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Right then!
I'm going to "spill the beans" with some detail. Those who only want measurements can of course wait for that. But I know that some audiophiles, who become very interested in a product, appreciate reading some listener reports in detail while they twiddle their thumbs waiting for a chance to hear the speaker themselves. So...
I'm lucky to live in a city that still has a variety of actual audio shops where you can audition gear. I was able to sit down and listen for a while to the B&W 803 D4s and the Paradigm Founder speakers at two different stores (I was visiting to pick something else up). I heard the Audio Note speakers at the same place I listened to the Source Point 10s. (The Audio Notes sounded awful! Peaky, bright, woofy in the bottom! Very surprising and different from other times I've listened to AN speakers).
I was interested to hear the Source Point 10s (SP10s) because of course all the interest and hype on those speakers. Plus, while I do like slim floor standing speakers, I also like some of the older-school boxy wider baffle designs that have come back in to vogue (and that vogue is, I think, one reason Andrew Jones went that route). I'm not necessarily looking for a new speaker, but being a speaker whore, if I hear something different that I really like I might add it to my collection (and these were "cheap" enough to do so).
Source Point 10s:
The SP10s were in a dedicated room, I'm guessing maybe 12' wide by maybe 16' deep, set up on the short wall, pulled probably about 4 feet in to the room, mild toe in towards the seating position. Listening sofa was probably 9 feet or so from the speakers. Room had some sidewall treatment - absorption mostly I think, maybe some diffusion.
First impression visually: Everyone who has reviewed these is right. They look "kinda big" for stand mounted speakers in photos and videos, but in person you will let out an involuntary Keannu Reeves level "Whoah!" They are beasts. Big, blocky, imposing in a room. Not something one will sneak past the other half. This is dedicated room type stuff - like the speakers should be paying rent! The finish (walnut) was "nice" though not in to the "lux" category. As for wider baffle design speakers I really like the Devore O/96 which are even wider, but to me the SP10s, while not ugly (I kind of like the design) are more imposing visually, almost brutalist in their presence.
Before I get in to details, my main take away was: I get why people are liking these speakers. I can see how they will become quite popular. I personally found them to have a fairly attractive sound, as a place to visit, but not to live with, if you know what I mean. And a major take away - these beasts are finicky!
Which will come out when I try to describe what I heard.
I listened to various tracks - first selections by the salesman, Addelle, Tracy Champman (fast car), some jazz/pop, some Zeppelin, then some of my usual test tracks.
From a seat on the listening sofa, leaning forward a bit, I was probably around 8 feet from the speakers and the immediate impression was of a big, rich, warm sound with a slight peak in the upper mids/lower highs, and beyond that a slight lack of "air." So for instance a track with stand up bass, female vocals, acoustic guitar, sax, drums etc, the sound was very big, rich, room filling from the upper bass down, the vocals had enough body to sound somewhat natural, and atop that "dark rich bassy" sound there was a sparkle so that the acoustic guitars would pop out in a nice, vivid manner, as would higher vocal transients, drum cymbals, upper register of a sax being played hard. So that richness with sparkle was quite inviting, and I can see how many would like it. It did, as mentioned, seem more rolled off in the highest frequencies lacking that last bit of shimmer or 'air' that makes a cymbal sound like it pops out of the sound and could be in the room with you. So I describe this as being a bit on the "darker" side of neutral. So that immediate impression was that, yeah, these are unlikely to measure as neutral speakers. I wouldn't go so far as to say they are in the Klipsch category, but I did hear a sort of similar sculpting of the sound.
But here's the thing: then I leaned backwards, in to the back seat of the sofa. As I did so, the sound changed and snapped in to focus, brightening, sounding more coherent, but also losing richness. There was now a greater sense of vividness, snap and "realism" to drums, wood blocks, vocals etc. The bass warmth cleared up somewhat. This was a significantly different presentation! So I started experimenting with different listening positions - closer, further, moving side to side, standing up, moving off axis etc.
For imaging, the image shifted fairly quickly to one speaker as I moved off axis. The tonal balance shifted a bit, but less so. Standing up the sound significantly "lightened" in tone, the timbre gaining a bit more edge and vividness, also sounding a bit leaner. (I actually somewhat liked that tone when standing).
