Natick, MA (June 2, 2023)—Studio Brain, a Tokyo-based post-production facility, has given its venerable Genelec main monitors a new lease on life with Genelec’s 1235 Retrofit Upgrade Kit.
“The 1035s had been in use for decades, and there were parts that needed maintenance,” explains Toshiyuki Ootaki from Brain’s studio department. “Talks about renewing the whole system in the first MA (multi audio) room were brought up and, thinking ahead, we decided to upgrade the monitors.”
At the start of the upgrade process, the studio looked at switching the 1035s out to nearfield monitors, but instead settled on the Retrofit Upgrade Kit to transform the legacy 1035s to 1235 Smart Active Monitors. This upgrade retains the 1035 enclosures and updates them with the latest Class D amplifiers, DSP hardware and drivers.
“I’m someone who is really cost-conscious, so a part of me thought that maybe we should take this opportunity to downsize,” recalls Mitsuhide Takamura, who serves on the board of Studio Brain and is also involved in production. “But when we took the 1035s out from the wall, I noticed that the foundation was very solidly built and thought we should make good use of it. I thought that installing the monitors in the walls of the room would be a financial burden, but when compared to the cost of downsizing, there was no difference in price. The fact that we could upgrade the 1035s that we trust, but with the latest technology, is truly wonderful.”
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Additionally, the Retrofit Upgrade Kit saves Studio Brain money by consuming less power, supporting Genelec’s longstanding commitment to sustainability.
In theater-tiered listening rooms like Brain’s MA1, the 1235s can be calibrated via GLM to allow even greater flexibility in tailoring them to the acoustics of the room, and additionally, they can be optimized for a variety of listening positions. “When we got the monitors installed, we tried listening to the uncalibrated sound without using GLM. The sound was—unsurprisingly—very close to the 1035s,” says Takamura.
“To us, it would be a big problem if our reference sound changed significantly. Calibration with GLM improves the sound, but also allows you to fine-tune the characteristics, so I was able to create a balance between the outstanding sound characteristics of the 1235s, and the sound that I’m used to with our original 1035s.”
