Sigberg Audio Saranna Active Floor-Standing Loudspeakers With Cardioid Bass!

[haraldo]

I bet you are glad you are not dependent on China. This is going to be bad for outfits like Perlisten. This trade war has rendered their business model unsustainable. At the outset of that company I warned that their business model with manufacture in China was unwise in the extreme, and so it will prove to be.

Norway has no toll barriers to China .....

 

[TLS Guy]

Norway has no toll barriers to China .....

I know that. However in the US market European manufacturers have a huge advantage. So Sigberg Audio should break into the US market ASAP.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

My apologies, apparently it's at 5PM EDT / 11PM CET tonight. Good thing I double checked, so I actually show up in time. Check it out for a discussion about the Saranna between me, James and Gene!

 

[Sigberg Audio]

As a proud Norwegian I gotta join in here ..... so should you guys

For example, one thing that bugs me... I don´t know of one single regular speaker that can reproduce a Trumpet,
I don´t like horns, so I disregard them .....

That Trumpet has an insane dynamics. that is so compressed even with extremely hi-end loudspeakers....

Thorbjørn: Can Saranna "Do the Trumpet"?

Sure can!

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Sigberg Audio should break into the US market ASAP.

We might just have an announcement about that very soon (perhaps even on the live stream).

 

[Sigberg Audio]

49 minutes.

 

[haraldo]

Soon midnight here and I wiill probably be late for work tomorrow Thorbjørn

 

[TLS Guy]

This is a really important video. It highlights the importance of moving away from passive speakers. These can be driven from a streamer if you want with no AVR or AVP.

The similarities to my approach of almost 20 years ago are astonishing.

My system is very similar in many ways, and both obviate the need for so called room Eq like Audyssey or Dirac, which in my view are a dead end and quality spoilers.

With these speakers the ability to set up the speakers to the room is similar to mine, and far better then those auto Eq programs could ever be.

This video highlights the way to much improved performance for audio in the home.

Yes, the speakers are costly, but they also reduce a lot of other costs. Just for one the licensing of those auto Eq programs adds significant cost to no purpose. In my view they are worse than useless.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

A longer report from Oslo Hifishow 2025 from Norwegian magazine Stereopluss:

Saranna is mentioned around 2:10, 3:05 and 13:44. One of the reporters found the Saranna to be the best sound in the price range. He had Kef Reference 5 in second place, which is interesting as they cost the same but are passive, so in reality more expensive.

They talk Norwegian but the subtitles work fine.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

It's now only 10 days left of the Saranna pre-order period (10% discount). After this date, Saranna will be unavailable for purchase until it is in stock and preorders have been processed, estimated to August 2025.

Pre-orders can be made here: https://www.sigbergaudio.com/products/saranna

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Just saw a short from Poes about the need for quite high capacity speakers to actually meet reference level in-room. (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NqNbDUv_gX8)

Early anechoic measurements of the Saranna show less than 1% THD at 96dB anechoic. But what does it translate to in real world performance, and what is the performance in the bass? Easy to brag about 20hz bass response if there's no SPL involved right?

So here is a measurement at 2 meters in-room (so with room gain) with a single speaker.

THD of less than 3% at 107dB@2m at 30hz.
THD of ~7% at 103dB@2m at 20hz.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Product photos of the Shady White option is now finally available as well. - this variant looks absolutely stunning!

It features a paint in deep, silky white with a hint of grey. This is combined with Italian wood veneer in a neutral grey color that captures the light in a way that makes it take on a different hue depending on the lighting conditions.

All photos & product information:

https://www.sigbergaudio.com/products/saranna

 

[TLS Guy]

Product photos of the Shady White option is now finally available as well. - this variant looks absolutely stunning!

It features a paint in deep, silky white with a hint of grey. This is combined with Italian wood veneer in a neutral grey color that captures the light in a way that makes it take on a different hue depending on the lighting conditions.


View attachment 73696View attachment 73697View attachment 73698



All photos & product information:

https://www.sigbergaudio.com/products/saranna

I have just got round to looking at this interesting and likely excellent speaker. If you have been following thes forums you will see I have been preoccupied with my own problems the last week or so.

Since this is essentially a full range speaker, I am wondering what that cardioid arrangement does to the omnidirectional forward radiation transition. In other words how does it affect BSC or even eliminate the need for it? Those rear bass drivers will I assume be operating below the baffle step frequency and the coaxial driver has its rear radiation substantially reduced, and so likely does not require BSC. I assume will all the care you have taken you know the answers to all this.

My other issue is an observation. The sub channel in current AV equipment carries not only the bass below crossover setting but the LFE information.

I wrestled with this conundrum in my design of truly full range speakers twenty years ago. In my endeavors I drive one of the drivers from a sub output and the other also from a sub channel but via a mixer circuit to provide optimal BSC by in room measurement to the other bass driver. The upper 7.5" drivers which would be similar to yours are operated full range but without BSC to prevent overload. I don't know but I suspect that my swept front baffle arrangement has at least some effect to produce a cardioid response, but I have have never formally investigated that. My reason for designing it like that was to eliminate troublesome reflections from what otherwise would have been a wide front baffle and cause big problems. It did solve that problem.

