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ASR speaker (and electronics) review - is it really objective?

redshift

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Maybe a little bit of an exaggeration? ;)

2 - 3 feet is fine from the wall with the majority of floor-standing speakers... which isn't much unless one is living in a shoebox.



JSmith

A bit of comedic effect never hurts to illustrate a point.

You’re forgetting that a competent floorstander isn’t a Maggie.
 

bloodshoteyed

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The Dali Zensor 1s I have here are well behaved until they are not. They have a poor ability to stay controlled in the low/mid bass region when driven with considerable power. They certainly are not remotely capable of absorbing their rated maximum (25-100W) and, due to their lowish sensitivity, you have a narrow window of power/SPL to get the most out of them. A 40wpc amplifier will easily overdrive them on well recorded content.

They have a virtually identical driver, except 5.25"- same wood fibre weird looking cone.

When played at low-medium level, they are pretty good, but not remotely as good as the hype that accompanied them back in the day. They gather dust, unused in my speaker wall.

completely agree on the first part
they were pretty decent tho while powered by a Yamaha AVR, accompanied by an old Dali sub, played on moderate volume (smallish living room, about 15m2)

no idea if or how they were overhyped down under, back in the old world it was an entry level bookshelf, priced accordingly

oh, and i just love the reddish-brown cones
 

Blaspheme

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bloodshoteyed

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Ok, good to know. :cool:

there's nothing to be ashamed of when liking cones, is there?

hqdefault.jpg
 

redshift

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Since you are interested, I like them too. :)

While on unusual cone fibres, I wonder if Amir has figured out yet that Focal's flax fibre—or anyone's linen—isn't made from the seeds?

I’ve got papyrus in my SB acoustic satoris. I’m pondering upon scribbling down some The Bangles lyrics on them to enhance the fidelity,

I’ve got an old green pen intended for CD’s that’s gonna be perfect for the jobbie.

 

YSC

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I feely admit that it could be the case my anecdotal evidence hasn’t any bearing in objective reality.

One thing I would like to add is that people refrain from buying intrusive stuff. I.e. more crap on the floors. No thanks. Specially if the telly is 10cm from the front wall, hanging in the vesa mount, while the loudspeakers need to be, like, in the crotch of the aficionado in order to avoid the poles and zeros of the room. I mean; seriously? It is 2021. WTF.

I think the industry is doing itself a disservice by pandering to an elitist crowd with their obnoxious boxes, amps, cables and DSP’s instead of trying to squeeze the max out of the room in which they are intended to be in.

I’ve got zero brand loyalty. Non intrusive, well engineered and sounding gear is good by default.

IMO.
well, maybe it's because it's near impossible to consider all sort of room and furniture placement which can creates all sort of nulls and peaks, so no matter how much active self correcting auto cal built in, you have to tackle the bass cancellation problem. and TBH, most great speakers put in a slightly treated room normally sounds quite nice already, DSP and stuffs are for the geeks like us to take out as much as possible from the gears.
 

valerianf

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"I'm not really sure I know any people with floor-standers in real life"
Well i got a a pair of tower speakers and a pair of bookshelves speakers (5.0 configuration).
Both have a different task and I am satisfied by both pairs.

Going back to speaker testing improvement, it may be that the listening session is too short.
Why not having the speaker playing different sources during several days and collecting the family feedback?
Sometime a long period is needed to get an objective opinion about a speaker.
Congratulations for the distorsion measurement that is very useful.
 

pma

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Numbers and plots are objective as per the methods and measuring system used, comments are subjective. So it goes.
 

redshift

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Man... don't mess with my wife huh. :cool:



JSmith

Just grab her by the xyz and ask for a beer and sandwich.

Meanwhile in “feminist” Nordic countries:

1627028290969.jpeg


Nope. That shit won’t fly even once.
 

bloodshoteyed

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Man... don't mess with my wife huh. :cool:



JSmith

excuse moi, mr. Farley, the death star ninja :p

Just grab her by the xyz and ask for a beer and sandwich.

