Sigberg Audio MANTA dual cardioid active speaker development thread

[TLS Guy]

One step closer to opening the presales, product photos are now up on the website!

View attachment 60001

See the rest here: https://www.sigbergaudio.no/no/products/sigberg-audio-manta-1-active-speakers

Good work, I don't think I have seen a design of any speaker, with an integrated sub, that I am more curious to hear and measure. This is what risky innovation looks like. Loudspeaker designs have been due for a really good shake up for years, and most are nowhere nearly as good as they should be, and need to be.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Here's the ~listening axis (10 degrees), +/-2.5dB

And 0-30-60.

Cardioid data tomorrow.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Studying the measurements from the Klippel and combining it with what I'm hearing, it's getting clear that this speaker doesn't completely follow normal conventions, and you can't just tune it flat on-axis and assume it will sound balanced.

For instance around 500hz the Manta is 3dB down at 40 degrees, while a typical speaker is maybe 1dB down. So the directivity is more narrow than usual in the front as well. At 60 degrees a regular speaker is perhaps 2dB down at 400hz, the Manta is 4dB down. At 90 degrees the Manta is 8dB down at 400hz. More common would be around 4dB. On a smaller speaker perhaps just 3dB.

Since the cardioid effect is unusually wideband, it also falls off pretty hard in the higher frequencies.

So the Manta is freaking awesome at +/-40 degrees, which covers any natural listening area. If you go more off-axis than that you may experience some imbalance in the sound. Not so much that you'd react at a party, but enough that it's interesting to observe. In my living room they're placed at a wall that ends on one side, so you can basically walk around the speaker towards the kitchen area. As you pass the speaker at around 90 degrees, the bass seemingly disappears. Very interesting experience.

The preliminary "official" measurements from the Klippel is +/-2.5dB, but this is 1-2dB down in the 120-350hz area compared to how they were originally tuned based on listening sessions. I suspect at least some of that lift will sneak back in to get it balanced.

They're now situated in my somewhat larger living room (as opposed to my dedicated listening room), the area is open to both sides and maybe 50-60m^2. Similar to the smaller room, there's more ambient / immersive sound and wider soundstage than normal, and also an addictive almost visceral punch / feel in the midbass even at moderate volume.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway, the conclusion from the Klippel session is that the Caridioid systems are definitely operational. After studying 90-120-150-180 degrees we can define a .."dispersion characteristics specification" as follows:

Cardioid dispersion characteristics (120-180°):
~100-500hz: 10-12dB attentuation
~500hz-1khz: 16-20dB attentuation
~1-5khz: 25dB attentuation

This is a more wide-band cardioid effect than I'm aware of in any other speaker.

Here's on-axis vs 180 degrees. The 180 degrees curve is now more even in the 100-500hz area than earlier, and the effect is good in the entire band. With the "entire band" I'm referring to ~50-5,000hz. Above that the dispersion is very narrow even in regular speakers.

What does this mean in terms of energy into the room? In the previous iteration I claimed a 30% reduction in energy at 90 degrees, and 50% at 180 degrees compared to a traditional speaker. This is now increased to >40% at 90 degrees and >60%(!) at 180 degrees. The comparison speaker is the average dispersion of three different speakers with similar baffle size.

In summary: 40-60% of the reflected energy in the 90-180 degrees area on both sides of the speakers are removed at the root.

 

[TLS Guy]

Studying the measurements from the Klippel and combining it with what I'm hearing, it's getting clear that this speaker doesn't completely follow normal conventions, and you can't just tune it flat on-axis and assume it will sound balanced.

For instance around 500hz the Manta is 3dB down at 40 degrees, while a typical speaker is maybe 1dB down. So the directivity is more narrow than usual in the front as well. At 60 degrees a regular speaker is perhaps 2dB down at 400hz, the Manta is 4dB down. At 90 degrees the Manta is 8dB down at 400hz. More common would be around 4dB. On a smaller speaker perhaps just 3dB.

Since the cardioid effect is unusually wideband, it also falls off pretty hard in the higher frequencies.

So the Manta is freaking awesome at +/-40 degrees, which covers any natural listening area. If you go more off-axis than that you may experience some imbalance in the sound. Not so much that you'd react at a party, but enough that it's interesting to observe. In my living room they're placed at a wall that ends on one side, so you can basically walk around the speaker towards the kitchen area. As you pass the speaker at around 90 degrees, the bass seemingly disappears. Very interesting experience.

