Arendal 1723 Speaker Review

[montyliam]

Funny that you only included the horizonal orientation while pushing your objective agenda... Anyway, I could careless if it's not neutral enough for you and for the third and final time, welcome you to provide comparable products.

You continue to throw the baby out with the bath water as I understand (enough) the importance of measuring distortion and that manufacture provided specifications can be misleading, but it's not true sensitivity and power handling mean nothing because they have value in being starter points when one is looking for high output speaker. I'll spell it out to be as pedantic; it would truly mean nothing to compare these sort of speakers to those with 79dB sensitivity and 50w RMS.

We're not talking about what is neutral for me. I'm pointing out your useless comparisons of this speaker to cheaper, lesser performing products and simply pointing out this is of little value. I'm not sure what 'objective agenda' you think I'm pushing?

'While this Arendal speaker seems to objectively perform well, you can pay half the price and get half the performance elsewhere' is what you are saying. DUH.

Again, re-read what I said. I did not say power handling and sensitivity mean nothing, I said they mean nothing WITHOUT distortion measurments. I don't care that a manufacturer advertises X amount of watts and X sensitivity spec if this isn't backed up with distortion testing.

I don't know why you are focused on providing lesser performing product comparisons in this thread? Of course I can find cheaper products that also perform worse.

I've attached the vertical orientation too, again, not exactly great (my opinion)

 

[rvsixer]

Again, re-read what I said. I did not say power handling and sensitivity mean nothing, I said they mean nothing WITHOUT distortion measurments. I don't care that a manufacturer advertises X amount of watts and X sensitivity spec if this isn't backed up with distortion testing.

I don't know why you are focused on providing lesser performing product comparisons in this thread? Of course I can find cheaper products that also perform worse.

I've attached the vertical orientation too, again, not exactly great (my opinion)

Exactly on the distortion! Analogous to why I stress that the Arendal's (across the board, even their very compact 1961 bookshelf), seem to all have very low compression at 102dB. There are other non-horn speakers that can do this, but I have found exactly zero that can do it at Arendal's price points (assuming decent FR, DI, dynamics, etc. incorporated as well).
This includes all the Revel's, Outlaw's etc. being touted here as Arendal performance/price killers. That Outlaw is pretty poor indeed.

I am very interested in the Ascend lineup that has gone through Klippel optimization. Great measurements overall...yet they do not publish their distortion numbers so quite leery to order. Maybe I will have to bite the bullet and order and send 'em in for full third-party testing...

I do hope the low post count expert here can soon appreciate and take heed of the level of expertise here at ASR. I know it took me reading several texts (Floyd, Everest & Poe, etc.), as well as actually building and measuring speakers, to just start scratching the surface myself.

 

[montyliam]

Exactly on the distortion! Analogous to why I stress that the Arendal's (across the board, even their very compact 1961 bookshelf), seem to all have very low compression at 102dB. There are other non-horn speakers that can do this, but I have found exactly zero that can do it at Arendal's price points (assuming decent FR, DI, etc. incorporated as well).
This includes all the Revel's, Outlaw's etc. being touted here as Arendal performance/price killers. That Outlaw is pretty poor indeed.

I am very interested in the Ascend lineup that has gone through Klippel optimization. Great measurements overall...yet they do not publish their distortion numbers so quite leery to order. Maybe I will have to bite the bullet and order and send 'em in for full third-party testing...

I do hope the low post count expert here can soon appreciate and take heed of the level of expertise here at ASR. I know it took me reading several texts (Floyd, Everest & Poe, etc.), as well as actually building and measuring speakers, to just start scratching the surface myself.

Agreed, the Ascendo products do look incredibly interesting, though they have a lot of strange design combinations imo (there are multiple different coaxial designs which look more like various iterations of the same speaker rather than outright different).

Same here, I'm just scratching the surface getting into active speaker design myself, you quickly realise what parameters are of greater importance with loudspeakers.

 

[rvsixer]

Agreed, the Ascendo products do look incredibly interesting,

I was referring to Ascend products...but yes the Ascendo's also look incredibly interesting!

 

[montyliam]

I was referring to Ascend products...but yes the Ascendo's also look incredibly interesting!

There are too many names to keep up with The Ascends do look interesting, although I'm not a huge fan of ribbons.

 

[ExPerfectionist]

I thought you were referring to KEF with the coaxials. No coax on the Ascends.

I have the Ascend Sierra-LX, fantastic speakers, no ribbons.

