Genelec provides speakers for Queen 40th anniversary

August 01, 2011 — Article

Rock legends Queen celebrate their 40th anniversary this year with the ‘Stormtroopers in Stilettos’ exhibition in London, with speakers provided by installation experts Genelec.

The retrospective celebrates the band’s first five albums at East London’s Old Truman Brewery with Genelec 8030A two-way active loudspeakers playing album tracks in the background in separate, themed areas.

The exhibition takes a comprehensive look at the early part of Queen’s career, from before the band’s formation in 1971 up to their free gig for over 250,000 fans in Hyde Park in 1976. The large 1250ft² warehouse space was split into five zones, with graphics and music to match each stage in the band’s career. Thirty Genelec 8030A loudspeakers were used in all areas across the exhibition.

Steve Fisher, Genelec Product Specialist at Source, said the challenge of designing the audio installation was twofold: “First, we wanted to ensure that the speakers could do justice to Queen’s fantastic sounding, but often highly intricate and multi-layered music. From my previous dealings with the band I knew they would be happy with Genelec speakers as they have a much-admired ability to faithfully reproduce the inner details of the original recorded sounds. Alongside this, it was a demanding acoustic environment as we had to ensure that music from each zone couldn’t be heard in any other. With careful positioning combined with the 8030’s innovative enclosure design, we were able to keep the sound clean, and visitors could enjoy the early Queen music in all its original glory.”

The 8030A is a powerful, bi-amplified, nearfield two-way monitor system, designed for home studios, workstations, and surround sound monitoring applications. Genelec’s own MDE (Minimum Diffraction Enclosure) enclosure features rounded edges and gently curved front and sides to achieve a smooth frequency response with minimized cabinet edge diffraction.

‘Stormtroopers in Stilettos’ is due to go on international tour. Dates to be announced.

Genelec 8030A


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