The preliminary "official" measurements from the Klippel is +/-2.5dB, but this is 1-2dB down in the 120-350hz area compared to how they were originally tuned based on listening sessions. I suspect at least some of that lift will sneak back in to get it balanced.

They're now situated in my somewhat larger living room (as opposed to my dedicated listening room), the area is open to both sides and maybe 50-60m^2. Similar to the smaller room, there's more ambient / immersive sound and wider soundstage than normal, and also an addictive almost visceral punch / feel in the midbass even at moderate volume.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway, the conclusion from the Klippel session is that the Caridioid systems are definitely operational. After studying 90-120-150-180 degrees we can define a .."dispersion characteristics specification" as follows:

Cardioid dispersion characteristics (120-180°):
~100-500hz: 10-12dB attentuation
~500hz-1khz: 16-20dB attentuation
~1-5khz: 25dB attentuation

This is a more wide-band cardioid effect than I'm aware of in any other speaker.

Here's on-axis vs 180 degrees. The 180 degrees curve is now more even in the 100-500hz area than earlier, and the effect is good in the entire band. With the "entire band" I'm referring to ~50-5,000hz. Above that the dispersion is very narrow even in regular speakers.
View attachment 60023

What does this mean in terms of energy into the room? In the previous iteration I claimed a 30% reduction in energy at 90 degrees, and 50% at 180 degrees compared to a traditional speaker. This is now increased to >40% at 90 degrees and >60%(!) at 180 degrees. The comparison speaker is the average dispersion of three different speakers with similar baffle size.

In summary: 40-60% of the reflected energy in the 90-180 degrees area on both sides of the speakers are removed at the root.
View attachment 60022
View attachment 60024

Well first of all think you so much for giving such honest detail of the performance of that speaker.

I think this is a speaker that will require extensive listening tests on a wide variety of program. I think the jury is out about whether this specific set of deign goals is valid. It seems to me that the cake may be "over egged" somewhat. If you reverse the situation to microphones, there are a number, especially from Neumann, where the cardioid Pattern can be varied to a significant degree depending on circumstances. I have, and used to use such, in my outside broadcast era. I suspect this would be hard to do with a speaker. My point is that results may vary greatly depending on circumstances. In the recording confraternity there are those who totally avoid any type of cardioid microphones, and only use omni directional mics. Telarc for instance only used omni mics. The Decca tree now coming back into vogue uses a central omni flanked by two spaced cardioid mics. That raises another issue, as to whether this speaker approach will be sensitive to the microphone set up of the recording.
It all adds up to interesting times.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Well first of all think you so much for giving such honest detail of the performance of that speaker.

I think this is a speaker that will require extensive listening tests on a wide variety of program. I think the jury is out about whether this specific set of deign goals is valid. It seems to me that the cake may be "over egged" somewhat. If you reverse the situation to microphones, there are a number, especially from Neumann, where the cardioid Pattern can be varied to a significant degree depending on circumstances. I have, and used to use such, in my outside broadcast era. I suspect this would be hard to do with a speaker. My point is that results may vary greatly depending on circumstances. In the recording confraternity there are those who totally avoid any type of cardioid microphones, and only use omni directional mics. Telarc for instance only used omni mics. The Decca tree now coming back into vogue uses a central omni flanked by two spaced cardioid mics. That raises another issue, as to whether this speaker approach will be sensitive to the microphone set up of the recording.
It all adds up to interesting times.

Extensive listening tests on a wide variety of programs have been conducted for about a year now.

With the regards to the results varying depending on the room, obviously yes (as with any speaker). Notwithstanding, it stands to reason that less room reflections will be a good thing in any situation.

 

[Will Brink]

Good work, I don't think I have seen a design of any speaker, with an integrated sub, that I am more curious to hear and measure. This is what risky innovation looks like. Loudspeaker designs have been due for a really good shake up for years, and most are nowhere nearly as good as they should be, and need to be.

I said same in our discussion also.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

...And we're finally live with a period of limited preorders!

MANTA Cardioid Active Speakers (pair)

wideband Cardioid speakers, cardioid bass, dynamic range the most efficient and high sensitivity cardioid hifi speakers. 12" midbass driver, designed for subwoofers

www.sigbergaudio.no

 

[ryanosaur]

Congratulations Thorbjørn! I know it's been a journey for you to get to this point. Very excited for you.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Congratulations Thorbjørn! I know it's been a journey for you to get to this point. Very excited for you.

Thank you, I appreciate it! Yes it has indeed taken some significant time and effort!

