Floorstanding loudspeakers — Genesis Maestro

The Maestro is a five-way floorstander made by Genesis Advanced Technologies, presented as the sixth generation of the Genesis 5-Series that began in 1994. It launched at USD 30,000 per pair and is supplied in a black acrylic finish with high gloss, while alternative colours can be ordered. Each side is a single cabinet with drivers on both front and rear faces, and Genesis describes the design as physically unobtrusive with a large listening area suited to several people.

Key specs that matter

Every speaker carries two 1 inch Genesis ring radiator ribbon tweeters (one front, one rear), a single 4.5 inch titanium cone midrange, two 6.5 inch aluminium cone mid-bass couplers (front and rear) and four 8 inch ribbed aluminium cone woofers, two on each face. Genesis quotes 16 Hz to 40 kHz within plus or minus 3 dB, sensitivity of 90 dB at 1 W and 1 m, and an input impedance of 4 ohm nominal. A servo-controlled bass amplifier rated at 500 W per side is built in. A cabinet is 128.3 cm tall, 34.3 cm wide and 59.7 cm deep, with a weight close to 73 kg.

Engineering and use context

The woofer arrangement is bipolar, meaning the front and rear bass drivers move in phase, so their output adds rather than cancelling as in a dipole. Servo control measures cone movement and corrects the drive signal to the woofers. User controls cover tweeter level of plus or minus 1.5 dB, midrange level of plus or minus 1 dB, plus adjustable gain and low-pass point for the bass. The bass amplifier offers single-ended and balanced inputs and outputs, including connections for an LFE feed from a home theatre processor. The Genesis Acoustic Suspension system, consisting of stainless steel spikes on a suspension frame, lets the cabinet sit on different floor types, and neoprene decouplers keep floor-borne vibration away from the cabinet.

Pairing

Only the bass section is powered, so the ribbons, midrange and mid-bass drivers need an external stereo amplifier. A transistor amplifier rated for low-impedance loads is a sensible match, and since the servo amplifier takes over the woofers, the external unit does not have to supply bass current. The LFE connection also lets the Maestro take the main left and right roles of a surround setup.

Alternatives

The Genesis Forte is a larger two-tower line-source system per side with fifteen ribbon tweeters, a 48 inch ribbon midrange and two 12 inch servo woofers.