• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

The REAL Problem of March Audio's Sointuva WG (Review, Measurements and Reinforcements with Klippel device)

abdo123

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 15, 2020
Messages
7,424
Likes
7,940
Location
Brussels, Belgium
Yeah I used strong wordings, my apology. But this project has been done for very long time and his response was... disappointing.
He offered the person a monetary compensation for his purchase, If i purchased this speaker i would definitely not consider that disappointing.
 

SDC

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2019
Messages
328
Likes
508
Location
S.Korea
I mod a lot of vintage speakers and turn them into nice looking subwoofers so I’m interested in a sealant that is more or less reversible incase I decide in the future i want them to function as full range speakers again.

I got reply from the original reviewer. He says it is removable and even reusable cause you know, it is blutak.
 

Rednaxela

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 30, 2022
Messages
2,052
Likes
2,675
Location
NL
Sounds to me like time to invite this Alan over for a coffee and have an afternoon of measurement fun together.




Edit: fixed typos.
 
Last edited:

Matias

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 1, 2019
Messages
5,029
Likes
10,796
Location
São Paulo, Brazil
Wow, great work here. Congrats!
 

WhiteBear

New Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2020
Messages
1
Likes
5
This is something that deserves attention.
(I'm disappointed with the manufacturer)

Also, it will have a big impact on DIY products.

This information is difficult to be known. Thank you for the detailed information, and thank you for posting.

I'll be watching with great interest.
 

Indy

Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2020
Messages
48
Likes
35
WOW just wow. Thanks for such a thorough review. I've never seen so many issues with a speaker cabinet and driver. It's not even a complex build. Most novice diyers would not make those mistakes because there is a ton of info about every diy kit and how to put them together.
 

Ra1zel

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Jul 6, 2021
Messages
531
Likes
1,048
Location
Poland
There is a reason March is banned here.

This is what happenes when some medium skill DIY/assembler thinks he is a serious manufacturer and starts acting all high and mighty.
 

YSC

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 31, 2019
Messages
3,194
Likes
2,570
sad the speaker looked nice but expensive, now with this kind of QC... I guess there's a reason why the big guys just works so well
 

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,368
Likes
234,386
Location
Seattle Area
@amirm. Should this be bumped to the front page?
It should and it is. What great investigation and demonstration of how useful measurements are to find design/manufacturing problems. Puts to shame any review I do as far as thoroughness. :)
 

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,368
Likes
234,386
Location
Seattle Area
A couple weeks ago. Amir didn’t appreciate one of his posts asking people to comment in on his video on YouTube. Very unfortunate, in my opinion, as he was actually a draw to this site / section.
Don't be sad. Answer the question of what OP asked: why Erin's measurements didn't include 86 dBSPL where problems were seen.
 

HooStat

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
May 11, 2020
Messages
856
Likes
933
Location
Calabasas, CA
Erin did his response linearity testing at 86 db. The obvious explanation is that he thought it wasn't useful since the distortion was so low at 96 db.

EDIT: The actual problem was that Erin's distortion measurements are anechoic. To get those, he has to compare two separate measurements -- his distortion measurements in room, and the NFS measurements by using a separate module from Klippel. But there was an error in one of the settings at 86 dB, which made the 86 db measurements incorrect. He realized it too late to change things. Hence, they were omitted. He did present the non-anechoic measurements on his ac hoc video and they appear to show nothing of substance.
 
Last edited:

tmtomh

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 14, 2018
Messages
2,636
Likes
7,489
Excellent work, @Nuyes ! Thank you for your thoroughness, for documenting it in such detail, and for improving the speaker for its owner. This is a fascinating set of posts.

That said, with this promoted to the front page, I would urge that Nuyes' posts be edited and cleaned up.

I understand and appreciate that English is not Nuyes' first language. But still, as Nuyes has themselves admitted, there's a lot of strong, editorial judgments embedded in these posts, and some of them are just as lacking in empirical support as March Audio's emailed responses.

