Why I went with the Aperion VGT over others.

[Goat1]

Here are my thoughts on speaker comparisons.

Def tech 8060's, B&W CM9's - Their tweeters were too bright for my taste. Both have a metallic sound to them that I didn't like. The def techs are butt ugly. The CM9's are beautiful..

Martin Logan Electromotion ESL's.. Liked them to a point. Small sweet spot,can sound hollow,the glare off the film started to drive me crazy after a while. They don't produce much bass either. But,I did like them because they were diff.

Mirage OMD 15's,C2,OMDR's. Very nice speakers,clear sound,great finish.I only sold them because I made some money off them.. If I had the 28's and all my speakers were gloss black,I'd never sell them..

Monitor Audio RX8's,RX center. Very nice speakers,build quality 2nd to none. Tons of bass,nice clear highs. Honestly,if the white ones I got were actually white,I would have kept them. If they were black,I would have kept them..The only issue I have with them is the center channel is good for a smaller room,but it sounded small in my room. I also love how the grilles attach magnetically.

Aperion Verus Grand Towers,Verus Grand Center. Just got them obviously,so the verdict is still out for a bit. I want to give them a fair chance before I send them back.. JK guys.. These are the biggest speakers I've had. The ML's were a little taller ,but weigh half of what the VGT's do. So far,I like the sound. They remind me of the detail of the CM9's without the bright tweeter. The VGT's are smoother sounding. They have the most bass I've heard from a tower speaker yet. Honest to god,for 2 channel music ,its the 1st speaker I can say,you don't need a sub. But.. When I cross them at 80 hz and use my sub,it smoothes the bass out and sounds much better. The speakers are clear,articulate without any listening fatigue at all. They fill my room more than any other speakers. The center channel is an absolute beast! The Mirage C2 and the VGT center are really close in performance. But like I said,I need more time with the Aperions. Their return policy is great,but returning them would suck,they are really heavy and would be difficult to pack up. The unboxing that people rave about was average for me. Maybe because they were all open boxes. These are the kind of speaker that if you listen to a good recording ,they are going to shine..

 

[agarwalro]

The unboxing that people rave about was average for me.

I find the packaging hoopla a bit funny too. As long as something gets to me in mint condition, I really don't care how it was boxed. Cotton sock, included gloves, double boxed, bubble wrap, gift wrap...

 

[KEW]

It is great you put in the effort to get several good speakers in your home and determine the one that best suits you.
Maybe there is another thread you can link to, but what was your criteria for these speakers? Were all of these speakers you could listen to without penalty if you decided to return them?

If you decide to keep the VGT system, will you add the matching bookshelf speakers for rear/surround? I ask because I would love to hear your thoughts on the towers vs bookshelves as mains in a 2.1 system (if you have the inclination/time)!

 

[monkish54]

B&W CM9's - Their tweeters were too bright for my taste.

Did you have the CM9 toed-in?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Def tech 8060's, B&W CM9's - Their tweeters were too bright for my taste. Both have a metallic sound to them that I didn't like.

What does "metallic" sound like?

Like when you hear kick drums and they sound like aluminum cans?

 

[KEW]

What does "metallic" sound like?

Like when you hear kick drums and they sound like aluminum cans?

I'm betting it is the sound of a less than perfect aluminum tweeter.
I'm sure there are good ones out there, but I, personally, have yet to hear one that did not exhibit some degree of break up in the audible frequency range.
I would describe it as a component of sizzling bacon in the crash of a cymbal. End effect is listening fatigue.

PS - Paradigm Studio series have a pretty good one, but if you A-B it against a speaker with a high quality soft dome (or Be, or ribbon, or ?) tweeter, you can still detect it.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

What does "metallic" sound like?

Like when you hear kick drums and they sound like aluminum cans?

B&W makes very high quality aluminum tweeters. The problem is that they don't have a lot of extension at the low end, and the company ends up crossing them higher than is optimal for the woofer. If you're hearing an irritating brightness, it's probably the breakup mode of the woofer around 4 kHz, which is insufficiently suppressed by the crossover.

 

[monkish54]

If you're hearing an irritating brightness, it's probably the breakup mode of the woofer around 4 kHz, which is insufficiently suppressed by the crossover.

