Genesis 1.1 Review
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
carolkoh
[Industry Expert] Member Sponsor
Proprietary caps - made for us in the USA by Reliable Capacitor - we use few branded caps - Salesmen always try to get Gary to try/use their company's caps, but you know what, it really stinks after two years of development and you are ready to go into production, you make an order, they accept, then short you and tell you "Oh sorry, not making that one anymore, you can apply the credit to your next order."
Hard to condense 10 years of Gary's design philosophy and development of the Genesis Class D amplifier into a few short paragraphs. I'm going to guess that you've not read any of the reviews we've had over the years or interviews with Gary about his design and musical philosophy. In short - Yes, our servo-bass amps are class D - No, we do not make any other type of Amp with a servo-bass circuit and all our amplifiers are class D. But follow below...
Basically - Gary has managed to create a Class D amplifier with an "analog" sound. With all the advantages of Class D - quiet, efficient, no heat issues, replacing tubes, etc. etc. He can explain MUCH better as he's the designer - I'm all about the sound and musicality - he uses me to do test listening during development as I am a trained musician and have perfect pitch - and he watches my reaction as I listen to a piece of music I am familiar with. "No goose bumps? Bah! Not good enough."
We have a video front and center on our website : http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/ In which Gary's explains his design philosophy. It's got pretty pictures of the last G1 we built and party shots too - some denizens of this forum visited, so you might recognize some people.
Best,
Carol
Ron, what a great review, your writing is really enjoyable and more informative than the usual. And congratulations, Audiocrack, on such great systems!
I am wondering if the lighter and more forward tonal balance, with greater treble energy, on the La Assoluta might be due to the speakers being driven by SET amps (while the nominal sensitivity of the speakers is high at 96 dB). When amps start to run beyond their natural output the tonal balance of the sound may tilt, and as reported, the listening volume was rather loud.
I am wondering if the lighter and more forward tonal balance, with greater treble energy, on the La Assoluta might be due to the speakers being driven by SET amps (while the nominal sensitivity of the speakers is high at 96 dB). When amps start to run beyond their natural output the tonal balance of the sound may tilt, and as reported, the listening volume was rather loud.
Thanks Al for your kind words. I think you have a point in this regard that the presentation of my se Gakuoh is more direct or upfront than my pp Gakuoh. You could say that the latter is more "gemütlich" in its presentation.
So I believe that the combination of a single ended triode amp (LA) versus push pull amp (G 1.1), digital (LA) versus analog (G 1.1) and lastly the different presentation of a cones loudspeaker (LA) versus a planar loudspeaker (G 1.1) explains Ron's comments. Furthermore please keep in mind - as Ron mentiones in his description - that he is less familiar with cones loudspeakers than with planars as he listened to the latter type of speakers for many years. Lastly, my LA's might not yet be fully played in yet and we need more time to realize their full potential.
Believe me, the Tidal LA's are phenomenal loudspeakers but of course in the end personal taste dictates one's final judgement.
I would be very interested to get Gary's thought on this. Is it correct that the dispersion of the ring radiator tweeter has a tendency to make a solo vocalist image less clearly defined, in deference to a wider listening area?
Ron and Audiocrack,
I was traveling last week and just got around to reading this thread.
Ron,
great write-up and very objectively done, which is so hard to do with 'uber' system's such as Audiocrack's. it is difficult to get past the sensual overloads that happen in such systems and be able to sit back and get analytical.....of maybe even not a generally recommended approach. but you seemed to pull it off with aplomb. Bravo! I 'got' what you were saying......which told me as much about the complicated person you are as much as those 2 world class super systems. which is what happens when we encounter a system. listener + system = result.
Audiocrack; it seems I know a little more about both your wonderful systems; which, of course, are living, breathing, labors of love for you.
and great to read about the experience from you both.
thanks.
I was traveling last week and just got around to reading this thread.
Ron,
great write-up and very objectively done, which is so hard to do with 'uber' system's such as Audiocrack's. it is difficult to get past the sensual overloads that happen in such systems and be able to sit back and get analytical.....of maybe even not a generally recommended approach. but you seemed to pull it off with aplomb. Bravo! I 'got' what you were saying......which told me as much about the complicated person you are as much as those 2 world class super systems. which is what happens when we encounter a system. listener + system = result.
