I recently had a flood – a flood of new audio toys to try in my system. The tide brought in Nordost’s top-of-the-line Valhalla power cords, Sphinx’s very excellent Project Eight Reference Preamp and Project Eighteen Power Amp, and a pair of Genesis 6 speakers, which are the subject of this review.
This Is Your Low-End Speaker?!
Insofar as main front speakers go, Genesis makes the G1.1, the G201, the G3 (coming in the Fall of 2006), the G5.2, the G6 and the G7.1c (which can also actually be used as a center speaker). As many of you probably know, the G1.1 is a cost-no-object assault on Sonic Nirvana, and the G201 is similarly out of reach of most audiophiles. The G6 is a much more affordable speaker, but still financially formidable at $11,800 to $13,300 per pair, depending on finish.
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| G201 |
I was very interested in listening to these speakers for three reasons. First, they are dipoles, and most of the speakers I’ve heard use point-source dynamic drivers. Designers of dipole speakers believe that the reflected sound from the front wall enhances musical realism because that is the way we hear sound at live performances. I have found that dipoles can add a strong sense of depth and realism to music. Second, the Genesis 6 is somewhat of a hybrid. A ribbon tweeter is coupled with cone midrange drivers and woofers. Ribbons have a certain speed and agility that comes from their ability to respond quickly to transient signals, such as plucks of a guitar. The resulting sound quality can be stunning. Finally, the G6 incorporates powered servo-driven woofers. This automatically turns your two-channel system into a biamped system, with all the sonic benefits that confers. This simultaneously gives the user a very wide choice of amplifier types to use with these speakers.
Set'em Up!
The Genesis 6’s were delivered by Brian Tucker, the Genesis Director of Sales, who not only delivered the G6’s, but also graciously helped me move my existing 275 pound (each) B&W Nautilus 800D. The Genesis are not exactly small, each being 60” tall, 17” wide and 22” deep (only at the base – they are less deep) and weighing in at 136 pounds each, but they are sculpted in a way that makes them seem smaller than they are.
According to Genesis, this is an intended effect of the speaker’s exterior design.
 The very complete Genesis manual is extremely helpful, which is important because these are not your typical plug-and-play speakers. The G6’s not only come with powered woofers that allow you to adjust the bass gain and crossover, they also permit adjustment of the treble and midrange. The manual contains advice not only about basic setup, but also excellent advice about small adjustments designed to get the most out of these elegant speakers.
 As I began to describe above, each speaker incorporates two of Genesis’ famous Kapton ribbon tweeters, which handle frequencies up to above 35k Hz. (Before you engineers get mad at me, let me state that the Genesis tweeter may technically be what’s called a “planar magnetic driver”, not a ribbon. I don’t really know – I just know they sound great.) One tweeter is front-firing and the other is rear-firing, creating a dipole. The titanium midrange and the aluminum mid-bass couplers also work as dipoles by being housed in an enclosure that is open in the back. Finally, each speaker has two side-firing 12” aluminum cone woofers which are driven by a built-in 500 watt class D servo amplifier. The back of the bass enclosure has high level bass inputs and a line level bass input (selectable by a switch), LFE IN and LFE OUT, a voltage selector switch, an on/off power button for the amp, LFE GAIN, BASS GAIN and LOW PASS adjustment knobs, and tweeter and midrange adjustment knobs.
Though this sounds complicated, I found the G6’s extremely easy and intuitive to set up. My listening room is 28’ by 24’ with an 8.5’ ceiling. It is set up “width-wise”, with the speakers positioned 6 feet out from one of the long walls, facing the other long wall. I initially set up the speakers about 8 feet apart, with each speaker about 10 feet from each side wall and toed in directly at the listening position. (This is wider placement and greater toe-in than recommended in the manual, but more on this later.) As suggested by the manual, I set all the knobs (except the LOW PASS filter) to the 12’clock position, connected the speaker cables and plugged in the power cord. I set the LOW PASS filter to it lowest level, 71 Hz, because I knew that my Electrocompaniet Nemo monoblocks have no power shortage, and I figured that I’d let the Genesis’s built-in 500 watt amp focus all of its attention of the low bass. (Please note that the manual suggests an initial low pass setting of 105Hz, which I found to be good advice when I used the G6’s with a much lower-powered amp. I also found that the higher setting worked better for other reasons – see below)
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