Ascend CBM-170SE2 Speaker Review

[MZKM]

Preference Rating
SCORE: 5.9
SCORE w/sub: 8.2

Sensitivity: 86.8dB (300Hz-3kHz ; spec: 91dB)
Frequency response: ±3.5dB 64Hz-20kHz ; ±3.5dB 80Hz-20kHz

​

 

[pedrojoaquimborges]

I’ve only ever heard it used the other way around. That’s how it was told to me back in the late 90s/early 2000s. ‘They are here’ analogy for narrow dispersion because they tend to sound more like a live performance with greater efficiency, power handling and thus dynamics and less artificial source width. More like performers are in front of you in your room.

‘You are there’ because of the envelopment sensation makes you feel surrounded by sound in a way that never really happens naturally in your room if someone or a group is playing music on a stage. It feels more like an alternate reality—something like even Dolby surround sound does.

So I guess it’s a bad analogy and I was hesitant to use it because when I first heard it, I thought of it the same way you do.

All I know is that I seriously want to build one system with each brand and have them talk to each other via WiiM when I want.

Maybe we should stop using live performances as a reference for how recorded music should be played, especially when pairing it with 'appeal to nature' arguments.

For many many years, recorded music, aside from a specific niche of classical recording, has been produced in a way akin to painting a canvas - adding brushstrokes, painting over things, etc as artists and producers see fit. This is also true for most revered "hifi" recordings. The same way using a camera to take a picture is a perfect reproduction of looking at the same scene, no matter the gear, pointing a stereo pair at a source is not necessarily the most high fidelity reproduction of what it'd be like to experience a performance in person.

More importantly, amplified live music, despite being a magical activity, is most often a mess in regards to sound reproduction. At its core, modern live music involves transporting a performance to various venues while trying to minimize the problems caused by room acoustics and PA systems. It's not unusual for a technician to have to completely do away with an entire frequency band for a given instrument, simply to make the source work for that venue and PA system. That's the antithesis of high-fidelity reproduction. And mind you, I do not think this makes live music any less magical.

 

[MZKM]

I asked ChatGPT Pro to compute the Preference Score and individual components based on my measurements together with letter grade: ( I have NOT verified its output)

Result	Value	Letter*
Olive preference score	5.80	C+
With ideal subwoofer	8.16	A
NBD On-Axis	0.405	C
NBD Listening Window	0.329	B
NBD Sound Power	0.260	B
NBD Predicted In-Room	0.227	A
Smoothness, Sound Power	0.952	A
Smoothness, PIR	0.932	A
Low-frequency extension, −6 dB	51.3 Hz	C
Low-frequency quality, LFQ	0.473 dB	B

My score for no-sub is slightly higher at 5.91 as the LFE is different. The -6dB point is 79.9dB, I index for the closest frequency less than or equal to, which is 48Hz @ 79.3dB, ChatGPT indexed the closest frequency greater than or equal to, which is 51Hz @ 80.4dB.

Our scores with ideal subs is identical (well, to 2 decimals).

Very impressive AI analysis.
I just used AI to check my calculation for NBD as Olive says between 100Hz-12kHz with 10 frequencies per 1/2 octave band, but doesn't say exactly how; if 100Hz is the start, then the ending is ~12.8kHz, so I asked Gemini (ran out of daily queries for ChatGPT) to help make the start & end frequencies equally close, in log-scale, to 100Hz and 12000kHz, and it got 96.8Hz and 12394Hz, which was close to what I was already doing at 95.9Hz & 12270Hz, to where the indexed values to Amir's measurement resolution stayed the same (98.1445Hz & 12126Hz), meaning no changes to scores (unless measurement resolution/start frequency changes), but at least I got it to exactly what I believe is the correct parameters.

 

[Power Pop 23]

The CBM-170SE2 loudspeaker is a performant option to match the aesthetic of a Buckeye Amps Hypex NCx252MP amplifier.

