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How good? When I added real bass to the speakers, they sounded fantastic. Personal preferences will always be a factor but a full-range system with deep and punchy bass, clean articulate midrange renderings and a smoothly articulated and highly fluid treble will be a crowd pleaser in most situations. And you don't have to add the largest room-shaking subwoofers either. Genesis subwoofers are great and scale the depths of the lowest bass. But if you're on a budget, you can find smaller subs to mate with the G7.1p for some additional power and punch down to 30Hz or so and with a lot of music, you won't be missing much if anything. But you don't have to stop here.


If you've got a small room and want to go whole hog, do what I've done. Get an active crossover and set it to eliminate all the bass from the G7.1p from 80Hz on down. Let your sub fill in the missing frequencies. With the G7.1p now only producing 80Hz on up, you can drive them with some relatively small but extremely high-performance amplifiers to really wring the best out of them. Don't forget, it's the bass that requires hefty power. Remove the bass frequencies and the G7.1ps can gallop all day long on 15 to 30 watts max. My 300B push-pull 26-watt Canary CA-330s love the G7.1p. To hear them is to assume the amplifiers being
much more powerful. The point is that what the G7.1ps do well, they do extremely well. That they lack bass for some tastes means you can always add it later while preserving what the speakers do so well. As a matter of fact, once relieved of the stress to produce bass at the G7.1p's lower limits, the little mid/woofer can go at it as a midrange driver only. Hence its performance gets even better, too. Once allowed to concentrate on midrange only, it does a better job on vocals. Then leave the bass to a subwoofer and let it do what it does best. Suddenly you've got a system that can sing in larger rooms, too.


One of the more fun CDs I listened to was Laurie Anderson's Strange Angels [Warner 9 25900-2]. From the get go, the presentation was huge. The soundstage was expansive and holographic. The CD uses copious amounts of reverb, which spreads out across the room like rings on a pond, mapping out just how expansive the stage is. True, the lowest bass lines were only hinted at but still accounted for. The opening bass on "Monkey's Paw" and "Coolsville' were very satisfactorily reproduced. This recording is beautifully balanced and really doesn't contain the type of instruments that will allow the circular ribbons to stretch their legs and show off a bit. So it was comforting to hear that they were happy to take a back seat to the midrange rather than finding ways to make themselves known. I was noticing that when the tweeters were making themselves known, it was only through true articulation and detail. Were it just a case of hyperactivity, they'd make themselves obvious no matter the recording, an effect that would grow tiresome very quickly. The G7.1p threw the most transparent of windows on Anderson's voice and even Bobby McFerrin's vocals contributions on "Monkey's Paw" seemed a little better articulated and more present than I'm used to. Well done. It was when listening to this wall-to-wall presentation that I first realized just how well the speakers vanished in my room.


It's been ages since I listened to the DMP Big Band recording The Glen Miller Project [CD-519] but I was to find this recording tailor-made to show off the G7.1p's good graces: lots of superbly executed high percussion all presented with air, delicacy and snap without a hint of hardness or sizzle. Brass instruments were recreated with the same deft touch and excellent presence. By this time, my earlier criticism of not producing the most solid of images had faded to a faint memory. Indeed this would do. In the back of my mind I was still looking for evidence that the tweeter was doing something wrong. The trumpets on "In The Mood" just sounded fantastic and extremely well balanced, with no undue raggedness, splash or glare. "String of Pearls" appeared to be emerging from a huge hall with reverberation that clearly delineated the position of both the side and rear walls. Of course, the instruments were superbly rendered - this was by now expected. But the sense of space behind the instruments added still more to the sense of reality. For "Chattanooga Choo Choo", the G7.1ps brought the vocals way forward on stage for even better demarcation of stage depth; the vocals up front, the orchestra toward the rear and then the back of the stage way back there. "Song of the Volga Boatman" is an all-out brass extravaganza, which in the hands of the wrong speaker can get bright and fatiguing particularly at the enthusiastic volumes I used. No such thing. All that brass was incisive, exciting and energetic but never aggressive or oppressive.



Conclusion
In my review of the Acoustic Zen Adagio Jr., I warned that speakers which initially impress one way or another can become tiresome in the long term. I wrote about finding a balanced speaker that is "unremarkable". As I moved from the Adagio Jr. to the Genesis G7.1p, I suffered a short period of adjustment and acclimation because the G7.1p has a completely different treble presentation even though both use similar round ribbon tweeters. As mindful as I was of the fact that, with a little time, the G7.1p might start to wear on me in the long term, the fact was that it didn't. It grew on me. The more I listened, the more convinced I became that it was doing something very right. I can easily visualize a lot of listeners sitting down before a pair of these in a showroom and rushing to a snap decision, making the same assumptions I did. I can only advise these listeners to being a little more patient. To those listeners who love lively trebles and relish the sense of detail, energy, air and space they produce, I can recommend the G7.1p as a great option and one that I can just about promise won't lose their shine over time. Indeed, the ribbon tweeter of the G7.1p is an outstandingly musical performer. It could very well be one of the best tweeters in the world just as Genesis claims.


Everything else about the G7.1p is competitive with anything I know of in its class. Its midrange shines with the best and if it's not a world beater in the bass, it's still competitive while its linearity means that it'll perform very well with a subwoofer if that's where you want to go in the future sometime. Could I live with this inexpensive speaker? Once used as I've just described it, absolutely. And very happily so.
Quality of packing: Excellent.
Reusability of packing: Excellent.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: Very easy.
Condition of component received: Speakers were not factory fresh and had some bruises and scuffs that were clearly not incurred during shipment.
Completeness of delivery: Very complete, just add amplification and source and stir, do not shake.
Quality of owner's manual: All Genesis manuals exhibit great attention to both details and the owner's needs. There's lots of advice for setting up the speakers and dealing with their numerous adjustments.
Website comments: Professionally done with lots of info including manuals and brochures
Warranty: 90 days; 5 years with return of warranty registration card and dated copy of receipt
Human interactions: Always excellent.
Genesis website