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Current Trends in multi thousand dollar speakers

Have any of you been paying attention to the current trends in larger multi-woofer speakers that cost multiple thousands of dollars? So that many of you can follow along, i'll use the Legacy Focus 20/20's at $6K, the Piega C8's at $15K and the Aerial 20T's at $23K as points of reference. All of these have been reviewed in Stereophile over the last few months. If you're not familiar with these, all of them are vertical dynamic designs using multiple woofers in vented cabinets.

If you look at the response of of these speakers, they all have very pronounced bass peaks with elevated low frequency plateau's taking place. Of these three, the Legacy's are by far the worst of the bunch. Not only do they diverge from neutrality the most ( +7 dB peak @ 100 Hz ), their elevated bass output or "low frequency plateau" levels out at 40 Hz and at 400 Hz. That is over 3+ octaves of "extra" output that wasn't on the recording. Above 400 Hz, the output levels off with very noticeable rippling slightly above that point in the midrange and multiple large peaks with a dip up in the treble response. Below 40 Hz, the output drops like a rock. The reason that the plateau levels out at 40 Hz is because of the associated sharp roll-off associated with vents below their point of resonance.

To sum things up, this speaker, which Paul Bolin raved about in Stereophile, is anything but "smooth" or "linear" in reproduction. As can be seen in the graphs, there is a very definite "boom & sizzle" type of response taking place here. As a side note, i found that the Legacy Signature III's showed a similar large bass peak centered at appr 100 - 110 Hz, so this would seem to be a consistent design attribute / "house sound" / "family voice" to Legacy speakers.

Moving onto the Piega's, their overall response looks to be measurably smoother than the Legacy's from the midrange on up. As far as bass goes, the Piega's peak occurs at an amplitude of +5 dB's and is centered at appr 85 Hz. Their "bass plateau" is quite wide, actually just as wide as that of the Legacy. Both show the same appr "elevated output" aka "bloat" from about 40 Hz to 400 Hz. Much like the Legacy's, the Piega shows the typical sharp roll-off below 40 Hz due to the output of the vent being out of phase with that of the undamped woofer. Even though both speakers show very similar plateau's and a similar F3 ( -3 dB point ), the Legacy's bass plateau has both a higher peak and a higher average.

Moving up to the $23K price range, we've got the Aerial 20T's. Similar to the Piega's, the Aerial's are reasonably smooth in response from the mids on up with a few low amplitude peaks and dips. Side by side comparisons though, it would appear that the Piega's are a little "flatter".

When it comes to low frequency performance, the Aerial's produced a +5 db peak centered at appr 60 Hz. Of the three speakers mentioned here, the amplitude of the peak is the same of the Piega's ( +5 dB's ), which is much lower ( 66% reduction ) than that of the +7 dB peak of the Legacy's. Even with this 66% reduction of the peak amplitude at resonance compared to the Legacy's, we are still talking about a divurgence of +5 dB's here!!!

As far as the "bass plateau" goes with the 20T's, this speaker is much more linear than either of the above. While the Aerial's also level out at appr 40 Hz and drop like a rock below that point, the upper end of the bass region is MUCH smoother. Whereas the others were contributing added output up to appr 400 Hz, the Aerial's are leveling out at appr 120 Hz or so. In effect, the Aerial's appear to offer the most controlled bass with the least amount of bass colouration. Then again, they are by far the most expensive also.


As far as low frequency extension is concerned, the Aerial's resonance peak is centered the lowest of the three i.e. 60 Hz for the Aerial's vs 85 Hz for the Piega's and 100 Hz for the Legacy. Even though the Aerial's have a resonance that is 25 Hz below that of the Piega's and 40% lower in frequency than the Legacy's, all of their -3 dB points are within a very few Hz of each other. While the graph's aren't completely legible, it appears that the F3 ( -3 dB point ) for all of these speakers are right about 34 - 38 Hz or so. How do such different designs achieve similar F3's? It has to do with the tuning of the vents and the amplitude of the peaks at resonance.

By creating a huge peak at resonance, it takes longer for the amplitude of the signal to fall off. As such, the Legacy's much larger peak at resonance allows it to achieve appr the same F3 on paper that the other designs worked harder to achieve. As such, were the Legacy's designed this way because they like the sound of massive bloat? Were they designed this way so that they could claim a lower F3? Could it be a combo of the two? We'll probably never know.

What does all of this add up to? Judged in comparison to each other and strictly talking about bass linearity, the Aerial looks the best on paper by far. Why just on paper? Because we have to factor in the added gain associated with in-room response. Our ears hear the entire presentation i.e. the speaker and how the speaker loads up / pressurizes & excites the room. As such, what looks the best on paper may not be what you like the most in your room. If you're room is properly set-up, the results on paper and the results in the room should pretty well jive. That is, at least as far as frequency response & linearity go. There are a LOT of other factors going on here though, not to mention personal preference.

What happens if the room isn't properly set up? Compared to anechoic responses, all speakers will have greater output / added extension when placed in an average listening room. While specific speaker placement comes into play in terms of the extension and amount of boost, most rooms will produce maximum ouput somewhere in the 50 - 80 Hz range. Obviously, this varies with the size and shape of the room.

