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PRESS RELEASE
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Tel: (615) 662-1616

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Genelec brings musicality to KIO’s new Spatial Audio and Arts Lab

NATICK, MA, July 7, 2026 — Framed by the picturesque beauty of the Teutoburg Forest, the German city of Detmold has recently become home to the KreativInstitut.Ostwestfalen-Lippe (KIO), which brings together the disciplines of digital media production, composition & sound design, digital humanities & music informatics, as well as artificial intelligence. The beating heart of KIO is the Spatial Audio and Arts Lab, a brand new facility powered exclusively by Genelec monitoring. Situated on the Kreativ Campus Detmold, KIO serves as a center of science and research and is jointly shared by Paderborn University, Detmold University of Music, and the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts. In bringing together creative minds from business and science, the institute is unique in Germany for its huge breadth of expertise. “For students, KIO offers enormous opportunities, as they can work with technologies that are rarely available together in one place,” explains Sascha Etezazi, KIO’s Artistic Research Associate in Composition & Sound Design. KIO’s Spatial Audio and Arts Lab (known as S.A.A.L. – an eloquent wordplay on the German word for ‘music hall’) functions as a high-resolution immersive monitoring room with a clear musical focus, allowing the mixing, production and presentation of content by students and researchers alike. “S.A.A.L. was designed as a high-resolution Ambisonics monitoring space, enabling full-spherical reproduction between the 5th and 6th order. At the same time, the room is fully compatible with channel-based formats and common consumer formats such as Dolby Atmos,” comments Etezazi. In designing the room, Etezazi worked closely with Jörn Nettingsmeier, consultant for immersive electroacoustics/ambisonics. With Nettingsmeier planning the truss structure, acoustic curtains and electroacoustics, Etezazi and his team defined the precise positioning and setup of the monitoring system. Etezazi’s previous experience with Genelec played a crucial part in the monitor selection process for S.A.A.L.: “I’ve used a pair of Genelec 8330 SAM monitors in my own home studio for some years now. Having worked with them extensively, I could see that the controlled directivity and compact design of Genelec nearfields were perfect for the room here at KIO, allowing us to position a large number of monitors flexibly.” As a result, Etezazi and the KIO team specified a monitoring system comprising 43 Genelec 8030C two-way monitors – configured as a 360 degree spherical array measuring 7m × 6m × 3.8m – complemented by four 7050C subwoofers. “S.A.A.L. is a relatively large room, so we wanted to provide a wide listening area where several people can also listen comfortably while standing,” says Etezazi. The system design and concept allow for an easy plug-and-play solution through the integration of common DAWs and playback systems. With its huge diversity of projects, KIO relies on a highly flexible infrastructure, enabling students to prepare mixes remotely and then set up their workstation directly in S.A.A.L., connect to the playback system, and start working in a wide range of formats. Mixes created in the spatial room can then be experienced and evaluated elsewhere on campus – such as using a 3D headset with headphones, for instance. With the room performing well acoustically, the KIO team found that each 8030’s rear panel room correction DIP switches were more than sufficient for optimizing the entire system for the space. “Since the room acoustics are good, we found that the tonal adjustment of the 8030s using the DIP switches produces very good results – maintaining tonal balance all around – but with the option of using external room calibration systems if required.” Looking back on the project, Etezazi is happy that S.A.A.L.’s range of immersive playback formats is providing an environment where students can experience the full diversity of alternative approaches and possibilities, and work with them creatively. But it’s also clear that the creation of a truly engaging Ambisonics listening environment is something that Etezazi is particularly passionate about:  “My background is as a Tonmeister, and my goal is for Ambisonics to be musically convincing rather than being perceived as a scientific-technical format only. Many still associate it with a rather ‘technical’ sound – or suffering from a very small listening sweet spot – but here, many people comment on how musical Ambisonics can actually sound. But crucially, putting technicalities aside, this Genelec system actually allows you to forget the playback format – and simply enjoy the music.” For more information, please visit www.genelec.com.

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Photo file 1: KIO_PR_Image_1.JPG Photo caption 1: The Spatial Audio and Arts Lab features a 360-degree immersive monitoring built around 43 Genelec 8030C loudspeakers and four 7050C subwoofers. Photo file 2: KIO_PR_Image_2.JPG Photo caption 2: Controlled directivity and compact design made the Genelec 8030C the ideal choice for S.A.A.L. Photo file 3: KIO_PR_Image_3.JPG Photo caption 3: KIO’s Spatial Audio and Arts Lab (S.A.A.L.) is located on the Kreativ Campus Detmold in Germany. PDF file: 2026_Genelec_KIO_Case_Study.PDF PDF caption: Genelec KIO case study Genelec, the pioneer in Active Monitoring technology, is celebrating over 45 years of designing and manufacturing active loudspeakers for true and accurate sound reproduction. Genelec is credited with promoting the concept of active transducer technology. Since its inception in 1978, Genelec has concentrated its efforts and resources into creating active monitors with unparalleled sonic integrity. The result is an active speaker system that has earned global acclaim for its accurate imaging, extremely high acoustic output from small enclosures, true high-fidelity with low distortion, and deep, rich bass. Genelec is also marking its 20th year of Smart Active Monitoring™ technology, which allows studio monitors to be connected, configured and calibrated for the user’s specific acoustic environment. Each Smart Active Monitor or subwoofer is equipped with advanced internal DSP circuitry, which tightly integrates with the GLM (Genelec Loudspeaker Manager) software application, running on Mac or PC. GLM’s reference microphone kit allows the user’s acoustic environment to be analyzed, after which GLM’s AutoCal feature optimizes each Smart Active Monitor for level, distance delay, subwoofer crossover phase and room response equalization, with the option of further fine tuning by the user. By minimizing the room’s influence on the sound, Smart Active Monitors deliver an unrivalled reference, with excellent translation between rooms. Visit Genelec on social media: https://www.facebook.com/Genelec https://www.linkedin.com/company/genelec-oy https://www.instagram.com/Genelec_oy/ https://x.com/Genelec https://www.tiktok.com/@genelec_oy Other brand and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. —For more information on the complete range of Genelec Active Monitoring Systems, contact: Genelec Inc., 7 Tech Circle, Natick, MA 01760. Tel: (508) 652-0900; Fax: (508) 652-0909; Web: http://www.genelec.com/.