Articles, Reviews and Measurements of Audio Products

This is a review, listening tests, EQ and measurements of the Arendal 1961 Center or Left & Right speaker. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $599 each or $1,099 a pair.

This is a surprisingly compact speaker but is built like a tank. The enclosure feels like cast metal, ala Genelec. It has textured matt finish and feels like you can drive over it and it would not care. The drivers as you see, have no visible fasteners and have very tight finish and tolerances. The look of quality extends to the back:

Numerous mounting points are provided. The metal speaker binding is made out of metal and looks so good you may be tempted to have the back side toward you while you listen!

This is an "MTM" configuration (mid-woofer, tweeter, mid-woofer)...

This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the audio-technica ATH-MSR7 closed back headphone. It was kindly donated to me by a member and costed US $200 (discontinued).



This is not a bad looking headphone. Alas, the cups are a bit small for my ears so not very comfortable for me to wear. Let's see how it measures on our GRAS 45CA fixture. I should note that there was fair amount of variability with the slightest change in the alignment.

audio-technica ATH-MSR7 Measurements
As usual we start with our headphone frequency response measurements and comparison to target response:


Seems like a rather unique response with that dip around 4 kHz and various ups and downs. If stepping back though, it seems to be reasonably compliant from 50 to 2 kHz. There is pronounced...

I am baaaaaaack!!! A new video in a series to become proficient in reading measurements, in this case, DAC measurements. The video itself is rather long but hopefully once you watch it, you can scan a text review in a minute or two.

We will be looking at the Studio 4, which was sent to us by Softears.



Below are text and graph content. If you prefer video version:

We have previously reviewed Softears' flagship RS10, which is priced at $2,099. The Studio 4 is their product at the $449.00 price point. The packaging comes in a small box with an industrial style and contains egg foam inside. The Studio 4 is positioned as a professional mixing monitoring and stage monitoring and its design is restrained with an overall black color scheme. they use medical resin material and each earphone without an ear tip weighs 5.6g.


[ATTACH type="full" alt="New Softears IEMs for professional mixing and stage...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Hagerman Bugle3 MM/MC phono preamplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $199.

I had previously tested Bugle2 which had fairly high noise, resulting in lack of recommendation from me. Company designer said that was too low of a performance and sent me this sample which other than having dip switches for gain, is the same as Bugle2.

Hagerman Bugle3 Measurements
In the interest of time, I focused my measurements on the 40 dB/MM mode. Here is our dashboard:


This is substantially better than the older sample as you can see in our ranking table:

The old one only garnered a SINAD of 61 dB. Phono stages are usually noise limited in this test and this is no exception. We can see that by...

This is a review, listening tests, equalization and measurements of the SIVGA SV021 headphone. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $149.

I find the SV021 not only attractive to look at, but also touch given its luxurious fit and finish. Hard to imagine it is such a low cost headphone! Alas, the cups are a bit small for me and so not very comfortable.

Let's put the SV021 on the GRAS measurement stand and see how it performs.

SIVGA SV021 Measurements
Let's start with our usual frequency response measurement:

I usually align the response at 425 Hz. Here, that is strangely the lowest output level with both bass and treble shooting way up. I tried to get the bass to match in both channels but could not. Maybe the pads are deformed differently or the driver response is different...

This is a review and detailed measurements of Bang & Olufsen (B&O) Beolab 20 speaker. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $15,000.

You expect out of box industrial design from B&O and that is what they deliver. The Beolab 20 is an active, 3-way, sealed design. The woofer and mid-range are behind the cone cloth. The tweeter is unusual in the way it fires up into an acoustic lens of sorts:



The back side is made out of some kind of rubber (?) with a panel that removes to expose the inputs, power, etc.:


I was disappointed in the look, feel and component selections there. As you may be able to see, there is dust on the lower shelf. The RCA connectors...

This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of Focal Chora 816 floor-standing/tower speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $499.

Despite the low price, the speaker is beautifully finished with a curved port and beautiful light oak finish:


A magnetic grill covers the dual woofers but leaves the port and tweeter alone as there is nothing to damage there.

Speaker is made in France which again, is surprising given the low cost.

The design is 2.5 way, seemingly aimed at home theater applications. Past 2.5-way designs we have reviewed have had issues so let's see if they persist here as well.

Note: by experimentation, I arrived at the reference axis at the upper rim of the mid-woofer below tweeter.

Focal Chora 816 Measurements
Let's start with our usual anechoic frequency response measurements:


At "macro" level the response is good...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the JBL Stager 280CSA in-ceiling speaker for use in surround and Dolby Atmos height applications. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $225.

Sorry for low fidelity picture. It is from my mobile phone with the speaker mounted in test baffle. While build quality is good including a nice magnetic grill, the speaker felt fair light. Here is the backside showing the crossover and such:

As we would expect at these price points, there is nothing fancy going on here. OK, they could have used a first order electronic crossover but they went to second order.

Measurements were performed using special mode of Klippel Near-field scanner which eliminates back radiation and that of the room. So it is equivalent to "2 Pi" anechoic measurement. The tweeter is angled which creates a problem for measurements as the design of Klippel here calls for 0 degree...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Orei HDA-939 HDMI audio extractor and AV converter. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $199.

The middle section should tell you how this extractor is different. Using dip switches in the back it can perform all manner of Audio/Video conversion including decoding of multiple audio formats:

Here is a page from company brochure:


I like the locking DC terminal and as mentioned, the programmability of the unit.

Orei HDA-939 Audio Measurements
I first tested the quality of the RCA analog output extracted from HDMI input:


This is quite high level of distortion. Looking at the spectrum though, I thought it may be saturating so I reduce input level by 1 dB and got much better results:


Fortunately digital output is bit-exact and works...