Way off axis, the speakers still sounded nice, though things really snapped in in the centre listening position.
This was interesting because most of my experience with coaxially mounted drivers is that they have been very tolerant of off axis listening. But I suppose this is because the ones I've heard most - e.g. the KEF speakers and my Thiels, had the tweeters mounted with much smaller drivers. In the case of my Thiel 2.7s (and the bigger 3.7s I owned), Thiel had gone to lengths to reduce the surrounding mid driver's influence on the tweeter - the mid driver surrounding the tweeter is actually flat (corrugated, actually). I have been constantly amazed at how smooth and regular the sound is from the Thiels, whether I'm closer or further to them, listening off axis, from just inside or outside the room, the general sound character remains very consistent. That's also true of my Joseph speakers. But, man, the SP10s really were sensitive to listener position! If I recall correctly, it is due to the much larger 10" driver surrounding the tweeter, which I think AJ has said act as something of a wave guide. If so, that would help explain what I was experiencing.
Since the SP10s really changed character with listening distance (at least in that room) I tried to find the balance of "rich/warm" but still vivid enough in the highs to not sound obviously rolled off, hence some excitement. I was probably about 9 to 10ish feet or so at this point.
One thing I found is that generally speaking I found the sound to remain somewhat "speakerly." By that I mean, while they did excellent, vivid point-source imaging, TONALLY the speakers didn't totally "disappear" as apparent sound sources - there was a sort of boxy-sounding warmth I was often aware of, with those slightly exaggerated upper mid peak sort of perched on top, that reminded me "I'm hearing the sound from a speaker." I can't say that whether this was a resonance from the speaker, or due to it's particular frequency response design, or if (and I think this might be likely) the way the bass frequencies were interacting with this particular room. This is one reason why I view this as a finicky speaker.
The SP10s did bass! Subjectively with tracks that had low bass they sounded deep and really room filling. However, in this room I felt really low bass, e.g. from some stand up bass and a pop track with low synth/guitar bass, there was a bit too much "bloom." On the other hand, a track I often play, "Missing" by Everything But The Girl, has a bass line that is tough for many speakers to get right - it's a very round sounding pulsing bass line that can sound very ill-defined
on lots of speakers. It sounded really well controlled, dead center in the soundstage not blurring, and tight on the SP10s, so I could hear the distinct articulation from the bass player. The fact the SP10 could sound impressively tight with some bass, but overwarm with other stuff, made me think there was possibly some room interactions not favoring this speaker in the lower regions. I was not able to get a perfect balance in this regard - if I was close enough so the sound filled out, giving warmth to sax, vocals etc the bass could be too rich, if I moved to far back, I found the sound brightened and leaned out more than I cared for.
How about the sense of dynamics? From what I heard, very good but not top tier. I think I may have been expecting a bit too much, for some reason I thought this speaker might combine something more like the dynamic life I hear from horn speakers. But it wasn't really. They sounded fun and engaging and relatively propulsive in how they combined "feel it in the whole room" bass response with those vivid upper frequencies. But when I listened for how things like horns, wood blocks, bongos etc sounded, they didn't have that "holy cow" sense of solidity and propulsion that makes me think "THAT sounds like a wood block being played right in front of me." (I DID get those type of impressions from, for instance, the Klipsche La Scalas my friend had, as well as some other horn based speakers I've heard). I actually think my Thiels give a better impression of a solid/dense object popping out in to the room than what I heard from the SP10s.
(And the Devore O/96 as well).
One of the things that stuck in my mind was hearing Led Zeppelin on the SP10s. Kashmir in this case. The sound was generally punchy and fairly vivid. But Kashmir as any Zep listener would know, doesn't actually have much low bass. It's a pretty lean recording in that regard, which is kind of good to see how a speaker handles this - the recording doesn't have much bass to speak of, but Bonham is bashing away on those drums so a speaker better translate that energy! The SP10s did so quite well. So, yeah, they rock.
But I also heard the same Zep track (and others) on the B&W 803 D4 speakers. And there was definitely a contrast in the presentations. I ultimately find the B&W sound a bit too sculpted for my taste, that rising top end etc. However, damn, they HAVE sort of perfected "that" sound, and while they may not have chosen a perfectly flat frequency response, they have otherwise gone to fairly heroic methods in the design of their drivers/enclosure, emphasis on dynamics etc.
