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Ascilab A6B Speaker Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
I have a basic speaker design question that more knowledgeable ASR members may be able to answer. I noted that this speaker is similar to the Radiant Acoustics Clarity 6.2 as far as base reproduction is concerned. Both speakers appear to use the same Purifi woofer (I could be mistakes on this point) and both employ two passive radiators rather than a port. However, the Ascilab places the passive radiators on the speaker's sides whereas the Radiant Acoustic speaker places them on the back of the speaker. My question to ASR's readership is, are there any significant consequences or differences in performance related to this design decision? There are Klippel results for both designs so direct comparisons are possible, but I am curious what readers here may think about the design decision on the passive radiator location and what bearing this has on performance.
mdf
The Radiant acoustics @-3dB goes down to 62.3hz and @-6db at 39.6Hz
The A6B goes down @-3dB at. 41hz and @-6db at 38.1Hz. Their horizontal and vertical contour are very different as well....
The Radiant is also more expensive $4000 pair VS $3000 pair for the A6B
Sideways passive radiator typically make the speaker a bit wider but cancel out the Depp bass shaking of the whole speaker (the Woofer itself may still move the cabinet). Other then that there is no big sonical difference. Sideways passive radiators will occasionally make you grab them in accident when you want to lift the speaker up (knowing from personal experience...).
antisuck
Member
I don't believe this is correct, the pictures I just looked up show PRs on the sides of the Radiant as well.
Originally, the A6B used the same cabinet design as the the C6B : the main material = aluminum hydroxide, a substance two to three times more effective at absorbing vibrations than the MDF or HDF typically used.... But I imagine that they use now MDF for effective cost....
Different Woofer crossover tuning will change sensitivity and maximum output. However the tweeter and mid/hf tuning is also rather different. A6B will probably benefit from more wall distance and have stronger bass then radiant Acoustics and A6B will work better toed in to the listener while Radiant 6.2 seems designed to be toed out a bit from the listener.
I asked a few months ago when I saw the change of the spec sheet of A6B and got confirmation that new A6B cabinets were made from MDF.
Right, I think he may have referred to something like the Buchardt E50 and confused me too
It's regrettable because that was somewhat of an Ascilab promise. But like the biggest companies, they're trying to cut costs wherever they can...
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a4eaudio
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Yes, but they are just meeting the majority of their customers demands, because consumers don't want to pay more.
SorenTyson
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The distortion that Amir mentioned at 96 dB, that's with a single speaker? So would be at 99 dB in a stereo setup?
With more info like the new chart provides, it'd be very interesting to see smart DAC's and other DSP integrate variable crossover frequencies with volume. Sounds silly, but we already had 'variable DSP' with the Fletcher Munson curves that were readily available in different amps decades ago. This could just be a different implementation of the same idea.
Would likely benefit from matching not just against distortion, but phase and directivity response of the sub (estimate based on driver size, port, etc.?)
This whole line of thinking just makes me think that the next good Dirac competitor still could have numerous avenues to differentiate. Smart DSP could be very cool.
Would likely benefit from matching not just against distortion, but phase and directivity response of the sub (estimate based on driver size, port, etc.?)
This whole line of thinking just makes me think that the next good Dirac competitor still could have numerous avenues to differentiate. Smart DSP could be very cool.
dtaylo1066
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Brilliant! Bravo! You could spend 30K and not get this. Only issue to some might be SPL. Watts are cheap.
Very strong showing in most respects, but I can tell that imaging won’t be my cup of tea. Still, impressed enough to be voting “Great.”
Price isn’t cheap, but reasonable given the level of performance and the effect of tariffs.
Price isn’t cheap, but reasonable given the level of performance and the effect of tariffs.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #137
Answering someone's question, yes, my listening space is extremely large. Open space to rest of the house with very large volume. So modal issues are much less than they would be otherwise.
And confirming, measurements are performed with a Behringer Pro amp with one channel driven so has tons of power. Same with LA90 in the way I only used one channel of it and with impedance of 3.2 ohm, it is delivering even more power than the 4 ohm measurement. The limitation here is deep bass, not the amp. Should you put in a high pass filter, and want to really crank it up, maybe you need a more powerful amp.
And confirming, measurements are performed with a Behringer Pro amp with one channel driven so has tons of power. Same with LA90 in the way I only used one channel of it and with impedance of 3.2 ohm, it is delivering even more power than the 4 ohm measurement. The limitation here is deep bass, not the amp. Should you put in a high pass filter, and want to really crank it up, maybe you need a more powerful amp.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #138
Yes. And that is well away from any walls (in my measurement setup). So you would get additional room gain plus the contributions from the second speaker.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #139
No. The driver reaching limits of excursion is a completely different animal sonically than amplifier clipping. And again, for measurements, I used a much more powerful amplifier. In both cases, you see a large excursion from the passive radiators.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #140
A6B brings much easier deployment. Connect it and you are good to go. With two subs, you have to figure out the crossover solution (hardware) and then a lot of measuring and moving subs, etc. You can likely get better dynamics from C6B+sub combo but it would be an enthusiast solution needing fair amount of knowledge and work.
With A6B, you have that sub integration done for you in a way that is very hard to do with those subs. At no time did I hear overwhelming bass as I routinely do with subs.
And of course, you can add a sub to just carry the lowest frequencies for A6B and have a super duper solution.
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