This design and practice has served me very will and produced excellent results. So I was wondering if you have a similar arrangement for these speakers.

My bass drivers are the SEAS EXCEL 10" metal cone drivers, which I am sure you are familiar with being located in Norway. These drivers were selected as they take a lot of power, have high xmax, but above all have absolutely ideal T/S parameters for incorporation in an aperiodic transmission line. That certainly proved to be true.

Speaker design is eternally fascinating, seemingly simple, but that proving far from reality.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

I have just got round to looking at this interesting and likely excellent speaker. If you have been following thes forums you will see I have been preoccupied with my own problems the last week or so.

Since this is essentially a full range speaker, I am wondering what that cardioid arrangement does to the omnidirectional forward radiation transition. In other words how does it affect BSC or even eliminate the need for it? Those rear bass drivers will I assume be operating below the baffle step frequency and the coaxial driver has its rear radiation substantially reduced, and so likely does not require BSC. I assume will all the care you have taken you know the answers to all this.

It does not eliminate the need for baffle step correction despite having reduced rear radiation.

I don't have new anechoic measurements of the final speakers (going to Seas to measure in a couple of weeks), but here are in-room measurements that give an indication of the cardioid effect:

The blue line is a summed average of 120, 150 and 180 degrees, while the green one is on-axis.

 

[TLS Guy]

It does not eliminate the need for baffle step correction despite having reduced rear radiation.

I don't have new anechoic measurements of the final speakers (going to Seas to measure in a couple of weeks), but here are in-room measurements that give an indication of the cardioid effect:

The blue line is a summed average of 120, 150 and 180 degrees, while the green one is on-axis.

View attachment 73703

That looks really encouraging, and is very similar to what I am getting.

Do you have plans to combine the sub outputs that includes the LFE for AV use, or are planning the customer would need discrete subs?

I chose the former as otherwise I would have had to use separate TL subs, which would have been massive and not practical. The quality of the bass is so much better from well designed TLs compared to ported or sealed alignments. Once you have experienced it, there is no going back. I think it is because of the peculiar property of pipes in the way they couple to the air in the room. Organ builders call it the property of encircling. This has never been clearly understood in the realm of acoustic physics, but organ builders have demonstrated it to me. Often times a pipe organ will replace and electric instrument. So, if you set the level of the electric instrument to the same level as the pipes. You can only approximate this, obviously. But the experiment is dramatic. As you move away from the speakers sound intensity drops dramatically as you move away from the speakers, according to the physics of the square law we are all familiar with. But with the pipe organ the sound is very even throughout the space. Organ builders call this phenomenon exhibited by pipes "encircling". That is a good description of it. So, somehow the way pipes couple to the air in the space is somehow unique.

I note this with my TLs as the bass is very uniform indeed throughout the room with no hot spots. So I just wanted the 7 pipes in this system to carry the bass. There are actually 9 pipes but the mid lines in the rear speakers are fully damped with no output from the pipes, but there is no box resonance. The dual lines of the front left and right speakers are tuned half an octave apart, which gives driver support over about two and a half octaves which is the usual sub operating range of 20 to 80 Hz. Whereas a sealed design has no driver support, and a port gives support over a very narrow range.

 

[Kingnoob]

That looks really encouraging, and is very similar to what I am getting.

Do you have plans to combine the sub outputs that includes the LFE for AV use, or are planning the customer would need discrete subs?

I chose the former as otherwise I would have had to use separate TL subs, which would have been massive and not practical. The quality of the bass is so much better from well designed TLs compared to ported or sealed alignments. Once you have experienced it, there is no going back. I think it is because of the peculiar property of pipes in the way they couple to the air in the room. Organ builders call it the property of encircling. This has never been clearly understood in the realm of acoustic physics, but organ builders have demonstrated it to me. Often times a pipe organ will replace and electric instrument. So, if you set the level of the electric instrument to the same level as the pipes. You can only approximate this, obviously. But the experiment is dramatic. As you move away from the speakers sound intensity drops dramatically as you move away from the speakers, according to the physics of the square law we are all familiar with. But with the pipe organ the sound is very even throughout the space. Organ builders call this phenomenon exhibited by pipes "encircling". That is a good description of it. So, somehow the way pipes couple to the air in the space is somehow unique.

I note this with my TLs as the bass is very uniform indeed throughout the room with no hot spots. So I just wanted the 7 pipes in this system to carry the bass. There are actually 9 pipes but the mid lines in the rear speakers are fully damped with no output from the pipes, but there is no box resonance. The dual lines of the front left and right speakers are tuned half an octave apart, which gives driver support over about two and a half octaves which is the usual sub operating range of 20 to 80 Hz. Whereas a sealed design has no driver support, and a port gives support over a very narrow range.

I don’t know how you built such great speakers nice !

Product photos of the Shady White option is now finally available as well. - this variant looks absolutely stunning!

It features a paint in deep, silky white with a hint of grey. This is combined with Italian wood veneer in a neutral grey color that captures the light in a way that makes it take on a different hue depending on the lighting conditions.


View attachment 73696View attachment 73697View attachment 73698



All photos & product information:

https://www.sigbergaudio.com/products/saranna

They look pretty great but I can never afford anything this high end. Best of luck selling them !