 

[ExPerfectionist]

Wait, looked at the Ascendo website. Where has this been all my life? My GF will be thrilled.

 

[montyliam]

I thought you were referring to KEF with the coaxials. No coax on the Ascends.

I have the Ascend Sierra-LX, fantastic speakers, no ribbons.

Sorry, I was referring to Ascendo audios coaxials https://www.aia-cinema.com/

(the difference a letter makes)

 

[rvsixer]

There are too many names to keep up with The Ascends do look interesting, although I'm not a huge fan of ribbons.

Agreed! Thankfully most Ascend's speakers are available with either a ribbon or dome, your choice.

 

[duce]

This includes all the Revel's, Outlaw's etc. being touted here as Arendal performance/price killers. That Outlaw is pretty poor indeed.

I am very interested in the Ascend lineup that has gone through Klippel optimization. Great measurements overall...yet they do not publish their distortion numbers so quite leery to order. Maybe I will have to bite the bullet and order and send 'em in for full third-party testing...

I do hope the low post count expert here can soon appreciate and take heed of the level of expertise here at ASR. I know it took me reading several texts (Floyd, Everest & Poe, etc.), as well as actually building and measuring speakers, to just start scratching the surface myself.

Thanks for the warm welcome! I do not claim to be an expert. I've merely asked some questions that you can't or won't attempt to answer. Although I'm certain I still have many nuances to learn (who doesn't), I already have learned a great deal for people like them. Also, it's always great when people try to prove their point about a particular subject by stating, "read a bunch of books by several authors." That's very conversional and helpful.

I said something is similar which isn't remotely close to killers. You guys and your straw man fallacies and hypocrisy.

I'll address the elephant in the room. Seems like you guys will only consider purchasing speakers that have been on the NFS; I don't find any fault with that. If there were lots of speakers that have been measured with high output, low distortion, and ~budget of Adrenals, I would likely take the same stance, but alas there is not.

I've seen lots of praise for Ascend's gear, but very little about their Duo V2 LCR which to me, would be their model comparable to Adrenals offerings. Ascendo is another budget tier all together.

 

[montyliam]

Thanks for the warm welcome! I do not claim to be an expert. I've merely asked some questions that you can't or won't attempt to answer. Although I'm certain I still have many nuances to learn (who doesn't), I already have learned a great deal for people like them. Also, it's always great when people try to prove their point about a particular subject by stating, "read a bunch of books by several authors." That's very conversional and helpful.

I said something is similar which isn't remotely close to killers. You guys and your straw man fallacies and hypocrisy.

I'll address the elephant in the room. Seems like you guys will only consider purchasing speakers that have been on the NFS; I don't find any fault with that. If there were lots of speakers that have been measured with high output, low distortion, and ~budget of Adrenals, I would likely take the same stance, but alas there is not.

I've seen lots of praise for Ascend's gear, but very little about their Duo V2 LCR which to me, would be their model comparable to Adrenals offerings. Ascendo is another budget tier all together.

You said they are similar. They are not. That is my point.

 

[rvsixer]

Just a reminder of the rules of engagement all here agreed to:

Rules for Review Threads

New Rules for Review Threads Reviews of audio products are the crown jewels of our forum. In cooperation with kind members and companies that send in gear, and collective wisdom of the contributing members, we have created an incredible asset for audiophiles. As we cover nearly one new audio...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Otherwise there is always the ignore button (which I already used here several days ago).

 

[SynthesisCinema]

The "showroom" sound can be captivating. Those extra highs will give the impression of more detail and it is sometimes hard to convince yourself to not have it. I go through that with many speakers like that.

Thanks for the review Amir, nice to finally see Arendals here! As for the 1723 being slightly bright sounding i don´t recall owners founding that as the comments are mostly always how neutral they sound. This range has been very popular in Europe for long time as they were introduced around 2015. The sheer dynamics and effortless sound at or near reference volume has been the deciding factor for many where 1723 serie separates from the mainstream hifi speakers and few other cinema speakers.

