Genesis speakers?

[Shifter]

A coworker of mine is moving, and gave me some genesis speakers. Two G1's and two 1+ units. The 1+'s need some new foam, the existing foam is neon green!

From what I can tell, they seem to be a high end speaker from the 70's?

Can anyone shed some light on these? Are they worth re-foaming? I can't seem to find any really good info, so some links would be great!

Tia

Tom

[enzo1]

Pics?

[Shifter]

Sorry, crappy cell phone pics. Here is a variety of two of the speakers.

[LeeH]

Lots of info here:
HUMAN Speakers: Frequently Asked Questions

[imcarthur]

The tweeter was the real innovation. A Winslow Burhoe inverted dome design. That tweeter (also found in the EPI 100) inspired a young Frenchman - Jacques Mahul – who was an engineer at high-volume driver manufacturer Audax in Tours, France. He left in 1979 & started building speakers in the backroom of his father's tooling factory in Saint-Etienne, France. Mahul's company is Focal (he just retired as CEO in April but he is still Chairman of the Board of Focal & Co.- a new company that includes the English amplifier company Naim). I have been selling Focal since 1993 & all use an inverted dome tweeter - which offers wider dispersion & much greater mechanical integrity for lower distortion & higher sensitivity than the more conventional positive dome.

But . . . that Winslow tweeter – with its plastic diaphragm - only had a high frequency extension to ~ 15KHz (that’s 5kHz LESS than the 20kHz limit of normal human hearing btw). Focal's current Beryllium inverted dome tweeters go up flat to >40kHz.

End of lesson.

Here is the inverted dome on my computer speakers () . . . Focal Solo 6 BE . . . from their professional division . . .



As for the speakers: a decent mid-70s polite New England sound, with no real bass extension. Not worth a big investment but a nice piece of history.

Ian

[RWebb]

normal human hearing upper limit for kids is 20 kHz; lowers with age

I would not let that stop me - but maybe Ian can tell us all how many years go by before speakers degrade with age in a typical home env. (not in a car)

[imcarthur]

Foams rot, other suspension materials dry out & crack; plastics harden & absorb airborne smoke & pollutants -papers likewise. Coils cook gradually & their formers deform. Ferrofluids turn to paste. Wires oxidize. Capacitors leak. Magnets saturate & lose their strength. And on top of all of that, our knowledge & implementation of acoustical theory has advanced significantly with new materials, computer modeling & a better understanding of dispersion etc etc. The age of digital also ushered in better bass extension since the LP grooves (and a phono cartridge’s suspension) mushed out before our ears did. This forced the industry to actually have to deal with sub 40Hz bass in normal speaker design. Old is old & sounds it.

As for high frequency response, you are right. We damage our hearing daily & our ability to hear 20kHz is fleeting. Probably the vast majority here can’t hear above 12kHz & many may have a mild (but growing) mid-frequency suckout . . . Too many planes, trains, automobiles, jack hammers & rock concerts. But there is a school of thought that even if we don’t hear ultra-frequencies, they do influence our ability to interpret the spatial information in recordings – hence the need for extended high frequency response.

Ian