Epos ES 14 N - best passive Speaker in SpiNorama.org so far? (7.4/10 with equalisation without subwoofer)

[totti1965]

Hi,

I published the measurements of ES-14N and I made them with the Klippel NFS.
So I think I did everything to be as transparent as possible. I can't see what would be different with a different Klippel NFS. The other measurement I saw above looks a bit strange, so I cannot comment, as I don't know how it was made. I trust my NFS .....and my ears.
Even so, I like Audiosciencereview and Erins Channel, it does not mean I always agree with what both conclude from the measurements. With a lot I'm OK, but a small valley in the 2-3kHz area for example is very easy to straighten out with a crossover, but sometimes you add it to avoid the speaker sounding aggressive and too forward. Designing a waveguide for a tweeter is not very complicated, but I like the way it sounds in the room without it and with an exposed dome.

Ha ha ha, you argue with your personal taste but the 2 kHz valley you need for perfection is simply AUDIOSCIENCE also!!! And you did everything right by your great listening skills! So the very very good ranking in SpiNorama.org is no coincidence. So…. No Problem so far.
Look at this YouTube Video about the 2 kHz peak / dip!

Bad Times? There will be no better times: The Nasdaq 100 is up 41.7 % within the last 12 months. The times are great! What about asking @amirm, if Madrona digital could be the US Epos Distributor???
What works out in Camada has to work out in the US also!

So far, we have not established a distribution for EPOS in the US. it's a difficult market, as it is so large and the time is not very good for a new brand, even so, it's old. So we have to wait for better times and the right distributor.

 

[Matias]

Holy crap! Would I be able to afford it?

I already ordered mine. Same price, less than 4k USD a pair.

Home - March Audio - High End Purifi Audio Amplifiers and Speakers

Purifi Audio Amplifiers and Speakers

marchaudio.com

 

[Soria Moria]

I already ordered mine. Same price, less than 4k USD a pair.

Home - March Audio - High End Purifi Audio Amplifiers and Speakers

Purifi Audio Amplifiers and Speakers

marchaudio.com

Not a bad price for endgame performance.

 

[maty]

What's wrong with PP in 2023? It's a nice material if you know what you do with it.

The duration in time. I later discovered that it was more than just polypropylene. I hope the mica addition prolongs the life of the cones.

As for polypropylene, N95.. and FFP2.. masks are made with it (these years I have written a lot about masks on Twitter).

I agree that "old" paper cones are a good choice for its lightness. With mesh in case there are small children

 

[dfuller]

We are in 2023 year but €4,000 and 7“ woofer with Polypropylene cone

I mean, that's what Dynaudio does. MSP is Magnesium Silicate [impregnated] Polypropylene.

 

[ahofer]

Just wait until March Audio releases the high res spin of the Sointuva AWG. Below is a preview.

March Audio Sointuva

Brad, Don’t forget we have Spock’s younger brother. Whom is 120% Vulcan but does a similar face gesture just to taunt Spock!!! Spock was 1/2 Vulcan, so I get that meant a single eyebrow for Spock?

www.audiosciencereview.com

Presuming these measurements are replicated, it would be interesting to do side-by-sides with this speaker and others as an object lesson in the usefulness/limitations of CEA-2034. Alan March (and Purifi) seems to be very much designing to the prevailing measurement wisdom.

Of course, would be better blind, but not very many Harman testing facilities around to do that.

 

[Karl-Heinz Fink]

Ha ha ha, you argue with your personal taste but the 2 kHz valley you need for perfection is simply AUDIOSCIENCE also!!! And you did everything right by your great listening skills! So the very very good ranking in SpiNorama.org is no coincidence. So…. No Problem so far.
Look at this YouTube Video about the 2 kHz peak / dip!

Bad Times? There will be no better times: The Nasdaq 100 is up 41.7 % within the last 12 months. The times are great! What about asking @amirm, if Madrona digital could be the US Epos Distributor???
What works out in Camada has to work out in the US also!

Hi,
thanks for the video. I agree, that mastering and the way, recording engineers balance tracks, have consequences for how we as speaker engineers voice a speaker. Believe me, there is always the pain of tailoring the 1.5-3kHz region. Making it flat is the first step .....and after that, you listen in your room and you go down in little steps until the maximum number of tracks sounds enjoyable. We are working with a team of listeners, so we need to find a compromise so that all are as "happy" as possible.
BTW, that is also a reason why speaker voicings are different now compared to let's say 40-50 years ago.
The old EPOS ES14 was designed before CD was hitting the market....with LP 12 and NAIM electronic. Honestly, the bottom end of this box was a disaster....compete underdamped and the best thing you could do was close the port with an old sock. The early metal dome tweeters had this strange whispering sound that I never liked a lot and the whole speaker produced a lot of distortion and IM.
It's a bit like old cars. Take the original Beetle......you may like it and have a nostalgic feeling, but would you use it as your daily driver? On a modern motorway, with no proper heating in winter, noisy like hell and with a horrible suspension? Maybe not.

