Genelec 8020.LSE Espresso Genelec

The Genelec 8020.LSE Espresso is a multichannel system that comprises five 40-watt (20W x 20W) 8020B* bi-amplified active studio monitors and 70W, 8″ 7050B active subwoofer designed for space-challenged project and home studios edit suites, mobile rigs, and home theater.

The 8020.LSE Espresso enables very small studios and edit suites to enjoy the benefits of a professional-quality multichannel 5.1 system. The Espresso system comprises five 8020B 4″ bi-amped monitors along with the 7050B LSE-series subwoofer. With Genelec’s pinpoint accuracy and stunning soundstage. With advanced sound reproduction technologies found in the larger Genelec monitors, the 8020B features the sleek-looking, yet highly functional design of the Minimum Diffraction Enclosure (MDE) aluminum cabinet with integrated (Directivity Controlled Waveguide) DCW. Whether you’re looking to add quality surround to a small studio, mobile rig, edit suite, film-post studio, or gift yourself with a studio-quality home theater, The Genelec 8020.LSE Espresso is a powerful performer that punches well out of its weight class.

Genelec 8020.LSE Espresso unique features:

• Five 40W (20W LF/20W HF), 4″ 8020B bi-amplified active monitors with room compensation EQ, directivity waveguide, and Iso-Pod™ stands
• One 8″ 7050B subwoofer with 70W optimized Class D power amp, bass management, LFE channel, room-response EQ, and 6 x 5 XLR I/O (5 + LFE in, 5 out)

Genelec 8020B – Behind the Grille

The 8020B is a compact nearfield monitor with superior imaging and a wide and linear frequency response of 65Hz to 21kHz (+/-2.0) the come courtesy of Genelec’s proprietary Minimum Diffraction Enclosure (MDE) and Directivity Controlled Waveguide (DCW). The rounded corners and continuously curving form of the MDE enclosure blend seamlessly into the improved.

Directivity Control Waveguide (DCW), effectively reducing the comb filtering that results from edge diffraction, while providing a wide and stable sweet spot that enables you to move off axis without significant loss in the frequency response. Powered by a pair of 20-watt amplifiers, the Genelec 8020B monitors have a 4″ woofer and 3/4″ hard-domed tweeter. In addition to low harmonic distortion, the 8020B also offers rear panel bass and treble tilt room response controls to tailor its response to your room.

The MDE enclosure is made of rugged die-cast aluminum, which also provides efficient heat dissipation capability and shielding against RF interference. Each speaker is also magnetically shielded for additional protection when used in close proximity to video monitors. And finally, the 8020B features Genelec’s Iso-Pod table stand with adjustable tilt that enables the monitor’s acoustical axis can be pointed precisely towards the listener for best sound reproduction. Additionally, as its name suggests, the Iso-Pod physically decouples the speaker preventing coloration caused by conduction of unwanted vibration to the mixing console or other mounting surfaces.

* The 8020B was in production between 2009 to 2013. It has been replaced by the 8020C. Call or chat online with your PAD Professional for more information and options. 

Genelec 8020B Studio Monitor – Just the Facts:

• Accurate on- and off-axis response via Directivity Control Waveguide (DCW) Curved, rigid aluminum Minimum Diffraction Enclosure (MDE) eliminates comb filtering from cabinet reflections
• Quiet, high air-flow reflex port design
• Room-response compensation EQ
• Optimized and highly efficient class D amplifiers
• Active crossovers
• Driver-protection circuitry
• Iso-Pod decoupling and speaker orientation stand
• Versatile mounting options

Genelec 7050B Subwoofer

The Genelec 7050B subwoofer is designed to fill a small space with a lot of bass. A professional-level piece of kit, the 7050B is designed to complement the 8020 and 8020 monitors in both stereo and 5.1 surround. With five main inputs and an LFE channel, the 7050B has a selectable 85Hz/120 Hz bandwidth. Irrespective of its relatively diminutive dimension, its low-frequency extension down to 25 Hz, while Genelec’s Laminar Spiral Enclosure (LSE™) ensures unwavering precision and enhanced, color-free low-end capacity. Don’t let its small size fool you, the Genelec 7050B subwoofer is an undeniably powerful, professional choice for studio, film post, surround, or home theater.

*The Genelec 7050B was in production between 2005 and 2018. It was replaced by the 7050C.

Genelec 7050B – Just the Facts:

• 8″ bass driver with 100dB SPL output
• 70-watt Class-D amplifier
• Laminar Spiral Enclosure (LSE™) Technology
• Room-response compensation equalizer
• Bass management system
• Protection circuitry
• Active crossovers

Genelec Espresso – Under the Hood

Directivity Control Waveguide (DCW) Technology (8020B)

Genelec’s Directivity Control Waveguide shapes the emitted wavefront of direct radiating multi-way monitors in a way that allows predictable tailoring of the speaker’s dispersion pattern. DCW technology also minimizes early reflections, providing a wide, controlled listening area with accurate sound reproduction both on- and off-axis.

