Genelec is a Finnish company, based in the picturesque town of Lisalmi. Founded in 1978, it specialises in active monitoring systems for studios and has a huge product catalogue that covers a wide range of use cases. It isn’t a brand that comes up very often in our discussions of home high-end speakers, because its primary focus is on the recording industry. With hindsight, maybe it should be, given the £59,995 / $64,000 Genelec 8381A studio monitors’ impressively engineered hardware and sophisticated software package.
While the company makes numerous relatively affordable active speakers, things get really ambitious as the price points rise. We were offered the chance to listen to the new 8381A active system and we couldn’t resist finding out just how good a high-end five-way, fully active monitor system could sound, particularly when calibrated by the company’s flexible room equalisation software.
