Ascend Acoustics new Klippel optimized speaker

[RMW_NJ]

Dave Fabrikant bought a Klippel a few months back and he’s using it to design a new speaker based on the SEAS Titan tweeter/woofer. It appears to be a replacement for the Sierra 1. He’s doing a bit of a teaser, so the final specs and measurements won’t be posted for a couple of days, but the progress can be followed along on his forum.

Introducing the Sierra-LX!!!

I am most pleased to announce the completion of an exciting new project!! *Note: Please use this link to place a pre-order: Sierra-LX pair Things here at Ascend might have appeared to be quiet, but the truth is we have been fully focused on intense R&D for quite a long while now. This...

forum.ascendacoustics.com

 

[TimVG]

Good to see manufacturers placing importance on accurate, comprehensive data.

 

[mj30250]

Dave appears to have gone all-in on the Klippel. I have a feeling that this is the first announcement of many more to come.

 

[Smitty2k1]

Looking forward to seeing the updates to the Luna/Duo coming in a couple weeks too. Need some more wall mount options

 

[LightninBoy]

That was an interesting read. He starts out by wondering if the market and consumers are becoming too obsessed with measurements, but then buys a Klippel and obsessively measures drivers for his next project. In any event, it all seems like progress.

Also find it fascinating that he names the Revel M106 as the price benchmark. I think he's absolutely right, just interesting that he openly states it.

 

[FrantzM]

Progress... For too long speakers (Audio in general) have been the province of quacks and voodooism. Some of the speakers field may remain an art, that of judidous choices/compromises but most of it is rooted in Science. Before Klippel, onlu huge conglomerate could afford an anechoic room, Klippel (and its ilk, I wish...) afford them the same quality of measurements at a vastly reduced cost and great convenience. Looking forward for its review.

Peace.

 

[TurtlePaul]

Progress... For too long speakers (Audio in general) have been the province of quacks and voodooism. Some of the speakers field may remain an art, that of judidous choices/compromises but most of it is rooted in Science. Before Klippel, onlu huge conglomerate could afford an anechoic room, Klippel (and its ilk, I wish...) afford them the same quality of measurements at a vastly reduced cost and great convenience. Looking forward for its review.

Peace.

One of the breakthroughs with Klippel, is not only the cost vs. an anechoic chamber, but also the speed of iteration. In Dave's posts he has said he analyzed one speaker per day since getting the KNS. Even if you did have a million dollar anechoic chamber, how long do you think it would take to get each soundfield scan? You would need someone to position mics and rotate speakers as a full time job. Then you would need to condense down the recordings to the soundfield. It may take a week per run. The beauty of Klippel is that you can iterate by looking at the data you measured yesterday, make tweaks all day today, then set the machine to run when you finish the tweaks at night and tomorrow you have new data to make more adjustments.

 

[HooStat]

I think this bodes well for the industry in general. It is interesting that two "random guys" on the internet have Klippels but few manufacturers.* Some of them are realizing that they need the right tools for the job.

Mesanovic is an example of a company that built a very good speaker with their own anechoic chamber and March Audio did the same with (presumably) the manual approach like the one used by @napilopez (which works well but is very labor intensive). But those are rare examples of people achieving the goals without Klippel.

(*No disrespect to Erin and Amir -- they are only "random guys" from the perspective of some audio companies.)

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

A new Klippel in the town ?

and March Audio did the same with (presumably)...

But he send a unit for a test and that unit didn't pass so well the test, and then he send an improved version after the Klippel review.

Klippel always reveal fails.

 

[Trouble Maker]

how long do you think it would take to get each soundfield scan? You would need someone to position mics and rotate speakers as a full time job.

I sorely hope nobody with a good anechoic chamber and half a brain was taking every point manually. KNS power is not in the data capture automation; that's honestly not a very difficult engineering task.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

I sorely hope nobody with a good anechoic chamber and half a brain was taking every point manually.

That's the reason why Klippel NFS is simple the best.

 

[dfuller]

Pretty cool stuff. Be interesting to see how the final system behaves...

 

[Trouble Maker]

That's the reason why Klippel NFS is simple the best.

KNS power is not in the data capture automation; that's honestly not a very difficult engineering task.

It's power is in

• Not needing a chamber
• Resolving in post, can analyze from different 'view' points after.
• Anechoic at lower freq. than a chamber
• Better resolution than chamber

 

[617]

I've always liked Ascend and this is awesome news. As an old school speaker designer I really like that they use such high-end drivers.

 

[MZKM]

That was an interesting read. He starts out by wondering if the market and consumers are becoming too obsessed with measurements, but then buys a Klippel and obsessively measures drivers for his next project. In any event, it all seems like progress.

Also find it fascinating that he names the Revel M106 as the price benchmark. I think he's absolutely right, just interesting that he openly states it.

From what I recall, he stated the resolution was too high and thus made visible issues that aren’t audible. He also claimed (again, if I recall correctly) that the NFS did not properly show the bass in his front ported Luna.

He has some measurements of all his speakers, the 2EX even having a quasi-Spinorama, the NFS is kinda a no brainer in speaker development if the business can afford it, there are so many iterations a speaker goes thru before it comes to market that the ability to do a suite of measurements to this degree in a few unmanned hours is probably a god-send.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

It's power is in

• Not needing a chamber
• Resolving in post, can analyze from different 'view' points after.
• Anechoic at lower freq. than a chamber
• Better resolution than chamber

I aggre
For me the kilippel nfs is the best.

 

[warthor]

That is extremely interesting that the vertical dispersion is very wide and identical to the horizontal dispersion. What will the effect of this be? I have no clue but it sounds like a positive attribute.

 

[RMW_NJ]

From what I recall, he stated the resolution was too high and thus made visible issues that aren’t audible. He also claimed (again, if I recall correctly) that the NFS did not properly show the bass in his front ported Luna.

He has some measurements of all his speakers, the 2EX even having a quasi-Spinorama, the NFS is kinda a no brainer in speaker development if the business can afford it, there are so many iterations a speaker goes thru before it comes to market that the ability to do a suite of measurements to this degree in a few unmanned hours is probably a god-send.

He’s posted Klippel data for most of his speakers, though for some reason you have to register with the forum to view images. Here’s the 2EX for those that don’t want to sign up.

 

[dfuller]

He’s posted Klippel data for most of his speakers, though for some reason you have to register with the forum to view images. Here’s the 2EX for those that don’t want to sign up.

Damn, that looks excellent. Probably sounds pretty good.

 

[Shazb0t]

Here's their spin for the Sierra Ribbon Tower with RAAL 70-20xram: