Genesis Physics Speakers:Model II

[lms]

Since I had time, I added a few cross braces like I saw on the human site. Caps and resistors finally arrived from Canada. I bought pretty inexpensive caps, jantzen. Never tried them, along with mills. I bought 2.5 and 2.7. I read that the lpad you put in another speaker set that the setting connotated to 3.0, so 2.7 it is. If it's rolled off to much, which I doubt, I'll swap in the 2.5. Not enough then I'll get 3's.
The speaker stands I have are left overs from a set of polk monitor 10's I had. I built them with a 5 degree tilt and I think, 8 inches off the ground. Will these suffice or do I need them ear level?
Thx

 

[Nat]

Its a matter of taste, and probably affected by how you configure the crossover.
Particularly with positioning speakers, an ounce of try it and see beats pounds of theorizing.

 

[lms]

I listened to them a bunch this weekend and they sound pretty good, but the bass is too boomy on certain songs I like, and I like bass. I'm going to spike the stands and test them some more. Also, I have zero room treatments as I have not had the time to buy new panels, etc after we moved. I tried positioning them, still too much for me. I like my music pretty loud, not sure these will cut it.
The insides have 4 strips of fiberglass, but under the PR and the woofer is rolled up poly with the ends pointing towards the drivers which is interesting. I'm going to pick up some more fiberglass, remove the poly and stuff them some more and test. I might add the sonic barrier to one and test that too.
I know my space is probably contributing to this, and I might have to test them with different stands, tweeter at ear level and off the floor more. I will say this, some songs sound fantastic.

 

[Nat]

I suspect that the combination of fiberglass and polyfill may damp a wider range of frequencies than one or the other, and so may have been a deliberate choice. I would suggest changing the filling on one and then comparing the changed one to the unchanged one for a while before committing to one or the other.
And be aware that it is possible to overdamp an enclosure - the cliche about overdamping deadening the sound is quite accurate.

 

[Pete B]

I listened to them a bunch this weekend and they sound pretty good, but the bass is too boomy on certain songs I like, and I like bass. I'm going to spike the stands and test them some more. Also, I have zero room treatments as I have not had the time to buy new panels, etc after we moved. I tried positioning them, still too much for me. I like my music pretty loud, not sure these will cut it.
The insides have 4 strips of fiberglass, but under the PR and the woofer is rolled up poly with the ends pointing towards the drivers which is interesting. I'm going to pick up some more fiberglass, remove the poly and stuff them some more and test. I might add the sonic barrier to one and test that too.
I know my space is probably contributing to this, and I might have to test them with different stands, tweeter at ear level and off the floor more. I will say this, some songs sound fantastic.

Are you running the tweeters attenuated?
These speakers reach to the very low 30s and if your room has modes, as all typical home rooms do, they
will be revealed. Some fix this by using mini monitors with virtually no bass below 60-80 Hz.
As I said the woofer is not well suited to a vented alignment, Qts is too high, and the way to fix this is to
pack a lot of fiberglass directly behind the woofer to increase the woofer damping not the box or PR
damping. Best thing would be to measure them in your room and if the boom is around 32 Hz then
reduce the box volume, say -.5 cu ft. If the boom is 50 to 100Hz increase the woofer damping, and some
of it is going to be the room, adjust placement and room damping. But room damping at such low
frequencies that it is not easy.
As far as playing them loud goes consider that they have only a 1" voice coil wound on a paper former
from what I can see. That 8" woofer is not going to handle major power.

If you want to be blown away, get PSB Stratus Golds, these are on another level, completely.
I've fed them with 325W/ch into the 4 ohm load and driven them with the clipping lights flickering.
They'll play about 6 or more dB louder than these Genesis speakers.
Read Don Keele's review in Audio.

 

[lms]

Thanks for all the info. I spiked them last night which definitely helped. I'll add more fill too. I listened to them with the switch on at 2.7 and off. I have another set of speakers with pr's and these dip way below those. These are easily in the 30's in my room. The songs that can get boomy I can eq those when I play flac files through audacious on my dedicated linux mint music laptop. CD's, nope. I had a manual style eq, that drove me nuts, bye to that.
I have another set of speakers that I will never get rid of, bought the Genesis on a whim. My significant other looked at me like I was nuts when I pulled them out of my car. In the short time I have started to listen to music, more, these are easily my 10th pair which is nothing compared to most.
Those speakers look very intriguing, and interesting you write about mini monitors as that's most likely the way i will go next (easy to move). I already have a svs pro sub and I think I might pull the trigger and get some BA CR-9s that are in my area. Those might work great with my sub.
I was just about to pull the trigger on the new elac 3.0's, haven't bought new speakers yet, but I just can't seem to get away from somewhat, vintage speakers.

 

[Pete B]

Stratus Golds, page 50 in the .pdf

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/90s/Audio-1991-11.pdf

I don't know if your "loud" is anything like my loud.

While the article talks a lot about the power handling and deep bass, the response flatness is also remarkable.

 

[lms]

I listen to rock, old, some new. Let's just say my significant other plugs her ears if she walks in and my cat starts climbing the walls. Oh yeah, at one time I had D9's. Enough said.

 

[lms]

Before and after pics. Before, there was a tunnel from the PR to the woofer. After, as you can see, I changed that, but i wonder if I should create that tunnel again. I did not add any FG behind the drivers. This helped a lot, so much so that I don't think I need to add any behind the driver which looks the same? I will say this, these speakers have made it so I can hear direct reflections off the side walls that I need fix with some acoustic panels. I really need to do that before I do anything else.

 

[Nat]

Someone was busy in there - they ripped or cut the mesh to keep the fiberglass away from the woofer, and then redid the damping (which I suspect had little overall effect, but may have improved some frequencies). That said, my impression is that passive radiators don't need, and actually are not helped, by lots of damping between the driver and radiator. I believe you want the backwave of the woofer to arrive at the passive radiator as quickly and with the minimum resistance. The mass/damping of the passive should take care of resonances, rather than relying on stuffing in the box. But I'm not experienced.

 

[lms]

Funny thing about the stratus gold speakers you mentioned. Two weeks ago, I found some speakers, saved them as a favorite in FB marketplace. They are called, pbs mini stratus. I didn't put two and two together until tonight. Same company, different speakers that also get pretty darn good reviews, come with their own stands. But I just found the speakers u are reffering to about 30 minutes away in amazing shape. What are they golds worth?
Thanks

 

[Pete B]

I'd say around $500 but I'd pay a few hundred more for excellent condition.
On the other hand they are large and not many buyers so they should take offers.

 

[TriodeLuvr]

I auditioned hundreds of speakers back in the day. This included almost every model of AR, B&0, Yamaha, Pioneer, Bose, Advent and many others for which I performed factory authorized service. That was in the '70s and '80s. I also had several friends who worked in high-end retail outlets in Houston at that time. Because of them, I was also able to audition nearly all the new concepts of the day - planar speakers, Heil/AMT (and the later ribbons from other manufacturers), Ohm, etc., as well as more established models like Klipsch. Of all those speakers, the best I ever heard were the Genesis 44. It's never been clear to me from en engineering standpoint why they were so good, but however they did it, the designers got it right. Bass was very tight and extended well into the first octave. The midrange was exceptionally nuanced and realistic, with no detectable coloration from either the box or the bass frequencies. The highs were smooth and extended to well above the range my 20kHz ears (back then) could hear. Even when simply set into a typical listening environment with little or no attention to placement or room treatment, these were the only speakers that could consistently fool me with eyes shut into believing performers or FM announcers were in the room. They really were remarkable in this way.

