Genesis Model 1, question for the people in the know...

I bought a pair of Genesis 1's new in the early 80's, when I was in high school, so these were the latter generation with vinyl veneer, black tweeters, and black surrounds. Absolutely loved them. They served me well until the surrounds disintegrated around 2000. I still had the original box and packaging and recalled the lifetime warranty, so I was bummed to find they'd shut down. Ignorant of such things then, I unloaded them for next to nothing at a yard sale. (That guy left in a hurry. Knew exactly what he had.) I've been moping about losing those for years now.

On New Year's Eve, I scored a pair of 1st-gen Genesis II's from a guy in the next town for $150. He was selling a bunch of amazing gear in order to buy an engagement ring. I was so excited to find them; I started in on trying to talk him down on price but I couldn't do it. It was not only a bargain; it was a redemption for having gotten rid of those 1's 20 years ago, for having lived with a pair of Bose I bought as replacements. As he was loading them into my rig, he started telling me about an epic Marantz he had recently sold. Finished the story with, "This hurts more." I assured him that they were going to a good home and would be enjoyed.

Got them home and didn't bother taking them down to the basement, but immediately swapped them into my main system, where I had some Hartley Zodiacs. The previous owner had done a nice sanding job on the oak veneer, so I spent a good chunk of my New Year's Eve rubbing those speakers down with some beeswax and citrus wax & polish. Had a wonderful time doing that and feeling the bass in my chest.

I guess my one ask would be this: Does anyone have experience with the upgraded tweeters from Human Speakers? For those unaware, Human Speakers is a small (one-man?) operation owned by "the last, loyal employee" of Genesis Physics. He bought their stock at the bankruptcy auction and has been servicing Genesis and EPI speakers ever since. At the time of bankruptcy, they had been taking a new tweeter prototype to shows. Human Speakers now sells that tweeter. The price typically includes trading in the old one, in order to help him maintain his stock of replacement parts. That's all according to the web site, though I may have gotten a detail or two wrong.

Anyway, have any of you gotten the new tweeters? I'm going to do some experimenting with speaker placement, but the highs sound a little dull compared to the Hartleys. That could be because I had those up on stands, and the Gennies are on the floor. I've tilted them up a bit by sticking some rubber feet under the fronts, but I'm thinking they could use some short stands.
 
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Geomorphdog said:
Anyway, have any of you gotten the new tweeters?
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We at AK are very much aware of Human Speakers. Have you recapped the crossovers before deciding to buy new tweeters? I always recap only one at first and compare them before recapping the other one. Huw's tweeters won't make much if any difference if the caps are out of spec.
 
I believe the best room positioning for those Genesis would be similar to the best positioning for the EPI 100 and its variants. Designed as a bookshelf speaker they are frequently at their best in a bookshelf position: elevated and against the wall. For the record, Huw of Human Speakers actually builds Winslow Burhoe's current design, Burhoe being the mastermind of both EPI and Genesis. I also wonder about the 'new' tweeter by Human, as I have a vintage pair of EPIs. The Hartley Zodiacs came in a couple of variants, which specifically do you have? I have a pair of Hartley Zodiac 74s, which in stock form I liked better than the EPIs. I upgraded the Hartleys with Hartley RTD-4 tweeters ( and new crossover components) which was a tremendous improvement. At their age the Hartleys could also do with a recap, just for the record. In any case the Hartleys should smoke the Genesis 1s on bass.
 
classic carl said:
We at AK are very much aware of Human Speakers. Have you recapped the crossovers before deciding to buy new tweeters? I always recap only one at first and compare them before recapping the other one. Huw's tweeters won't make much if any difference if the caps are out of spec.
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Yeah, that's a good suggestion.
But what's with this "we are AK" stuff, man? There are always new folks at AK. Anyway, no worries. I like the story, and it resonates with my sentimental attachment to Genesis. I bought my 1's with my dad, who died around the same time Genesis went bankrupt. Finding these 2's made me really happy. And my wife even likes them!
 