Beat me too it, Dennis!

What does "metallic" sound like?

I'd assume it sounds like the AWFUL sound of a metal dome operating through breakup.

Looks something like this:

I, personally, have yet to hear one that did not exhibit some degree of break up in the audible frequency range.

There are plenty of decent metal tweeters, many of which have breakup well past audible range.

I would describe it as a component of sizzling bacon in the crash of a cymbal. End effect is listening fatigue.

Yup, lots of SSSSSSSSS and irritated ears!

 

[agarwalro]

John Krutke explains this in his Zaph Audio page on Speaker Listening Evaluation,

Woofer issues confused with tweeter performance:
Related to the above, a poor choice of a crossover point on a woofer (too high) can often lead a person to believe there is a distortion or level problem with a tweeter. A woofer could be generating harmonics well into the range that the tweeter is covering. When a listener declares that they don't like a tweeter they heard in a system, 90% of the time it's the woofer and the design that's actually the problem.

 

[monkish54]

John Krutke explains this in his Zaph Audio page on Speaker Listening Evaluation,

He goes on to say this:

Drivers cannot be evaluated in a system

I see this all the time. Statements like "I used XXX driver in my last YYY design and it sounded ZZZ." Replace X, Y and Z with anything. It doesn't matter what, because statements like that don't have any merit. When a driver is used in a system, only the system as a whole can be evaluated. (and even then, as mentioned above, not without measurements) Of course the drivers are making sound, but what you really hear is the crossover, design choices and the listening environment. So many people evaluate drivers while they are in a poorly designed system and then blame the result on the drivers themselves. Only individual and extensive driver measurements are acceptable in evaluating an individual driver.

If distortion measurements aren't part of the first step in selecting and using a driver, the system "tweaking time" will multiply exponentially as the designer struggles to find a configuration that helps hide a driver's faults. All drivers have faults. Without distortion measurements, improper usage of a driver may cause a person to simply give up and come to the wrong conclusion that a driver is a poor performer. In a case like that, the only poor performer is the designer who failed to work around a driver's faults.

 

[agarwalro]

I'm sure the OP had no idea his post would set off a great discussion .

 

[KEW]

Yup, lots of SSSSSSSSS and irritated ears!

I'll have to admit it was pretty subtle on my Studio20's, I could listen to them for a pretty long time w/o fatigue, but once I A-B'ed them against the RBH 61-LSE (instant switching between them) I could distinctly hear the bacon.
Can you spot the issue in the Stereophile measurements?
It would be nice to correlate what I heard with what they measured!

Paradigm Reference Studio 20 v5 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

 

[monkish54]

I'll have to admit it was pretty subtle on my Studio20's,

My Tag Calliope were repulsive. I couldn't turn them up very loud without crying! Leaving Cone breakup is probably my least favorite thing a designer can do. It's the sole reason I won't recommend the KEF Q900.

I could distinctly hear the bacon.

LOOOL

Can you spot the issue in the Stereophile measurements?
It would be nice to correlate what I heard with what they measured!

Yup!!

The green trace is the tweeter. Starting at 4khz all the way up to 20khz the tweeter is playing through breakup. Breakup causes peaks and dips in the response.

What Does Cone Break-Up Look Like?

 

[NewHTbuyer]

My Tag Calliope were repulsive. I couldn't turn them up very loud without crying! Leaving Cone breakup is probably my least favorite thing a designer can do. It's the sole reason I won't recommend the KEF Q900.



LOOOL




Yup!!

The green trace is the tweeter. Starting at 4khz all the way up to 20khz the tweeter is playing through breakup. Breakup causes peaks and dips in the response.

What Does Cone Break-Up Look Like?

I am a novice at this technical stuff, but I have a question. I thought breakup occurred outside the optimal frequencies of a driver, like Dennis said in a earlier post when he described how B&W uses too high of a crossover for their woofer so it breaks up at 4kHz. Why would the tweeter exhibit breakup from 4-20kHz in the graph you posted? Isn't that right in the range a tweeter is supposed to play? Thanks?

 

[monkish54]

I thought breakup occurred outside the optimal frequencies of a driver

Breakup is determined by driver material and driver size (diameter). This specific tweeter is clearly a poor design. I have never seen breakup from 4-20khz. That's outlandish!

