Genelec 8351 Honoured with Prestigious Fennia Prize for Design
Genelec has once again received high-profile recognition in its home country, Finland, with the announcement that it has won a prestigious Winner-award in the Fennia Prize design competition. The accolade – one of Europe’s most respected design honours – has been bestowed upon a recent and highly popular addition to Genelec’s acclaimed Smart Active Monitor (SAM™) range, the three-way compact 8351.
A leading voice in the Finnish design community since 2003, the Fennia Prize is organised biennially to support the creation of high-standard products and services, and to promote the competitiveness and internationalisation of industries. Genelec is a previous recipient of a Fennia Prize trophy, having won the 2009 Grand Prix prize for the design of the 5040A active subwoofer. Now, the jury of the 2017 Fennia Prize has acknowledged the widely hailed and unique design of the 8351, having picked it from the competition’s Industrial category.
Genelec R&D Director Dr. Aki Mäkivirta
As with so many of the company’s landmark products, the 8351 was designed by Harri Koskinen, working in conjunction with the Genelec R&D team. Incorporating a number of leading Genelec technologies – including the Acoustically Concealed Woofer (ACW™), Minimum Diffraction Coaxial (MDC™) driver and Directivity Control Waveguide (DCW™) – the Smart monitor is designed to suit environments such as recording studios, broadcast facilities, outside broadcast vehicles and post-production facilities.
Featuring a loudspeaker cabinet of recycled aluminium, the 8351 boasts a distinctive appearance that nevertheless still reflects the clear-cut design familiar from previous Genelec products and Harri Koskinen’s work in general. Accordingly, the product has also found favour with an increasing number of home audio customers as well as professional users.
“The Fennia Prize plays an important role in defining the debate not just for Finland’s design community, but globally as well, so we are absolutely delighted to have received this recognition for the 8351 Smart monitor,” commented Genelec Managing Director, Siamäk Naghian. “One of the key aims of the prize is to encourage international competitiveness, and in this regard the 8351 has proven to be one of Genelec’s greatest success stories, with customers in more than 70 countries worldwide responding to its extremely controlled directivity, its breadth of coverage, its Smart calibration features and of course the fact that it is unique and beautiful. Following a number of other high-profile awards for this product, the Fennia Prize will undoubtedly help us to reach even more potential customers as we continue to showcase the 8351.”