Genelec Provides Great Sound for Spare Time Entertainment Center

	The Spare Time Entertainment Center in Lansing, Michigan, featuring a sound system from Genelec. Photo: Spare Time 2013

The Spare Time Entertainment Center's 31 lanes of premium bowling are the focus of the facility in Lansing, Michigan, but there's lots more to this newly renovated family fun center, including a two-story laser-tag game facility, part of its over 4,000-sq.-ft. game arcade, and the Grand River Bar and Grill, a full-service dining and catering facility. What they all have in common is sound by Genelec, currently celebrating its 35th anniversary.

The main bowling area has six Genelec 8030A compact bi-amplified monitoring system loudspeakers across the front of the lanes, installed near the scoring video panels, with five more Genelec 8020A bi-amplified monitoring system loudspeakers located along the rear wall of the room. In addition, there are three Genelec 7050B active subwoofers placed every eight lanes. A boutique bowling area, the Capital Room, has five Genelec 8030s and a 7060 sub covering its very private eight lanes. There are five more 8020s in the Grand River Bar and two 8030A's in the game room area.

Genelec speakers are making every aspect of the Spare Time Entertainment Center sound great. Peter MacColeman, family member and manager of Spare Time, says his experience with Genelec goes all the way back to college where, when studying music, he looked for a pair of speakers that would give him the most transparent musical experience he could find.

"I chose Genelec then and we chose them now, for Spare Time, because Genelecs sound great, are incredibly robust in installed environments, and have incredible intelligibility even while reproducing music fully," MacColeman explains, further noting that the sound systems in the previous bowling alley on that site had conventional passive loudspeakers powered by remote amplifiers, a situation that drew 120A. "With the self-powered Genelecs, the entire system here is running on 12A," he says. "The sound of the facility is important to the guest experience -- people like to hear music and they like to talk, and the Genelecs let people enjoy both because the music is always present without having to be overpowering. The Genelecs are tuned well -- too much high end can turn off the kids and too much low frequency can annoy adults. Genelecs are musical because they reproduce well and accurately over all frequencies, so you don't have to tweak any EQ to get them to sound right. They're just great speakers."