Salk SoundScape 8

[Nuance AH]

Let's put this topic on hold for another week or two. Then we will have a conclusive answer on the matter.

Exactly.

You're right, though, ADTG - It's best to compare in the same room using the same electronics. That's speaker auditioning 101. Not everyone has the spare coin to do that like you, though, so that's hardly ever plausible for most people. It's about as plausible as telling people to decide only based on a properly executed DBT test. Of course, if the room sucks...well, then all formulations are moot. And if the speakers are incorrectly set up the same applies. Fortunately the room we'll be listening in doesn't suck and is treated. It'll be a lot of fun. Bring your Revel's to the GTG, if you've got the courage.

P.S. Hardly anyone in attendance are Salk owner's or have even heard said speakers, so this is far from Salk Nation. I'd love to have Gene or someone from AH attend, though; would be cool to meet them.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Bring your Revel's to the GTG, if you've got the courage.

P.S. Hardly anyone in attendance are Salk owner's or have even heard said speakers, so this is far from Salk Nation.

I'll let Irvrobinson bring his Salon2.

DenPureSound will bring his DT BP7001SC.

So you guys will be comparing which speakers again?

 

[Irvrobinson]

That is very good speaker placement to me.

I thought so too. Bass response was very smooth, as heard by test tones. There's not a lot of bass power there, though. SL isn't into rock and roll or fusion jazz, and it shows. Classical music is the Orion's home base.

Actually, I have similar though different questions about the SS12. Can those two little drivers handling six or seven octaves of spectrum fill a large room with live music levels for a couple of hours, or will heat start to affect their performance, and possibly their longevity? No concerns on the woofer with music.

 

[GranteedEV]

I thought so too. Bass response was very smooth, as heard by test tones. There's not a lot of bass power there, though. SL isn't into rock and roll or fusion jazz, and it shows. Classical music is the Orion's home base.

Actually, I have similar though different questions about the SS12. Can those two little drivers handling six or seven octaves of spectrum fill a large room with live music levels for a couple of hours, or will heat start to affect their performance, and possibly their longevity? No concerns on the woofer with music.

The 70-20XR and the TD12h are virtually unbreakable.

That leaves the accuton, which between ferrofluid, and a pretty narrow bandwidth of ~2.5 octaves as its -6db points i suppose might get a bit warm on the right content.

FWIW i think Matt34 called the soundscapes the most dynamic speakers at RMAF

The Orion driver complement is capable of serious output; it's only limitwd by the dipole design.

 

[Irvrobinson]

The Orion driver complement is capable of serious output; it's only limitwd by the dipole design.

Agreed, but not in the bass, which is where the dipole challenge is significant. When you run out of bass headroom music sounds congested, IMHO.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The only speakers I've ever heard that truly don't need external subwoofers are big speakers with built-in powered subwoofers like the RBH T2/P & DefTech BP7000SC.

The only problem was, I thought both the BP7000 & T2/P suffered a little in the midrange detail, but both had better detail than the B&W 800D/802D, and not any worse than the MartinLogan Vantage and Dali Euphonia.

I love bass (Q=0.5 mind you), and so I must play my dual Rythmik with the Orion, Salon2, and Phil3.

 

[GranteedEV]

Oh yeah, one think I forgot to mention.

Being open back, the relative loudness of the accuton in most spaces, goes up by about 3db if the spec sheet can be trusted.....that gives about ~91.5db sensitivity + 100w power handling, operating "alone" mostly above about 500hz and below about 1.6khz. Now some of that is no doubt attenuated by the crossover. But the driver itself should be able to output ~111db @ 1m for that passband before you even factor in apparent loudness gain in rooms.

Of course to do so a basic 100w amp won't cut it.. you need closer to 350w into the speaker, and likely being a 4 ohm load.probably an amp capable of 700w @ 4 ohm, to hit the accuton's power handling limit because of how those probably pricey resistors are soaking up the power.

I wouldn't expect the Soundscapes to do true reference levels any more or any less than the Salon2s - both trade efficiency for 20hz out of Stereo. However I WOULD expect less power compression from 2khz to 7khz. The Salon2 has worse power compression measurements than, for example, the PSB Synchrony One, BTW.

Overall.. it would be cool if Soundstagr Measured the SS12s!

 

[Irvrobinson]

I wouldn't expect the Soundscapes to do true reference levels any more or any less than the Salon2s - both trade efficiency for 20hz out of Stereo. However I WOULD expect less power compression from 2khz to 7khz. The Salon2 has worse power compression measurements than, for example, the PSB Synchrony One, BTW.

