similar to that found on the other members of The Ones family. The 15” front mounted bass driver is conventional enough. The lower woofers are side-mounted in a separate ported enclosure, but it is the demanding lower midrange where things get interesting in terms of driver placement.

The crossover points between the five bands are as follows:

• Lower Woofer/Front Woofer - 50-100 Hz (variable)

• Front Woofer/Quad Midrange System - 150-250 Hz (variable)

• Quad Midrange System/Coaxial Midrange - 500 Hz

• Coaxial Midrange/Tweeter -1800 Hz

It is this low midrange band where frequencies can be a low as 150 Hz but also needs to cross over smoothly and maintain point source performance beyond 500 Hz that the distinctive, and it has to be said very cool looking, four 5” midrange dome drivers arranged in a square around the coaxial driver come into action. Their arrangement around the deep waveguide housing the HMF/HF driver at the end of four fluted ridges which smooth their presence is precisely placed to combine the requirements for driver surface area to meet the extreme SPLs this monitor can deliver and the maintenance of point source performance.

So what we have is a stonking great monitor which is both big and clever. 9 drivers across 5 bands delivering a peak of 129dBSPL from 20Hz to 35KHz (+/-6dB) with Smart Active Monitoring DSP tech, the adaptive woofer functionality of the W371A built in and a point source symmetrical dispersion of 65 degrees.

Enclosures, Amplifiers And Control

The units are split into two enclosures with an optional extra riser box which adds 20cm to the total height. There are two tilt wedges which can angle the top enclosure down by different amounts if required. The top enclosure is a sealed box, the lower cabinet, with its dual opposed 15” drivers is rear ported, and can be used as close as 2” from the rear wall. The whole affair is powered by nearly 6000w of class D rack mounting external amplifiers. The 8381A are SAM DSP monitors and system control and speaker calibration is via GLM software. Part of the 8381A package is the 9320A SAM Reference Controller. This looks very much like a regular desktop monitor controller but its far more than that. It’s very much a system controller for GLM and amongst other things allows seamless switching between SAM monitoring systems and Aural ID headphone monitor virtualisation. It’s an interesting product and one we hope to cover in more detail soon.

For a detailed tour of the 8381A check out this video from Genelec.

So What Do They Sound Like?

I’ve heard my fair share of very nice monitors and I’ve noticed that beyond a certain point, as monitors get better there is less and less to say about them. How do they sound? Like the music really. They don’t add anything, they don’t impose on the audio, they just represent it. That might sound disappointing but that really depends on the music you’re listening to. After all, you’re not supposed to be listening to the speakers.

What you have in the 8381A is a very full range, very high headroom system and because of this limitations kind of fall away. The system was expertly set up and the room was well treated so my regular test tracks absolutely shone. Sounds which have some grit to them, sounds with would usually be praised for ‘analogue mojo’, can sound rather overcooked on truly capable monitors. A favourite test track, which has some truly outrageous bottom end, sounded just as overwhelming as is does on lesser systems which can reach those depths, but with none of the usual surprise that the monitors are handling it as well as they are. The combined impression of headroom and extension mean that composure is assumed.

The off axis sound is even, the high end of course falls away but does so in a very smooth fashion, the crucial midrange passed my usual tests with flying colours and the review cliche of hearing previously unnoticed details on well known recordings was in evidence, in this case a Hammond organ I’ve definitely not heard before.

Who Is The 8381A For?

These are a flagship model and as such I wouldn’t anticipate them being a high volume product. They are just too big and too expensive for most of the market. On the subject of cost, they are around £60K. That’s a lot but its actually pretty reasonable for this category of product. I’ve commented before on how the large, soffit mounted main monitor looks increasingly anachronistic in the 21st century. Having monitors designed into the control room, and physically built into the control room has many advantages. But in a business landscape where large, purpose-built studios are fewer and fewer and so many professionals work in rented or domestic spaces, a freestanding monitor which delivers main monitor performance but is (relatively) transportable makes sense.

This is a category which is well populated with alternatives, from the larger ATCs, the big PMCs which probably share the closest physical resemblance with the 8381A, through to freestanding monitors like the HEDD Tower Mains there are several options at several price points in this area of the market. The 8381A puts in a stellar performance against its peers and helpfully they are both unique and share a very definite provenance with some of the most popular monitors in the industry.

Put a pair of The Ones on top of a pair of W371A Woofers and you’ll get some remarkable results, but the package will be visually modest and (depending on the model of The Ones you choose) will eventually run out of SPL. For a monitoring experience which lets you work without restriction in basically any sized control room with a system which will keep impressing clients the 8381A are every bit the statement monitor they set out to be.