Gary Leonard Koh, CEO and Managing Director of Genesis

18/9/2009

It was on a dull, rainy afternoon that we were invited to Absolute Audio’s warm and hospitable premises, to have an interview with a man whose pursuit for a pair of Genesis speakers ended in a bald decision; to assume ownership of Genesis Advanced Technologies!

Attending were our kind host, V. Hatzakos, but also N. Mendrinos, through whose courtesy this meeting had been arranged…

And now, please meet Mr. Gary Leonard Koh, the genuine music lover and dedicated audiophile who chose to muster up his exquisite skills in both management and computer science under the excelsior purpose of manufacturing thoroughly enjoyable high-end gear, finally letting his passion for music prevail.

www.genesisloudspeakers.com

Nikos Douris
nd@abouthifi.com


Interview part one



N.D. -It is really nice to have you here, in Greece, Mr. Koh.

G.K. -Thank you, I am happy to be here!

N.D. -We’d like to ask a few questions that we think everyone would like to know the answers to.

G.K. -Of course…

N.D. -What led you to be part of the hi-fi / high-end audio business in the first place?

G.K. -Well, I have always been an audiophile, all of the time, and I was in the Internet industry and at the point of time that I retired from the industry, I wanted a pair of speakers; I didn’t want any pair of speakers, I wanted a pair of Genesis 1. So, I started building a home for it, I put in the foundation, I specified a room that was going to be twelve meters wide by eighteen meters long, large enough for the speaker, then I went to my dealer to buy a pair and he said: “I’m sorry, we went bankrupt!”. So, now, I’ve got a hundred hectares of land in Australia, I am starting the foundation; I am starting to build a house for it and no… loudspeaker! So, he suggested that I go and meet up with the founder of this Company, Arnie Nudell. I met up with him and I wanted him to make my special pair, the last pair; but he convinced me that it was cheaper to buy the Company, than to buy that pair of speakers… However, he didn’t tell me that it was going to cost me a lot of money to keep the Company running! So, basically it all comes down to the fact that I wanted the speakers.

N.D. -Therefore it all began out of your love for this “sport”.

G.K. -It is not my love for the speaker, you have to understand, it is my love for music. I want music, you know, and I thought that the best system to reproduce that music was with that, the Genesis 1 loudspeaker.

N.D. -And you had to buy the Company that builds the best speaker for you!

G.K. -Yes.

N.D. -Where is your Company based now?

G.K. -It’s based in Seattle; one of the reasons was that Seattle is a good place for manufacturing. There’s a lot of high-tech industry there, there’s a lot of skills, plus a couple of large, professional audio Companies were already based there. So, four years ago I moved with my family to Seattle and started running the Company myself.

N.D. -Is it a nice place to live in, too?

G.K. -I love it, yes, it is a beautiful place!

N.D. -Do you have manufacturing facilities there, for everything you need, or do you have to outsource?

G.K. -Right now, I do not outsource anything. I buy components from all over the world, then I assemble everything in Seattle. And, right now, I design everything myself as well; everything is designed in Seattle, everything is built in Seattle.

N.D. -This means your drivers are entirely your designs and your implementation, i.e. there is no other speaker with those.

G.K. -The drivers are Genesis designs. I did not buy the Company; I bought the intellectual rights to the Company, I started a new Company and I bought the intellectual property from the bank, which foreclosed on the old Genesis. So, a lot of the drivers were designed by the old Genesis, I improved them along the way, from the material to the manufacturing, and we still continue to make them.

N.D. -Which is your preferred material for driver designs and then for cabinet designs also?

