If asked to play a game of 'Guess the Pop Star', even the most cursory glimpse of the back cover of The Hits/The B Sides would make it way too obvious. But what if you were limited to just the B sides? Well, that would still end up disclosing song titles like "Scarlet Pussy", "Irresistible Bitch", "Horny Toad" and "God" - meaning that our mystery celebrity could still only be America's most famous (and conflicted?) Jehovah's Witness - Prince Rogers Nelson (1958-2016).

Some of my music-mad friends have argued with me over the years that compared to figures like Little Richard, James Brown, Sly Stone or Jimi Hendrix, the mini-Minnesotan's output was somewhat synthetic, lacking the truly original spark of these founding fathers of black music. But I would request (very politely) that they give me twelve minutes of their time to play them "When Doves Cry", "Kiss" and "Sign o' the Times". Next I would ask if they might like to reconsider my view that Prince at his imperious best laid ruin to anyone jaded enough to repeat the tired old mantra that there is nothing new under the sun. Indeed, it's testament to these relentlessly inventive records that even now with the blueprint readily available, the collective muscle of the music industry has failed to recreate anything close to them. The key albums Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, Parade and Sign o' the Times released between '84 & '87 respectively, meant that as a 14-17 year old teenager, they coincided precisely with the point that my inchoate love affair with music was beginning to take shape. And subsequently, Prince has continued to act as my musical guide, not only dazzling in his own right but also lighting the path to further musical discoveries.


And straight out the blocks the 8351A's two main calling cards were instantly apparent: knee-bucklingly impressive bass and an unusually capacious sweet spot. "I Feel For You" vaulted out of the speakers like a bouncing puppy; "Cream" had enough electric guitar crunch to out-zeezee ZZ-Top; and "Diamonds and Pearls" almost knocked me sideways with its unfettered dynamic heft. In short then, this was a promising start. It's true that the big-sounding small speaker has become a well-worn cliché (and I've certainly heard many compact boxes apparently able to suspend the laws of physics) but what was rare on this occasion was not just the quantity but the quality of that low end. Of course bass response is often cited as one of the main beneficiaries of an active design's ability to directly match bespoke amplifiers to the exact requirements of specific drive units. Tthe Genelecs' unswerving ability to portray subtly different textures was indeed really quite something. In fact, hearing bass done with this much aplomb can actually be quite startling. It's made me realize how easily one can become immune to the homogenizing shortcomings of many lesser designs.


My nephew who just starting out on a sound engineering career himself happened to be passing through one evening. He stuck his head into the door as Herbie Hancock's Headhunters was playing at an (ahem) realistic volume. "They sound huge…" was his sole penetrating insight before quickly heading off to get back to doing whatever sordid things 20-year olds call fun nowadays. Other initial perceptions of my own were that soundstaging and imaging were singularly accomplished (the jumbo waveguide clearly doing its job); and that the speakers always sounded much more settled at least an hour after power up.


And with a little further trawling of my CD collection, I soon understood Genelec's decision to give this particular pro model a gentle nudge out of the stygian fug of the recording studio and into the sunlight. Indeed I could easily imagine lifestyle publications like GQ or gadget mags like T3 going goo-goo over them. Well-crafted mainstream material like Coldplay, Beyonce, Rihanna & Co. got gobbled up for breakfast. The architectural bass served this material particularly well. It has an almost de-compressing effect, opening out the mixes and adding some real gravitas. So for millennials toting huge mobile music libraries, I could imagine these Genelec might well represent a very tempting step up the audio ladder. And that's not intended to damn with faint praise either. I tire of some very expensive high-end brands evidently too posh to push when it comes to anything that falls outside of their light jazz/classical comfort zone.

So Generation Genelec then? Well, why not? They acquitted themselves best in the kind of deluxe desktop system younger buyers would most likely place them in. And their ultra-neat overall packaging could only help seal the deal. Also, there is something very seductive about the wraparound IMAX effect they are capable of rendering, particularly in a nearfield setting.


No record demonstrated this more clearly than my favourite release of last year – Jamie xx's In Colour. This disk has become a permanent fixture in my backpack and I've tried it out on many systems, some in excess of £100K. And the 8351As fearlessly stood up to the best of them. It's a record that dreamily sketches out the latent potential of summer in the inner city. Had I walked into a hifi show and heard this combination, I would have exited in full-on rave mode, such was the speakers' ability to project the combined force of the stentorian bass lines and stuttering beats.