 

[Will Brink]

...And we're finally live with a period of limited preorders!

MANTA Cardioid Active Speakers (pair)

wideband Cardioid speakers, cardioid bass, dynamic range the most efficient and high sensitivity cardioid hifi speakers. 12" midbass driver, designed for subwoofers

www.sigbergaudio.no

Other then both being actives, it seems two very different design approaches between those and the SBS.1. How do they compare listening/subjectively?

 

[TLS Guy]

Extensive listening tests on a wide variety of programs have been conducted for about a year now.

With the regards to the results varying depending on the room, obviously yes (as with any speaker). Notwithstanding, it stands to reason that less room reflections will be a good thing in any situation.

There are some and I would say myself that your last statement is controversial and far from settled.

I have said on a number of occasions that you would not set up a system in a public lavatory. But the other side of the coin is also true, that you would not set up a system in a dead room. A lot of this controversy arises from imperfect speakers, as if the off axis response deviates from the axis response to a significant extent, then the deader room favors the poorer speakers. The obverse is also true, that a more ambient room favors the speaker with the better and more accurate off axis response. I have verified this many times. So curtailing the off axis response also becomes a mixed bag.

In addition I have come to the conclusion that the genre of music plays a large part in the debate. This was highlighted in communications I have had with Gene, on the issue of center spread. His and my experiences are polar opposites. He favors the use of center spread, and feels an up mixer is not properly set up without it, as so much gets "dumped" to the center channel. On the other hand my experience has been that the new up mixer keeps left, right and center information highly discreet. Use of center spread makes my system tend to triple mono, seriously downgrades localization, and destroys the depth of field.

So I did an intense study of the DD up mixer with instruments. Even more revealing was when I carefully analyzed Wav. files from the pop domain and classical domain in the extensive analytic functions within wave lab. I found music in the popular domain to be highly concentrated on the vertical axis, and severely limited on the horizontal axis. What that means is that classical the recordings strongly tend to wide stereo with marked differences in the left and right signals. On the other hand music from the popular domain tended to the mono end of the spectrum, with much more limited differences in the left and right signals.
So, I came to the conclusion that was the reason for our different experience.

The take home from this discussion is that a more focused speakers with more limited dispersion would tend to favor music from the popular culture, whereas a speaker with wider and accurate dispersion would favor the classical productions.

So I have come to the conclusion that your favored musical choices will alter your favored speaker presentation and the sound field it produces.

So the one liner from me, is that I doubt your last statement is correct for those of us who pretty much exclusively listen to classical music.

Lastly, on thinking about it, I think it would be possible to make the cardioid effect of a speaker adjustable, like microphones.

In any event I wish you every success with your impending launch and your company success and going from strength to strength.

 

[Emlin]

There are some and I would say myself that your last statement is controversial and far from settled.

I have said on a number of occasions that you would not set up a system in a public lavatory. But the other side of the coin is also true, that you would not set up a system in a dead room. A lot of this controversy arises from imperfect speakers, as if the off axis response deviates from the axis response to a significant extent, then the deader room favors the poorer speakers. The obverse is also true, that a more ambient room favors the speaker with the better and more accurate off axis response. I have verified this many times. So curtailing the off axis response also becomes a mixed bag.

In addition I have come to the conclusion that the genre of music plays a large part in the debate. This was highlighted in communications I have had with Gene, on the issue of center spread. His and my experiences are polar opposites. He favors the use of center spread, and feels an up mixer is not properly set up without it, as so much gets "dumped" to the center channel. On the other hand my experience has been that the new up mixer keeps left, right and center information highly discreet. Use of center spread makes my system tend to triple mono, seriously downgrades localization, and destroys the depth of field.

So I did an intense study of the DD up mixer with instruments. Even more revealing was when I carefully analyzed Wav. files from the pop domain and classical domain in the extensive analytic functions within wave lab. I found music in the popular domain to be highly concentrated on the vertical axis, and severely limited on the horizontal axis. What that means is that classical the recordings strongly tend to wide stereo with marked differences in the left and right signals. On the other hand music from the popular domain tended to the mono end of the spectrum, with much more limited differences in the left and right signals.
So, I came to the conclusion that was the reason for our different experience.

The take home from this discussion is that a more focused speakers with more limited dispersion would tend to favor music from the popular culture, whereas a speaker with wider and accurate dispersion would favor the classical productions.

So I have come to the conclusion that your favored musical choices will alter your favored speaker presentation and the sound field it produces.

