AV123 / GR Research X-Voce Speaker Review

[voodooless]

Maybe we should crowdsource a crossover upgrade, and instead of the usual tubes, we’ll throw in a nice hotel grade towel

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Maybe we should crowdsource a crossover upgrade, and instead of the usual tubes, we’ll throw in a nice hotel grade towel

Would it be one from the Ritz-Carlton or would one from the Best Western suffice?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Would it be one from the Ritz-Carlton or would one from the Best Western suffice?

Oh at least only the purist organic Turkish cotton or maybe even bamboo towels. The bamboo costs more and must be better.

 

[KenA]

Yeah. I think thread like this should be locked after the initial review, especially if the designer isn't interested/aware to provide an explanation or rebuttal. Otherwise this generates into herd-like behavior of "this speaker sucks". I don't have any GR Research products and don't plan to buy any, but this is a pile on with no real benefit.

But…but…this speaker does suck. The herd agrees.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

But…but…this speaker does suck. The herd agrees.

Facts prove it. Herd „opinion“ is irrelevant.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Just a poorly designed speaker. I hate when a manufacturer tries to blame the consumer in some type of way instead of just owning up to the flaws. Nobody is perfect, no speaker design is perfect. Hard to trust a person with no humility or the ability to own up to something.

That's the worst part for sure!

 

[DanielT]

A ski slope, or downhill slope with a slope of almost 20 dB between 80 Hz-200 Hz is of course completely unacceptable to be considered even close to a HiFi center speaker. If Danny hadn't been such a bull-headed alpha male who really doesn't want to accept sensible objective criticism and remarks, he would of course have fixed that problem. But nothing like that will happen. Danny will probably rather sell the crap to unsuspecting buyers than fix the problems with the speaker.


Each thing in its place. Here, an extreme slope is better suited:

The Hahnenkamm is a mountain in Europe, directly southwest of Kitzbühel in the Kitzbühel Alps of Austria. The elevation of its summit is 1,712 metres (5,617 ft) above sea level.

The Hahnenkamm (German: rooster's comb) is part of the ski resort of Kitzbühel, and hosts an annual World Cup alpine ski race, the Hahnenkammrennen. The most famous slope on the Hahnenkamm is the classic downhill course, the Streif (streak, or stripe), which is regarded as the most demanding race course on the World Cup circuit[citation needed]. The course features highly technical, "fall-away" turns (reverse bank), many with limited visibility. It also contains several flat gliding sections, immediately preceded by difficult turns, placing a premium on both technical and gliding skills. The Streif is located on the mountain's northeast face which in January is mostly in the shade, adding the difficulty of flat vision to the already exceptionally demanding run.

Hahnenkamm, Kitzbühel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bob101]

In fairness, these speakers certainly sound.

The most speaker ever.

 

[DanTheMan]

All this from a guy who “hears” power cable changes on DACs and the difference between a cryogenically treated power cable and a regular one, but he misses 20db swings in bass and >100% distortion in his LGK. He is a conundrum who demands we should show a little respect.

 

[Paweł L]

A ski slope, or downhill slope with a slope of almost 20 dB between 80 Hz-200 Hz is of course completely unacceptable to be considered even close to a HiFi center speaker. If Danny hadn't been such a bull-headed alpha male who really doesn't want to accept sensible objective criticism and remarks, he would of course have fixed that problem. But nothing like that will happen. Danny will probably rather sell the crap to unsuspecting buyers than fix the problems with the speaker.
View attachment 327767

Each thing in its place. Here, an extreme slope is better suited:

The Hahnenkamm is a mountain in Europe, directly southwest of Kitzbühel in the Kitzbühel Alps of Austria. The elevation of its summit is 1,712 metres (5,617 ft) above sea level.

The Hahnenkamm (German: rooster's comb) is part of the ski resort of Kitzbühel, and hosts an annual World Cup alpine ski race, the Hahnenkammrennen. The most famous slope on the Hahnenkamm is the classic downhill course, the Streif (streak, or stripe), which is regarded as the most demanding race course on the World Cup circuit[citation needed]. The course features highly technical, "fall-away" turns (reverse bank), many with limited visibility. It also contains several flat gliding sections, immediately preceded by difficult turns, placing a premium on both technical and gliding skills. The Streif is located on the mountain's northeast face which in January is mostly in the shade, adding the difficulty of flat vision to the already exceptionally demanding run.

Hahnenkamm, Kitzbühel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A bit more than a month for FIS races to begin. It's just beyond my imagination the kind of strength and stamina the racers posses, especially in pure downhill race. After being in motorcycle accident and
saying to myself this is enough, it's hard to me to comprehend that a lot the racers comeback after their injuries. I just like to slide on grommed blues and blacks - easy on my knees and my back.
Happy skiing sezon

 

[617]

Just curious - how is MLSSA more accurate than CLIO?

That’s really a shame, that isn’t at all how the NFS functions and the white papers on the technology, while quite complex, are out there in the public domain for anyone to learn.

