Arendal 1961 Center/Monitor Speaker Review

[norman bates]

I use coverage in terms of if it covers a couch at 7' or 10'.

 

[nigio]

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.

Thanks man .I basically used the degrees mentioned by the reviewers. Looking forward to know your impressions.

 

[jhaider]

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.

You forgot to add - in a room that's an anechoic chamber.

In a real room, there is coloration from the large mismatch between the timber of the horizontal reflections and the direct sound.

 

[coptician]

So this is a good example of what a $500-ish center with an MTM configuration can do.

Can we get something like a DALI Opticon Vokal MK2 to see what that performs like? Three-way center that's a little more expensive, but also not in an MTM configuration.

I don't know if there's other examples of centers that differ from MTM that are worth considering, but it feels like this is the last part of the HT puzzle. For now.

 

[rvsixer]

Can we get something like a DALI Opticon Vokal MK2 to see what that performs like? Three-way center that's a little more expensive, but also not in an MTM configuration.

An MT(super)T configuration with crossover to mid at 2-2.4K (depending on which marketing blurb you read). More a 2.5-way I think? Interesting speaker though...go ahead and send one in for test!

 

[Laserjock]

How about this design? Edit: added question mark

 

[cavedriver]

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.

It would be great to get this guy's creation on the Klippel and see how it really does. I skimmed the video and saw that he did measurements but it looked fishy in the 30 seconds I gave it even if the principals with his crossover point may be valid. Some one please challenge him to send his speaker to Amir- he could do a whole video on it...

 

[tw 2022]

It would be great to get this guy's creation on the Klippel and see how it really does. I skimmed the video and saw that he did measurements but it looked fishy in the 30 seconds I gave it even if the principals with his crossover point may be valid. Some one please challenge him to send his speaker to Amir- he could do a whole video on it...

ya think Dennis has seen this?.. that bmr was traditionally used as a tweeter before he used it as a mid...

 

[cavedriver]

ya think Dennis has seen this?.. that bmr was traditionally used as a tweeter before he used it as a mid...

yeah, I haven't talked to Dennis about building a new dedicated center but I think he might consider it if his HT speaker sells well along with the continuing great sales of the BMR monitors

 

[rvsixer]

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.

@nigio

I finally got a chance to spend a full day with this speaker yesterday. I took in-room measurements and did ears only subjective testing, ymmv. Nutshell:
- My new room is totally empty. Used RTA to home in on decent LP, speaker spots that matched the intended use of my space.
- Ran REW sweeps in various configs, just to see what kind of new room I am dealing with, and to see the speaker response in it (wanted to know FR swings, RT, etc etc). This is one live room with up to 600ms decays (wound up setting up a couple of mattress for now to calm things down). Also ran same tests with speaker smack up against the wall (as I am exploring the possibility of "as thin as possible" vertical LCR behind AT screen). Interestingly response did not suffer too much, should improve with appropriate treatment, then respond to EQ with its decent DI.
- Ran PN, music, spoken voice. Speaker does indeed sound decent. Vertical orientation my old ears started noticing listening differences around 22-23 degrees off axis. Horizontal orientation about 13-14 degrees of axis (just covering my intended coverage requirement). Follows the test results.
- Ran through a bunch of music. Definitely needs a sub as advertised and expected. In room response F3 was around 75-80Hz on the locations I ran sweeps on, so should integrate nicely.
- Will keep if I decide to do an AT (really worried about projector fan noise as my room's noise floor is 26dB, and I am at 7000' altitude so those projector fans will spin up even more lol). I want all the dynamic range I can get.
- In the end no match for my 3-ways with 8" woofer, but I am combating space requirements in the new place. In general I definitely still prefer mains with some wooferage over all small polite speakers (this coming from a multisub aficionado).
- Thoroughly agree with Amir's take on these
- Did I mention this thing is SMALL and HEAVY ??? Still amazed at its output capabilities and minimal distortion/compression at even 102dB given the size.


As an aside today I got a sub out, spent all day running sweeps, and created room sound pressure maps (one for each lower corner mode excitement). Turns out the LP position I found yesterday is indeed a great spot in this somewhat asymmetrical room. Now onwards with the HT build.

 

[Descartes]

Amir
“threw my killer sub-bass track at it and instead of getting highly distorted as just about every bookshelf speaker does, it simply played those notes faintly.”

Please let us know what is your killer sub-bass list of music and movies

 

[amirm]

I have post them before but I probably need to create a proper thread so people can find them. For now, here are the second set of tracks I throw at every speaker and headphone (first set are female vocals):

Fading Sun is the killer track. Rumorz is recorded a bit distorted but has incredible bass dynamics. All Melody doesn't go as deep but is also good (you have to jump in by 30 or 60 seconds for bass to start). For completeness, Jewel track is there as a balanced track that is difficult sometimes to make sound good.

 

[Descartes]

I have post them before but I probably need to create a proper thread so people can find them. For now, here are the second set of tracks I throw at every speaker and headphone (first set are female vocals):
View attachment 284261

Fading Sun is the killer track. Rumorz is recorded a bit distorted but has incredible bass dynamics. All Melody doesn't go as deep but is also good (you have to jump in by 30 or 60 seconds for bass to start). For completeness, Jewel track is there as a balanced track that is difficult sometimes to make sound good.

 

[Jon AA]

I like to see the screen where you see those settings, if I may.

Here is the service manual of the middle of the range Denon AVR. Can you point me where the slope setting is? As far as I know the web access is the same as the device menus.

