Arendal 1528 high end speakers

[Pearljam5000]

 

[Descartes]

Review

Subjective and paid commercial

 

[Descartes]

View attachment 397126

We need independent measurements!

 

[Puddingbuks]

View attachment 397126

Arendal technician: how much smoothing should I apply?
Marketing: yes.

 

[Puddingbuks]

And why such a big tower with that many woofers if the lows drop benath 50hz really quick?

Imagine buying this over a genelec 8361a. Or Neumann KH420. Or …

 

[stren]

And why such a big tower with that many woofers if the lows drop benath 50hz really quick?

Imagine buying this over a genelec 8361a. Or Neumann KH420. Or …

My assumption is that they are designed for home theatre - so high output means you want to roll off early and avoid distortion (also because they want/expect you to buy subs). Look at the difference between philharmonic audio's bmr tower vs bmr ht - 25 vs 38Hz for -3dB tuning. This looks like 40Hz for -3dB which is similar to the prior example. Compare that to Kef - even their big R11 speakers are more like 60Hz for 3dB (ok 6dB point is way lower because of their port tuning).

 

[Vergiliusma]

And why such a big tower with that many woofers if the lows drop benath 50hz really quick?

As I mentioned upthread, most likely because the woofers are highly damped, which means the tuning frequency, Fb, will have to be above driver resonance, Fs, if they want to maintain a flattish response. They could have overdamped by tuning lower, but probably didn't have enough internal enclosure volume for it to make a difference.

 

[PJ 1]

I think they are seriously overpriced considering that they’re made in China where the cost of labor is much cheaper than the US, Japan or Europe

I hear ya, $10K for speakers is a lot but Arendal has a proven track record of providing quality products that measure well and are solidly built. I try not to be too quick to judge a manufacturer's pricing decision without knowing all the details. These could be their "cost no object/everything and the kitchen sink" series and no idea what they spent on design, testing, and OEM support. Maybe they are a labor of love of their lead engineer and they don't think they'll sell a lot and are limiting production runs. Maybe they aren't sure where to price them and went with similar THX Ultra certified speakers available. The "China" argument isn't worth having as Americans have decided LONG ago to outsource our manufacturing. Like it or not, until we stop replacing our iPhones/laptops/TVs/Speakers "stuff" every year with the next version, it's not changing in our lifetime.

 

[Descartes]

And why such a big tower with that many woofers if the lows drop benath 50hz really quick?

Imagine buying this over a genelec 8361a. Or Neumann KH420. Or …

I think not! I will take the Genelec 8361 anyway especially since it has all the amplification needed to operate!

 

[Descartes]

I hear ya, $10K for speakers is a lot but Arendal has a proven track record of providing quality products that measure well and are solidly built. I try not to be too quick to judge a manufacturer's pricing decision without knowing all the details. These could be their "cost no object/everything and the kitchen sink" series and no idea what they spent on design, testing, and OEM support. Maybe they are a labor of love of their lead engineer and they don't think they'll sell a lot and are limiting production runs. Maybe they aren't sure where to price them and went with similar THX Ultra certified speakers available. The "China" argument isn't worth having as Americans have decided LONG ago to outsource our manufacturing. Like it or not, until we stop replacing our iPhones/laptops/TVs/Speakers "stuff" every year with the next version, it's not changing in our lifetime.

May be a number of US companies are moving some manufacturing back to the US even Apple is doing it!

Advanced Manufacturing: Apple Rediscovers Its Core | Site Selection Magazine

The company is one of many looking to make reshoring in the U.S. a bigger part of the digitized manufacturing environment of the future.

siteselection.com

 

[PJ 1]

May be a number of US companies are moving some manufacturing back to the US even Apple is doing it!

Advanced Manufacturing: Apple Rediscovers Its Core | Site Selection Magazine

The company is one of many looking to make reshoring in the U.S. a bigger part of the digitized manufacturing environment of the future.

siteselection.com

That's from 2021. Yeah, Apple is moving their production out of China.... TO INDIA... Anyway, this is a discussion over Arendal 1528 speakers, if you're uninterested, move on. I am interested and would love to see any/all reviews and maybe even audition them in my own living room. I don't hate capitalism. This is America and the land of opportunity. I don't fault anyone who can lower costs and increase profits. If you can do better, open a company that offers the same or more and I'll happily consider you but not because it's made in any one country. But because it is a good value. Jeez. Makes me wonder why anyone attempts to provide FREE previews of stuff that once upon a time, you had to TRAVEL TO SEE/EXPERIENCE and NEVER knew if you got a good deal or not until you talked to a friend who bought the same.

 

[Pearljam5000]

 

[Vacceo]

I hope we can see dispersion pattern tests soon.

 

[Oddball]

Interesting to compare big tower to monitors. Monitors are at roughly 82dB at 40hz, and towers are at same level roughly at 30hz. It's that charts that are different with towers targeting 90dB and monitors 85dB, so F3 is different. But interesting that towers do roll off so early (given the driver and enclosure size).

 

[Oddball]

I hope we can see dispersion pattern tests soon.

I would also love to see compression test charts to see how far these can go in SPL and at what distortion cost. I would think that at least some people buying towers are also eying to run them with LFE distribution (aka as additional subs), in not also with LFE+Main bass management.

 

[MarcT]

Why do the specs on the studio monitor show lower extension than the giant floor stander with four 8in woofers?

At first glance the studios, bookshelves and smaller center seem to be the better products and value. Odd.

I noticed that as well. And check out the bass extension on the center channel speaker, not the big center.

 

[Opal]

View attachment 397269

too flat to be true?

 

[Oddball]

I noticed that as well. And check out the bass extension on the center channel speaker, not the big center.

It's really to early draw conclusions as this info is limited and bookshelf chart is at 85dB vs towers at 90dB. Why Arendal decided to present it this way is to be seen. Are they hinting that compression starts above these levels, at least in the low end? Could be, but then the question is what kind of distortion and at what levels. If tower can do high SPL with low distortion at low end, and bookshelf can not, that will be the difference. It requires a lot of speaker and volume to handle SPL at low end with reasonable distortion.

Just for reference, below is how their biggest 1723 2V sub performs per Audioholics:

 

[sigbergaudio]

An F6 at around 34-35hz (as the towers seem to be at) might well end up being pretty flat to 20hz in-room.

 

[Vacceo]

I would also love to see compression test charts to see how far these can go in SPL and at what distortion cost. I would think that at least some people buying towers are also eying to run them with LFE distribution (aka as additional subs), in not also with LFE+Main bass management.

To be honest, the speaker I am most curious about is the flat one. I wonder how well it can perform as height speaker, considering it´s not the easiest to use for such purpose.

If they archive a relatively flat horizontal dispersion around 40 to 50 degrees with a vertical of 10 to 20 degrees, these speakers can be quite a thing to listen to.