Guido57 said:
I believe the best room positioning for those Genesis would be similar to the best positioning for the EPI 100 and its variants. Designed as a bookshelf speaker they are frequently at their best in a bookshelf position: elevated and against the wall. For the record, Huw of Human Speakers actually builds Winslow Burhoe's current design, Burhoe being the mastermind of both EPI and Genesis. I also wonder about the 'new' tweeter by Human, as I have a vintage pair of EPIs. The Hartley Zodiacs came in a couple of variants, which specifically do you have? I have a pair of Hartley Zodiac 74s, which in stock form I liked better than the EPIs. I upgraded the Hartleys with Hartley RTD-4 tweeters ( and new crossover components) which was a tremendous improvement. At their age the Hartleys could also do with a recap, just for the record. In any case the Hartleys should smoke the Genesis 1s on bass.
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My old speakers were later generation 1's, but my "new" speakers are first generation 2's. They have the woofer on top, tweeter in the middle, and passive radiator on the bottom. According to Huw, the radiator extends the low end about half an octave.

My Zodiacs are 1B"a. They have bigger woofers than any speaker I've had before, and bigger than the Genesis 1's and 2's. I was pretty impressed with their bass. But the Genesis 2's have a much bigger cabinet, plus the radiator. I put on the Sante-Saens organ symphony, which has some super-low notes. I could feel them more than I could really hear them. (Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating just a little bit, but wow.)

Anyway, the 2's are way too big for a shelf, and too big for the stands I had the Hartleys on (and the Hartleys were already pretty big for those stands). Getting them a couple of feet off the floor might be the move (and/or new caps). Achieving the right tweeter level is complicated by having it smack in the middle instead of on top. So maybe a short stand that tilts them up?

I've heard about the upgraded tweeters for the Hartleys. Sounds like you're pretty pleased with them. The Zodiacs' highs already sound pretty sweet to me, but I do need to open them up. There's something loose inside one of them; makes a loud knock when I pick it up and rock it a bit. I imagine the crossover might have come loose and is hanging by the wires. But, hey, I got em for $75, which I thought was pretty good for something that sounds as good as they do. And I generally expect that used stuff is going to need work.
 
Geomorphdog said:
Yeah, that's a good suggestion.
But what's with this "we are AK" stuff, man? There are always new folks at AK. Anyway, no worries.
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Perhaps you misread my post or the ones on the first page of this thread where links to Human Speakers are listed in 3 of the first 4 posts from 2005. I said "we at AK" not "we are AK". Anyway, no worries. :D Welcome to AK. The Genesis I've heard are nice speakers. Although I've never personally owned a pair, I have owned several pairs of EPI and still own 3 pairs. Good luck with your Genesis and keep us posted on your updates.
 
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My bad, I missed that your 'new' Genesis were the II. They might indeed compete in the low end with the Hartleys, I've only heard the Genesis I and heard about the Genesis II. The Zodiac 1Bs are indeed large for a bookshelf, but smaller than the Zodiac 7X series(same drivers, different cabinets, for the record mine are Zodiac 74s). I think the Genesis II are made to be floor standing but many floor speakers benefit from some type of stand to raise and tilt them slightly. Regarding the Hartleys: the high pass crossover has a coil directly glued to the back of the tweeter. If this has come loose please do not hesitate to correct the situation. Besides the coil the crossover has only a capacitor in series with the tweeter, schematically wired fairly simply but on mine all connections were soldered directly to the drivers. When I upgraded the Hartleys' coil to one with heavier gage wire I moved it to the back of the cabinet. Which version of the Phillips tweeter do your Hartleys have, plastic disperser over the dome or dot directly on the dome? Kind of interesting you have two pairs of speakers that had moderate production volumes from the East Coast that ended up in Western Oregon. Particularly surprised at the Hartleys.
 