 

[Kr2d2]

Stereo tracks and no summing. Much of modern music i listen to has similar content in both channels. So listening to one is sufficient without all the drawbacks of trying to convert to mono.

Hi @amirm,

sorry for my very likely rather silly question, but as a non-native speaker I just want to take the chance to double check, that I get you right this time:

When you do listening to speakers for testing in mono, you do listen to one of the channels from a stereo source device, i.e. to the Left or Right channel of a stereo recording?

Which means that if I want to test a speaker in mono I wouldn't need any special device (to summ up stereo to mono) as a source, just connect one channel of my stereo amp to the single speaker to evaluate?

And regarding picking suitable test tracks for mono evaluation means to listen to the tracks on my testtracks playlist, e.g. with a pair of headphones, and those tracks that have the 'majority' of the musical content right in the middle would be good candidates to serve my mono speaker test, right? For example the famous 'Fast Car' by Tracy Chapman, I can use my CD stereo copy of the album that I have and use its left or right channel for the test with a single speaker.

Thanks for the clarification that maybe everyone but me didn't need!

And thanks again to you and others for all your amazing tests and discussions and for running ASR!

 

[amirm]

When you do listening to speakers for testing in mono, you do listen to one of the channels from a stereo source device, i.e. to the Left or Right channel of a stereo recording?

Which means that if I want to test a speaker in mono I wouldn't need any special device (to summ up stereo to mono) as a source, just connect one channel of my stereo amp to the single speaker to evaluate?

That's correct.

 

[amirm]

And regarding picking suitable test tracks for mono evaluation means to listen to the tracks on my testtracks playlist, e.g. with a pair of headphones, and those tracks that have the 'majority' of the musical content right in the middle would be good candidates to serve my mono speaker test, right? For example the famous 'Fast Car' by Tracy Chapman, I can use my CD stereo copy of the album that I have and use its left or right channel for the test with a single speaker.

It really doesn't matter as long as each channel has similar characteristic for what you are looking for.

 

[DanTheMan]

I think you got it backwards

When I prompted Google ""You are there" vs. "they are here" effect in stereo", it more closely aligns with my understanding. So I'm definitely not alone or unique in my way of thinking. With that said, I think it's a senseless argument that can't be concluded because I don't think it has a formal definition. This is the only way I've ever heard it discussed.

 

[DanTheMan]

Maybe we should stop using live performances as a reference for how recorded music should be played, especially when pairing it with 'appeal to nature' arguments.

For many many years, recorded music, aside from a specific niche of classical recording, has been produced in a way akin to painting a canvas - adding brushstrokes, painting over things, etc as artists and producers see fit. This is also true for most revered "hifi" recordings. The same way using a camera to take a picture is a perfect reproduction of looking at the same scene, no matter the gear, pointing a stereo pair at a source is not necessarily the most high fidelity reproduction of what it'd be like to experience a performance in person.

More importantly, amplified live music, despite being a magical activity, is most often a mess in regards to sound reproduction. At its core, modern live music involves transporting a performance to various venues while trying to minimize the problems caused by room acoustics and PA systems. It's not unusual for a technician to have to completely do away with an entire frequency band for a given instrument, simply to make the source work for that venue and PA system. That's the antithesis of high-fidelity reproduction. And mind you, I do not think this makes live music any less magical.

I absolutely agree with this and my point wasn't to make any argument of how recorded music should be played. I think that's absolutely clear in my posts as well. We don't really need to get into logical fallacies do we? I don't have the desire to, but I think you can see where I'm going with this.

 

[amirm]

My score for no-sub is slightly higher at 5.91 as the LFE is different. The -6dB point is 79.9dB, I index for the closed frequency less than or equal to, which is 48Hz @ 79.3dB, ChatGPT indexed the closest frequency greater than or equal to, which is 51Hz @ 80.4dB.

Thanks for the analysis. I have not checked to see if it has caught all the bugs we have found in the spec.

One amazing thing though: I never prompted it to state "without subwoofer" numbers. I just told it to compute the Olive score. Then I noticed ASR flash as a site in its analysis and it goes to compute the Without Sub score which as you well know, is a concept we created and is not in the spec! The darn thing can be so smart and quick in adapting!

