Another Norwegian Speaker Company? Introducing Sigberg Audio

[gene]

Sigberg Audio is a new manufacturer of high-end, high-style active speakers for home music listening. Launched in Norway at the beginning of 2020, Sigberg’s speakers are unique in that they MUST be used with a separate subwoofer. The speakers combine Scan-Speak drivers from Denmark for the subwoofers, an Italian driver company called Sica for the drivers, and Hypex amps from the Netherlands, and hand-made cabinets from England.

We are looking at active speaker designs here with a new cardioid design for better room integration and much more.

Read: Sigberg Speakers

 

[ryanosaur]

Intriguing product.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

To rephrase Jerry Maguire - Show me the Frequency Response !!

 

[shadyJ]

To rephrase Jerry Maguire - Show me the Frequency Response !!

This graph is from Sigberg:

We are planning a review sometime in early spring so we will hopefully get some confirmation on its performance.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

@shadyJ Is that a massive 6-8db dropout around 3khz or am I going blind?

 

[ryanosaur]

It almost looks like an intentional BBC dip

 

[lovinthehd]

He's a regular contributor on ASR, maybe he'll come on here as well....

 

[luis1090]

@shadyJ Is that a massive 6-8db dropout around 3khz or am I going blind?

Well on axis is more like 2 or 3 dB, off axis around 45° you're looking at 6-8 db. I wonder if that is the crossover on the coaxial to the high frequency driver. Any way this speakers seems to be designed to be used only with a sub and to be play loud hence the 100-90hz low frequency extension. They better be nothing short of superb because a hole system command serious coin.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Well on axis is more like 2 or 3 dB, off axis around 45° you're looking at 6-8 db. I wonder if that is the crossover on the coaxial to the high frequency driver. Any way this speakers seems to be designed to be used only with a sub and to be play loud hence the 100-90hz low frequency extension. They better be nothing short of superb because a hole system command serious coin.

ok, I loaded the image into a photo editor and came up with these findings: a) you're right 6-8 was an exaggeration - on my part. 1db on the image is 13 pixels. Before 3khz, the dropout is exactly 3db (not massive, not insignificant) but more interestingly, after 3khz on-axis gets boosted by 3db.

I have to say, that without any doubt. I am nitpicking at minor details, but please allow me to do so due to the price. This FR is probably near ideal on $1k/pr speakers, but IMHO not on $7k speakers.
I'll wait for James's detailed review, but my gut feeling is these speakers have a "sound signature", which some or many may find pleasing [or not]. I also feel like some information missing about this FR graph, since these are Active speakers including EQ. The graph doesn't stay if EQ was used or not.

 

[Verdinut]

Apart from having a so-so frequency response, I find it a bit weird that those bookshelves are using a sealed design with a LF cutoff at around 90 Hz, when you can get a smooth response down to 50 Hz or so with a 5¼ inch mid-bass driver in a ported enclosure.

The coaxial speaker can handle more power in the sealed box, but do most people in a home environment need a high SPL? Of course, with a LF response limited to about 90 Hz, that gives the manufacturer an argument for selling a matching subwoofer.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Hi, great to be a part of this awesome community! And also thank you for sharing some fair concerns so that those can be addressed.

@BoredSysAdmin - With regards to the Klippel measurements shared by @shadyJ:
These are from an anechoic chamber session we recently had at Seas, where the main focus was to test our upcoming Manta.1 speaker. I also brought with me an SBS.1 speaker that unfortunately had an experimental tune with a higher crossover (not the production tune). This didn't work as well off-axis as the the original crossover point. Also there's an intentional dip in this area that makes it look even worse off-axis than it is. We still chose to share this as we have been working hard to be transparent all along, and we didn't previously have Klippel measurements of the SBS.1. Aaanyway, long story short, we will be going back to Seas the day after tomorrow to measure again with the original crossover point. Will share the updated measurements as soon as I get them.

Here's the current on-axis response (1/12 smoothing, 40cm in-room so showing 1khz-20khz, subject to slight change after verifying on the Klippel):

And yes the dip at 3khz is intentional, it's not because we can't get it flat. The same with the slight rise after the dip. This simply sounds better. So it's a slight signature, but it's a pretty moderate deviation from flat.

So to the comment from @Verdinut about the design choices:
This could certainly have been a ported design with more bass output. It would then have been just another bookshelf speaker. What you have here is a speaker / speaker system that is meant to compete with floorstanders. In most moderately sized rooms (at least European sized rooms), these speakers can play 110dB at the listening position without audible compression. At this size you'd typically see one bass/midbass driver designed to play bass but struggling to reproduce it properly. Here you have two 5.5" both going down to 90hz only, and with separate amplification to each driver. So it simply isn't what it looks like. The result is that you can play very loud, and/or play at moderate levels with less distortion.