So the one liner from me, is that I doubt your last statement is correct for those of us who pretty much exclusively listen to classical music.

Lastly, on thinking about it, I think it would be possible to make the cardioid effect of a speaker adjustable, like microphones.

In any event I wish you every success with your impeding launch and your company success and going from strength to strength.

I hope that you meant impending rather than impeding.

 

[TLS Guy]

I hope that you meant impending rather than impeding.

Thanks for picking that up. I missed one letter! You are a good proof reader.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Other then both being actives, it seems two very different design approaches between those and the SBS.1. How do they compare listening/subjectively?

I think the SBS.1 is a great speaker as well, so I almost feel bad talking about how the Manta is better. So let's at least note for the record that the following isn't to say that any aspect of the SBS.1 is bad, the Manta is just even better!

With regards to design approaches there are many similarities:

• The coax driver is the same one (and it's exceptional both in linearity and capacity)
• They both have dedicated midbass drivers with many similarities (except size)
• They're obviously both active
• They goal for the sound is similar in both, with regards to aiming for balanced in-room sound that sound awesome on good recordings, while not tipping over to becoming harsh or bad sounding on less than perfect recordings.

What's different?

The most obvious difference is the dual / wideband cardioid loading of course. Then you have the baffle ports on each side of the coax, but those are actually done to make it closer to the SBS.1 with regards to dispersion characteristics, fooling the coax to believe it's in a more narrow cabinet. It also has a significantly higher dynamic range than the SBS.1, which is no small feat by itself, since the SBS.1 is already properly powerful.

Subjective impressions of the sound:
Since they're tuned with the same goal in mind, and use the same coax, there are obvious similarities to the sound, and it's easy to hear that they are "siblings".

What sets them apart is almost difficult to explain, and may sound like subjective "flower language" from a hifi magazine, so my apologies, but I don't know how else to explain it. First of all the soundstage is larger in all directions (width, height, depth). With some variations from room to room of course, and the better your room is the more pronounced this effect is. But even in "normal" rooms they are clearly more immersive than regular speakers. In well treated rooms the closest way to explain it is that it sounds more than a surround system than 2-channel audio. Vocals are also incredibly open and present, often with a feeling of the vocalist being well in front of the speakers.

Due to the cardioid loading of the bass (directing the midbass toward the listener), there's also a more physical quality to the midbass compared to most traditional speakers which is very pleasing and addictive.

The final and I think very positive quality is that regular recordings routinely sound really, really good. Often you hear that really high-end speakers "reveal bad recordings", so that in essence you can only listen to high end recordings on high-end speakers. This is utter bollocks of course, and is usually a result of a non-linear frequency response or even audible cabinet resonances at unlucky frequencies, making voices and/or instruments harsh.

Even with the SBS.1, and even more so with the Manta, I very often find myself going "This sounds awesome" on normal, modern pop productions. The sound is routinely open, wide and with interesting imaging and stereo effects.

Hope that goes some way to explain it. At this point with no review or anything, it's hard to do anything but share my own experiences, but there's also been a number of people here to listen during the prototype phase who have shared their feedback on Norwegian forums, and they're very positive. People who already own speakers at twice the price suddenly look very thoughtful after a listening session with the Mantas.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

There are some and I would say myself that your last statement is controversial and far from settled.

I have said on a number of occasions that you would not set up a system in a public lavatory. But the other side of the coin is also true, that you would not set up a system in a dead room. A lot of this controversy arises from imperfect speakers, as if the off axis response deviates from the axis response to a significant extent, then the deader room favors the poorer speakers. The obverse is also true, that a more ambient room favors the speaker with the better and more accurate off axis response. I have verified this many times. So curtailing the off axis response also becomes a mixed bag.

(...)

The take home from this discussion is that a more focused speakers with more limited dispersion would tend to favor music from the popular culture, whereas a speaker with wider and accurate dispersion would favor the classical productions.

So I have come to the conclusion that your favored musical choices will alter your favored speaker presentation and the sound field it produces.

So the one liner from me, is that I doubt your last statement is correct for those of us who pretty much exclusively listen to classical music.

Lastly, on thinking about it, I think it would be possible to make the cardioid effect of a speaker adjustable, like microphones.

In any event I wish you every success with your impending launch and your company success and going from strength to strength.

My apologies in advance if I'm misreading what you're saying here, but it seems like you imply that narrow dispersion and even dispersion cannot co-exist. And I understand that my previous post my have hinted at this, but I may have been imprecise.

