No, these are sealed enclosures all the way around.
That may very well be a valid point, but the fact is I have listened to these exact speakers for years now without any kind of harsh, distorted or even off-color sound. TLS Guy, I'm not speaker engineer like yourself, I don't have the breadth of knowledge you possess on the subject and in many ways I default to that knowledge when it is conclusive. All I have are my ears and some limited knowledge of how speakers work. And you keep trying to convince me that my speakers sound bad when I can tell you that my ears have told me otherwise for the past 9 years. You're looking at graphs, and I'm going by what they actually have sounded like. These data points may indicate the inherent limitations of these speakers, which I very readily admit - are limited in many ways. These are not $10,000 speakers. But I did not have $10,000 any more then than I do now.
Incidentally, I asked if you could please provide the source for your initial FR plot that we discussed regarding the "octave smoothing" and how it differed from Kurt's graph. I never saw that source come from you, but I ended up finding it in my own research, and those measurements were conducted in-room with an added room response and no corrections applied vs. an anechoic test. Of course they're going to show some pretty significant peaks and valleys. In fact the way they describe their room is similar to my own layout in almost every way. I'm just a tad closer though.
Allow me to quote: "
In-room frequency response measurements were taken using John Mulcahy’s excellent Room Equalizer Wizard program with a calibrated Behringer ECM8000 mic. I also had an AudioControl R-130 1/3-octave real time analyzer on hand to monitor various aspects of the speakers’ performance. The primary measuring location was our large family room, which is open to other areas like the dining room, kitchen and upstairs landing. While the listening position is only about 10 ft. away, the total volume is a cavernous 9200 cu. ft."
They went on to say that they never did complete a similar evaluation on the SCS-01 which represent my three front speakers. The SBS-01's are only my surrounds. But that they indicate similar FR. Fair enough.
Point is, (and bracketing out the AVR) if anything, I have a room problem, not a speaker problem. But I've known this for years too. It's why I struggle with calibrating my system. But once I have it dialed in finally it tends to be on the money and has never failed to deliver. Of course, this is pre-Marantz.
Far many more subjective reviews from pro-sites and many other end-users indicate that these are in fact very well performing speakers especially for the price. I trust my own ears that they haven't lied to me the past 9 years over any type of graph or other review out there.
The
only thing that could point to my speakers being the problem here is that they did in fact wear out. But I no sooner would expect all four tires on my truck to go flat at the same exact time than I would all five speakers to exhibit the
same identical characteristics of choked sound and distortion literally in a day or less.
I get it. You don't like SVS. Just admit it and we can all move on.