James Larson @ Audioholics measured the same speakers and wrote:

The on-axis angle has a slightly elevated treble response, while the 15-degree angle is very nicely flat, and the 30-degree angle is very slightly recessed in the treble region. The angle at which you hear the direct sound from the speaker will play a major role in the overall tonality that you experience, and with the 1723 Monitors, you can adjust their tonality simply by angling the speaker for a different direct response. While this is true of most speakers, the directivity of the 1723 Monitors enables the user to temper the response using angle positioning with a better degree of control since the changes only affect the tweeter’s range, but it does so smoothly throughout the tweeter’s frequency band. So the toe-in angle acts like a tone control on the tweeter. If you want a brighter, more forward sound, aim the speaker directly at the listening position. If you want a neutral, more balanced sound, give the speakers a 15-degree angle aim at the listening position. If you want a warmer and more mellow sound, use a 30-degree or greater aim at the listening position. The magnificently flat response at 15-degrees also makes these a superb candidate for the above-mentioned time-intensity trading positioning on account of their controlled directivity.

 

[SynthesisCinema]

Obviously not good for center channel, would rathe use KEF R6

If the listeners aren´t sitting far off centre i don´t see issue nor isn´t any owners complaining about it in such scenario. These speakers are quite massive though and ideal for dedicated cinema room where as something like Kef R6 Meta is more living room friendly, but would it keep up with Arendal at ref volume offering similar dynamics? If the dedicated room is wider with multiple seats then placing the 1723 centre vertically behind screen is what many has done.


The MTM design of the 1723 Monitor/Center makes a lobing pattern along the axis of the woofers inevitable at off-axis angles. As discussed above, the woofer cancellation starts to take a toll on the response up to the 1.5kHz crossover point at about a 20-degree angle. So if the user is going to have a 1723 Center speaker, they should be seated within 20 degrees on either side of the on-axis angle for a full sound.

Arendal Sound 1723 Monitor THX Loudspeaker Review

The Arendal 1723 Monitor looks great and Arendal claims a very high sound and build quality for its price, but is that real or just marketing fluff? Read our in-depth review to find out.

www.audioholics.com

 

[Datec]

Folks, this speaker has some of the best sounds I have heard in such a small form factor. Do not discount it easily.

That is one of the contenders to replace my Triads.

 

[Datec]

I do think these offer good value for what they are, but, it makes one wonder what a pair of these ought to cost without all of the extras like THX certification, return\warranty policies, marketing overhead, and cabinet finishing.

Here is a THX Ultra 2 certified speaker for half the price - https://magnat-usa.com/home-theater/cinema-ultra/cinema-ultra-lcr-100-thx
On Amazon they are nearly 1/3 the price.

I just looked into those and after reading their return policy it says it's part of the Klipsch group. Is that a sister Co.? The freq range they are stating and sensitivity they have in their specs seem pretty high. Have you heard them?

 

[duce]

I just looked into those and after reading their return policy it says it's part of the Klipsch group. Is that a sister Co.? The freq range they are stating and sensitivity they have in their specs seem pretty high. Have you heard them?

Must be. I have not. There's some talk on AVSforum recently about the 1723 Monitors compressing well before reference level so if they Magnat fall a little short...

This is another speaker that should hit reference for most people on paper and is a fraction of the cost.

 

[paulgyro]

Must be. I have not. There's some talk on AVSforum recently about the 1723 Monitors compressing well before reference level so if they Magnat fall a little short...

This is another speaker that should hit reference for most people on paper and is a fraction of the cost.

I've owned the HSU CCB-8 and currently own the Arendal 1723 THX. Note even in the same class. Only thing the CCB-8 might win in is imaging due to its coax design. I can't believe how many people seem to put down the Arendal's here. I estimate that you'd need to pay near 8 times as much to get something better overall.

 

[duce]

I've owned the HSU CCB-8 and currently own the Arendal 1723 THX. Note even in the same class. Only thing the CCB-8 might win in is imaging due to its coax design. I can't believe how many people seem to put down the Arendal's here. I estimate that you'd need to pay near 8 times as much to get something better overall.

See this.

Facts are Adrenal has been sending out review units left and right to any and everyone on social media so it's not shocking there is a lot of hype built up. Like I said before, I don't fault them as a business for doing such at all.

I've only been pointing out speakers that cost much less that have better specs on paper. If we want to compare apples to apples, the PSA MTM-210 certainly would clown on the 1723 Monitor and there's two models of it with various finishes, and both cost less.

Perhaps there are good use cases for the 1723 THX, but clearly it's marketed for HT and falls short of what THX is suppose to represent.

 

[Sammy135]

Wait, looked at the Ascendo website. Where has this been all my life? My GF will be thrilled.

I wish they would sell to the USA.

Their 24" and 32" version is all you need for infrasonics.