Audiocrack; it seems I know a little more about both your wonderful systems; which, of course, are living, breathing, labors of love for you.
and great to read about the experience from you both.
thanks.
Mike, Thank you so much for your kind words! I am thrilled that you liked the review!
I don't recall exactly where the crossover points are on the G1.X series, but I believe they are similar to what I have set on my IRS-V, which is 106 Hz and 4700 Hz with 12 dB/octave slopes with PassLabs XVR1 crossovers.
This essentially means that practically the entire vocal range comes out the midrange ribbons and only sibilants come out the tweeters and the very deepest vocal bass notes come out the woofers.
A soloist from dipole line source ribbons is sometimes more diffuse than direct radiator cones, but I would rather sacrifice a little on vocal soloists that I rarely listen to in order to have orchestras and large ensembles sound fuller and more three dimensional. For me that's a very small sacrifice.
Regarding off axis listening, the IRS and Genesis sound very similar everywhere in the room (but not sitting in a chair with your head against a wall). I will say you cannot sit too close, and Gary Koh states in his set-up instructions, you must sit far enough back so everything will integrate. I sit about 21 feet from the speakers. Some people like to sit closer.
I tend to sit a little farther away for large ensembles (21 feet) and a little closer (15-16 feet) for string quartets. When listening to an orchestra, I like to be transported to the concert hall and I like to bring the string quartet into my living room.
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garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Ron,
Thank you for an excellent balanced and objective review that is also a fabulous read. I concur with your review - including the point about the slightly diffuse image of the solo vocalist.
I've been to a couple of "live" recording sessions where I managed to snag the live mic feed and the mixed and unmastered digital files. In no case have the imaging been as sharply delineated as the audiophile's preference. Hence, this sharply delineated image is not one of my design goals. Even with a string quartet, listening unamplified live does not give as clearly delineated an image as what I can imagine as an audiophile.
With my designs, you can achieve that by toe-ing the speakers and pointing them at your ears. However, this massively reduces size of the sweet spot and it becomes a speaker for one person. You also lose the ability to sit anywhere in the room and enjoy your system. Hence, again not one of my design goals. You would be better served with a pair of speakers designed to be toed-in (but then your wife and you won't be able to enjoy the music equally together). Because of the dispersion pattern, the imaging also suffers when the room is too narrow.
This is not due to the design of the Genesis tweeters. Audiocrack's older Genesis 1.1 probably has Arnie's round ribbons. The Ring Radiator I developed a few years ago, and it has better dispersion. Neither will help with this center image as the frequencies of the imaging are much lower. The tweeters operate much higher in frequency - in the sibilance frequencies and up.
Upper bass/lower midrange is not 200Hz to 400Hz. Middle C is 261Hz. What you hear as "body" and "richness" should be in the range of 80Hz to 200Hz.
With line-source loudspeakers, because the line-source only radiate horizontally and does not disperse vertically, you do not get the floor-boundary reinforcement that comes as a result of floor bounce. Even with a thickly carpeted floor (which absorbs the higher frequency but reflects the lower frequencies) you will get this reinforcement. With my designs, the servo is fast enough not to muddy up when the low-pass is set to higher than 110Hz. Hence, for customers who desire this additional richness, we can create a up to 6dB "hump" from 100Hz to 180Hz by adjusting the low-pass frequency. I don't know what frequencies the woofers of the other speakers mentioned are crossed-over at, but I doubt that they would be much above 100Hz given their size. What you are hearing is the floor-boundary reinforcement of the mid-bass driver. (Wavelength of 110Hz is 10 feet)
This cheatsheet for a mixing engineer gives you a much better idea of the frequencies involved with music:
http://www.threepbeats.com/equalization/understanding-frequency-bands/
If you can make it to CES, we'll have the 2-tower Genesis Forte line-source loudspeaker on demo.
Thank you for an excellent balanced and objective review that is also a fabulous read. I concur with your review - including the point about the slightly diffuse image of the solo vocalist.
