Genesis is the understated British company that has placed itself in harms way this month. They have supplied CA&E with their Audiophile 16.03 component speakers for testing. These speakers are truly multi-national creation; the attractive 6 1/2" woofers are made in Italy; the tweeters hail from Germany; and the passive networks are born in jolly Ol' England. Genesis proudly marked these speakers "Made in the E.U." (That's the European Union.) It's refreshing to get a product not made in China, which makes about everything else in this world.
Description
The 16.03 system is nicely protected for its trip from `cross the pond and to your door in a rather unostentatious box. Opening it up reveals the main speaker and crossover components as well as the hardware for various tweeter mounting options, the mounting screws for the woofer and a cut-out template for the woofer that sort of doubles as an owner's manual. While the owner's manual for a component set of speakers does not need to be a 30-page document, I would have liked a bit more detail than the rather sketchy information that they did provide. Some added details that would be helpful to the "DIYer" would be an explanation of the various tweeter mount schemes that are supplied with the Audiophiles. It would also be good to inform the buyer about the options and reasons for tuning the tweeter level and polarity at the crossover.
The tweeters are a 1" coated silk, soft dome design with the added benefit of Ferrofluid in the magnetic gap to aid in power handling and damping control. Genesis supplied multiple mounting options to cover most any need. The shallow depth of these tweeters lends them to be installer friendly and a cinch to install in kick panels.
Lifting a 6 1/2" woofer clear out of the box reveals that it truly is a 6 1/2" and therefore requires a slightly larger mounting hole than typical separates. Typical 6 1/2" component speakers are truly closer to a 6" size. However, being oversized (by industry standard) is normal for European components like the Genesis, MB Quart or Focal. Even though the Audiophiles use this slightly larger format, they have managed to maintain a reasonable depth at only 2 1/2". The basket of the woofer is said to be made from a "cast resin" composite to minimize resonance. Tapping it with a screw reveals the statement to indeed be true, and an experimental twist shows it is quite rigid -- somebody spent some time designing this piece!
The cone itself is made of fiberglass (or glass-fibre if you are an Anglophile) with aluminum deposition on the front side of the cone. The engineers at Genesis were obviously aiming for a good stiffness-to-mass ratio on this guy to keep efficiency high and lend itself to a "fast" midbass sound. The cone is attached to the basket with a butyl surround that sits nicely, flush with the mounting lip. Quiet, subtle attention to detail keeps popping up; the dustcap is a woven cloth fabric that easily "breathes," promoting cooling of the voice coil. The center magnet pole piece is copper clad to improve the phase response of the driver and to help improve midrange frequency response.
The crossover networks are housed in a custom aluminum extrusion that mimics the look of the Genesis amplifiers. The housings also help to dissipate any heat generated by the network while providing some shielding against radio frequency noise; as bigger computers make their way into our cars the possibility of noise being radiated into the crossover network increases. The crossover design is a clean, simple 12dB/octave slope on the tweeter and 6dB/octave slope for the woofer. High quality coils and polypropylene capacitors (for the tweeters) are used to handle the power without saturating. The tweeter level is easily selected at 0 or +3dB with a switch to compensate for listening taste and mounting position. The wire termination is done with quality barrier strips, and the input is at the opposite end of the case from the outputs, evincing careful board layout and also making it really hard to screw up your connections.
The Audiophile 16.03's are rated at a modest 80 watts RMS power handling, with a reference efficiency of 92dB @ 2.83V/1-meter. All these features are covered by a 3-year warranty if an authorized Genesis Audio dealer installs the speakers. That is an awesome warranty and you can get it all for a retail of $550, which seems a very good deal if the speakers live up to their reputation.
Installation
Mounting the tweeters is an easy proposition using the variety of mounts that come with the system. However, I will caution you now. When it comes to installing the woofers, make sure the mounting surface is flat. An uneven surface may twist the composite basket. While the Audiophile's basket does appear to be quite stiff, I do recall when Quart first start using them. Although their baskets were not as stiff as these, many people complained their new speakers sounded "blown." Often they were installing the woofer to uneven surfaces and this was twisting the basket and causing the voice coil to rub, giving off a scratchy, distorted sound. Others simply broke the basket as they cinched down the mounting screws. As I wrote earlier, the Genesis frame does appear to be much stiffer and of a far more advanced design than the early baskets, so this may not be any problem.
I ran into an oddity when mounting the crossover, a really weird one at that; there is simply an absence of mounting feet or tabs on the case. Mounting these buggers required some creative use of Zip-tie.
Conclusion
The Genesis Audiophile 16.03's are, in my opinion, a very good deal at $550. They perform at the highest level of sound quality and are very low in listener fatigue, so you can enjoy them for long periods of time without growing tired or irritated. I enjoyed my time listening to them and getting to know them. I especially like the fact that they are not made in China, proving that excellent product can and should still be produced in the countries that invented them, at a price that many can afford.
The Audiophiles excelled on acoustic recording like many classical and jazz selections but they were still exemplary on Rock, R&B and Pop tunes that I listened to. I never ran into a case or time that the Audiophile 16.03's ran out of loudness or created any "cone cry." And, as many of you know who have followed my reviews, I do beat on the speakers I test pretty hard. The Genesis Audiophile 16.03's are a winning combination of sound quality and design excellence. Check them out the next time you are listening for speakers.