NAB Perspectives: Genelec’s Will Eggleston Says Follow the Money for Monitoring

Audio continues to be the stepchild to video in broadcast, but they are very close siblings nonetheless. That’s what Genelec Marketing Director Will Eggleston sees when he views the market for broadcast audio monitoring.

“You see 3D content creation and HD distribution bringing new levels of investment into the broadcast-video infrastructure, and that increased resolution has been pulling audio monitoring along with it,” he says. “Audio is coming along for that ride. Audio always follows video, and, if you see money being spent on video, then it’s also being spent on audio, and we’re seeing that in the increased sales of our DSP speaker systems into broadcast control rooms.”

Balancing capital costs against audio’s importance in supporting new video formats is where Eggleston says his company’s 8020/8030 and GLM.SE DSP product line comes in, offering automated environmental optimization of the monitoring system and maintaining it without taking up studio resources to do so.

“They want the monitoring to be right, to be able to nail it down and keep it that way without spending a lot of time on it. That’s just the nature of the game in audio,” he explains. “Our Auto-Cal is designed to do just that.”

Genelec is introducing BroadcastPak, which comprises five 8030A bi-amplified monitors and a 7050B active subwoofer, an adaptation of its PowerPak (which used the larger 7060B sub) for the broadcast market. Also on exhibit is the 1238CF tri-amplified compact DSP monitoring system, designed for smaller monitoring environments. Designed for medium-size control rooms, the system is a compact three-way DSP monitoring loudspeaker including two 8-in. (210-mm) long-throw bass drivers, a 5-in. (130-mm) proprietary Genelec midrange driver, and a 1-in. (25-mm) metal dome tweeter, multiple power amplifiers, digital-signal-processing (DSP) circuitry, and active, low-level crossovers.