The Manta has very even dispersion characteristics 0-90, but beyond that it favors reduced reflections even more than even reflections. If you could choose between even dispersion at -10dB, or somewhat less even dispersion at -20dB, I can assure you that the latter would be preferrable. And it would be so both in a reflective room and a well damped room. I have three different listening rooms, one with around 200ms decay, one with ~300ms and one with ~500ms and I've tested both SBS.1 and Manta extensively in all - in addition to other rooms as well of course. The Manta sounds superior in all of these rooms.

With regards to wide soundstage, I'm a complete sucker for that quality, it's one of the best qualities of both the SBS.1 and the Manta. The Manta has significantly more narrow dispersion than the SBS.1, and it has a significantly WIDER soundstage. When you get less reflections from the wide off-axis (90-180) muddling up the sound, you get significantly more of the early (0-60) reflections and also significantly more of the soundstage/ambience information that is actually on the record.

I feel 100% confident that your classical productions would sound absolutely amazing on the Manta.


Here's 0-120-150-180 - As you can see even behind the speakers it's mostly quite even, but there are some disturbances above 1khz especially at 180 degrees. But at 25-30dB attentuation, I can assure you this is not a real world problem.

 

[TLS Guy]

My apologies in advance if I'm misreading what you're saying here, but it seems like you imply that narrow dispersion and even dispersion cannot co-exist. And I understand that my previous post my have hinted at this, but I may have been imprecise.

The Manta has very even dispersion characteristics 0-90, but beyond that it favors reduced reflections even more than even reflections. If you could choose between even dispersion at -10dB, or somewhat less even dispersion at -20dB, I can assure you that the latter would be preferrable. And it would be so both in a reflective room and a well damped room. I have three different listening rooms, one with around 200ms decay, one with ~300ms and one with ~500ms and I've tested both SBS.1 and Manta extensively in all - in addition to other rooms as well of course. The Manta sounds superior in all of these rooms.

With regards to wide soundstage, I'm a complete sucker for that quality, it's one of the best qualities of both the SBS.1 and the Manta. The Manta has significantly more narrow dispersion than the SBS.1, and it has a significantly WIDER soundstage. When you get less reflections from the wide off-axis (90-180) muddling up the sound, you get significantly more of the early (0-60) reflections and also significantly more of the soundstage/ambience information that is actually on the record.

I feel 100% confident that your classical productions would sound absolutely amazing on the Manta.


Here's 0-120-150-180 - As you can see even behind the speakers it's mostly quite even, but there are some disturbances above 1khz especially at 180 degrees. But at 25-30dB attentuation, I can assure you this is not a real world problem.

View attachment 60082

That is n interesting and informative graph. Interesting that you claim that steep reduction way off axis increases image depth. That certainly would chime with my experience of speakers with rear and upward firing drivers. To me they have always sounded an absolute mess. I note that some lunatic has bought the Mirage name from Klipsch. So I expect to see a resurrection of a line with speakers firing from strange locations.

This certainly is a bold and innovative Approach. I have been looking closely at the spec sheet of your coaxial driver. I must say it does seem a very useful unit.

It should make an ideal center speaker.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Finally full "commercial trailer" or advertisement video for Manta public as well! Obviously not an infomercial, but rather created to look cool and further intrigue those who are already aware of the product.

4k - so remember fullscreen and sound!

 

[highfigh]

Good work, I don't think I have seen a design of any speaker, with an integrated sub, that I am more curious to hear and measure. This is what risky innovation looks like. Loudspeaker designs have been due for a really good shake up for years, and most are nowhere nearly as good as they should be, and need to be.

Have you heard of Steinway-Lyngdorf? Extremely expensive, and I didn't have a chance to listen in a great audio environment, but the sound was amazing.

 

[Will Brink]

Finally full "commercial trailer" or advertisement video for Manta public as well! Obviously not an infomercial, but rather created to look cool and further intrigue those who are already aware of the product.

4k - so remember fullscreen and sound!

Very slick! If it sounds as good as it looks, it's going to be a winner in the active speaker market for sure.

 

[TLS Guy]

...And we're finally live with a period of limited preorders!

MANTA Cardioid Active Speakers (pair)

wideband Cardioid speakers, cardioid bass, dynamic range the most efficient and high sensitivity cardioid hifi speakers. 12" midbass driver, designed for subwoofers

www.sigbergaudio.no

I guess that is what is known as tease advertising. There is some pretty deep bass in that video Thorbjorn. I guess the message is, if you can't feel it you need those speakers and subs!