Thorbjørn,
Sigberg Audio

 

[Sigberg Audio]

I also feel like some information missing about this FR graph, since these are Active speakers including EQ. The graph doesn't stay if EQ was used or not.

I missed this part. There's no EQ applied. We never publish measurements with active EQ.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

1. Sorry to say but IMHO, these are overrated .... I listened to them!
OR:
2. There may be something wrong with me

probably one of those two above

why not both?

jokes aside, I haven't had a chance to listen to these speakers, and unlikely I'd get such an opportunity any time soon, but there are two good reasons why I'm not a target customer group: a) I am not living in a small apartment and my WAF is very lenient on speakers (God bless her) and b) These speakers are 3 - 4 times the price I'd willing to pay for my next speakers. (yes, I am frugal). So I can't say overpriced, since this isn't my place to tell them how to price their stuff and b) I can't say overrated since except for FR charts (which DO look fairly solid) I won't be able to rate them objectively. I have my doubts about these speakers cost/performance ratio, but again, I'm not in their target audience (big budgets and must have small speakers need to play loud with minimal distortion)

Feel free to ignore my nearly pointless ramblings

 

[haraldo]

I deleted the message, please ignore that post ... it can be #2
Sorry @Sigberg Audio, this was an unfair post from my side!

These guys are working incredibly hard, getting input from the Norwegian society into the products, both when it comes to their speakers and subwoofers. @Sigberg Audio is connecting very close to the end users in order to get input, feedback and opinions

 

[Developer]

I did get the chance to hear the speakers pictured in the opening post. I would use them as reference monitors all day long, but also use them when I wanted to be entertained. I really can not describe the sensation, it is just different. It does not pull the room into the equation, it just "paints the walls black" and makes a soundstage totally independent of the room.

 

[ryanosaur]

I'm confused now.

Don't care. But still confused by all of that.

At the end of the day, There are a great deal of companies making Speakers for almost every occasion and situation. My biggest concern is that too many of them are exclusionary at price point for those not earning at $300K per household.
That said, Premium Drivers are expensive components. I get that, too. Five channels of Scan Speak, Seas, AT, Raal, Morel, Eton, Accuton... (Do I need to keep going?)... is insane. Throw in R&D, building and shipping good quality cabinets...
#Boom-Pow

For me, I want to know where the values in this are. What is the story, and why do I care. If they are designed well and the company can thrive, COOL!

But, just throwing premium Drivers in a box does not make a premium Speaker.

I am encouraged by the FR that was posted. I hope we get to see more data, soon. I would love to see an FR plot of how the envisioned system of Speaker+Sub come together, too.

Lastly, I am always excited when I see somebody on the production side join the conversation. We need more of that here at AH.
Thank you for taking the time @Sigberg Audio ... I hope you will stick around as you can and join ion the conversation! Good luck!

 

[Developer]

But, just throwing premium Drivers in a box does not make a premium Speaker.

Isn't that what this industry normally does?

 

[Sigberg Audio]

(..)

For me, I want to know where the values in this are. What is the story, and why do I care. If they are designed well and the company can thrive, COOL!

But, just throwing premium Drivers in a box does not make a premium Speaker.

I am encouraged by the FR that was posted. I hope we get to see more data, soon. I would love to see an FR plot of how the envisioned system of Speaker+Sub come together, too.

Lastly, I am always excited when I see somebody on the production side join the conversation. We need more of that here at AH.
Thank you for taking the time @Sigberg Audio ... I hope you will stick around as you can and join ion the conversation! Good luck!

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read about and learn more about our products. I fully understand that the price range is not accessible to everyone. Expensive amplifiers, drivers, cabinets and lots of R&D adds up. We truly believe the result is worth it for those with the means and interest to spend that kind of money on their system. All products are compromises one way or another, so as any other product it will not be for everyone.

I actually wrote an article explaining the story and design choices behind these speakers:

Designing a loudspeaker: The SBS.1 story

Introduction This is the story behind the Sigberg Audio SBS.1 active speakers, the design choices made and the reasoning behind them. Hopefully it is a good read to those interested in loudspeaker design in general and specifically the design choices made to come up with this somewhat...

www.sigbergaudio.no

Something to read perhaps, while waiting for more data. We're going back to Seas and their Klippel tomorrow to get new measurements of the revised (or should I say reverted) tune - will post when they're done.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

I've now been back to Seas and their Klippel with a revised configuration (closer to the production crossover configuration).

on-axis + 15 degrees (roughly listening axis) first. Both of these are around +/-2,25dB from 100-20,000hz (15 degrees are rolling off a bit at the top end).

And then 0-90, where it's now more even across the crossover between the midrange and tweeter as opposed to the response shared by @shadyJ :