Guido57 said:
My bad, I missed that your 'new' Genesis were the II. They might indeed compete in the low end with the Hartleys, I've only heard the Genesis I and heard about the Genesis II. The Zodiac 1Bs are indeed large for a bookshelf, but smaller than the Zodiac 7X series(same drivers, different cabinets, for the record mine are Zodiac 74s). I think the Genesis II are made to be floor standing but many floor speakers benefit from some type of stand to raise and tilt them slightly. Regarding the Hartleys: the high pass crossover has a coil directly glued to the back of the tweeter. If this has come loose please do not hesitate to correct the situation. Besides the coil the crossover has only a capacitor in series with the tweeter, schematically wired fairly simply but on mine all connections were soldered directly to the drivers. When I upgraded the Hartleys' coil to one with heavier gage wire I moved it to the back of the cabinet. Which version of the Phillips tweeter do your Hartleys have, plastic disperser over the dome or dot directly on the dome? Kind of interesting you have two pairs of speakers that had moderate production volumes from the East Coast that ended up in Western Oregon. Particularly surprised at the Hartleys.
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When I was shopping for speakers back in '83 or so, I recall eyeing the larger-numbered (i.e., >1) Genesis longingly, but I was a high school student saving up his allowance and going halfsies with Mom and Dad (although Dad, a Mac man himself, kicked in extra to get a used Pioneer PL-630 for $150; I'm listening to it now, but through AR-4x's in my office).

I had never even heard of Hartleys before I saw them on CL for $75. They have such a classic look, with the warm stain and beveled grills. The look and the price were enough for me to bug the guy until he gave up on someone who'd said he'd get back to him. ("Gosh, I just hope you're not getting scammed!") So I get to his place; the guy is ancient, and his house is out in the country with a walled garden, fountains, the whole deal. I go inside, and he's got the Hartleys set out on the floor of this huge room, next to some big towers. He fires up his Mac receiver, and hell, as long as those speakers didn't rattle and buzz I'd probably have bought them. I mean if they'd been good enough for this guy's Mac, they'll probably be at least decent. He said he'd had them for, hm, did he say 20 or 30 years? When I commented on his Mac, he was like, oh that old thing? "Oh, I've had it forever." He threw in some fat speaker cables that don't even fit in the spring jacks on the Hartleys.

Looks like it's the plastic disperser on the tweeters. What did you think of the sound before you upgraded to the new tweeters? Were they not pulling their weight, or did you just want to see how good they could get? Before I brought home the Genesis II's, I had them on a Dynaco SCA-80 that I restored over the summer and with a Magnavox CDB582 that I restored, with upgraded op-amps, about a year ago. The sound was really sweet in the highs, like you could hear the music sparkle, and the bass was pretty solid. I also tried them out on a Magnavox console-pull tube amp (185-AA) that I brought home around the same time, and they were nice on that, just using my phone as a source. I did have to crank the volume up, though. That amp has maybe 6-7 WPC.
IMG_20200913_172333.jpg

Thanks for the heads up about the coil on the back of the tweeter. I bet it's come unglued. Would you recommend replacing the crossover components while I'm at it? And what did you use for a coil, store-bought or roll-your-own? I was just thinking, y'know, I have a bunch of leftover Romex from when we put fixtures in the garage. It's got that beefy solid copper wire. The only time I made inductors, they were for the input of the phono pre-amp on my NAD receiver, so those were considerably smaller and were made with magnet wire and ferrite toroids. Tiny.

Have you considered any of Huw's upgrades for the Genesis 1's? I was particularly thinking about adding internal bracing for the front panel, since the II's have those two big holes cut out of the front. I think I got some good advice here, that replacing the crossover caps would be the place to start. (I was surprised how simple the Genesis crossovers are!)

And those II's were definitely made to be floor-standing. They would have been epic in their day. "Duuuuude, that bass is so rad! Where did you get those things? Dude! It has a sub-woofer? Whoa! Killer!"

Do you have the frequency response curves for your 1's? Do I remember correctly that you said you had the original box? My recollection is that each box had the curves in clear plastic sleeves on the outside. I pinned mine on my wall. Check out the flat response! Duuude! I know, not the same as big bass. But those curves were their sales pitch. "These, sir, these are perfect."
 