G.K. -Difficult to say. My preferred material -right now- is pure metal. The reason is this; when you’ve got a pure metal object, a can or… anything, it only has one resonant frequency and that one resonant frequency is very, very easy to calculate. The popular term for it, is the “oilcan resonance”. And if you take an oilcan and you bang it, there is only one sound. Different sized cans have different «sized» sounds, i.e. different frequencies of sound. So, each metal driver, if made pure enough, has its only one resonant frequency. As long as you do not excite that one resonant frequency, it is a pure piston. So, there is no distortion at any other frequencies that you have to take care of. A problem I have found with other materials is that, while they try to damp their distortion all the way down, there is still a tiny bit of distortion. Perhaps that distortion is too low to measure, but you can hear it… Paper cones have “paper” sound, plastic cones have “plastic” sound; metal cones have a “metallic” sound, if you excite the oilcan resonance. We’ve just got to make sure we don’t excite the oilcan resonance. And this goes back into everything: the baskets are always made of metal, so there is a resonance! You know, the reason we make baskets of a certain size and of a certain material is so that basket resonance is also not excited. If you look at the 5.3, a lot of dealers and reviewers have said that that’s a cheap midrange… But, I dare you to hear the distortion in that midrange; there is no distortion! I use a “cheap” midrange because the basket has such a low resonant frequency that it’s never, ever, excited by the midrange. If I use an “expensive” midrange, it will have a cast aluminum basket, which has got a high resonant frequency, which will, in turn, be affected by the midrange.

N.D. -Then this is a pressed steel basket?

G.K. -It’s a pressed steel basket! Pressed steel baskets have a low resonant frequency; cast metal baskets have a high resonant frequency. For a woofer, you have to use cast, because on the woofer you need the resonant frequency to be high. For the midrange you want to use pressed, because you need the resonant frequency to be low.

N.D. -So simple, yet effective!

G.K. -It’s very simple; you don’t fight with the laws of physics, you make use of the laws of physics and you don’t have problems.

N.D. -Which metal do you employ?

G.K. -I use pure titanium on the midrange and pure aluminum on the woofers.

N.D. -It is relatively easy to source them, no?

G.K. -You go try and source a titanium midrange that size!

N.D. -It is that difficult?

G.K. -No other speaker has a titanium midrange that size; titanium is used purely for one-inch tweeters!

N.D. -So, pure titanium!

G.K. -Pure titanium; it’s not a titanium alloy, it’s not a titanium oxide, it is not a titanium paint. A lot of drivers say that they have a titanium cone, but it’s a titanium oxide or titanium on the outside – paint!

N.D. -This is the reason why I asked... Now, how about cabinets and baffles, which materials do you employ there?

G.K. -I employ the right material for the right purpose. On the Genesis 2.2, which you can see in the other room, the midrange, I mean the baffle, is made of one and a half inches of acrylic; solid, cast, high-density, or as they call it “high molecular weave” acrylic. These (5.3) are made of MDF. If you tap on it, every single part has got a different resonant frequency. The resonant frequency is calculated and designed so that there will be no resonance of that (frequency) area, in that part of the cabinet. If you want the midrange to be accurate, the resonance has got to be either higher or lower.

And here is something interesting for you Greeks; the internal cavity has got Classic Greek proportions… We went to visit the Parthenon and I said that it was absolutely the perfect place to bring me to, as, due to the Classic Greek proportions, if you go into the Parthenon, you have no echoes. There are no standing waves and, when you talk, you sound extremely natural. The reason is that ancient Greeks had figured out resonance and cavities better than most architects do these days. Otherwise, they would build rooms that resonate.

N.D. -It is considered an honor for us that you are studying those facts and that you are inspired by them.

Interview part two

N.D. -About speaker topologies; do you believe that line arrays and open baffles are better than closed cabinets?

 

G.K. -There are only two ways to perfectly reproduce sound; one way is the point-source and the second way is the line-source. To make a point-source possible, you need to have that infinitesimally small pulsating point, which means that any loudspeaker that has more than one driver is an “imperfect” point-source. So, all these speakers, including what I do, the G 5.3, are imperfect point-sources. To make that work, it takes a lot of effort – to make it sound this good. The line-source is actually easier, but the line-source needs to be a significant portion of the height of the room, which means they have to be very big. It is impossible to make a line-source fit into a room this size; it’s impossible to make a point-source fill a large room. Therefore, I do not have a preference for topologies. I will do what is necessary.

 

N.D. -I would like a few words about your class D amplification, which is a relatively modern implementation in the high-end audio business – it has been mostly seen in consumer applications. Do you believe that it might even account for the future in amplification?