BTW, if you design a studio monitor, it's a different story. Now your speaker is a tool in your setup and that's another story.

Regads

KHF

 

[Karl-Heinz Fink]

The duration in time. I later discovered that it was more than just polypropylene. I hope the mica addition prolongs the life of the cones.

As for polypropylene, N95.. and FFP2.. masks are made with it (these years I have written a lot about masks on Twitter).

I agree that "old" paper cones are a good choice for its lightness. With mesh in case there are small children

So why do you think lighter is better? The driver is a combination of the coil with cone and surround, The necessary mass you need to get a good bottom end from a given cabinet size means you need enough BL (magnet size) and moving mass. One part of the mass is the coil....copper or CCAW wire, 2 layers or more, small or large VC diameter. The surround is rubber most of the time and of course the cone. The cone should fit the VC and the surround mass. It all has to be in balance.

PP is a nice-sounding material. What made it sound slow and tired was not the PP in the 80th, but the surround material that was used together with it. DKM developed the famous 151183 rubber/PVC mixture (the number is the date it was made the first time), the BBC monitors had a similar material. Both show horrible hysteresis effects. You can put your finger on the rubber roll, and push it - it takes ages before coming back. That surround sucked all life out of the driver. But....the measurements ( the static ones) improved a lot, as the high-damping surround suppressed the first mode and it all looked good on paper.
To use a PP cone with low damping, and low hysteresis surround, you need to find the right shape for the cone. Today, with COMSOL, it's easier to do, but in the 80th, engineers used an exciting shape and fixed the problem with the surround.

BTW, the original ES14 had a low-damping surround combined and it did not show the hysteresis of the usual PP driver. And that was one of the great developments that made this speaker so famous.
Best KHF

 

[maty]

So why do you think lighter is better? The driver is a combination of the coil with cone and surround, The necessary mass you need to get a good bottom end from a given cabinet size means you need enough BL (magnet size) and moving mass. One part of the mass is the coil....copper or CCAW wire, 2 layers or more, small or large VC diameter. The surround is rubber most of the time and of course the cone. The cone should fit the VC and the surround mass. It all has to be in balance.

Because the energy dissipates quickly -> the bass is faster, cleaner, drier... or whatever you say. As is usually seen in the spectral decay.

Aluminum cone: KEF LS50

KEF LS50 Meta loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the KEF LS50's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield and spatially averaged room responses. My estimate of the LS50 Meta's voltage sensitivity was...

www.stereophile.com

Polypropylene: EOS ES 14 (the old model)

Epos ES 14 loudspeaker Measurements part 2

In the time domain, the Epos's impulse response (fig.8) is dominated by the ultrasonic tweeter ringing. This can also be seen on the associated step response (fig.9), which reveals both that the tweeter and woofer are connected with the same acoustic polarity, and that the former leads the...

www.stereophile.com

Paper: MoFi Electronics SourcePoint 8

MoFi Electronics SourcePoint 8 loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system with a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the MoFi SourcePoint 8's behavior in the farfield and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. I left the grille off for the acoustic measurements. Fig.1 MoFi SourcePoint 8...

www.stereophile.com

 

[wwenze]

Is it like power to weight ratio?

 

[Karl-Heinz Fink]

Because the energy dissipates quickly -> the bass is faster, cleaner, drier... or whatever you say. As is usually seen in the spectral decay.

Aluminum cone: KEF LS50

KEF LS50 Meta loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the KEF LS50's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield and spatially averaged room responses. My estimate of the LS50 Meta's voltage sensitivity was...

www.stereophile.com

View attachment 318041
Polypropylene: EOS ES 14 (the old model)

Epos ES 14 loudspeaker Measurements part 2

In the time domain, the Epos's impulse response (fig.8) is dominated by the ultrasonic tweeter ringing. This can also be seen on the associated step response (fig.9), which reveals both that the tweeter and woofer are connected with the same acoustic polarity, and that the former leads the...

www.stereophile.com

View attachment 318042

OK, so that is your opinion, but what you mention in the decay is a function of the Q of the resonance you see in the response curve already. What does it have to do with the weight of the cone, please? The KEF is obviously Aluminum....so it's not really light.

KHF

 

[Thomas_A]

Ha ha ha, you argue with your personal taste but the 2 kHz valley you need for perfection is simply AUDIOSCIENCE also!!! And you did everything right by your great listening skills! So the very very good ranking in SpiNorama.org is no coincidence. So…. No Problem so far.
Look at this YouTube Video about the 2 kHz peak / dip!

Bad Times? There will be no better times: The Nasdaq 100 is up 41.7 % within the last 12 months. The times are great! What about asking @amirm, if Madrona digital could be the US Epos Distributor???
What works out in Camada has to work out in the US also!