The net effect is that these speakers are going to produce even MORE bass than what they already show in these graphs. Not only are we picking up low frequency output from what is called "room gain" ( "cabin gain" in a vehicle ) by pressurizing the room, we are also going to be exciting the resonances of the room too. All of this adds up to GOBS more "apparent bass". Add in the fact that this bass lacks speed and control* and you've got "bloated, ill-defined thump" running rampant.

Other than that, one has to wonder just how extended the bass response of these designs would be if they didn't have such HUGE peaks? After all, the higher the peak at resonance, the lower the -3 dB point of the speaker appears to be. Do we have to add "bloat" to get extension? How do you get around all of this and still keep good sound? That's easy but it is a completely different subject : )

What i want to know is, what do you folks think about this type of performance at these price levels? Is there anything that we can learn from this? Do we see a specific trend taking place here and in other parts of the audio market? Inquiring minds want to know : ) Sean
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* vented designs all suffer from a lack of transient response, increased ringing, over-shoot and phase problems. In this respect, a well designed port is typically "more linear" than a passive radiator.
sean
twl
3,251 posts
 
I'm responding here as a private person, and not relating any kind of company philosophy of the company that I work for. This is my own opinion.

I think that this type of designing is directly related to marketing and the relative desires of the current crowd of customers.

The current music scene is totally dominated with music that is centered around prodigious bass output. People who play this music also want the bass "pumped up". Also, even among audiophiles I have read recently on these forum pages that this current music is quite popular to play on their high-end systems. Classical music is nearly defunct, from a record producer's viewpoint. Jazz is back in the underground scene. What's left? MTV and top 40.

Next, I have informally assessed the listening tastes of the Audiogon forum, basically accidentally, when I was discussing the single driver projects that I was undertaking. I found that a very large majority of the Audiogon responders were extremely interested in deep, strong bass response, and would really never consider a project like mine for their own systems. Having heavy bass was more important to them than the other characteristics that I was seeking. This showed me that there are still quite a large contingent of what I would call "bass freaks" in the audiophile community, whether they admit it or not.

When it comes to "bass freaks" it is very easy to sell them with the boom and sizzle. I have worked in audio stores and I can tell you that a few extra db in the midbass can sell alot of speakers. They easily fall into the "if some bass is good, then more bass is better" trap.

The other very actively-growing segment of the audio market is Home Theater. In Home Theater, accuracy means absolutely nothing. Impact is everything. Big boom means big bucks.

So basically, I see these manufacturers responding to the desires of the market. The new customer is purchasing the home equivalent of the "pulsating Nissan" that is next to us at the traffic light in the morning. Now we will have "pulsating homes" in our neighborhoods, as these adolescents grow into higher paying jobs and keep their musical "tastes". These consumers will have combination systems where they will play the MTV music and also watch their movies while the house vibrates. This is considered "cool". When they start to lose their hearing, they will turn it louder to compensate.

Can we really blame these manufacturers for following the dictates of the customer base? I think that there is very little market draw being shown to the manufacturers for an accurate product. And the few consumers left that are still demanding it have gray hair.(Although I am somewhat encouraged by some of the younger members here who are showing signs of greatness).

There will always be a niche for the listener who wants accuracy. But there are not enough of us to sustain hundreds of high end loudspeaker companies. Some of them are going to turn toward the larger market to get the sales they need to survive. Companies respond to their customer base. The customer base doesn't want accuracy.

I'm not happy to be saying that, but I think it is "accurate" to say it.
jrd351
332 posts
 
all the great speaker designers were focused on bringing music to the masses, not building ultra expense toys of ego.
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drubin
3,267 posts
 
Sean, are the response graphs you refer to from JA's measurements? Aren't those in-room and not anechoic?

From the year or so I lived with TacT room correction, I know that big bass humps are the norm "in room" and also that a flat response in the bass does not sound "right", just as a flat response in the treble does not sound right (most people prefer a gradual roll-off). What I'm driving at is this: what would you consider admirable performance, Sean? Can you identify a speaker that you and others "like" but that does not exhibit the characteristics you are calling in to question? How does a Thiel stack up, for example? Vandersteen? Quad? Maggie? Dynaudio? I wonder how much of what you are witnessing is a recent trend and how much is and always has been SOP in speaker design.
nutella
223 posts
 
Thanks to Sean's post a few months back ( Stereophile confirms ...) I decided to learn how to read the tests of the components and noticed how many of the megabuck components seem to have an engineered sound (re: peaks and dips). The first thing I did when I looked at this months rag was look at the tests of the 20T. Looks like this is another one. I then flipped to the recommended components list. There in Class A was the Hovland Radia. I seem to recall some concern wrt this amp and this was also discussed at length in Sean's (Stereophile confirms...) post. Class A? Go figure.
agaffer
256 posts
 
I don't know about the speakers mentioned being a new trend but, I personally don't find it as amusing as 2 way speakers at $30,000 plus, or the idea that a single driver speaker can be at all accurate. Well, maybe fairly accurate as long as only one flute is playing.
For the vast majority of music the bass line is the building block that supports the rest of the music. You don't have to be a bass freak to want to have a sense of that beat. I also find it amusing when the idea that classical music and jazz are serious music and all others are not. Each in its day was revolutionary and had its critics because it changed what the critic wanted music to be.
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