Thomsun creates flagship Genelec demo space
Published: MEA
UAE: Thomsun Trading has created a flagship demo room exclusively for products from Genelec. The new room is located at the Popular Music Institute in Dubai’s Wafi Mall and has been designed to provide a high-quality listening environment for the full range of the manufacturer’s speakers.
Building the demo room has been a collaborative process between Genelec and its distributor. Teams from both sides have been involved in the design, construction and tuning of the room to ensure the best possible results.
‘I think in terms of demo room quality, there’s nothing else like this in the region. It’s that good,’ stated Genelec customer support engineer Clifford Pereira. Having been heavily involved in the design process, Mr Pereira is certainly well-placed to judge the quality of the space.
Designing the listening space was a six month process. The Thomsun team was spearheaded by Biju Thomas and driven by Ashok Ross, while Thomsun sound engineer Kartik V was responsible for the creation of the room and installation itself. The design came from Mr Pereira and his colleagues at Genelec, with Markus Kahelin joining Mr Pereira in Dubai for the final stages of tuning.
The results are impressive. As you enter the angular, sonically focused room, it is clear to see the time, dedication and passion that has gone into its creation. Taking a seat on the comfortable sofa in the listening position, you are greeted by a wall of Genelec cabinets, all ready to prove to the listener what they are capable of. Some of the larger install-series speakers and studio monitors have been built into the wall with subs on the floor in front, while movable bars swing more of the manufacturer’s smaller active enclosures into action.
The reason behind this specific setup is so the listener can experience each cabinet at its best within the listening space. With the smaller cabinets moved into place, it is possible to judge each speaker from the 6010A up to the 8030A. To hear the in-wall speakers, the bar is swung away to leave an unimpeded path to the listener.
‘Genelec and Thomsun decided to have the whole speaker range in one place, because when we went to a customer they would want to listen to everything from the tiniest speaker to the largest,’ explained Mr Ross, a man credited by the distributor as one of the driving forces behind the project. ‘We decided to put all the boxes together so we could align all nine speakers so if a customer came to listen to one, they could hear any other as well.’
The decision to situate the demo room within the music institute was made to encourage young musicians to experience a proper listening environment. ‘They get to learn from the beginning, so they get exposed to the small and large speakers and a studio environment,’ explained Mr Ross.
The music school setting has meant that the room is not specifically dedicated to the broadcast or studio environment, it also has a home audio aspect. ‘We would like to access the A/V and home audio markets in this region and it is a showcase for these markets,’ said Mr Pereira. ‘We didn’t have any demo sites for the home and A/V install customers so we thought we should put this facility up and get that market going.’
This means the listening space has been designed for a very wide target audience. Musically it must cater for everyone from students to professionals as well as DJs. But it must also be appropriate for parents and the home A/V audience, right up to pro audio installation professionals looking to equip a project. ‘We want it to be something for everyone,’ continued Mr Ross. ‘Why should we keep it only for broadcasters or music lovers and musicians? We should open it up for everybody.’
The end result is one that everyone involved is rightly proud of. ‘I think it was needed,’ concluded Thomsun’s Alok Ghurde. ‘I think Thomsun is completely behind Genelec in terms of what needs to be done here and we seek their support and guidance all the time.’