And it shows. Zeppelin on the B&Ws had an utter, open peering-in-to-the-studio sense of clarity from top to bottom. Not a jot of blur or darkness, whether I was focusing on the guitar, super vivid vocals, sparkling clean cymbals, or the tight holographically placed bass and kick drums. The SP10s did not have this type of 'holy cow' sense of clarity and control from top to bottom. (I also find my Thiels better in that regard). The SP10s had a "sweeter" more laid back sound, even WITH their slight peak in the lower treble. Can I see someone preferring the sound of the the SP10s, which can be seen as a very nice combination of richness with some vividness, but not overbearing or "analytical" in the old school parlance. The SP10s were generally more relaxing to listen to than the always-on-the-edge-of-my-seat vivid sound from the B&Ws.
Still, by the end of my listening session with the SP10s I was starting to feel a little ear fatigue! It could be that my ears are in a more sensitive phase (I sometimes get ear sensitivity), but I do think I was reacting somewhat to that slightly peaky sounding response, even if not overtly "bright" sounding to my ears, over time.
So, that's about all I have on these things. It wasn't a long speaker audition. Nor nearly as extensive as the ones I do for a speaker that I seem to really like (where I will play with speaker positioning in a room, not just my listening position, to get to the bottom of things).
To sum up: I found the SP10s to be something of a chameleon depending on where I sat. Closer they sounded rich and warm in the upper bass down with a nice lower highs sparkle but with the highs seemingly rolled off above the attack of drum cymbals etc. Further back they snapped in as more vivid, exciting speakers, they disappeared more, though lost a bit of richness and sounded more "monitor like." But never seemingly fully neutral to my ears.
I can imagine that under the right circumstances I'd like these speakers more, if the set up was dialed in just so. And the flip side of how finicky they are can be that different listeners may be able to realize just the type of presentation they want - from vivid and monitor-like to bigger, richer, smoother and more "comfy" sounding with some attractive sparkle.
I am just as curious about how these will measure as everyone else!
I'm going to "spill the beans" with some detail. Those who only want measurements can of course wait for that. But I know that some audiophiles, who become very interested in a product, appreciate reading some listener reports in detail while they twiddle their thumbs waiting for a chance to hear the speaker themselves. So...
I'm lucky to live in a city that still has a variety of actual audio shops where you can audition gear. I was able to sit down and listen for a while to the B&W 803 D4s and the Paradigm Founder speakers at two different stores (I was visiting to pick something else up). I heard the Audio Note speakers at the same place I listened to the Source Point 10s. (The Audio Notes sounded awful! Peaky, bright, woofy in the bottom! Very surprising and different from other times I've listened to AN speakers).
I was interested to hear the Source Point 10s (SP10s) because of course all the interest and hype on those speakers. Plus, while I do like slim floor standing speakers, I also like some of the older-school boxy wider baffle designs that have come back in to vogue (and that vogue is, I think, one reason Andrew Jones went that route). I'm not necessarily looking for a new speaker, but being a speaker whore, if I hear something different that I really like I might add it to my collection (and these were "cheap" enough to do so).
Source Point 10s:
The SP10s were in a dedicated room, I'm guessing maybe 12' wide by maybe 16' deep, set up on the short wall, pulled probably about 4 feet in to the room, mild toe in towards the seating position. Listening sofa was probably 9 feet or so from the speakers. Room had some sidewall treatment - absorption mostly I think, maybe some diffusion.
First impression visually: Everyone who has reviewed these is right. They look "kinda big" for stand mounted speakers in photos and videos, but in person you will let out an involuntary Keannu Reeves level "Whoah!" They are beasts. Big, blocky, imposing in a room. Not something one will sneak past the other half. This is dedicated room type stuff - like the speakers should be paying rent! The finish (walnut) was "nice" though not in to the "lux" category. As for wider baffle design speakers I really like the Devore O/96 which are even wider, but to me the SP10s, while not ugly (I kind of like the design) are more imposing visually, almost brutalist in their presence.
