Arendal 1961 Center/Monitor Speaker Review

[rvsixer]

Do you have a source supporting the assumption that we primarily hear the “steady state in room response” in the statistical region?

Best ask the assumer, I am curious as well.

 

[jhaider]

Best ask the assumer, I am curious as well.

I did. I didn’t read whatever was quoted from wherever. I’m not interested in various brands’ justifications for perpetuating failed design types. I was responding to the text posted here.

 

[TNT]

"Magnitude and Phase"

I think you plotted the magnitude for phase and the magnitude for impedance in that scart....

Catch my drift?

//

 

[badspeakerdesigner]

My friend has a movie theater with Arendal using towers with dual 8 inchers. The tweeter is crossed at 1600Hz, and I think that is a bit low for such a small driver. But it does sound quite nice overall, just that the tweeter is a bit stretched out. The tweeter is a bit grainy in the upper midrange and treble. Bass is very good even without a subwoofer. But his double 12” subwoofers helps! So, his Arendal towers are great for movie theater, but not so much for music. Here I prefer horns.

1600-1700 is pretty common for waveguides and domes of this size. I've got a DIY one crossed that low and it sounds great.

Toids DIY, a diy speaker youtuber just recently put out a center channel that uses a BMR driver and therefore much lower crossover point than your usual mtm with a tweeter. While the top end is a little lacking on these BMR's, I bet they sound fine. Surprised I haven't really seen any commercial products go for this sort of design. You'll have to excuse the youtube algo boosting video thumbnail lol.

 

[beagleman]

1600-1700 is pretty common for waveguides and domes of this size. I've got a DIY one crossed that low and it sounds great.

Toids DIY, a diy speaker youtuber just recently put out a center channel that uses a BMR driver and therefore much lower crossover point than your usual mtm with a tweeter. While the top end is a little lacking on these BMR's, I bet they sound fine. Surprised I haven't really seen any commercial products go for this sort of design. You'll have to excuse the youtube algo boosting video thumbnail lol.

I think the only potential issue, may be the lower sensitivity of this design. I would imagine somewhere in the 83-84 db region.

Where most typical MTM or 2.5 way are closer to 88-90 db

 

[abdo123]

All Denon recievers offer the ability to freely select and change crossover slopes for individual speakers and subs within the MultEQX desktop app. Not sure about other AVR software systems.

hold on, this is correct for the room correction, but not for the bass management.

Bass management is always BW 12dB/oct for the speaker and LR 24dB/oct for the subwoofer.

 

[montyliam]

hold on, this is correct for the room correction, but not for the bass management.

Bass management is always BW 12dB/oct for the speaker and LR 24dB/oct for the subwoofer.

The MultEQX app allows you to change the slopes for the crossovers. I’m using 24db slopes for both the mains and the sub.

 

[abdo123]

The MultEQX app allows you to change the slopes for the crossovers. I’m using 24db slopes for both the mains and the sub.

yes but that's the room correction, not the bass management. the signal being fed to the speakers prior to room correction is what i described above.

 

[witwald]

Adding an electrical 24dB/oct high-pass filter in an AVR and hoping that it will produce a nice acoustical filter that will complement the low pass filter of a subwoofer is wishful thinking. This is exactly why integrating a subwoofer is a difficult task.

Isn't it generally standard practice for AVRs to have a 12dB/octave (2nd-order) Butterworth high-pass filter, rather than a 24dB/octave (4th-order) one? This tends to work reasonably well for both closed-box and vented-box low-frequency alignments in the main speakers.

 

[abdo123]

Isn't it generally standard practice for AVRs to have a 12dB/octave (2nd-order) Butterworth high-pass filter, rather than a 24dB/octave (4th-order) one? This tends to work reasonably well for both closed-box and vented-box low-frequency alignments in the main speakers.

yes, and Arendal makes sure to make all their small sealed speakers' roll-off tuned to 80Hz with Q=0.707 12dB/oct so this integration is buttery smooth.

