Genelec’s local distributor Equaphon agreed to set up a demo of the 8351s at Fracchia’s studio so he could get a clearer picture of the capabilities of The Ones range.
“Listening to the 8351s in my studio just made me smile,” says Fracchia. “The stereo image was just amazing, and I didn’t need to listen to anything else to make a decision. All the information I needed was there.”
While the 8351s were almost perfect, there was one issue. Fracchia works mostly with urban music and needed his monitors to reproduce the lowest frequencies at high levels, to remove the need for a sub.
The 8351 didn’t provide quite enough low end for Fracchia both in terms of frequency range and SPL. As an alternative, the Equaphon team suggested the flagship 8361s.
Having already heard the 8351s, Fracchia knew that the technical specs of the 8361s would be able to solve the minor issues he had, and agreed with Equaphon’s proposed solution, keeping the 8351s at his studio until the 8361s arrived.
The acoustic treatment that was already installed at the studio meant that Fracchia was less concerned with the calibration of the monitors. However, he has found the GLM loudspeaker management software to be a very useful tool.
Since the mastering process relies on monitoring at consistent and well-defined levels, he is making use of GLM’s monitor control features.
“Controlling volume is an essential part of my work,” he explains. “So I connect a microphone to GLM so that I can get a real-time SPL reading of my listening level.
"The extra headroom in the low frequencies, the pristine stereo image and the wider sweet spot all provide clear improvements to my mastering work. I am now able to perceive even 1 dB of difference at any frequency, and I can now work at high levels without distortion.”