Here you go:

4th order slope on the speaker, run it LFE + Main with the crossover set to 100Hz (so the AVR applies a 4th order to the sub at 100 Hz). Done.

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.

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.

On those machines the two operate hand in hand. Audyssey doesn't apply a filter to a raw signal, it EQs to a target. There is a big difference. The "Auto Default" is to EQ the speaker to a 2nd order shape at the crossover frequency, then the AVR applies its 2nd order giving you a nice 4th order EQ'd result. The 4th order applied to the sub's EQ'd response give you the theoretical combined response you'd want. If you aren't using Audyssey, you had better hope the speaker has a perfect 2nd order rolloff at the crossover frequency (which virtually never happens in a real room) or you'll get sub-par results.

 

[cavedriver]

I have post them before but I probably need to create a proper thread so people can find them. For now, here are the second set of tracks I throw at every speaker and headphone (first set are female vocals):

Yeah, an organized thread or threads on speaker test tracks, perhaps by category or purpose beyond just the one thread that's there would be great. It would be especially useful if there was a software tool to measure the frequency range of any song and report on % of content at each frequency or something to quantify how low (or high) the song goes and for how long. I assume this exists beyond that tool that just measures dynamic range. There are lots of lists out there but most don't do anything to establish how "useful" each song actually is. For example this reasonably long list hosted by SVS doesn't say anything about each song but does list a lot of songs, while the lists by Whathifi do give short blurbs about each song:

THE ESSENTIAL SUBWOOFER BASS MUSIC TEST TRACKS AND DEMO LIST

Top songs and music albums for showing off subwoofer bass, including EDM, hip-hop, classical, rock n’ roll and more.

www.svsound.com

Edit: Surely there are better apps but I found this website that let's you visualize the frequency response, but be sure to check the "logarithmic" box to see 1-400 Hz clearly. Try uploading "Start a Riot" by Duckwrth/Shaboozey to see the part below 50 Hz turn solid yellow

Spectrum Analyzer | Academo.org - Free, interactive, education.

This audio spectrum analyzer enables you to see the frequencies present in audio recordings.

academo.org

Edit #2: Ok, I see the other threads on reference recording tracks, somehow I only found the one earlier. Maybe just a bass/subbass thread is needed?

 

[sarumbear]

Here you go:

View attachment 284598

4th order slope on the speaker, run it LFE + Main with the crossover set to 100Hz (so the AVR applies a 4th order to the sub at 100 Hz). Done.

That is not a setting. It is what is applied to the signal. It is the spec. A setting mean the user can make changes.

On those machines the two operate hand in hand. Audyssey doesn't apply a filter to a raw signal, it EQs to a target. There is a big difference. The "Auto Default" is to EQ the speaker to a 2nd order shape at the crossover frequency, then the AVR applies its 2nd order giving you a nice 4th order EQ'd result. The 4th order applied to the sub's EQ'd response give you the theoretical combined response you'd want.

If the crossover frequency matches the speaker's inherent HP response. What if the frequency is different? What if the speakers are vented, i.e. the slope is 24dB/oct? There is nothing nice about that solution.

 

[Jon AA]

That is not a setting. It is what is applied to the signal. It is the spec. A setting mean the user can make changes.

What do you mean? I can change that frequency to anything I want and specify anything from a 2nd order to a 6th order rolloff. That's setting it. And it isn't simply applying the filter to the signal (that's what the AVR does with its 2nd order) it's EQing the in room response to that shape, which obviously works much better in real rooms than merely applying a filter to the signal.

If the crossover frequency matches the speaker's inherent HP response. What if the frequency is different? What if the speakers are vented, i.e. the slope is 24dB/oct? There is nothing nice about that solution.

I agree it's not a nice solution, trying to include the legacy THX standard in a convoluted way. And it was severely flawed before the Audyssey app existed as there was no way to change the crossover frequency in Audyssey (not the AVR) because changing it in the AVR only left you with only a 2nd order at that frequency. But it does work as intended now--when you run Audyssey it will detect the rolloff of your speakers and set the crossover there and EQ it into the proper shape (for prior-2022 machines, the new ones default to 80 Hz I believe) and when you change the crossover in Audyssey it'll change them both to give you a proper 4th order result at that frequency.

In short, there will be no issues integrating this speaker with a sub if the user is competent.

 

[sarumbear]

What do you mean? I can change that frequency to anything I want and specify anything from a 2nd order to a 6th order rolloff. That's setting it.

I missed the order setting. I apologise.

And it isn't simply applying the filter to the signal (that's what the AVR does with its 2nd order) it's EQing the in room response to that shape, which obviously works much better in real rooms than merely applying a filter to the signal.

I’m confused now. You mention AVR as a separate unit. What is that screen you shared of, if it’s not the AVR? May I ask you to clarify, please.

 

[Jon AA]

That's a screenshot from Audyssey MultEQX. Although they've added capabilities, the base management has always worked the same*, you just couldn't see it until the App and now the much better PC software.

*I can't confirm for the newer 2022+ units. I'm thinking due to the 80 Hz default of the new units, some orders of operation may have changed. I'll figure it out when I get one (soon).

 

[Doctors11]

Same speaker now tested in the vertical position.

Arendal Sound Hits a Home Run - 1961 Monitor Loudspeaker Review

We review the Arendal Sound 1961 Monitor, featuring an MTM & waveguide design built with similar DNA to their venerable 1723 series but in a more compact affordable package at $1,100/pair. Home run!

www.audioholics.com