 

[nigio]

Compared to the measurements on the Arendal 1723 monitor on audioholics where vertical directivity measurements can be used as horizontal of the corresponding 1723 center, I notice (correct me if I am wrong) that the 1961 center has better horizontal directivity. Is this correct? If yes, how can this be explained?

 

[fpitas]

Compared to the measurements on the Arendal 1723 monitor on audioholics where vertical directivity measurements can be used as horizontal of the corresponding 1723 center, I notice (correct me if I am wrong) that the 1961 center has better horizontal directivity. Is this correct? If yes, how can this be explained?

Shooting from the hip, as I have no direct knowledge of this speaker. But the original D'appolito design used 3rd order Butterworth crossover (acoustic), aligned in phase quadrature. That gave a pretty tall vertical pattern, unlike the later more focused pattern from using in-phase LR crossovers. D'Appolito preferred the in-phase crossover (LR4 specifically) after getting more practical experience.

 

[nigio]

Shooting from the hip, as I have no direct knowledge of this speaker. But the original D'appolito design used 3rd order Butterworth crossover (acoustic), aligned in phase quadrature. That gave a pretty tall vertical pattern, unlike the later more focused pattern from using in-phase LR crossovers. D'Appolito preferred the in-phase crossover (LR4 specifically) after getting more practical experience.

Thanks for answering but I am just focusing on the horizontal directivity of the 2 MTM centers.(1723 vs 1961).

 

[fpitas]

Thanks for answering but I am just focusing on the horizontal directivity of the 2 MTM centers.(1723 vs 1961).

Yes, these are turned from the normal orientation. What was vertical response becomes horizontal.

 

[rvsixer]

Compared to the measurements on the Arendal 1723 monitor on audioholics where vertical directivity measurements can be used as horizontal of the corresponding 1723 center, I notice (correct me if I am wrong) that the 1961 center has better horizontal directivity. Is this correct? If yes, how can this be explained?

All else being equal (which it is not), I suspect increased center-to-center spacing of the 1723 vs 1961 drivers (due to them being physically larger) likely contributes.

 

[Prolix]

I tried one of these and found it to be fatiguing on axis as a center and I didn't want to run full range eq. Also felt it had even less bass than I expected from the size, and had to cross it prohibitively high. Moved on pretty quick and made me reconsider my plans to try one of the subs.

 

[HooStat]

All else being equal (which it is not), I suspect increased center-to-center spacing of the 1723 vs 1961 drivers (due to them being physically larger) likely contributes.

Also, smaller drivers start to beam at a higher frequency so the dispersion in the 1961 (using smaller drivers) is wider over a wider frequency range.

 

[nigio]

Also, smaller drivers start to beam at a higher frequency so the dispersion in the 1961 (using smaller drivers) is wider over a wider frequency range.

Thanks, that was the answer that I was looking for. I guess that 1723S will be somewhere in the middle of two.

 

[nigio]

Let's say that the center speaker is located at 2.5m from the MLP.

Concerning the 1961 center, in order to have a good frequency response,
you have to sit at a max distance 2.5m * tan25deg = 2.5 * 0,466 = 1.165m right or left from the MLP
Overall directivity: 2.33m across the couch.

Concerning the 1723 center, in order to have a good frequency response,
you have to sit at a max distance 2.5m * tan20deg = 2.5 * 0,364 = 0.91m right or left from the MLP.
Overall directivity: 1.81m across the couch.

The lower the distance of the speaker from the MLP, the lower the directivity across the couch.

 

[rvsixer]

Let's say that the center speaker is located at 2.5m from the MLP.

Concerning the 1961 center, in order to have a good frequency response,
you have to sit at a max distance 2.5m * tan25deg = 2.5 * 0,466 = 1.165m right or left from the MLP
Overall directivity: 2.33m across the couch.

I'd personally do not think of a good response listening window as 6dB down. I use the 3dB down window, which in the case of this speaker is around 20 degrees max off axis.
I just got this speaker back here, as soon as I finish up the new built-in's in my listening room, I will be setting the 1961 up for testing/listening.