Usually a designer will attempt (in the case of a tweeter) to eliminate cone breakup through the use of an LCR, or Parallel Notch Filter. With a midrange or woofer, depending on the crossover and breakup frequencies, if one uses a steep enough slope, the breakup should be attenuated enough that it is not an issue.

Why would the tweeter exhibit breakup from 4-20kHz in the graph you posted? Isn't that right in the range a tweeter is supposed to play? Thanks?

It is supposed to play in that range, but apparently the designer didn't feel the need to take action to eliminate the breakup. In this case, the only course of action I see would be to scrap the tweeter and use a different one.

To help you understand where breakup occurs, take a look at these graphs:

This is a seas 1" Aluminum/magnesium alloy dome:

This is a Seas 10" Aluminum/magnesium alloy midrange:

The huge peak and dips happen at much different points as a result of the driver size (the material is the same). This is also why driver material makes little difference in subwoofers. Cone breakup/flexing does not occur at subwoofer frequencies (20hz -250hz)

 

[agarwalro]

I am a novice at this technical stuff, but I have a question. I thought breakup occurred outside the optimal frequencies of a driver, like Dennis said in a earlier post when he described how B&W uses too high of a crossover for their woofer so it breaks up at 4kHz. Why would the tweeter exhibit breakup from 4-20kHz in the graph you posted? Isn't that right in the range a tweeter is supposed to play? Thanks?

You are correct in that breakup occurs outside driver's optimal frequency band. In the quoted B&W example the tweeter is not breaking up. What is happening is...

The midrange sound is acoustically summed, at the listening position, with tweeter sound. So if midrange driver breakup is not sufficiently attenuated, it will overlap with a properly behaving tweeters sound to give the impression that the tweeter is the problem.

So, in the case of B&W, the two options are,
- Lower the crossover frequency while keeping slope the same
- Same crossover frequency but higher slope

Both those options have the same effect on paper, but in practice, the second option is harder for various reasons (to implement in a passive crossover).

 

[ridikas]

The Paradigm Studio 20's tweeter does not have break-up from 4kHz-20kHz. It's actually a very clean, low distortion, and well designed tweeter. The break-up happens just above 20kHz. There's no bacon there. The speaker may have faults elsewhere, but not here. I hate to see a very good product diminished by very false statements.

The lower end B&Ws is another story and Dennis may be right. HOWEVER, the FST midgrange (various incarnations) in the Diamond, regular Nautilus, Higher end 600, higher end CM, and older CDM lines is absolutely top of the line! The break-up doesn't happen until above 10kHz. Much higher than anything B&W uses as a crossover point for their aluminum/diamond tweeters, 3kHz-5kHz.

And I absolutely agree with Dennis in regards to midrange break-up as the culprit for harsh sounding speakers. Most people think it's the tweeter (because it happens in the 4kHz-7kHz range), while in fact the midrange/midwoofer does not have a proper crossover to deal with the cone's break-up. KEF Q900 should be the PRIME example of a poorly designed speaker and should sound nasty and honky. Especially if the cone's break-up region is excited.

 

[monkish54]

The Paradigm Studio 20's tweeter does not have break-up from 4kHz-20kHz.

Perhaps not. Can you explain what's causing the serious peaks and dips throughout the entire range?

The breakup theory explains his impressions and the graph.

The likelihood of the peaks and dips being CB is slim, but whatever is causing the peaks and dips is no good. The peaks and dips are definitely what caused the SSSSS and irritation.

 

[monkish54]

update

Stereophile seems to attribute the peaks and dips to the grill. KEW, did you have the grill on while listening?

This is the response with and without the grill:

Without the grill looks much better, but the response still has some peaks and dips that might cause some sizzle and irritation but mildly like KEW suggested.

 

[ridikas]

update

Stereophile seems to attribute the peaks and dips to the grill. KEW, did you have the grill on while listening?

This is the response with and without the grill:

Without the grill looks much better, but the response still has some peaks and dips that might cause some sizzle and irritation but mildly like KEW suggested.

They are caused by diffraction. A combination of baffle edges, tweeter's faceplate, and grill.