Another advantage of minimized early reflections and controlled constant directivity is that the frequency balance of the room’s reverberation field is essentially the same as the direct field from the monitors. As a result, the monitor’s performance is less affected by room acoustic characteristics. 

The consistent off-axis frequency response of the waveguide enables engineers to move in and out of the sweet spot without losing perspective while working room.

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 soundstage imaging
• Increased drive unit sensitivity up to 6dB
• Increased system maximum sound pressure level capacity
• Decreased drive unit distortion
• Reduced cabinet edge diffraction
• Reduced complete system distortion

Minimum Diffraction Enclosure (MDE™) Technology

Genelec’s highly innovative aluminum enclosure (MDE) improves the linearity of the frequency range and power response of free-standing monitors via rounded edges and gently curved front and sides optimized to match the acoustic properties of the drivers. In addition to achieving a remarkably flat frequency response, minimizing cabinet diffraction yields superb sound stage imaging.

Directivity is further improved by the waveguide being integrated into the MDE enclosure. Since the low-frequency limit for constant directivity is determined by the size of the waveguide, the larger the surface the better the control. Highly directional off-axis radiation yields a consistent listening window, which is critically important in multichannel monitoring. Controlled directivity also reduces possible first-order reflections on surfaces near the loudspeaker, such as walls, floors, ceilings, and studio furniture, which contributes to consistent audio reproduction in various acoustical environments.

High air-flow bass reflex port design

There are three methods to handle bass frequencies in small monitors, infinite baffle, or sealed cabinet, ported reflex, and transmission line (passive radiator designs are a subset of ported reflex speakers). Genelec’s choice for vented, or reflex, enclosures dates back to the first Genelec product in 1978. Since then Genelec has refined and improved their designs to increase low-frequency extension and sound pressure level capability to provide outstanding bass articulation and definition.

The downside of ported designs is that turbulence in the ports due to extreme air pressure from the driver excursions can cause chuffing noise in the ports, and/or interfere with frequencies higher up in the spectrum. To minimize air speed and turbulence, 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. Genelec’s solution is a long, curved tube that 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 minimizing port noise 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 the proper resistive termination to minimize 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.

PAD Pro tech note: For small cabinets to handle bass frequencies lower than the laws of physics would allow, the ported or reflex is the easiest design from a manufacturing standpoint to achieve a deep bass response. It takes advantage of the cabinet’s resonance and in essence feeds sound coming from the rear of the speaker through a tube connected to the back of the cabinet into ports, which are usually on the front panel. The length and diameter of the tube are precisely calculated for the desired low-frequency response. The trick is to make sure the sound coming from the port is in phase with the speaker, which reinforces the low frequencies of the monitor. It’s important to note that while this technique does provide a better bass response in small cabinets, it’s primarily a psychoacoustic effect. The addition of a subwoofer enables smaller drivers to handle midrange frequencies while bass frequencies are directed to a larger dedicated bass driver. 

Protection circuitry

The protection circuitry prevents driver failure by detecting signal levels and responding accordingly. In the case of sudden peaks or levels that are too high for long periods, the protection circuitry reduces signal level automatically. This feature does not affect the sound quality in any way when working within the specifications of the loudspeaker, but only prevents inappropriate 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 system reliability
• Appropriate protection circuitry design for each loudspeaker and subwoofer maximizes system output level

Room compensation controls

Each room changes 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. Frequency response can be adjusted to match the acoustic environment by setting the tone control switches on the rear panel of all Genelec monitors. The 8020B includes “bass tilt,” “treble tilt,” and “bass roll-off” switches.

Optimized amplifiers with active crossover

In a typical 2-way loudspeaker system, the active crossover needs two power amplifiers; one for the woofer and one for the tweeter. Electronic crossovers split the audio signal into separate frequency bands that can be separately routed to individual power amplifiers optimized for the frequency band of their respective transducers.

The power amplifiers are connected directly to the drivers of an active loudspeaker, resulting in the power amplifier’s load becoming much simpler. Each driver-specific power amplifier has only a limited frequency range to amplify (the power amplifier is placed after the active crossover), which 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)

Iso-Pod stand (8020B)

Often workstation furniture has equipment racks whose top surfaces double as speaker stands. While this may be a convenient option, placing speakers on wooden surfaces or console meter bridges has side effects detrimental to accurate and effective monitoring. In such a scenario, aiming the loudspeaker axis towards the listener rarely occurs, and sympathetic vibrations (which are not very sympathetic to bass) propagate from the loudspeaker to the surface. Also, first-order reflections on the surface cause comb filtering and subsequently ripples in the frequency response.