If not for the fact my system now is all tube and that the 44 is very inefficient, I would have restored a pair by now. Looking back, this model was highly underrated, and the many competing brands, some with ferocious marketing campaigns, simply pushed them into obscurity. Truly a shame.

Jack

 

[Pete B]

Interesting that they're just a little more advanced over the II fancy box and a bit more
complex crossover. Hue claims a better woofer also:

HUMAN Speakers: Genesis Model 44

Genesis Physics model 44 and 44 series 2 information

www.humanspeakers.com

 

[lms]

Are the 44's left- and right-side specific speakers?

 

[TriodeLuvr]

Interesting that they're just a little more advanced over the II fancy box and a bit more
complex crossover. Hue claims a better woofer also:

HUMAN Speakers: Genesis Model 44

Genesis Physics model 44 and 44 series 2 information

www.humanspeakers.com

I believe the first version (the ones I experienced) had no crossover to the woofer. The system relied on its natural rolloff to cross with the tweeter. The tweeter had an unusually large voice coil and low frequency extension. Unlike most two-way systems (which I have nearly always found to be lacking), this one didn't cross over in a critical part of the midrange. Also, the woofer was an extremely long throw (which contributed to the low efficiency). I calculated the approximate displacement once, and it was between that of a typical 10" and a 12" speaker. I have no idea how the replacement drivers being offered by Human compare to the originals. They were highly specialized. I did send a couple EPI woofers to him about 20 years ago for rebuild, and he did a good job.

Jack

 

[TriodeLuvr]

Are the 44's left- and right-side specific speakers?

Yes, they were asymmetrical mirror images.

 

[TriodeLuvr]

I believe the first version (the ones I experienced) had no crossover to the woofer. The system relied on its natural rolloff to cross with the tweeter. The tweeter had an unusually large voice coil and low frequency extension. Unlike most two-way systems (which I have nearly always found to be lacking), this one didn't cross over in a critical part of the midrange. Also, the woofer was an extremely long throw (which contributed to the low efficiency). I calculated the approximate displacement once, and it was between that of a typical 10" and a 12" speaker. I have no idea how the replacement drivers being offered by Human compare to the originals. They were highly specialized. I did send a couple EPI woofers to him about 20 years ago for rebuild, and he did a good job.

Jack

Just one more comment - The Human site shows a schematic for the original Genesis 44 that includes woofer crossover components. However, I distinctly remember reading a review in a semi-technical publication at the time describing the 44 as having no electrical woofer crossover. I never took one apart, nor do I remember the reviewer doing so. I think this description came from the factory.

Jack

 

[lms]

I put these up for sale, not getting any traction, yet. But I'm in no hurry. In the meantime, I decided to open one up, again. There is no way the fill in these speakers is stock, in other words, someone went in there, removed some layers and added the poly. Since I have read there are some with six layers, I decided to add a layer on each side behind the driver, and a half layer directly below the driver itself, or where you see they had the poly. Fired them up on mono, balanced back and forth and I can't believe how much this changed the speaker compared to the other I didn't do. The boominess is now gone in that speaker, and my room. I have to admit, this is kind of fun being able to tune the speakers this way. Going to do the other, test away and maybe tweak some more if need be.
I also decided to raise them off the floor more via the chair method as a test, straight on, and I like this much better than them being closer to the floor and angled up.

 

[BilboBaggins]

When I had my Genesis IIs, I liked them between 6 and 8 inches up straight out(no tilt, or turn). For sure the passive and active need a channel to each other. With no channel, you are pretty well killing the benefits of using a passive. I've had a few speakers with an active and a passive (Celestion Ditton 15, Camber 2.2 IIRC, ESS AMT 1A Monitors) and when they are done right, they can be quite impressive. The Celestion Ditton 15s are one of my favourite small vintage speakers (of course they are 4 ohms) and I've heard them perform better than the Ditton 44s when the 44 was under powered. I once had a pair 15s in rosewood veneer and they were stunning!