Just out of curiosity, how do you know this? And if it has been measured, why is it the case?

 

[Irvrobinson]

I love bass (Q=0.5 mind you), and so I must play my dual Rythmik with the Orion, Salon2, and Phil3.

I've come to pretty much the same conclusion, that any future system I have will have one or more subs in it.

 

[Nuance AH]

It's definitely no easy task to properly integrate subs into a music system, but when done properly the advantages outweigh the cons IMO. The number one advantage is that you can place the subwoofers independently of the speakers in the places in your room where they sound the best. Then you can do the same with the speakers, ensuring you're getting the best of both worlds. The best location in-room for great bass response is likely not the same location for the best imaging, sound stage abilities , etc. With that said, I've always pondered why more companies don't offer active versions of their top of the line models so we can tune the bass response to reduce room effects. I imagine it is because most of the 2-channel purists wouldn't dare add subwoofers. To each their own.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I confess that I like my bass hot, instead of "flat" & accurate.

Accurate speakers like Orion, Salon, KEF, Salk, Ascend, PSB, & Philharmonic will have flat accurate bass, which shows on their FR.

So when I listened to the RBH T2/P & DefTech BP7000SC with the bass "hot", the bass sounded great, but I think it probably adversely affected the midrange detail/clarity.

But with accurate tight (Q=0.5) external subs like the Rythmik, I can still get hot great sounding bass and also get ultra detailed/clear midrange on my speakers.

Too bad I don't have the BP7000SC anymore to test the hypothesis; I would turn the sub bass way down and use the dual Rythmik subs.

So if the Orion/Salon/KEF had built-in subs and I played the bass hot, would the midrange also be adversely affected? I think yes.

 

[DS-21]

I confess that I like my bass hot, instead of "flat" & accurate.

One can make a strong argument that in small rooms, boosted bass is accurate.

Accurate speakers like Orion, Salon, KEF, Salk, Ascend, PSB, & Philharmonic will have flat accurate bass, which shows on their FR.

Nearfield, but not actually in room. In room, they'll all pretty much suck, as will any "full range" stereo speaker pair, though the Orions will be the least worst of them. The heavily-smoothed in-room measurements Stereophile published of flagship Revels in Dr. Fred Kaplan's room are illustrative.

See also Audyssey Pro's highly-smoothed (but at least spatially averaged) in-room measurements of KEF Q900's in one of Prof. Kal Rubinson's rooms, also from Stereophile:

By contrast, a dipole offers more pressure sources, and will be smoother. While I haven't seen measurements for an Orion, here's a representative in-room measurement (again, heavily smoothed) of dipole bass from a Jamo R-909, again in Prof. Rubinson's home and reported in Stereophile, which shows the influence of one major mode but otherwise fairly clean performance:

But with accurate tight (Q=0.5) external subs like the Rythmik, I can still get hot great sounding bass and also get ultra detailed/clear midrange on my speakers.

I used to be a big proponent of low Q subs. Then I did a listening test with an excellent woofer (JBL W15GTi) in progressively smaller boxes EQ'ed to the same response, and didn't note anything untoward until Q was somewhere around 1 (I think the box size was 2 cubic feet).

Now, I honestly don't care. My attitude towards subs is just to build the biggest closed box one can fit where one wants it, and stick the driver in there. Obviously, vented or 4th order bandpass subs require more care, but given that I get efficiency through multiples I tend to stick with simpler, more driver variance-tolerant closed boxes.

 

[Irvrobinson]

It's definitely no easy task to properly integrate subs into a music system, but when done properly the advantages outweigh the cons IMO. The number one advantage is that you can place the subwoofers independently of the speakers in the places in your room where they sound the best. Then you can do the same with the speakers, ensuring you're getting the best of both worlds. The best location in-room for great bass response is likely not the same location for the best imaging, sound stage abilities , etc. With that said, I've always pondered why more companies don't offer active versions of their top of the line models so we can tune the bass response to reduce room effects. I imagine it is because most of the 2-channel purists wouldn't dare add subwoofers. To each their own.

This is exactly my reasoning. The Salon 2s certainly do not need bass augmentation, but placing the sub independently of the mains is a ticket to ride.

Nonetheless, I *have* noticed through experimentation that using a high-pass filter at 80Hz on the Salon 2 woofers definitely improves their sound quality at higher volumes. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because the woofers use a low 150Hz crossover point. I find it difficult to believe that 40Hz reproduction is causing some sort of distortion at 150Hz, but this isn't my field. The high-pass filter is 6db/octave, so there's still some substantial woofer output in the 40-80Hz range. Whatever.

