Directivity Control Waveguide (DCW™) for flat on- and off-axis response.
A revolutionary approach was taken by Genelec in 1983 with the development of its Directivity Control Waveguide (DCW™) used at the time in an egg-shaped enclosure. The Genelec DCW technology developed and refined over more than 30 years greatly improves the performance of direct radiating multi-way monitors.
The DCW technology shapes the emitted wavefront in a controlled way, allowing predictable tailoring of the directivity (dispersion) pattern. To make the directivity uniform and smooth, the goal is to limit the radiation angle so that the stray radiation is reduced. It results in excellent flatness of the overall frequency response as well as uniform power response. This advanced DCW technology minimizes early reflections and provides a wide and controlled listening area achieving accurate sound reproduction on- and off-axis.
Minimized early reflections and controlled, constant directivity have another important advantage: the frequency balance of the room reverberation field is essentially the same as the direct field from the monitors. As a consequence, the monitoring system's performance is less dependent on room acoustic characteristics.
Sound image width and depth, critical components in any listening environment, are important not only for on-axis listening, but also off-axis. This accommodates not only the engineer doing his or her job, but also others in the listening field, as is so often the case in large control rooms.
DCW™ Technology key benefits:
- Flat on- and off-axis response for wider usable listening area
- Increased direct-to-reflected sound ratio for reduced control room coloration
- Improved stereo and sound stage imaging
- Increased drive unit sensitivity up to 6 dB
- Increased system maximum sound pressure level capacity
- Decreased drive unit distortion
- Reduced cabinet edge diffraction
- Reduced complete system distortion
Room Response Compensation
Precise room response compensation for optimizing in-room performance.
The interaction between room acoustic and loudspeaker radiation is complex. Each room changes somewhat the monitor’s response in a unique way, e.g. reflective vs. damped rooms, or placement against a wall vs. on a stand away from the walls.
All Genelec loudspeaker systems feature room response adjustments to compensate for the room influences and retrieve a flat frequency response at the listening position.
Smart Active Monitor (SAM™) Systems
Genelec SAM Systems offer a comprehensive, solution-oriented, intelligently networked product range which all feature Genelec Loudspeaker Manager (GLM™) software and its automatic calibration system called AutoCal™.
Genelec AutoCal provides the industry’s first integrated process for complete automated measurement, analysis, and adjustment of every monitor on the GLM control network. The system measures the response in the listening area and applies relevant compensation in the low and low-mid frequencies to minimise the detrimental room acoustic anomalies as well as the differences between various listening positions. AutoCal also aligns relative levels, time-of-flight, as well as adjusts correct crossover phase (called AutoPhase) for all subwoofers on the network.
The Acoustic Response Editor provides accurate graphical display of the measured response, filter compensation and the resulting system response for each monitor, with full manual control of acoustic settings
Reflex Port Design
Advanced reflex port design for extended low frequency response.
Genelec’s choice for vented, or reflex, enclosures dates back to the S30 model, the first Genelec product from 1978. Port performance has been improved and refined over the years with the aim to increase the woofer’s low frequency extension and sound pressure level capability to provide outstanding bass articulation and definition.
Both driver and vent contribute to the total radiation of a reflex enclosure. Most radiation comes from the driver, but at the vent-enclosure resonant frequency the driver displacement amplitude is small and most of the radiation comes out of the vent.
To minimize the air speed in the tube, the cross sectional area of the vent should be large. This in turn means that the vent tube has to be long which presents quite a design challenge.
The long, curved tube maximizes airflow so deep bass can be reproduced without compression. The reflex tube terminates with a wide flare located on the rear of the enclosure for obvious reasons, minimizing port noises and providing excellent bass articulation.
The curvature of the tube has also been carefully designed to minimize any audible noise, compression or distortion. The inner end of the tube has proper resistive termination to minimize once again audible chuffing noise and air turbulence.
Proper reflex port design allows also to significantly reduce the woofer’s displacement, improving the linear low frequency output capacity.
Optimized Amplifiers
Each transducer is driven by its own optimized amplifier.
Audio electronic crossovers allow to split the audio signal into separate frequency bands that can be separately routed to individual power amplifiers which then are connected to specific transducers optimized for a particular frequency band.
In a typical 2-way loudspeaker system, the active crossover needs two power amplifiers — one for the woofer and one for the tweeter. The power amplifiers are connected directly to the drivers of an active loudspeaker, resulting in the power amplifier’s load becoming much simpler and well known. Each driver-specific power amplifier has only a limited frequency range to amplify (the power amplifier is placed after the active crossover) and this adds to the ease of design.
The active design principle offers multiple benefits:
- The power amplifiers are directly connected to the speaker drivers, maximizing the control exerted by the power amplifier’s damping on the driver’s voice coil, reducing the consequences of dynamic changes in the driver electrical characteristics. This may improve the transient response of the system.
- There is a reduction in the power amplifier output requirement. With no energy lost in the passive crossover filter components, the amplifier power output requirements are reduced considerably (by up to 1/2 in some cases) without any reduction in the acoustic power output of the loudspeaker system. This can reduce costs and increase audio quality and system reliability.
- No loss between amplifier and driver units results in maximum acoustic efficiency
- Active technology can achieve superior sound output vs. size vs. low frequency cut-off performance
- All loudspeakers are delivered as a factory aligned system (amplifiers, crossover electronics and enclosure-driver systems)
Intelligent Signal Sensing (ISS™) Technology
Intelligent Signal Sensing (ISS™) for power consumption reduction in stand-by mode.
Introduced early 2013, Genelec’s Intelligent Signal-Sensing technology has been developed to meet with both European Union ErP Directives and the company’s own wider sustainability commitments.
The Intelligent Signal Sensing, ISS™ circuitry tracks the signal input of the loudspeaker and detects if it is in use. If the ISS circuit does not find any audio on the input for a period of time, it sets the loudspeaker to a low-power sleep state and the loudspeaker will consume less than 0.5 watts. When an input signal is detected, the loudspeaker immediately turns itself on. Basically, the loudspeaker system will start saving power as soon as work is interrupted.
Additionally an ‘ISS Disable’ switch is located on each product’s back plate next to the other room response controls. First, when the mains power switch of the loudspeaker is set to “ON”, the ISS™ auto-start function (low-power sleep state on/off) of the loudspeaker is active.
If this function is not desired, the ISS™ function can be disabled by setting the “ISS Disable” switch on the back panel to “ON” position. In this mode, the monitor is only powered on and off using the mains power switch.
Note that the mains power switch will always turn the monitor off completely.
Protection Circuitry
Sophisticated drive unit protection circuitry for safe operation.
When working in critical audio production environments it is essential that monitoring systems remain reliable and functional at all times. One of the main reasons behind Genelec’s excellent success in broadcasting environments is the reliability of our products and a key element behind the reliability is the internal protection circuitry found in all products since 1978.
The protection circuitry prevents driver failures by detecting signal levels, and in case of sudden peaks or constantly too high levels, taking the signal level down automatically. Of course this feature does not affect the sound quality in any way when working within the specifications of the loudspeaker, but only prevents inadequate input signals from breaking the loudspeaker.
Protection circuitry features and benefits:
- Reduces the output level when required, (e.g. when driver voice coil temperature reaches the safe limit) which highly improves the system reliability
- Appropriate protection circuitry design in every loudspeaker and subwoofer enables to maximise system output sound level.