First the Hartleys. As your tweeters have the plastic disperser they would be a later model than mine. My tweeters were the earlier Phillips ones with the foam dot attached to the inside of the dome. When I acquired them the foam was still attached, after several months of use the foam detached and they did not sound as good, overly sharp on the highs, though putting felt around them helped. I had considered upgrading the tweeters previously but this pushed me to act. The resulting sound quality is much higher than the originals before the foam detachment. I purchased my crossover upgrades from Richard S. at Hartley. I believe he and Hartley are interchangeable at this date. In essence I paid extra for him matching the components. You can wind your own coil, though I would recommend getting something to measure the mH of your finished product, I use something that's about $10 off ebay. If you wind your own coil use magnet wire as the coating is insulation between the windings, not sure the Romex conductors would work properly. Judging from what I got I would recommend 14 gauge. Use good caps but you do not need to go to extremes.
The Genesis I's I've heard were not mine, one of my friends owned them and they were not properly positioned. The inverted dome speakers I have are an early EPI 110-M, a variant of the EPI 100 which would be similar to the Genesis 1. I have considered Huw's tweeters for them, but pre-upgrade the Hartleys were still better in my opinion. The smaller EPIs and Genesis do not reach as low as the Hartleys. I have read, from generally reliable sources, the Genesis II are in another class of base response from the smaller EPI/Epicure/Genesis models. Your Genesis probably has a later version of the inverted dome than my EPIs, though I have no idea if they would sound much different.
 
Guido57 said:
First the Hartleys. As your tweeters have the plastic disperser they would be a later model than mine. My tweeters were the earlier Phillips ones with the foam dot attached to the inside of the dome. When I acquired them the foam was still attached, after several months of use the foam detached and they did not sound as good, overly sharp on the highs, though putting felt around them helped. I had considered upgrading the tweeters previously but this pushed me to act. The resulting sound quality is much higher than the originals before the foam detachment. I purchased my crossover upgrades from Richard S. at Hartley. I believe he and Hartley are interchangeable at this date. In essence I paid extra for him matching the components. You can wind your own coil, though I would recommend getting something to measure the mH of your finished product, I use something that's about $10 off ebay. If you wind your own coil use magnet wire as the coating is insulation between the windings, not sure the Romex conductors would work properly. Judging from what I got I would recommend 14 gauge. Use good caps but you do not need to go to extremes.
The Genesis I's I've heard were not mine, one of my friends owned them and they were not properly positioned. The inverted dome speakers I have are an early EPI 110-M, a variant of the EPI 100 which would be similar to the Genesis 1. I have considered Huw's tweeters for them, but pre-upgrade the Hartleys were still better in my opinion. The smaller EPIs and Genesis do not reach as low as the Hartleys. I have read, from generally reliable sources, the Genesis II are in another class of base response from the smaller EPI/Epicure/Genesis models. Your Genesis probably has a later version of the inverted dome than my EPIs, though I have no idea if they would sound much different.
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According to the specs on Huw's site, the Genesis II's low end is 28 Hz. It hits those really low organ notes with no problem. Same with bass guitar. It's almost startling, because it's been so long since I heard bass like that. I guess it would have been my dad's system. He had 18" woofers with coaxial tweeters in an ElectroVoice corner cabinet set into corners with cedar paneling. I'm more and more convinced that he bought the house knowing what it would do for his speakers. Anyway, not sure which boxes to open first; probably the Hartleys, since they're not hooked up to anything now. Get those sorted and then deal with the Genesis II's, although before I do anything with them I'm going to need to experiment with placement, including elevation and tilt.

I was going to ask if you had the Hartley specs handy, but I suppose they might be different for mine. I'm sure I'll be able to read the values of the caps off of what's in there now, but I'm not so sure about the inductor. I do have an LCR meter, but I need to double check its range and settings. I think I've seen Richard S. on the web. I'll check and see what info he has online.

