Bookshelf Speaker Reviews

I auditioned a few music test tracks, moving the satellites relative to the walls and using their EQ to tilt bass and treble. I soon settled on a permutation that sounded just right in my room: satellites away from the walls, and a -2 dB treble rolloff. The subwoofer sounded good out of the box in my usual front-wall location and didn't require any repositioning or EQ.

Music Performance After the system's mandatory break-in time, I started my music audition using only the front stereo pair and the subwoofer. KT Tunstall's Drastic Fantastic is an enthusiastic follow-up to her sensational Eye to the Telescope. Borrowing the same energy as that album's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree," the new track "Hold On" is driven by a raunchy Buena Vista Social Club kind of beat that's as infectious as the flu in day care. The raw clarity of Tunstall's dusky vocals was exemplary on these monitors. In the second chorus, after the bridge, I could clearly discern at least four tracks of Tunstall's voice. I could also cleanly hear the subtle EQ shifts of the guitar track as it transitions from the verses to the bridge.

The Genelecs maintained a warm clarity with this somewhat muddy mix (perhaps not mixed on studio speakers as good as Genelecs!). On some other woofers, the heavy floor toms and thick bass might meld together unhandsomely. However, the subtle balance was nicely distinguished and well reproduced by these speakers. The system could really rock, too, and it didn't particularly tighten up at loud levels. I was impressed that a 2.1 system running 150 watts could sound so lively and dynamic.

Turning my attention to surround music, I auditioned the DVD-Audio release of Brian Wilson's Live at the Roxy Theatre. Given the matched front trio of speakers, I wasn't surprised to hear a unified panorama across the soundstage, with each instrument occupying its own distinct acoustic space. Moreover, the surrounds extended the envelope, mainly carrying delayed and reverberated copies of the front stereo mix and crowd noise. While dipole surrounds would have been an interesting option for this concert recording, I was completely satisfied with these direct radiators; the ambient sound field wasn't localized to the speakers but was instead very natural and open.

The subwoofer was extremely musical as well, providing a solid foundation for the satellites. Given the satellites' small size, I was impressed by their low-frequency extension and by how well they blended with the sub. I could accurately hear bass-guitar notes with virtually seamless continuity across the lower musical spectrum.

Movie Performance Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is a goofy but lovable look at the NASCAR scene. Ricky (Will Ferrell) lives in a world where women's breasts and babies' foreheads are prime real estate for drivers' autographs. And in a movie like this, if the dialogue isn't intelligible, then the jokes aren't funny. On the Genelecs, articulation was excellent, with every drop of Southern drawl coming through loud and clear, even off-axis. Thanks to the matched front trio, the soundstage was completely integrated. The screaming cars panning across the front were rock-solid, while the matching surrounds dovetailed with the fronts in race scenes, picking up crowd noise, Doppler-shifted engine whine, and a drum kit to create an immersive environment. The sub kicked in with kick drum, bass guitar, and the thunder of 800-horsepower engines.

I was pleasantly surprised by the sonic horsepower of the system's internal amps. They sounded much louder than their rated specs would suggest, pushing my listening room to relatively high sound-pressure levels. No, they couldn't do cinema reference levels, and they'd be mildly underwhelming in very large or very absorptive rooms. But for lower levels, especially in smaller and more live-sounding rooms, these Genelecs would be quite adequate.

Bottom Line With respect to the fine consumer speakers in your home theater, there's essentially a 0% chance that the music and movies you listen to were mixed on them. On the other hand, there's a good chance that those recordings were mixed on Genelecs. In that respect, listening at home to this system takes you a step closer to hearing how the sound was meant to be heard. True, these models are targeted for home listening (though I've seen them in both home and professional studios), but there's no mistaking the Genelec sonic signature. Their timbral clarity, accurate response, and controlled dynamics are what professional mixers (and you) look for in a monitor. After decades of success in the studio, Genelec has a bright future in home theater.