The guy in the video is correct regarding the error, but he is speculating when it comes to "compensating for the dip" (and peaks at 3-4 kHz, 7-8 kHz) in the mix. The dip is most prominent in near-field, anechoic conditions and only in the center.. The mix also needs sound good slightly off-center, in far-field and in headphones. A good studio also have main large monitors to evaluate. IMO, stereo speakers are a compromise and small corrections from flat may sound better.

 

[maty]

I had not finished the answer. Now there are three materials in "famous" modern speakers.

 

[maty]

Aggg

Polypropylene: Mission 770

Mission 770 loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone with an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Mission 770's farfield frequency behavior and dispersion. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses and Dayton...

www.stereophile.com

Mission 770 – Mission

www.mission.co.uk

[ The emphasis for the design of the new Mission 770 is, indeed, that combination of polypropylene cone and resonance controlled cabinet. Accordingly, Mission has developed a new polypropylene driver, mimicking the extended response and low colouration of the original, while upgrading the motor system to take account of modern power handling and dynamic requirements ]

 

[Karl-Heinz Fink]

Is it like power to weight ratio?

.....if you mean BL with power, yes, it's the combination or moving mass and BL that defines the bandwidth of a given design.

There are some easy rules in speaker design. Bandwidth against sensitivity against cabinet size. You can trade in sensitivity against the bottom end or cabinet size. So you want more sensitivity, you can lower the moving mass - but you will lose on the bottom end. Or if you want to keep both, you have to increase the cabinet size.
If you look into real measurements, you will find that the sensitivity is always around the same value for a given driver and cabinet size and low-end extension.

And of course, sensitivity is also a question of voicing. Below you see the new small EPOS I'm working on with two different voicings, giving you almost 4dB difference in sensitivity. The blue voicing is done for semi-free standing, the red one is for placing against the wall. In this case, there is a switch on the back to change between the two.
If you have a driver with the blue curve and you lower the moving mass, it will move into the red graph direction

 

[Karl-Heinz Fink]

Aggg

Polypropylene: Mission 770

Mission 770 loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone with an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Mission 770's farfield frequency behavior and dispersion. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses and Dayton...

www.stereophile.com

View attachment 318046

Mission 770 – Mission

www.mission.co.uk

[ The emphasis for the design of the new Mission 770 is, indeed, that combination of polypropylene cone and resonance controlled cabinet. Accordingly, Mission has developed a new polypropylene driver, mimicking the extended response and low colouration of the original, while upgrading the motor system to take account of modern power handling and dynamic requirements ]

....still the same. You see the decay of the 3kHz resonance....so what does it have to do with weight?

But let's stop here. My opinion is based on many years of designing speakers.....and so I can only report what I learned over the years. If you have based your opinion on the Stereophile measurements and not on real-world drive unit design, it's difficult to discuss. . So keep your opinion and I'll keep mine .
Nobody forces you to buy a speaker with PP cone......

ATB KH

 

[maty]

More things influence (the rest of the driver, the cabinet, the crossover) but the material used greatly determines whether or not energy accumulates in the woofer. Obviously the designer's mastery matters, as we can see in the new Mission 770

 

[maty]

My objection to the use of polypropylene in the woofer cones was because of its durability and not because of the sound. I suppose that, as with steel or cement, by alloying/mixing it with other materials its properties will improve.

My real objection to the new EPOS ES14N is regarding the low quality of the filter components considering the price of the speakers, €4,000. To understand each other, it is like buying a high-end car whose seats are not covered in leather.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

My objection to the use of polypropylene in the woofer cones was because of its durability and not because of the sound. I suppose that, as with steel or cement, by alloying/mixing it with other materials its properties will improve.

My real objection to the new EPOS ES14N is regarding the low quality of the filter components considering the price of the speakers, €4,000. To understand each other, it is like buying a high-end car whose seats are not covered in leather.

Is there a problem in measurements that these components gives?
I dont see a point for these very cool crossover speakers with low performance measurements, there is a lot of speaker with fancy crossover with lots of distortion

 

[Karl-Heinz Fink]

.....now I'm almost speechless. What is your problem with the components? You are talking about what? The main inductor for the woofer is an air core. The higher resistance of the coil compared with an Iron or whatever core version is compensated by a higher BL of the woofer. Air cores do not generate any distortion ....so it's the best solution. The only laminated steel core on the right side is more than 4mH and cannot be made as air core, because it would be too large or the wire too thin. But as there is a 15 Ohm resistor in series, the current is low. The two blue electrolytic ones have a dissipation factor of 3% - the lowest you can get. Making them in film was a NG....the crossover would be far too big to be mounted in the speaker. One of them is in the impedance compensation filter in the input for making the speaker more tube friendly. The resistors are low inductance ones wherever it is needed (marked BiFi for Bifilar). Tweeter capacitors are PP in 250V and 400V and the rest of the inductors are also air cores. The coils are all carefully placed to have the lowest possible interaction and we used the maximum size, so the crossover can be removed through the woofer hole and the internal braces.

Are you sure you know what you are talking about?