This is one of the very few things that drives me a little nuts about ASR, whose culture I generally feel is head and shoulders above that of many other online audio communities. Why make editorial comments about the issues with this speaker beyond what the facts show? Why attribute motives to Alan of March Audio that are not supported by the text of his email responses? Alan's emails are polite, include many phrases like "let's keep discussing," include an apology and partial refund about the binding-post issue, and include report-backs of his consultations with Purifi. The fact that Alan might not be aware of all the issues, and the fact that what Purifi told him might not be accurate or might not account for all of what Nuyes found, does not mean that Alan is making "totally false" claims, lying, trying to avoid responsibility, or dismissing Nuyes' findings. We have no idea about that.

Some of the issues here are clearly problems, and they should be called out as they have been, and should be rectified. Others are areas for improvement, and while they should be called out as well and pursued, they are not necessarily problems per se.

Alan and Erin were both banned, but not for anything having to do with their technical claims, ability to run measurements, or ability to design, create, or review quality products - so the fact that they were banned is completely irrelevant, except for the reason @abdo123 initially mentioned it: they will not be able to respond here.

In that respect, this kind of garbage comment is precisely what I am concerned about:
There is a reason March is banned here.

This is what happenes when some medium skill DIY/assembler thinks he is a serious manufacturer and starts acting all high and mighty.

This is ridiculous, and totally misleading as to why Alan was banned. And everyone who clicked Like on it should take a step back and think twice about that.

The facts of Nuyes' investigation speak for themselves. IMHO there's no need to muddy the waters by editorializing, and it similarly adds nothing for some folks in the thread to be waving their engineer d**ks around piling on, which any honest person will admit is something that is happening as part (not all, but part) of this discussion.
 
Last edited:

Curvature

Major Contributor
Joined
May 20, 2022
Messages
1,074
Likes
1,353
Excellent work, @Nuyes ! Thank you for your thoroughness, for documenting it in such detail, and for improving the speaker for its owner. This is a fascinating set of posts.

That said, with this promoted to the front page, I would urge that Nuyes' posts be edited and cleaned up prior to that happening.

I understand and appreciate that English is not Nuyes' first language. But still, as Nuyes has themselves admitted, there's a lot of strong, editorial judgments embedded in these posts, and some of them are just as lacking in empirical support as March Audio's emailed responses.

This is one of the very few things that drives me a little nuts about ASR, whose culture I generally feel is head and shoulders above that of many other online audio communities. Why make editorial comments about the issues with this speaker beyond what the facts show? Why attribute motives to Alan of March Audio that are not supported by the text of his email responses? Alan's emails are polite, include many phrases like "let's keep discussing," include an apology and partial refund about the binding-post issue, and include report-backs of his consultations with Purifi. The fact that Alan might not be aware of all the issues, and the fact that what Purifi told him might not be accurate or might not account for all of what Nuyes found, does not mean that Alan is making "totally false" claims, lying, trying to avoid responsibility, or dismissing Nuyes' findings. We have no idea about that.

Some of the issues here are clearly problems, and they should be called out as they have been, and should be rectified. Others are areas for improvement, and while they should be called out as well and pursued, they are not necessarily problems per se.

Alan and Erin were both banned, but not for anything having to do with their technical claims, ability to run measurements, or ability to design, create, or review quality products - so the fact that they were banned is completely irrelevant, except for the reason @abdo123 initially mentioned it: they will not be able to respond here.

In that respect, this kind of garbage comment is precisely what I am concerned about:


This is ridiculous, and totally misleading as to why Alan was banned. And everyone who clicked Like on it should take a step back and think twice about that.

The facts of Nuyes' investigation speak for themselves. IMHO there's no need to muddy the waters by editorializing, and it similarly adds nothing for some folks in the thread to be waving their engineer d**ks around piling on, which any honest person will admit is something that is happening as part (not all, but part) of this discussion.
Well said.

I would appreciate a short summary of the issues with this build as well.

Insufficient internal damping, inconsistent force applied to screws attaching the woofer to the enclosure, no sealant on binding posts. Is that right/all?
 
Top Bottom