 

G.K. -The first working model of a class D amplifier was designed by John Ulrich, it was called «The SWAMP» (SWitch WAve AMPlifier) and was delivered in 1976 by Infinity. One of the founders of Infinity, Arnie Nudell was also the one who founded Genesis. In 1991 Infinity was already using class D amplifiers; we’ve been using class D amplifiers for the past nineteen years!

 

N.D. -So it is a myth that class D is not adequately developed to serve its purpose…

 

G.K. -It was not developed adequately. Until a couple of years back, class D amplifiers… I could not sit and listen to, they did not deliver music. Class D was very, very good for bass, which is why Genesis speakers used class D amplifiers since 1991 for the servo-bass part of the system.

 

My class D amplifier came with a story. I was trying to find a more reliable, a better amplifier for the bass and I reviewed all the available class D amplifiers; all those that were available as modules or as designs. After about two and a half years, I finally settled with the Hypex amplifier module, for the bass. Around that time, I don’t know if you are familiar, but I developed a tube amplifier for Genesis...

 

N.D. -Yes, I saw that they are sold out!

 

G.K. -The tube amplifiers are sold out… The tube amplifiers were done for only one reason: They were proof of concept that a cheap amplifier can be used to drive Genesis loudspeakers. You see, the designer of Genesis Loudspeakers, Arnie Nudell, was very famous for making speakers that are very difficult to drive; they had very low impedance, they demanded a lot of current and a lot of dealers said that -at that time the equivalents the 5.3s were like, I think, $14.000- to drive a $14.000 loudspeaker they required a $30.000 amplifier! I told them “no, this just means that the amplifier is not designed properly!”. So, a very famous dealer -I won’t mention his name- looked at me and said “if you think you can, you design an amplifier that’s cheap and can drive these spakers!”. It took me… two years; two years later I brought a pair of the M60 monoblocks to his store, I put them down and said “OK, which preamp do you want to use?”. He picked a preamp, he connected it in, then we connected it to… that was the 5.01 and it drove it perfectly. So he lost his bet; I won my bet… Here was a $4.000 amplifier that drove, at the time, a $14.000 loudspeaker!.. The problem with tubes, though, is that the moment you buy the amplifier, it begins to deteriorate, so I didn’t want to really continue making those. However they were a proof of concept; if I can design it -and I am not a famous amplifier designer- then everybody else can design it! That’s the amplifier, I’ve proven my point that you don’t need an expensive amplifier to drive the Genesis speakers.

 

N.D. -It was like an etude, a study on the subject.

 

G.K. -It was a proof of concept, it was a study.

 

N.D. -Your current class D modules, do you design them or are you still using Hypex?

 

G.K. -I still use Hypex, but I heavily modify the Hypex modules. The reason is that if you listen to a lot of class D amplifiers, they don’t have what I call the “soul” and the emotion of music. You know, you don’t feel that the singer sings of a lost love or you don’t feel that the singer is actually in love with you and she’s singing to you. The problem I solved -after actually discovering that it wasn’t a problem of the module- was the problem of the power supply. I designed a power supply that works perfectly with the class D module, to deliver that soul and emotion.

 

N.D. -Is it a linear power supply or a switching one?

 

G.K. -It is a linear power supply… I couldn’t make a switching power supply work; I tried.

 

N.D. -I know it is quite a bit of a challenge, but, if anyone can do it, I believe it’s you.

 

G.K. -Thank you!

 

N.D. -Someone has to challenge you to do it…

 

G.K. -Someone has to challenge me! You know, the challenge was to design an amplifier that would drive anything and that’s what the Genesis Reference amplifier does; it will drive anything…

 

N.D. -And you believe that it is faithful to its name, the “Reference” model?

 

G.K. -It is, it’s the reference; and the reason I always say that I need a reference is that, when you are designing a loudspeaker, you are at the mercy of everything else – from the cables, to the power, to the preamp, to the power amplifier. When you are able to hear, to listen to music through an amplifier, it has to be the reference.

 

N.D. -Do you also have environmental concerns, as the class D is the most efficient of all…

 

G.K. -Yes, that was one of the big things of the class D amplifier. You know, in my own theater, at home -for my kids, they play X-box on it-, I have a whole Genesis surround system, and, before I finished the class D amplifier, each speaker had two M60s on it. So, I had ten monoblocks around the entire room to drive my home theater system. In summer it ran very hot; you could also see the electric meter running very fast! The No 1 problem with high-end hi-fi is that it takes a lot of time to warm-up. So, you turn all these electric “hogs” on for hours before you start to listen and when you are listening, you’re listening at less than one watt! Why does the amplifier need to draw six hundred watts to give you your music? You are contributing to global warming, you are contributing carbon dioxide, you are using precious resources and I just did not like that fact!

Interview part three

N.D. -It’s good that we hear all this coming from you, because it is a common misunderstanding that class D is all about lightweight build and, perhaps, economy and nothing else. But since respected manufacturers are using it now, and I believe that they will continue too, many end-users, me included, switch to… switching amplification. I also can no longer stand the heat or the guilt!

G.K. -That’s right! And it’s not only the heat. If you look at a lot of high-end amplifiers, they are hundreds and hundreds of pounds of metal! That metal could be used for a lot more precious things – they’re just encasing an amplifier because they want it to look expensive. You know, I’ve had criticism on my amplifier, because they say it does not look good enough. My response is always “are you looking at it or are you listening to it?”. If you are listening to it, it is perfect! If you are looking at it, then… why don’t you buy a painting? Buy a painting, put it over the wall, look at the painting and listen to the music!

N.D. -Do you have the same concerns about the materials you are using for your speakers?

G.K. -If you buy a Genesis speaker, that could possibly be the last speaker you’ll ever buy, which means that you won’t waste it. If you buy a loudspeaker that you have to change every year, because you don’t like the sound, then, no matter how light or how environment-friendly it is, you’re wasting resources. I’d rather believe that I am able to produce something for you to own, something for you to care about and something for you to cherish, than to give you a disposable loudspeaker. So the materials that we use are adequate for that purpose; it (the G5.3) is beautiful, it uses good paint, it hopefully is the last pair of speakers you buy!

N.D. -It’s built to last a lifetime…

G.K. -It’s going to last a lifetime, so I want to make it perfect.

N.D. -I would like to ask you about the economy crisis and the aspects of it that affected or did not affect your business. How did you manage to overcome it?

G.K. -The economy crisis has hit a lot of fast-growing big Companies. The reason is that when you have a fast-growing large Company, your overheads, your expenses, are very high. If your sales suddenly fall to zero, then you are in trouble, you go bankrupt. I had a few friends with who used to boast “ah, my business is doing so well”… I’m still around, they’re gone. The reason is I keep Genesis small. It’s not a Company that needs to sell a thousand pairs of speakers a month to survive. I produce speakers, I care about what we do, I have staff who care for what we do and I deliver products to people who care about what we do. Those customers will never go away. If you deliver something that the customers always have to change, you know, they don’t have your long-term trust.

N.D. -I feel that you follow the evolvements -as in class D we talked about earlier- and that’s very important.

G.K. -That’s right.

N.D. -Do you have a personal philosophy when it comes to your business, a particular attitude or anything you may want to share?

G.K. -“Don’t run faster than the drummer!”. What I believe is that if I find people who love this system, if I find people who love music, they will love what I do. If I find the dealers who love music, they will find the customers who love music… As long as you deliver music, you deliver the service that the customer wants and you deliver something that’s reliable and qualitative.
I’ve got a saying: “You remember the quality long after you’ve forgotten what you spent”. There are a lot of things that are like that; the things that you cherish the most and the things that you’ve kept the longest, you remember their quality, but it’s very hard right now to remember what you paid for them, because you enjoyed them for so long…

N.D. -Although at this time it is a bit difficult to forget what you spent, due to the stiff economic situation, but I understand perfectly what you said; it is a nice saying and a nice philosophy.
Now, about your models, how often do you renew, you replace or discontinue them?

G.K. -They get replaced when they have to be replaced. I do not have a… flavor of the month. Just because there is a new tweeter that comes out I do not release a new speaker. You know, if I find something better, I will use it.