Thanks for passing on the knowledge!
 
In general I believe the Zodiac 7X series claims down to 30Hz, the Zodiac, Zodiac 1A and I think the Zodiac 2A claim a 35Hz response. Drivers are the same, the 7X cabinets are larger. I believe crossovers are the same, mine were 12uF caps and .51mH coils.
Your LCR meter is probably better than what I use, provided it works in the correct range. I bought this type of tester on Ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mega328-LC...424596?hash=item4b4c0c5814:g:43IAAOSwIdZfdppZ
Note my Zodiac 74's need at least 18" from the rear wall to avoid boomy bass.
 
If the tweeters on my EPI's were as good as I expected I would have been seriously tempted to build my own Genesis II type cabinets. I did at one point consider this. I cannot be sure that my tweeters sound as good as they should being close to fifty years old, the initial iteration of the design and having an uncertain history. At this point have too many other projects to consider buying new tweeters from Huw just to see if there is a significant difference, though I suspect there is. I did at one time also consider replacing the original Philips tweeters on the Hartleys with modern units from Seas, but did not want to get into crossover design at the time so I went with the 'stock' upgrade from Richard.
 
Guido57 said:
In general I believe the Zodiac 7X series claims down to 30Hz, the Zodiac, Zodiac 1A and I think the Zodiac 2A claim a 35Hz response. Drivers are the same, the 7X cabinets are larger. I believe crossovers are the same, mine were 12uF caps and .51mH coils.
Your LCR meter is probably better than what I use, provided it works in the correct range. I bought this type of tester on Ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mega328-LC...424596?hash=item4b4c0c5814:g:43IAAOSwIdZfdppZ
Note my Zodiac 74's need at least 18" from the rear wall to avoid boomy bass.
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I opened up the Hartleys. Capacitor markings are unfamiliar. Here's a photo:
PXL_20210120_054230292.jpg
The first line is "77 50." I figure the second number means a 50 V rating. The first? 7 uF? Measurement with the LCR (after taking it out of circuit) is 6.58 uF. The coil inductance is 0.70 mH. There's a 4 ohm resistor in series with the tweeter, but it's measuring 3.5 ohms. That's the speaker with the coil that's come unglued from the tweeter; you called that one exactly right. I sent an email to the AOL account listed for Richard S. Seems unreal, like that email will go back in time to 1995. Any wisdom regarding the capacitor markings? If not, no worries. I'll wait to hear from Richard.

If it's 7 uF, well great. I'll have to go hunting for a 1% with that value. No luck with Dayton. Or do you think 1% tolerance is overkill?
 
I do not know the markings on those caps. Mine had the notorious Temple caps with the black bodies and red ends, but at least they were clearly marked 12uF.
"The very first Zodiac Tweeters were supplied by Philips to me per my specs. Somewhat later we did a different modification." Richard Shmetterer
It seems quite possible that your crossover was for the latter modification, after all Philips had done its own tweaks to the tweeter, the addition of the plastic diffuser being an obvious one. My crossover had no resistor, though I have seen pictures of a crossover from a 300-A (even bigger cabinet than the 7X series, along with a second woofer) that had the 4 ohm resistor with a 6uF cap in the crossover.
1% is probably overkill. I've yet to have significant differences between capacitors of the same brand bought at the same time, though admittedly my meter is pretty low end.
The detached coil was not that hard a call as there isn't much else inside with enough mass to make much noise when the cabinet is moved, assuming the drivers aren't obviously loose.
Geomorphdog said:
I sent an email to the AOL account listed for Richard S. Seems unreal, like that email will go back in time to 1995.
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I'm guessing you're referring to the AOL?
For the record the email I used for Richard was:
audiolab@aol.com
 
