Musically Transparent Crossovers
In the early days of audio, long before stereo, there existed only vacuum tube amplifiers. These ancient amplifiers used tubes coupled to the outside world (loudspeakers) via an output transformer. These output transformers took the very high impedance of the output vacuum tubes down to reasonably low (at the time) output impedances of 32 ohms or 16 ohms. They also had very low damping factors.
This necessitated that all early incarnations of loudspeakers be 32 ohms or 16 ohms in order to match the output impedance of the amplifiers. Bass drivers were also loaded in a reflex or Horn enclosure to achieve faster or snappier bass reproduction despite the low damping ability of amplifiers of those days.
Such loudspeakers with high impedances usually had very heavy moving systems because of the large amount of voice coil wire needed. This resulted in loudspeakers that did not faithfully reproduce the incoming signal; starting to move much slower than expected due to inertia, and not stopping as fast as they should due to momentum.
With better technology and the increasing competence of amplifiers, loudspeaker voice coils can be designed with lower impedances so that only a minimal amount of power is consumed in the voice coil itself, and the greatest amount of power can be directed toward actually moving the speaker diaphragms. In addition, lighter moving masses can be designed into the drivers themselves.
Keeping the speaker impedance and moving mass low, the speaker designer is able to realize greater sensitivity. The low impedance enables the power amplifier to deliver more power into the loudspeaker. As a result, the loudspeaker produces much greater dynamic range, which imparts a wonderful realism to all music.
Other loudspeaker designers like to keep the impedance high and reasonably constant by using conjugate or Zobel networks in their crossover design. This makes the job of the crossover designer and amplifier designer much easier. However, these networks rob the system of speed, transient response, dynamic range and sensitivity by absorbing unnecessary power from the amplifier.
We believe that additional circuitry sucks the life out of music, and we avoid using more filtration than is absolutely necessary in our crossovers.
In 2006, Genesis proved with the launch of the Limited Edition Genesis I60 integrated and M60 monoblock amplifiers that a reasonably-priced, competently-engineered amplifier can be a reference amplifier when driving older Genesis loudspeakers which had a reputation of being "difficult to drive". Low impedance loudspeakers require that amplifiers have plenty of current capability in their power supply, and a well designed output stage that will maintain linearity into low impedance. However, the reward is effortless dynamics and transient response, resulting in the warm, musically-inviting sound that is the characteristics of all Genesis loudspeakers.