The high-pass filter also makes integration completely seamless. Running the Revel woofers full spectrum sounds muddy in my room.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

So nearfield flat bass = in room boosted bass.

It doesn't sound very boosted in my room to me.

That is why I guess I prefer using dual subs and just set the Salon2 @ small & 80Hz.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Running the Revel woofers full spectrum sounds muddy in my room.

The sound is crystal clear in my room with the Salon2 full range.

I just crave more bass.

But at the same time have ultra clear & detailed sound.

Every room sure is different.

Edit:
Before - full range & without sub = crystal clear sound, not enough bass for me
After - small 80Hz XO & with sub = still crystal clear, but with enough bass

 

[Irvrobinson]

The sound is crystal clear in my room with the Salon2 full range.

I just crave more bass.

But at the same time have ultra clear & detailed sound.

Every room sure is different.

You're confusing me, ADTG. In your previous post you say you have the Salon 2 set at "small" and 80Hz. This implies that you're using bass management, and - like me - you're using an 80Hz roll-off of the woofers. Which is it? Bass management or full-spectrum?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

You're confusing me, ADTG. In your previous post you say you have the Salon 2 set at "small" and 80Hz. This implies that you're using bass management, and - like me - you're using an 80Hz roll-off of the woofers. Which is it? Bass management or full-spectrum?

At first I was using the Salon2 large/full range/pure direct 2.0. No subs. Sound was crystal clear, but just not enough bass for me.

So then I changed to small/80Hz/stereo 2.1. Used dual subs, which is how it is now. Best of both worlds. Still same crystal clear sound, but with more than enough bass for me.

IOW, I did not change to 2.1 w/ dual subs because the 2.0 full range caused boomy sound. I changed only because I didn't think the bass was enough for me.

 

[Nuance AH]

ADTG,

I think you're confusing running the bass "hot" with "peaky" bass. You can still run the bass hot and achieve a flat in room response with the subs. You'd need an EQ and bass traps to make said response look and sound flat at the LP's, but then turn up the subwoofer output or gain once PEQ is applied to achieve 5dB hot (or however many dBs you want). The graphs illustrated in the post above show peaky bass from a full range speaker. With subs you can pull down the peaks and re-level match the sub to 0dB hot or even 15dB if you wanted to, and the bass below the crossover would still be "flat."

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

ADTG,

I think you're confusing running the bass "hot" with "peaky" bass. You can still run the bass hot and achieve a flat in room response with the subs. You'd need an EQ and bass traps to make said response look and sound flat at the LP's, but then turn up the subwoofer output or gain once PEQ is applied to achieve 5dB hot (or however many dBs you want). The graphs illustrated in the post above show peaky bass from a full range speaker. With subs you can pull down the peaks and re-level match the sub to 0dB hot or even 15dB if you wanted to, and the bass below the crossover would still be "flat."

So the L/R speakers could be 90dB on the SPL from 200Hz-10kHz, the Subwoofer could be 105dB on the SPL from 20Hz-200Hz, but their summed FR could be 20Hz-10kHz +/- 2dB?

 

[Nuance AH]

So the L/R speakers could be 90dB on the SPL from 200Hz-10kHz, the Subwoofer could be 105dB on the SPL from 20Hz-200Hz, but their summed FR could be 20Hz-10kHz +/- 2dB?

No, the summed average doesn't matter if you're wanting to run your subs hot and can cross over and apply PEQ independently. The subs will have their own response, and the speakers will have their own, in a way.

For instance, here is an in-room response at the LP of my dual TC2000 sealed subs. The slow rising response is intentional (and actually natural in my room - I got lucky) because the ear doesn't hear frequencies that low as loud, but you'll see the line isn't peaky, especially considering this is completely unsmoothed. The response of my speakers levels out at 80dB after 200Hz (I'd post that graph but don't have it here at work or on photobucket), so the subwoofer is essentially 7.5dB hot at the lowest frequencies, and 0dB hot at the crossover (120hz for movies on this response). I can cross that high because multiple subs makes localization impossible in my size room at 120Hz. The dip before 200Hz is perhaps floor or ceiling bounce and I cannot get rid of it.

So, with all that said, this could explain why you prefer music with subs. The in-room response is probably smoother below the crossover than it was when running full range. Also, boosting the bass is only boosting it below the crossover and not changing anything with the speakers, at least in theory.