Aperion Audio Celebrates 10th Anniversary

[admin]

Aperion Audio marks ten years of award-winning speakers and industry-leading customer satisfaction by offering special pricing and forum contests through July. The Aperion 10th Anniversary 5.1 Home Theater System, which is built around the full-range Intimus 6B monitors, is a high-end system available through the end of July at $770 off the already low, direct-to-consumer price.


Discuss "Aperion Audio Celebrates 10th Anniversary " here. Read the article.

[shadyJ]

The 6B's look like nice speakers, but what is with the 82 db sensitivity? You would need a really powerful amp to get these things to hit hard, and they are only rated for up to 200 watts (continuous, I am assuming). Am I missing something here, because this wouldn't seem to be great for a powerful home theater sound system. How loud can these get before some serious distortion and clipping set in?

[browninggold]

I had the 6 series bookshelfs for rear surrounds and they played loud and clear with no distortion. Excellent sounding. Running with a Denon 3808ci. Maybe the design and crossovers help the overall performance.

[Hicks]

The 6B's look like nice speakers, but what is with the 82 db sensitivity? You would need a really powerful amp to get these things to hit hard, and they are only rated for up to 200 watts (continuous, I am assuming). Am I missing something here, because this wouldn't seem to be great for a powerful home theater sound system. How loud can these get before some serious distortion and clipping set in?

Hello there,

When we were designing these speakers we were faced with a choice, we either had to sacrifice a bit of sensitivity to get the bass response we wanted (down to 42 Hz at -6dB), or reduce the bass response to get more sensitivity. We chose option A because we felt we wanted to offer a speaker that provided the best sound possible.

One thing to keep in mind is that our sensitivity ratings are anechoic while some other speaker manufacturers will use a half space sensitivity rating (which takes into account reflections from a wall) to boost their sensitivity specs.

Another thing to remember is that SPL is not only a function of the amount of power your amp has, but also how far away you are from the speaker. If you were one meter away from the speaker you would only need 125 watts to hit 100 dB from the 6B and you would still have 3 dB of headroom left.

For a more real world scenario, if you were 4 meters away and had a 125 watt/channel amp you should be able to push them to about 90 dB before running into clipping, which for my ears is plenty loud.

Finally our speaker engineer notes that the 24mm voice coil winding length that we use handles peaks quite well. So our speakers will go as loud on "program material" as a speaker that's around 5dB more sensitive.

But if you really need a speaker that will hit 110 dB peaks cleanly then I would say that you should consider a more sensitive speaker.

Hope that helps but please let me know if you have any other questions!

[shadyJ]

Thanks for the informative answer. I respect your design decision, as these speakers would seem to have very good extension for bookshelf speakers. I'd love to hear a pair to compare them to what I have already. If I were on the market for a pair of bookshelf's, I would definitely consider a pair, especially with the sale going on. And I'm not really a SPL junkie myself although sometimes I do like to crank the dial to zero with a rockin' tune or two.

[its phillip]

I'd love a set of 6Bs. Maybe I'll get some on their 11th anniversary :D

[GO-NAD!]

Hello there,

When we were designing these speakers we were faced with a choice, we either had to sacrifice a bit of sensitivity to get the bass response we wanted (down to 42 Hz at -6dB), or reduce the bass response to get more sensitivity. We chose option A because we felt we wanted to offer a speaker that provided the best sound possible.

One thing to keep in mind is that our sensitivity ratings are anechoic while some other speaker manufacturers will use a half space sensitivity rating (which takes into account reflections from a wall) to boost their sensitivity specs.

Another thing to remember is that SPL is not only a function of the amount of power your amp has, but also how far away you are from the speaker. If you were one meter away from the speaker you would only need 125 watts to hit 100 dB from the 6B and you would still have 3 dB of headroom left.

For a more real world scenario, if you were 4 meters away and had a 125 watt/channel amp you should be able to push them to about 90 dB before running into clipping, which for my ears is plenty loud.

Finally our speaker engineer notes that the 24mm voice coil winding length that we use handles peaks quite well. So our speakers will go as loud on "program material" as a speaker that's around 5dB more sensitive.

But if you really need a speaker that will hit 110 dB peaks cleanly then I would say that you should consider a more sensitive speaker.

Hope that helps but please let me know if you have any other questions!

I wonder why it was felt necessary to sacrifice sensitivity to gain extension? I can only guess that the 6B's were designed mainly for 2-channel use? Otherwise, when crossed over with a subwoofer in a surround setup, that extension goes to waste, does it not? I would've thought that the market for5.1/7.1 channel systems would be far larger than for 2-channel systems these days.

Would it be cost-effective to design two versions - one with higher sensitivity and less extension; another with these specs inverted? Just thinking out loud...

[Hicks]

I wonder why it was felt necessary to sacrifice sensitivity to gain extension? I can only guess that the 6B's were designed mainly for 2-channel use? Otherwise, when crossed over with a subwoofer in a surround setup, that extension goes to waste, does it not? I would've thought that the market for5.1/7.1 channel systems would be far larger than for 2-channel systems these days.

Would it be cost-effective to design two versions - one with higher sensitivity and less extension; another with these specs inverted? Just thinking out loud...

Yes I do think of the 6B as primarily a two channel speaker. However, one thing I didn't mention is that if you were to listen to that anniversary system in all channel stereo you should get about 5-6 additional overall dB due to the output from the center and surrounds which are more sensitive. So with that in mind I think the 6Bs can also work well in a surround set up.

As for a speaker that is more sensitive but doesn't have quite as much bass but is more sensitive I'd suggest looking at our smallest tower, the 4T. It goes down to 45 Hz at -6dB and is 86 dB sensitive.

Of course as is the case with any of our speakers you get the 30 day trial so if they don't work for your application you can always send them back for a full refund, and we even cover return shipping unlike most of the other internet direct companies.

[ChunkyDark]

Well the anniversary pricing worked for me, ordered a pair of the 6bs last night. Assuming all goes well I'll be adding another for the center and four 4b for surrounds.
I was concerned at first about the sensitivity, but I really don't listen that loud.

[Alex2507]

I won a pair of Intimus 5DB Surround Speakers. Somehow I haven't managed to listen to them yet and have only unwrapped one out of the pair to look at. Based on the looks alone I think they're gonna sound Grrreat !!! (say it like Tony the Tiger.

I've never had anything with as nice a finish and as much heft for their size.
Plus I got to learn what bipoles and dipoles were.