I have personally verified both the resolution and accuracy of the NFS by sending a speaker all the way to Norway and calling in a favor to my friends at SEAS. They took measurements of this speaker in their anechoic chamber and my NFS measurements of the same speaker not only precisely matched, the resolution and accuracy of the NFS exceeded the chamber measurements in the lower frequency ranges.

Look, there is no manufacturer with a perfect scorecard such that every speaker is amazing. You found slot port resonance issues with our Luna and Duo that our measurement system, at that time, did not pick up due to the resonance being extremely high Q. “Gating” to remove reflections also results in reduced resolution for the entire response measurement, which was why we didn’t catch this initially. I trusted my measurements but at no point did I claim our measurements were better or that yours were invalid. It was cause for investigation, not denial.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching and LEARNING more about the NFS, which eventually resulted in a very long but thoroughly enjoyable zoom call with Klippel engineers. I am not sure if you were aware, but that Luna you tested was the speaker I shipped all the way to Norway to be measured by a company I 100% trust. End result, MLSSA (which is far more accurate than Clio) could not match the resolution of the NFS under any scenario. I can get close, but – and this is a critical point – the only way to know that my results are close is to actually compare to a reference, and that reference is an NFS measurement or proper measurement in an anechoic chamber. This fact isn’t disputable.

Danny can learn more and embrace the new more advanced technology and standards, or become victim to it. It is really that simple. I’d offer him help with this, but he has publicly disparaged some of our products that he has zero experience with, for no reason whatsoever other than to push his products, so that door has permanently shut…

 

[617]

For whose benefit? Folks can just read the original review and a page or two and go about their business. And whoever enjoys the banter can stay on.

We lock threads when there is so much conflict that we can't deal with moderation load and so close the thread. That is not the issue here.

Amirm, the ugliness you seem reticent to moderate brings dumb people to ASR who I don't wish to interact with.

Do you think Floyd Toole would participate in this discussion?

I say this as someone who enjoys seeing measurements of speakers with unusual radiation patterns, but the discourse following is repulsive. I like seeing what Ctrl and Dennis have to say but having to wade through a hundred towel memes really damps my enthusiasm for this forum, and I say this as someone who loves learning about audio and educating others to whatever extent I can.

Publishing Danny's snotty emails to you does not make you look as cool as you may think.

 

[DanTheMan]

No one makes anyone read this. We all have a choice. For me personally, when I see something like this from a Tinker Toy cable lifter enthusiast who claims to not only have superior hearing, but a superior understanding of acoustics, electronics and psychoacoustics than all the researchers in the field and has a narcissistic and condescending attitude toward anyone who challenges him on his home turf and throws them out of the game, the referees at the ‘away games‘ have a right to be a bit more lenient when he’s not on his home field. With that said, I do think I’ve said my peace, but I’ll still enjoy the jeers if they persist.

 

[amirm]

Video review posted:

 

[amirm]

Publishing Danny's snotty emails to you does not make you look as cool as you may think.

Didn't post them to look cool. Indeed, I kept much of that out of the original review. But accusations were made that we were unfair to Danny so I chose to share that level of disdain being shown toward me and work we do here. I don't know under what justification I was supposed to deny the membership that knowledge.

 

[amirm]

Do you think Floyd Toole would participate in this discussion?

Sure. It is part of his research that you must measure at high resolution down to low frequencies to find issues there. Check out this paper by Allan Devantier who used to work for Dr. Toole when he was at Harman:

Characterizing the Amplitude Response of Loudspeaker Systems
Allan Devantier
Harman International Industries Inc., Northridge, CA, 91329, USA

Of course he has better things to do than to drop into every thread here. But I see no reason he wouldn't have interest in doing so if the rest of us were not making these points.

 

[amirm]

BTW, the above paper is where the statistical models were created to produce the Predicted In-Room Response (PIR) that you see us publish in every review. So it is an important paper.

 

[iamsabit]

The flat pack kit should come with a 60 gallon trash bag!

 

[Deleted member 21219]

Amirm, the ugliness you seem reticent to moderate brings dumb people to ASR who I don't wish to interact with.

Unfortunately, we can't simply wall ourselves off from the unpleasantness in this world. Don't you believe that it's better, even if burdensome, to interact and maybe ... just maybe ... convert one of the "dumb people"? I think Amir's viewpoint is that many of them are not "dumb", but instead misled. Yes, some of them are outright vicious, but the anonymity of the internet fosters a great deal of viciousness. Do you really think that's the majority?

Don't let one single dog that bites you lead you to hate all dogs for the rest of your life.

but the discourse following is repulsive.

On that point, I totally agree!

Publishing Danny's snotty emails to you does not make you look as cool as you may think.

I think you've been around here long enough to know that Amir doesn't do something to look "cool". He has been consistently professional in his demeanor, even when mischaracterized and attacked by multiple trolls.

To be perfectly blunt, I don't know how he has kept his "cool" for so long. I know I couldn't. Maybe that's what impresses me.

Jim

 

[dzerig]

Perhaps, some mild moderation could be a good compromise? Delete some posts that are irrelevant to discussion or go a bit overboard on schadenfreude.

Amir is very liberal with his moderation policy. He has been consistent this way over the years. It's one of my favorite things about this site actually, besides the encyclopedia of measurements.