To solve these very common problems Genelec designed the Iso-Pod Isolation Positioner/De-coupler. Made from special lossy rubber-like material to de-couple the speaker from a surface, it has four shallow feet and is firmly attached to the enclosure so that it can be slid along the curved bottom or side surface to allow for a ±15° tilt of the loudspeaker. The loudspeaker’s acoustical axis can then be pointed precisely towards the listener. The vibration isolation and damping properties reduce midrange coloration caused by unwanted vibration transmitted to supporting surfaces.

Versatile mounting options (8020B)

On the base of the 8020 is a 3/8″ UNC threaded hole which can accommodate a standard microphone stand. On the rear there are two M6x10 mm threaded holes for an Omni-mount^® size 20.5 bracket.

Laminar Spiral Enclosure (LSE) – 7050B Subwoofer

An essential property of a subwoofer operating at high sound pressure levels is its capacity to move high volumes of air without distortion, which is a function of air turbulence inside the bass reflex port. This effect presents challenges to the woofer and reflex port designs. Genelec’s patented Laminar Spiral Enclosure (LSE) provided the solution.

By way of a little background, large air currents, such as those found in bass reflex ports, have a great deal of kinetic energy, which causes the flow to be irregular and turbulent as cross-streams perpendicular to the direction of air flow is formed. A laminar air flow is a streamline flow in which air travels smoothly in parallel layers or paths, with no interference or disruption across layers. 

The Laminar Spiral Enclosure (LSE) bass reflex cabinet provides excellent laminar flow characteristics with minimal turbulence noise and enables an optimal packing of a very long reflex tube into a small space.

The 7050B’s enclosure is made from a spiral-shaped strip of steel. Its purpose is to provide mechanical stability for a large amount of pressure generated inside the subwoofer. The spiral also forms the bass reflex port, enabling linear airflow even at the highest SPL output. The fact that one is part of the other means that air flow in and out of the enclosure’s interior through the port is totally unrestricted. This flow-optimized construction provides extended low-frequency capacity and low distortion resulting in precise bass articulation, with measured second and third harmonic distortion levels typically better than 30dB below the fundamental. This results in an extraordinarily accurate and responsive low-frequency system.

Bass management system (7050B Subwoofer)

Bass management, from a corporate perspective, is the man’s way of keeping the low frequencies down. Seriously, it’s quite simply a means of directing the bass content of main and low-frequency effect (LFE) channels to the speakers that are best capable of handling them. A Bass Management system uses either analog electronic circuitry or software-based filtering to take low-frequency information from the main channels and route it to a subwoofer feed. Bass management’s basic and main goal is to ensure that the entire audio bandwidth of all channels can be accurately monitored.

The bass management unit in the 7050B subwoofer splits the input into low- and high-frequency components at 85Hz. Frequencies below 85Hz are reproduced by the subwoofer. Frequencies above 85Hz are directed via the subwoofer’s output connectors to the main monitors.

Bass management benefits are:

• The subwoofer extends the system frequency response down the lower limit of the audible range
• Monitor can produce a higher maximum sound level when not reproducing low frequencies
• Optimized low-frequency reproduction by selecting adequate subwoofer location; monitors can also be placed more freely
• Subwoofer’s output are aligned in level and phase with monitors allowing flat and accurate reproduction down to 19 Hz and across the crossover point
• LFE channel output level (0 or +10 dB re. main channels) can be selected for accurate reproduction depending on the source type
• The ability to bypass the subwoofer allows you to evaluate the audible impact of the subwoofer

The Genelec 8020.LSE Espresso is the professional’s solution for the very small studio, or upgrading your 2.1 system to a full 5.1. For more information on integrating a Espresso system into your studio, call or chat online with your PAD Studio Specialist today.

Specifications

Genelec 8020B

• Maximum sound pressure level: 95dB
• Frequency response: 66Hz-20kHz (± 2 dB), 65Hz-21kHz (-3dB)
• Crossover frequency: 3.0kHz
• Driver dimension: Bass 4″ / treble 3/4″ in metal dome + DCW™
• Amplifier power: Bass 20W/treble 20W
• Connectors: 1 x XLR analog in
• Dimensions (HWD): 9-1/2″ x 6″ x 5-5/8″ (242 x 151 x 142 mm) with Iso-Pod
• Weight: 8.1 lb. (3. kg)

Genelec 7050B subwoofer specifications:

• Max SPL: 100dB
• Woofer: 8″
• Frequency range: 25Hz – 85Hz (-6dB)
• LFE frequency range: 25Hz – 120Hz (-6dB)
• power: 70W
• I/O: 5.1 XLR analog inputs, 5 XLR analog outputs
• Dimensions (HWD): 16-1/8″ x 13-3/4″ x 12-9/16″ (410 x 350 x 319 mm)
• Weight: 39.6 lb. (18 kg)