 

[BenB]

The tuning frequency is quite low compared to the extension. I understand the reasons for doing this. I was hoping Dave would comment on how well the speaker would operate with the port plugged. Some people undoubtedly have little control over their placement options, and might want to put these on wall or some other place that would interfere with the port's operation. Or they might want to pair it with a subwoofer, where a closed-box option might work well for them assuming there's not a high Q peak or something like that.

 

[Mort]

When I prompted Google ""You are there" vs. "they are here" effect in stereo", it more closely aligns with my understanding. So I'm definitely not alone or unique in my way of thinking. With that said, I think it's a senseless argument that can't be concluded because I don't think it has a formal definition. This is the only way I've ever heard it discussed.
View attachment 550473

AI is often wrong and tells us what we want to hear. On this site, 'you are there' experience generally refers to narrow directivity. The reference is that you are there in the studio with damped, neutral acoustics.

 

[DanTheMan]

AI is often wrong and tells us what we want to hear. On this site, 'you are there' experience generally refers to narrow directivity. The reference is that you are there in the studio with damped, neutral acoustics.

Internet commentators are often wrong as well. We have millions of examples. We could go in circles forever as I don't think there is any formal definition. I've never heard it the way you are using it. That said, I could care less as well and I've wasted enough of my life on the topic. I only ever brought it up as I thought I would help someone new to the hobby and now there 10 posts of 'I think the opposite of you'. I've explained what I meant pretty clearly. If you want to prove me wrong, you should at least come up with something that demonstrates my incorrectness. Of course I could do the same all day and tomorrow with you. Then what have we discovered? We basically have two companies making great speakers that are 'polar opposites'. I'd rather discuss speaker puns.

 

[Labjr]

I was an 'audiophile' for many years. Subscribed to the magazines and read reviews etc. I've learned that I want neutral components. I think DSP is better at tailoring the sound to my liking, and more convenient, than the endless cycle of audiophile components and tweaks.

 

[SunByrne]

The CBM-170SE2 loudspeaker is a performant option to match the aesthetic of a Buckeye Amps Hypex NCx252MP amplifier.

Black slabs FTW!

 

[Jarrett]

I was an 'audiophile' for many years. Subscribed to the magazines and read reviews etc. I've learned that I want neutral components. I think DSP is better at tailoring the sound to my liking, and more convenient, than the endless cycle of audiophile components and tweaks.

DSP / Klippel - this is the way forward! We're finally entering the years of objective improvement in subjective sound

 

[milosz]

I'd like to see group delay curves. Reflex systems have pretty bad group delay in the bass, generally, and usually poor bass transient fidelity.

 

[yo!]

I’ve never before seen a woofer peak above 10 kHz that helps support the tweeter’s frequency response.

A few things could still be optimized. Decent, but not outstanding, I’d say.

 

[DanTheMan]

I'd like to see group delay curves. Reflex systems have pretty bad group delay in the bass, generally, and usually poor bass transient fidelity.

That's true of nearly all reflex systems though. With that said, it hasn't been shown to be an audible issue that I'm aware of. We're talking about an under $500 stereo pair of passive speakers! This is new ground as far as I've seen. Smile a little. LOL. You can plug the ports if you think you hear some artifacts. Closed systems are far more tolerant of misalignment. Hopefully it wouldn't be too far off. The room will have taken over as the biggest problem anyway by then.

I’ve never before seen a woofer peak above 10 kHz that helps support the tweeter’s frequency response.

A few things could still be optimized. Decent, but not outstanding, I’d say.

Nah, that's like less than 1% of the output. Look at like the last 5 speakers measured ungated and closeup. The tweeters are all uneven. Optimizing any further would likely result in a very large price increase.

This is a very tough crowd if price is factored in.

 

[yo!]

You're right, of course; the near-field measurements make it look like that might be the case—though, naturally, it isn't.