N.D. -Do you upgrade?

G.K. -If you own a pair of Genesis from the old Company, like a Genesis 2, I can come in and upgrade everything, so that it’s a brand new loudspeaker. There are some things I cannot upgrade, because either the materials are no longer available or I honestly go and tell the customer that their speaker is not worth upgrading. As far as we can, we always try to make sure that some of the new technologies that we have are retrofittable.
 
N.D. -Your current models, 1.2 and 2.2, are they improved over their predecessors?

G.K. -If they were not improved, I wouldn’t have released them!


Interview part four

 

N.D. -Would you like to point a few differences between the current and the previous models?

G.K. -There’s a twenty-six page paper that tells you everything that’s different on the new 1.2!.. You see, my philosophy is not to change whatever does not need to change – it is a waste of time, it is a waste of money. But there are certain things, by which, if you take care of the details, you get the magic. Like on the pair of 2.2, as I was explaining earlier to another reviewer, the tweeters didn’t need to be changed, so I didn’t change the tweeters; but the way the tweeters were mounted, I spent two weeks trying to figure out the correct thickness and the correct hardness of the neoprene frame that I base the tweeters on, so that they do not resonate and they do not stop. It’s minor details like that, when you go through a design…

I’m a computer scientist by training, so I know how to go through every line of code -and there are millions of lines in the system- to try to find a bug. That’s what I did with the loudspeakers; I went through every single screw to figure out what was wrong.


N.D. -So you insist on a design to the last detail before you decide to replace anything.

G.K. -That’s right.

N.D. -What are you planning for the future; any news you may want to share about any new products?

G.K. -I’ve got a new preamp that will be released during the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest.

N.D. -Solid state?

G.K. -It’s a solid state preamp that will match my power amps. As for speakers, I just launched the new 7.1f this year and I don’t have anything else right now.

N.D. -I would like to ask you one final question, about media. Do you think that computer audio could replace, in the end, physical media, like vinyl or CDs?

G.K. -Four years ago during CES, I did my demos on a computer server… Everybody laughed at me! This year at CES, nobody’s laughing anymore! The CD itself is an imperfect medium; the CD was designed containing errors, but they still called it “perfect sound forever”. So while there’s nothing wrong with digital music, it was the physical problems of the CD and the CD transport that gave you imperfect sound. That’s why a lot of audiophiles still listen to vinyl; I still listen to vinyl. But when you’ve heard 24/192 copies of the master tape on a good DAC and a good server, able to do it right -if you go to my website, you will probably be able to download the paper on how I built my server-, if you do it right then that server sounds better then any vinyl you’ll ever come across.

N.D. -Then it is the best transport, if you do it right. Is it possible, commercially, to do it right?

G.K. -Yes! And, if it’s not on my website right now, it will soon be. What I did is I conducted a workshop with the Pacific Northwest Audio Society on how to build a server. Because they’ve been hearing my server for the last three years and now they decided they want to build their own. And I haven’t found a good enough commercial server that’s good value for money that I could recommend, so I taught them how to build their own.

N.D. -I think the industry is marching on and this is very important for audiophiles also, because we’re getting tired of seeing the same stuff over and over again.

G.K. -It is…

N.D. -What do you think of the EU market? They seem to respect your “sonic identity” even though they’re more conservative.

G.K. -I know a lot of people hate me for saying this, but I like the EU market and the Asian market, because they seem to care for the emotion of music. You know, when you hear a system and your hair stands and you get goose-bumps, to the Europeans, to the Asians, this feels good. Sometimes, when I do a demo at CES or at Rocky Mountain, when my hair stands… everybody leaves the room, because they are scared of the emotion! That’s one of the reasons why I like coming visit Greece or Italy; because you are, we are, more emotional.

N.D. -This is a study on human behavior…

G.K. -It is a study on human behavior, because we are not embarrassed by our emotions, whereas there are people who are embarrassed by their own emotions. And if the music, and the system, can evoke that emotion and it scares you… don’t buy Genesis loudspeakers! Go buy something else…

 

 

 

 

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