I corresponded briefly a while back with Gary Koh, CEO of Genesis. Gary has owned the company for the past five years, and moved it from its original home in Colorado to Seattle, Washington. When he took over the company, he was aware that his background was in computer software, not electronics. He decided that this could be an advantage. "Not being an engineer, I didn't know what was impossible. This explains to some degree the types of projects I've decided to take on, and those that have been achieved."
One problem he encountered was that the top loudspeakers in the Genesis line had very low impedances, restricting the choice of amplifier. Gary Koh raising the Genesis 5.2's minimum impedance to 3 ohms to create the 186 lb, $16,000/pair Genesis 5.3. This is a four-way, sealed, floorstanding loudspeaker. There are two 1" circular-ribbon tweeters, one front and one rear, that cover the spectrum above 3.5kHz. The midrange transducer is one Genesis 5" titanium-cone unit, and there are two 6.5" aluminum-cone midbass units. The powered subwoofer section rolls in below 120Hz and uses a 500W servo-bass amplifier to drive three 8" ribbed aluminum-cone drivers. Crossover are 4th-order, except for the bass–midbass region, which has 2nd-order characteristics.
The sound of the 5.3s, powered by Genesis new class-D Reference amplifier, was fast, transparent, and detailed, though with some compression evident on massed orchestral passages. Afterwards, Koh remarked, "You really like to torture loudspeakers with your demo records."
"Yes," I said with some pleasure, "that's what I do."