Guido57 said:
I do not know the markings on those caps. Mine had the notorious Temple caps with the black bodies and red ends, but at least they were clearly marked 12uF.
"The very first Zodiac Tweeters were supplied by Philips to me per my specs. Somewhat later we did a different modification." Richard Shmetterer
It seems quite possible that your crossover was for the latter modification, after all Philips had done its own tweaks to the tweeter, the addition of the plastic diffuser being an obvious one. My crossover had no resistor, though I have seen pictures of a crossover from a 300-A (even bigger cabinet than the 7X series, along with a second woofer) that had the 4 ohm resistor with a 6uF cap in the crossover.
1% is probably overkill. I've yet to have significant differences between capacitors of the same brand bought at the same time, though admittedly my meter is pretty low end.
The detached coil was not that hard a call as there isn't much else inside with enough mass to make much noise when the cabinet is moved, assuming the drivers aren't obviously loose.

I'm guessing you're referring to the AOL?
For the record the email I used for Richard was:
audiolab@aol.com
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Richard got back to me right away and asked for a picture of the cap. Then he told me the cap and inductor values should be/were originally 6 uF and 0.6 mH, respectively. My next question was, can inductor values change that much, or is my LCR meter malfunctioning? Because my LCR meter measured the inductor value as 0.70 mH.

I don't see too many AOL email addresses these days; that's what I was referring to. It's so "1995." ;)
 
Inductors are probably one of the most stable of components and any electrical signal that could have damaged the coil would have destroyed the tweeter, though I do not know what any such damage might look like. My best guess: an out of spec coil got by QC. At the pedestrian level of the Zodiacs (there were other higher end speakers in their product line.) they probably didn't test all incoming components and there is the possibility their supplier shipped some out of spec. Did you test both or just the 'loose' coil? All four of my coils, two originals and two replacements, measured equal for mH on my meter.
 
Guido57 said:
Inductors are probably one of the most stable of components and any electrical signal that could have damaged the coil would have destroyed the tweeter, though I do not know what any such damage might look like. My best guess: an out of spec coil got by QC. At the pedestrian level of the Zodiacs (there were other higher end speakers in their product line.) they probably didn't test all incoming components and there is the possibility their supplier shipped some out of spec. Did you test both or just the 'loose' coil? All four of my coils, two originals and two replacements, measured equal for mH on my meter.
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I only measured values in the one. I opened both up. Big item to put on the bench. The one with the loose coil had the more easily accessible connections, and it always feels sketchy putting a soldering iron inside a speaker. I also figured the inductors should be about as stable as could be, unless one became unwound, but that wasn't the case here, and that would decrease the value. I checked that the inductance of the shorted leads was zero.
 
It appears all your connections in your Zodiacs are soldered, as were mine. Mine did however have enough slack in the connecting wires to pull the tweeter out to work on it, but considering I was replacing and relocating the coils I just rewired the whole deal. For the record I went with quick connects on the speakers in case I might try tweaking the crossover, as in putting in a 0.3 to 0.5 ohm resistor to make up for the lower ESR of film caps vs the original electrolytic. I actually moved the crossover to the back of the baffle as that was the only interior surface that did not have damping material. The crossover's board has through bolts to hold it and the new coils are attached with both zip ties and hot glue, hopefully nothings going to detach on these suckers.
 
Guido57 said:
It appears all your connections in your Zodiacs are soldered, as were mine. Mine did however have enough slack in the connecting wires to pull the tweeter out to work on it, but considering I was replacing and relocating the coils I just rewired the whole deal. For the record I went with quick connects on the speakers in case I might try tweaking the crossover, as in putting in a 0.3 to 0.5 ohm resistor to make up for the lower ESR of film caps vs the original electrolytic. I actually moved the crossover to the back of the baffle as that was the only interior surface that did not have damping material. The crossover's board has through bolts to hold it and the new coils are attached with both zip ties and hot glue, hopefully nothings going to detach on these suckers.
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Moving the whole thing to the back panel seems like the best idea. I think I'll do the same, especially since I couldn't find any film caps with axial leads at the spec'ed value and 5% tolerance. I figured that, if I was in a pinch for space on the panel, I could always peel up the insulation a little and put what I needed underneath it on the back wall, adjacent to the panel.
 
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