I've been to a couple of "live" recording sessions where I managed to snag the live mic feed and the mixed and unmastered digital files. In no case have the imaging been as sharply delineated as the audiophile's preference. Hence, this sharply delineated image is not one of my design goals. Even with a string quartet, listening unamplified live does not give as clearly delineated an image as what I can imagine as an audiophile.
With my designs, you can achieve that by toe-ing the speakers and pointing them at your ears. However, this massively reduces size of the sweet spot and it becomes a speaker for one person. You also lose the ability to sit anywhere in the room and enjoy your system. Hence, again not one of my design goals. You would be better served with a pair of speakers designed to be toed-in (but then your wife and you won't be able to enjoy the music equally together). Because of the dispersion pattern, the imaging also suffers when the room is too narrow.
This is not due to the design of the Genesis tweeters. Audiocrack's older Genesis 1.1 probably has Arnie's round ribbons. The Ring Radiator I developed a few years ago, and it has better dispersion. Neither will help with this center image as the frequencies of the imaging are much lower. The tweeters operate much higher in frequency - in the sibilance frequencies and up.
Upper bass/lower midrange is not 200Hz to 400Hz. Middle C is 261Hz. What you hear as "body" and "richness" should be in the range of 80Hz to 200Hz.
With line-source loudspeakers, because the line-source only radiate horizontally and does not disperse vertically, you do not get the floor-boundary reinforcement that comes as a result of floor bounce. Even with a thickly carpeted floor (which absorbs the higher frequency but reflects the lower frequencies) you will get this reinforcement. With my designs, the servo is fast enough not to muddy up when the low-pass is set to higher than 110Hz. Hence, for customers who desire this additional richness, we can create a up to 6dB "hump" from 100Hz to 180Hz by adjusting the low-pass frequency. I don't know what frequencies the woofers of the other speakers mentioned are crossed-over at, but I doubt that they would be much above 100Hz given their size. What you are hearing is the floor-boundary reinforcement of the mid-bass driver. (Wavelength of 110Hz is 10 feet)
This cheatsheet for a mixing engineer gives you a much better idea of the frequencies involved with music:
http://www.threepbeats.com/equalization/understanding-frequency-bands/
If you can make it to CES, we'll have the 2-tower Genesis Forte line-source loudspeaker on demo.
garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Ha! This proves that Amir has better ears than Carolyn and I put together. He heard the custom narrow-wing Dragons, and since it was a custom order, I had to take special pains to be sure that the narrow wings and hence modified crossover did not lobe more than the standard-sized G1.
Neither Carol not I could hear any lobing as close as 6 feet away with any sort of music. We had to get up to 3 feet to hear any lobing with music. Using a steady-state sine wave, I do hear some lobing at 6 feet, but that's only at specific frequencies. Since the speakers are 7 feet tall, I doubted that any one would use them at less than 6 feet.
garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
I make sure that you can't hear the amps - hence the point does not matter anymore. The crossover/servo system is now driven at the same point as the midrange/tweeter crossover. I then have to ensure that the servo system has the same sound as my mid/tweet crossover.
Since the Pendragon has the woofer amp driven in parallel with the amp driving the midrange/tweeter, the sound of the woofer amplifier might be different from the sound of the midrange/tweeter amplifier.
That made fascinating reading for me. I run to every live string quartets I possibly can and I absolutely concur with the above. This may be the reason that I often did not take to many electronics that rate high in audiophile esteem. What i mostly missed also were aura and bloom around the instruments. Does not as yet seem possible to reproduce, possibly also because razor sharp image presentation seems more often than not the preffered design goal. Wonder if I am right in this. Just a hunch.
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I haven't heard the Genesis, but I think Stats and ribbon panels do the best reproduction of live solo and small ensembles, vocals and strings. Stats are focused while ribbons not as much. So I am bit ambivalent to that imaging, but there is more to it than the imaging that gives realism. And if you add SS to stats it is more focused, with valves it is less, and I am quite happy with valves, especially those like Jadis which are even less focused. For orchestra, I loved the imaging of Trios with bass horns on an orchestra, where I could see different instruments. I think the whole picture balances out and I don't focus on one aspect like imaging
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