Before I get in to details, my main take away was: I get why people are liking these speakers. I can see how they will become quite popular. I personally found them to have a fairly attractive sound, as a place to visit, but not to live with, if you know what I mean. And a major take away - these beasts are finicky!
Which will come out when I try to describe what I heard.
I listened to various tracks - first selections by the salesman, Addelle, Tracy Champman (fast car), some jazz/pop, some Zeppelin, then some of my usual test tracks.
From a seat on the listening sofa, leaning forward a bit, I was probably around 8 feet from the speakers and the immediate impression was of a big, rich, warm sound with a slight peak in the upper mids/lower highs, and beyond that a slight lack of "air." So for instance a track with stand up bass, female vocals, acoustic guitar, sax, drums etc, the sound was very big, rich, room filling from the upper bass down, the vocals had enough body to sound somewhat natural, and atop that "dark rich bassy" sound there was a sparkle so that the acoustic guitars would pop out in a nice, vivid manner, as would higher vocal transients, drum cymbals, upper register of a sax being played hard. So that richness with sparkle was quite inviting, and I can see how many would like it. It did, as mentioned, seem more rolled off in the highest frequencies lacking that last bit of shimmer or 'air' that makes a cymbal sound like it pops out of the sound and could be in the room with you. So I describe this as being a bit on the "darker" side of neutral. So that immediate impression was that, yeah, these are unlikely to measure as neutral speakers. I wouldn't go so far as to say they are in the Klipsch category, but I did hear a sort of similar sculpting of the sound.
But here's the thing: then I leaned backwards, in to the back seat of the sofa. As I did so, the sound changed and snapped in to focus, brightening, sounding more coherent, but also losing richness. There was now a greater sense of vividness, snap and "realism" to drums, wood blocks, vocals etc. The bass warmth cleared up somewhat. This was a significantly different presentation! So I started experimenting with different listening positions - closer, further, moving side to side, standing up, moving off axis etc.
For imaging, the image shifted fairly quickly to one speaker as I moved off axis. The tonal balance shifted a bit, but less so. Standing up the sound significantly "lightened" in tone, the timbre gaining a bit more edge and vividness, also sounding a bit leaner. (I actually somewhat liked that tone when standing).
Way off axis, the speakers still sounded nice, though things really snapped in in the centre listening position.
This was interesting because most of my experience with coaxially mounted drivers is that they have been very tolerant of off axis listening. But I suppose this is because the ones I've heard most - e.g. the KEF speakers and my Thiels, had the tweeters mounted with much smaller drivers. In the case of my Thiel 2.7s (and the bigger 3.7s I owned), Thiel had gone to lengths to reduce the surrounding mid driver's influence on the tweeter - the mid driver surrounding the tweeter is actually flat (corrugated, actually). I have been constantly amazed at how smooth and regular the sound is from the Thiels, whether I'm closer or further to them, listening off axis, from just inside or outside the room, the general sound character remains very consistent. That's also true of my Joseph speakers. But, man, the SP10s really were sensitive to listener position! If I recall correctly, it is due to the much larger 10" driver surrounding the tweeter, which I think AJ has said act as something of a wave guide. If so, that would help explain what I was experiencing.
Since the SP10s really changed character with listening distance (at least in that room) I tried to find the balance of "rich/warm" but still vivid enough in the highs to not sound obviously rolled off, hence some excitement. I was probably about 9 to 10ish feet or so at this point.
One thing I found is that generally speaking I found the sound to remain somewhat "speakerly." By that I mean, while they did excellent, vivid point-source imaging, TONALLY the speakers didn't totally "disappear" as apparent sound sources - there was a sort of boxy-sounding warmth I was often aware of, with those slightly exaggerated upper mid peak sort of perched on top, that reminded me "I'm hearing the sound from a speaker." I can't say that whether this was a resonance from the speaker, or due to it's particular frequency response design, or if (and I think this might be likely) the way the bass frequencies were interacting with this particular room. This is one reason why I view this as a finicky speaker.
