- in Gear , Hardware , New Music Gear Monday by Bobby Owsinski
New Music Gear Monday: Genelec The Ones Series Coaxial Monitors
I’ve been using coaxial monitors as part of my regular studio setup for a long time. As far as I’m concerned, there’s something about their “single-point source” nature that sounds right to me, and it’s something that other speakers with separated drivers just can’t seem to deliver, at least to my ears. Don’t get me wrong, there are some fantastic traditional two and three-way monitors available that really sound great, but I find a coaxial monitor (where the tweeter is in the center of the voice coil of the woofer) is a more comfortable listen. That’s why I was pleased to discover that Genelec just released its new line of coax speakers called “The Ones.”
The Ones are active 3 way monitors, the largest being the model 8351, and the smaller 8341 and 8331. The largest 8351 utilizes a 8 1/2 x 4 inch oval bass driver, and a 5 inch midrange/tweeter coaxial driver. The self-powered unit uses a Class D amplifier with 150 watts for the woofer, 120 for the midrange and 90 for the tweeter.
The mid-size 8341 features a 6 5/8th x 3 1/2 oval woofer, and a 3 1/2 inch coax midrange/tweeter driver power by 250 watts for the woofer, 150 for the midrange and 150 for tweeter, which is surprising since it’s more power than it’s larger brother. The smallest 8331 features a 5 1/8th x 2 5/8th inch oval woofer, and the same 3 1/2 inch coax midrange/tweeter driver as in the 8341. It’s powered with a 76 watt woofer amp, and 36 watt amps for the woofer and tweeter.
The Ones also use Genelec’s Smart Active Monitoring so that they can be networked together and placed in a network of up to 40 monitors and subwoofers. This provides instantly recallable configurations from traditional stereo to immersive audio. The networking feature is all based around the Genelec Loudspeaker Manager™ (GLM™) 2.0 software for PC and Mac, incorporating its AutoCal™ apps.
The cool thing about these monitors (especially the small 8331) is that they’re very small for a 3 way speaker. The fact that they’re coax also means that they can be used either vertically or horizontally with no problem in response, and can have a listening distance as short as 16 inches.
The 8351 is available and costs around $3875 each, while the 8341 has an MSPR of $3295 each and the 8331 goes for $2495 each. You can check out the Genelec website or the video below for more info.