Genelec Powers KIO’s New Spatial Audio And Arts Lab

Detmold's KreativInstitut.Ostwestfalen-Lippe (KIO) has unveiled the Spatial Audio and Arts Lab (S.A.A.L.), a Genelec-based facility for high-order Ambisonics that also supports mainstream consumer formats, strengthening collaborative research and teaching across its partner universities.

Located on the Kreativ Campus Detmold in Germany's Teutoburg Forest region, KIO brings together digital media production, composition & sound design, digital humanities & music informatics, and artificial intelligence. At the heart of the institute is S.A.A.L., a new space powered exclusively by Genelec monitoring. "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 operates as a centre of science and research shared by Paderborn University, Detmold University of Music and the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts, fostering collaboration between business and academia across a wide spectrum of expertise.

S.A.A.L. serves as a high-resolution immersive monitoring room with a strong musical remit, enabling students and researchers to mix, produce and present spatial audio content. "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.

Etezazi worked closely with immersive electroacoustics/ambisonics consultant Jörn Nettingsmeier, who handled the truss structure, acoustic curtains and electroacoustics. Etezazi and his team defined the precise loudspeaker placement and system configuration to meet the room's objectives.

Personal experience informed the choice of monitors. "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."

The final specification comprises 43 Genelec 8030C two-way monitors arranged as a 360-degree spherical array measuring 7m × 6m × 3.8m, supported 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.

Designed for flexibility, the system integrates easily with common DAWs and playback platforms, enabling plug-and-play operation. Students can prepare mixes remotely, bring their workstation into S.A.A.L., connect to the playback system and work across multiple formats. Finished mixes can then be auditioned elsewhere on campus, including via 3D headsets with headphones.

With favourable acoustics, the team optimised the setup using onboard controls. "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."

Reflecting on the installation, Etezazi notes that S.A.A.L.'s breadth of immersive playback options is encouraging students to explore different creative approaches. "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."

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