The SP10s did bass! Subjectively with tracks that had low bass they sounded deep and really room filling. However, in this room I felt really low bass, e.g. from some stand up bass and a pop track with low synth/guitar bass, there was a bit too much "bloom." On the other hand, a track I often play, "Missing" by Everything But The Girl, has a bass line that is tough for many speakers to get right - it's a very round sounding pulsing bass line that can sound very ill-defined
on lots of speakers. It sounded really well controlled, dead center in the soundstage not blurring, and tight on the SP10s, so I could hear the distinct articulation from the bass player. The fact the SP10 could sound impressively tight with some bass, but overwarm with other stuff, made me think there was possibly some room interactions not favoring this speaker in the lower regions. I was not able to get a perfect balance in this regard - if I was close enough so the sound filled out, giving warmth to sax, vocals etc the bass could be too rich, if I moved to far back, I found the sound brightened and leaned out more than I cared for.
How about the sense of dynamics? From what I heard, very good but not top tier. I think I may have been expecting a bit too much, for some reason I thought this speaker might combine something more like the dynamic life I hear from horn speakers. But it wasn't really. They sounded fun and engaging and relatively propulsive in how they combined "feel it in the whole room" bass response with those vivid upper frequencies. But when I listened for how things like horns, wood blocks, bongos etc sounded, they didn't have that "holy cow" sense of solidity and propulsion that makes me think "THAT sounds like a wood block being played right in front of me." (I DID get those type of impressions from, for instance, the Klipsche La Scalas my friend had, as well as some other horn based speakers I've heard). I actually think my Thiels give a better impression of a solid/dense object popping out in to the room than what I heard from the SP10s.
(And the Devore O/96 as well).
One of the things that stuck in my mind was hearing Led Zeppelin on the SP10s. Kashmir in this case. The sound was generally punchy and fairly vivid. But Kashmir as any Zep listener would know, doesn't actually have much low bass. It's a pretty lean recording in that regard, which is kind of good to see how a speaker handles this - the recording doesn't have much bass to speak of, but Bonham is bashing away on those drums so a speaker better translate that energy! The SP10s did so quite well. So, yeah, they rock.
But I also heard the same Zep track (and others) on the B&W 803 D4 speakers. And there was definitely a contrast in the presentations. I ultimately find the B&W sound a bit too sculpted for my taste, that rising top end etc. However, damn, they HAVE sort of perfected "that" sound, and while they may not have chosen a perfectly flat frequency response, they have otherwise gone to fairly heroic methods in the design of their drivers/enclosure, emphasis on dynamics etc.
And it shows. Zeppelin on the B&Ws had an utter, open peering-in-to-the-studio sense of clarity from top to bottom. Not a jot of blur or darkness, whether I was focusing on the guitar, super vivid vocals, sparkling clean cymbals, or the tight holographically placed bass and kick drums. The SP10s did not have this type of 'holy cow' sense of clarity and control from top to bottom. (I also find my Thiels better in that regard). The SP10s had a "sweeter" more laid back sound, even WITH their slight peak in the lower treble. Can I see someone preferring the sound of the the SP10s, which can be seen as a very nice combination of richness with some vividness, but not overbearing or "analytical" in the old school parlance. The SP10s were generally more relaxing to listen to than the always-on-the-edge-of-my-seat vivid sound from the B&Ws.
Still, by the end of my listening session with the SP10s I was starting to feel a little ear fatigue! It could be that my ears are in a more sensitive phase (I sometimes get ear sensitivity), but I do think I was reacting somewhat to that slightly peaky sounding response, even if not overtly "bright" sounding to my ears, over time.
So, that's about all I have on these things. It wasn't a long speaker audition. Nor nearly as extensive as the ones I do for a speaker that I seem to really like (where I will play with speaker positioning in a room, not just my listening position, to get to the bottom of things).
To sum up: I found the SP10s to be something of a chameleon depending on where I sat. Closer they sounded rich and warm in the upper bass down with a nice lower highs sparkle but with the highs seemingly rolled off above the attack of drum cymbals etc. Further back they snapped in as more vivid, exciting speakers, they disappeared more, though lost a bit of richness and sounded more "monitor like." But never seemingly fully neutral to my ears.
I can imagine that under the right circumstances I'd like these speakers more, if the set up was dialed in just so. And the flip side of how finicky they are can be that different listeners may be able to realize just the type of presentation they want - from vivid and monitor-like to bigger, richer, smoother and more "comfy" sounding with some attractive sparkle.
I am just as curious about how these will measure as everyone else!
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