Role Audio Skiff Speaker Review

[DrCWO]

Most loudspeakers with many drivers and crossovers have issues thats audible, just like many single driver constructions have issues with frequency response and high spl etc…

There are no perfect speakers , all are compromises.

Get a Full range driver with high sensitivity plus Woofer and EQ for example with Acourate. That sounds intravenous and absolutely amazing.
It's not listening to music, it's like to be there

 

[TonyJZX]

this speaker smacks of the GR Research 2.0 little big killer whatever...

anyway this hits all the dumb boxes

$250 each for a tiny box with a single driver and no crossover... I mean... where's the money going?

people say that 20 yrs ago there was no such thing as small wall mountable speakers?

i call bullshit to that... in any case the on concession this makes is apparently that single mounting bolt

this company is like that Sibelius company that specialises in single driver speakers

eg. http://hifilogic.com/role

and so with that i see a company that is not selling on science at all... just 'feelings'

 

[thewas]

Do yourself a favour and take a listen to a really good single driver , like Markaudio chn110.

Which objective facts make the CHN 110 being a really good wide band driver compared to other ones?

By the way do you know of some extended 3rd party measurements (like from Audioexpress or Erin) of it as a quick googling didn't show me any?

The only (unfortunately basic) non-manufacturer pseudo-anechoic (outside) measurement I found shows quite a messy response:

Source: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...c-8340-sam-monitors.46176/page-6#post-1699664

 

[uwotm8]

Btw about ~100/pair "toy speaker".
Here's a funny little speaker from a Russian enthusiast guy: https://avaaudio.my1.ru/publ/loudspeakers/bookshelf/nano/1-1-0-21
Looks like these kits are currently sold out; the price was roughly $120 when they were alavilable and those who bought and assembled liked them.
I've assembled a bigger one but still compact 2-way speakers from him, based on 4" Peerless SDS midwoofer Chinese copy - while they couldn't compete with Dynaudio MC15, they were good, FR seemed even flatter but overall not in Dynaudio league. That said, they became a gift and one nice person still enjoys those. So, as far as I can tell, author's measured FRs are close to real ones, no tricks and BS here.

No way that little speaker reaches Amir once but IMO that's a right implementation of 3" FR single driver on desktop
Attached FR graph is on-axis and 25 deg

 

[restorer-john]

There's a brand of spherical ball speakers. I cannot remember who they are (not Gallo). Canadian perhaps? Anyway, I picked up a pair for $1/$2 for the pair. That was on the half price sale at our local oppo. (op shop/thrift shop). I took them to Dad's to play with, and haven't got them back since!...

For vocals, they are incredible. Absolutely phenomenal. No bass, but who cares, they are the size of an orange.

edit: Orb Audio. Check those little demons out- they are amazing.

 

[uwotm8]

brand of spherical ball speakers. I cannot remember

Elipson?

 

[uwotm8]

$250 each for a tiny box with a single driver and no crossover

Actually such boxes with such finish will cost you at least $150-200 if you order them separately anywhere local. If you have a wood workshop, tools and experience, price can be just above zero, BUT your time costs anyway. Then drivers, assembling etc etc. And then some profit, eh?

The problem is clear: there's no reason to waste $200 boxes on poor $5 drivers, especially if you can't cook 'em properly. $500 is an absurd for such a sound. However, it might be $550 for way way better performance - I guess you see the point.

 

[restorer-john]

Elipson?

I remembered and edited my post. See above.

 

[Ken1951]

These are from the 1970s and they had a magnetic base. The company I worked in sold them and a lot of us, including me, installed these in our cars. Sounded okay in a car and were inexpensive.

 

[Orion76]

You can "upgrade" to a single 3.5 inch titanium driver for only $1700 per pair-

The Sampan

"The Greatest Disappearing Act Since Houdini " Accurate enough for mastering? The Sampan is full range and so accurate that it is used for mastering by Lundvall Mastering. Shown: red birch and satin black Dimensions: 36 X 4 X 4 (Base: 7.5 X 8 X 1) inches (H X W X D), 91 X 10 X 10 cm.

www.roleaudio.com

"We set two Sampans up in our listening room next to a pair of 'normal size' floorstanders (my Triangle Cellos) but did not tell anyone ... everyone thought that the sound they were listening to was quite appropriate for the (much larger) Cellos."

The Cellos have 4 drivers, weigh 75 pounds, and cost $12,000 per pair.

 

[DanielT]

Sure, this is all theory, of course. The crucial question is: Do you even care?

Well, yes I do care. It's interesting from a theoretical perspective. But also in practical terms. Like everyone else here, I want the best sound for the money I spend on HiFi stuff.

