Solja Nieminen, Genelec’s Pro Audio Monitoring business manager, points to an oft-overlooked aspect of audio innovation that is critical for the company: Safety.
RedTech: What drives your company’s innovation engine?
Solja Nieminen: Genelec’s innovation has always been driven by a deep understanding of the challenges faced by our customers in the professional audio industry. By listening closely to their needs, Genelec has been able to develop solutions that address the problems of modern audio monitoring. The formation of Genelec in 1978 was a direct result of a design brief from the Finnish national broadcaster YLE, which needed an active monitoring loudspeaker that could combine superior performance with long-term serviceability and the ability to adapt to the room’s acoustics. So, a deep connection with our customers’ needs was baked into our company’s DNA from day one.
The drive to design audio monitoring systems that are accurate and truthful has been constant since it allows the user to produce mixes that translate consistently to other rooms and playback systems. These days, as the industry increasingly shifts towards more decentralized workflows, we have responded with innovative technologies that help professionals maintain the highest standards of audio quality, even in less-than-ideal acoustic environments. Our new UNIO monitoring ecosystem perfectly exemplifies that thinking, as it bridges in-room loudspeakers and personal headphone monitoring.
RedTech: How do your innovations keep radio and audio competitive in today’s digital landscape?
Nieminen: One of the primary challenges facing modern radio and audio broadcasters is ensuring consistent and accurate audio quality when working outside traditional, purpose-built studios. In an intensely competitive marketplace, a broadcaster’s output quality is crucial. Still, the move to decentralized operation often means employing remote workflows and working in spaces where the room acoustics may not be optimized for professional sound monitoring.
In these settings, engineers may find it difficult to assess the sound quality accurately, as they may not have access to their trusted calibrated in-room audio monitoring system or acoustically treated spaces that would normally provide a clear and consistent representation of the audio.
Innovations such as our UNIO Personal Reference Monitoring (PRM) — with Aural ID binaural virtual monitoring — offer headphone monitoring akin to the accuracy of studio monitors, with the same high level of audio monitoring quality as would be achieved in a purpose-built studio. This makes it possible to work effectively in any location, such as small rooms, makeshift studios, or outdoor settings, ensuring that the final output still meets professional standards.
RedTech: What emerging technology will be crucial for the industry’s long-term success? Please explain.
Nieminen: One area we are particularly passionate about is safe listening. Safe listening practices become particularly important when professionals use headphones, which have become a primary tool for many when monitoring in remote and mobile environments. However, prolonged exposure to high sound levels in headphones can result in hearing damage, a significant concern for those working long hours. After all, if your job relies on your ability to make accurate and informed decisions on audio quality, any impairment to your hearing will have a serious professional impact.
Recognizing this, Genelec is committed to promoting safe listening by developing technologies that offer accurate sound reproduction for faster decision–making and ways to safeguard users from the risks of listening fatigue and overexposure. Features within the UNIO ecosystem help users manage their listening levels and track their sound exposure, so UNIO provides audio engineers with the tools to protect their hearing while maintaining the accuracy and quality they need for critical audio tasks.
RedTech: Beyond streaming and on-demand, what new audio experiences should broadcasters prepare for?
Nieminen: As the demand for immersive and spatialized sound experiences grows, the adoption of binaural audio is finally becoming increasingly important for any content requiring a lifelike audio experience. Binaural audio provides a sense of immersion by offering listeners the sensation of sound coming from specific directions and distances, which is how we hear in the real world. This is crucial in delivering engaging and natural content, especially when listening on headphones or in mobile contexts.
For broadcast professionals, the ability to produce binaural audio that translates well is increasingly necessary. This allows content to be experienced more dynamically across various platforms and devices, especially as more people turn to personal listening experiences with headphones.
Software-based audio processing combined with cloud services is key to making this transition efficient. Our efforts in this area have focused heavily on our Aural ID binaural technology. This technology uses HRTF (head-related transfer function) algorithms to create a totally personalized headphone listening experience, from stereo to immersive.
This personalized approach to binaural audio is essential for producing high-quality content that translates well across various playback devices, ensuring that the audience’s experience matches the engineer’s intent.
Discover more Genelec innovations here.
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