This is a review, listening test and measurements of the Arendal 1723 "Monitor" THX rated speaker. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $2,499 for a pair.
This is one substantial "bookshelf" speaker! It weighs around 58 pounds. The cabinet simultaneously feels nice and rigid. The back panel binding posts are a work of art and would be at home in a $20,000 speaker:
Speaker is designed in Norway but manufactured in China.
I used the center of speaker as reference design and tested it with my Klippel Near-field Scanner without the grill. You get two foams to block the rear ports. I briefly tested the unit with them blocked but the rest of the measurements are with the port open.
Arendal 1723 Measurements
Let's start with our usual speaker frequency response measurements:
As noted, response is almost flat on axis with a slight shelving up above 2 kHz. Being an MTM design (dual woofers), we naturally get cancellations in that axis:
So while the speaker is advertized to be usable in horizontal axis for home theater use, It is not the optimal choice there. Due to mixing of the vertical response, full earl window reflections show unevenness:
Predicted in-room response is much smoother though:
We basically have a lifted > 2 kHz response which I noted earlier. And perhaps a dip around 1.4 kHz.
Near-field measurement shows a pronounced port/cabinet resonance but this did not show up in our anechoic measurements:
A major benefit of dual woofers is low distortion and we clearly see that:
Per above, I tried to test the in-room response with or without the port stuffed but clearly I didn't do a good job as the response difference should be larger than this.
Our beamwidth and directivity tell us what we already know:
Here is the impedance and phase:
Finally, we have the step response (sorry, forgot to run waterfall):
Arendal 1723 Speaker Listening Test and Equalization:
Due to weight, I tested the 1723 in our living room as the review picture shows although the location was to the left with no adjacent walls. Out of box performance was excellent. There was no hint of distortion except when I ran my tests with sub-bass. There, there was a tiny hint of distortion which was far, far better than just about any bookshelf speaker (most can't even play that range). I was really surprised how clean bass response was in general. I am wondering if the dual ports help a bit with room loading. High frequency detail was very nice as well so I thought I check to make sure that is not due to excess energy with a shelving filter:
While I liked it with the filter, I must say the higher level of detail without it was rather captivating.
Our youngest son was here so I had him listen. He definitely thought without the filter it was too bright for him and had strong preference for the EQ.
FYI, i tried to fill the directivity dip but it just made the sound brighter so I abandoned it.
Conclusions
The Arendal 1723 makes a strong showing in build and finish quality and power handling. Its frequency response is almost perfect with a slight hint of treble brightness which you may prefer. The MTM configuration works well in vertical axis. Not so sure about horizontal. While I usually don't take price into the consider, I must in this instance: what makes the 1723 great is the low cost for this level of performance. I think you will have a hard time finding an alternative that competes with it in price performance in bookshelf configuration.
I am happy to put the Arendal 1723 speaker on my recommended list. I am also happy that the company was willing to have its speaker tested by sending it to me.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
This is one substantial "bookshelf" speaker! It weighs around 58 pounds. The cabinet simultaneously feels nice and rigid. The back panel binding posts are a work of art and would be at home in a $20,000 speaker:
Speaker is designed in Norway but manufactured in China.
I used the center of speaker as reference design and tested it with my Klippel Near-field Scanner without the grill. You get two foams to block the rear ports. I briefly tested the unit with them blocked but the rest of the measurements are with the port open.
Arendal 1723 Measurements
Let's start with our usual speaker frequency response measurements:
As noted, response is almost flat on axis with a slight shelving up above 2 kHz. Being an MTM design (dual woofers), we naturally get cancellations in that axis:
So while the speaker is advertized to be usable in horizontal axis for home theater use, It is not the optimal choice there. Due to mixing of the vertical response, full earl window reflections show unevenness:
Predicted in-room response is much smoother though:
We basically have a lifted > 2 kHz response which I noted earlier. And perhaps a dip around 1.4 kHz.
Near-field measurement shows a pronounced port/cabinet resonance but this did not show up in our anechoic measurements:
A major benefit of dual woofers is low distortion and we clearly see that:
Per above, I tried to test the in-room response with or without the port stuffed but clearly I didn't do a good job as the response difference should be larger than this.
Our beamwidth and directivity tell us what we already know:
Here is the impedance and phase:
Finally, we have the step response (sorry, forgot to run waterfall):
Arendal 1723 Speaker Listening Test and Equalization:
Due to weight, I tested the 1723 in our living room as the review picture shows although the location was to the left with no adjacent walls. Out of box performance was excellent. There was no hint of distortion except when I ran my tests with sub-bass. There, there was a tiny hint of distortion which was far, far better than just about any bookshelf speaker (most can't even play that range). I was really surprised how clean bass response was in general. I am wondering if the dual ports help a bit with room loading. High frequency detail was very nice as well so I thought I check to make sure that is not due to excess energy with a shelving filter:
While I liked it with the filter, I must say the higher level of detail without it was rather captivating.
Our youngest son was here so I had him listen. He definitely thought without the filter it was too bright for him and had strong preference for the EQ.FYI, i tried to fill the directivity dip but it just made the sound brighter so I abandoned it.
Conclusions
The Arendal 1723 makes a strong showing in build and finish quality and power handling. Its frequency response is almost perfect with a slight hint of treble brightness which you may prefer. The MTM configuration works well in vertical axis. Not so sure about horizontal. While I usually don't take price into the consider, I must in this instance: what makes the 1723 great is the low cost for this level of performance. I think you will have a hard time finding an alternative that competes with it in price performance in bookshelf configuration.
I am happy to put the Arendal 1723 speaker on my recommended list. I am also happy that the company was willing to have its speaker tested by sending it to me.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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