OT.
Incidentally, it is Amir's greatest effort. That is to say, show that the price-performance correlation does not really apply to HiFi. Or far from 100% correlation.

Imagine the combination of expensive Wilson bookshelf speakers paired with an expensive tube amp and an expensive record player. That HiFi-solution, total cost of $50 000 (or more).
That solution VS going down to IKEA and buying a pair of Ikea SYMFONISK Picture Frame Speakers for around $400 and running them with streamed music AND it sounds better. Talk about anticlimax.

Ikea SYMFONISK Picture Frame Speaker Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Ikea SYMFONISK picture frame speaker designed by Sonos. I purchased it a couple of days ago from Ikea store for US $199. Their website said they had 42 in stock so they are planning to sell a lot of them. That said, there was not a single...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[respice finem]

This is the kind of world we lived in 15 to 20 years ago.

Back then if you wanted a small speaker, Role was one of the few brands that even existed. Audioengine was another, and their A2 objectively (and most likely subjectively) performs better than this by a lot. But Role was the "better" speaker because it was "more expensive".

Yes, but, even back then, if it didn't have to be very small, decent ones did exist. I've bought (I believe in 1991) a set from Canton, Plus C sub and Plus S satellites, price similar to the Role, but quite decent at least subjectively. Without sub, there were also some options, from JBL and others. Not comparable with today's monitors, but good in their time.

 

[MAB]

Do yourself a favour and take a listen to a really good single driver , like Markaudio chn110. The first arriving sound will dominate the listening experience, because of the precedence effect.

Most loudspeakers with many drivers and crossovers have issues thats audible, just like many single driver constructions have issues with frequency response and high spl etc…

There are no perfect speakers , all are compromises.

You certainly are evangelizing those CHN110 fullrangers, despite the ragged response. Send them to Amir for testing. I want to see if those 8dB and 10dB spikes in frequency response in the heavily-smoothed trace you provided were unfortunate room interactions, or if the same extremely uneven response exists on the CHN110 as is seen on other Markaudio drivers. Would be also good to send some of that wire that made a "clear improvement" in sound according to you, and maybe one of those warmer sounding DACs you also evangelize to pair with it, are they taming those response peaks I saw? Lots of people calling for some off-axis measurements on the fullrange thread you started, but you won't provide data but still keep talking these up like we missed something in life.

You have a persistent non-scientific point of view, with many unlikely anecdotes that you repeat as if they are deep-truths that only you have discovered. Yet these observations are completely unsupported by any evidence. Please support them, otherwise you are just pulling our leg.

 

[JPA]

That directivity change is really odd for a single driver. I wonder if it has a whizzer cone.

 

[MAB]

Thanks for this review.

Not sure if those are available outside of US, though ?

By the way, the "Skiff" name reminds me speakers I used as my main speakers for years (and I still use and like them)

Not the same kind of beast, for sure
View attachment 312819
(If you happen to read french, you'll see they state that they tested it with 126dB SPL peaks)

Oddly, in the US and Canada a skiff is a flat-bottomed boat, like a skiff that tows one end of a fishing net:

 

[uwotm8]

You can "upgrade" to a single 3.5 inch titanium driver for only $1700 per pair

 

[617]

Few things bother me more than careless manufacturing labeled made in USA.

A made in Japan or Germany product looks like it was made by master machinists and we can barely make a pair of leather shoes. I have a made in USA clothes steamer and it looks like it was designed in the 60s and is totally unrefined.

These got very good reviews back in the day, or the other larger speakers did. Back then there weren't as many options.

I love also that for $500 and proudly "Handcrafted in the USA" they didn't even put one second of an effort to get that sticker kind of straight.

 

[dasdoing]

Interestingly the 4" Fostex 6301 NX also has that treble spike but at 30 degrees you could call it flat:

taken from: https://www-amazona-de.translate.go...uto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp

 

[respice finem]

Few things bother me more than careless manufacturing labeled made in USA.

A made in Japan or Germany product looks like it was made by master machinists and we can barely make a pair of leather shoes. I have a made in USA clothes steamer and it looks like it was designed in the 60s and is totally unrefined.

These got very good reviews back in the day, or the other larger speakers did. Back then there weren't as many options.

The "made in Germany" stuff is also not always what it used to be (and increasingly rare). Out of caution, they tend to have round or "slanted by design" labels:

made in germany schräg at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

 

[MAB]

Get a Full range driver with high sensitivity plus Woofer and EQ for example with Acourate. That sounds intravenous and absolutely amazing.
It's not listening to music, it's like to be there

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JBL M2 Master Reference Monitor

JBL M2 Master Reference Monitor

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

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