Meanwhile in “feminist” Nordic countries:

Nope. That shit won’t fly even once.

daaaamn, with such a knife, it's gonna be one hell of a sandwich :oops:
 

redshift

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well, maybe it's because it's near impossible to consider all sort of room and furniture placement which can creates all sort of nulls and peaks, so no matter how much active self correcting auto cal built in, you have to tackle the bass cancellation problem. and TBH, most great speakers put in a slightly treated room normally sounds quite nice already, DSP and stuffs are for the geeks like us to take out as much as possible from the gears.

A well designed loudspeaker should sound good in most rooms without any shenanigans. At least if you’d want to earn some money as a manufacturer.

No wonder IKEA and Sonos is raking in the profits. For sure they sound a bit, you know… The practicality and nonintrusive aspects, though. Winners…
 

redshift

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excuse moi, mr. Farley, the death star ninja :p



daaaamn, with such a knife, it's gonna be one hell of a sandwich :oops:

That broad probably oars back to Scandinavia with a brand spanking, literally, new Anglo Saxon “husband”. The last one got choked with a “sandwich”.

:eek:
 

YSC

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A well designed loudspeaker should sound good in most rooms without any shenanigans. At least if you’d want to earn some money as a manufacturer.

No wonder IKEA and Sonos is raking in the profits. For sure they sound a bit, you know… The practicality and nonintrusive aspects, though. Winners…
In this regard I think Genelec did very well with the bass tilt preset did very well, it can be nice in a good sounding room with treated bass trap, but also have a setting to sound nice close to the wall, but you know, you will do well with the right target audience, some brands are for cost no object geeks, so are quality no object and all for style and a lot in between
 

redshift

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In this regard I think Genelec did very well with the bass tilt preset did very well, it can be nice in a good sounding room with treated bass trap, but also have a setting to sound nice close to the wall, but you know, you will do well with the right target audience, some brands are for cost no object geeks, so are quality no object and all for style and a lot in between

For sure prosumer/pro audio, specific near field rigs / PC audio and cans isn’t going anywhere. On the contrary.

As for living room audio… Let’s face it, the usual suspects of electroacoustic boxes is relics from a bygone era where a rack of electronics gear and behemoth floorstanders ruled the roost in between that fat ass CRT 28” trinitron sporting telly.

However, I don’t suggest a pair of competent floorstanders can’t be wielded to sound pretty frickin awesome. But at what price, inconveniences and effort?
 

YSC

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For sure prosumer/pro audio, specific near field rigs / PC audio and cans isn’t going anywhere. On the contrary.

As for living room audio… Let’s face it, the usual suspects of electroacoustic boxes is relics from a bygone era where a rack of electronics gear and behemoth floorstanders ruled the roost in between that fat ass CRT 28” trinitron sporting telly.

However, I don’t suggest a pair of competent floorstanders can’t be wielded to sound pretty frickin awesome. But at what price, inconveniences and effort?
personally it's horses for courses for me, lifestyle speakers like the IKEA or sound bars or so can only do so much SPL to make it sound nice in a moderately sized room or so, in a large living room it can not make a decent volume playback. large floor standers are for pretty large living room to fill it up and there are quite some having a nice artistic look and fuse with the design of the living room (Vivid audio Giya or KEF Blade comes in mind), it becomes part of your decoration of your house, less applicable is those large, industrial looking ones which might look odd in a living room
 

Blaspheme

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"I'm not really sure I know any people with floor-standers in real life"
Well i got a a pair of tower speakers and a pair of bookshelves speakers (5.0 configuration).
Both have a different task and I am satisfied by both pairs. ...
In case the context was unclear, I meant to exclude myself from the statement you quoted. No criticism of anyone's floor-standers was intended, least of all my own. No hard against the wall shenanigans either (they go where the room model and the measurements tell me, and aim where my ear/brain reckons),
 

Kachda

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I’ve got papyrus in my SB acoustic satoris. I’m pondering upon scribbling down some The Bangles lyrics on them to enhance the fidelity,

I’ve got an old green pen intended for CD’s that’s gonna be perfect for the jobbie.

just get a pyramid, mummy or pharoah joke in there somewhere, and you have the Egyptian trifecta.
 
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