Ascilab A6B Speaker Review

[PristineSound]

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...

I have come to (begrudgingly) accept that, in modern times, if you want top quality material and craftsmanship, you need to pony up. Everything nowadays is made of cheap plastic, thin metals, or mass-produced commodity material like MDF. If you want top end material, you need to pay top end dollar.

One would think for a pair of $4k speaker, it should be pretty top end, but you have to do the math backwards, the manufacturer's budget is probably only 1/5th the MSRP to R&D and manufacture these speakers and those Purifi drivers ain't cheap.

There are other things I want to say, but I won't.

 

[amirm]

No need to get creative and waste time on trying to come up with a new standard when CTA-2010 was created specifically for this purpose (classifying low frequency distortion in terms of audibility).

They didn't clarify anything as there is no study verifying audibility. They just used some simplified assumptions regarding audibility of higher harmonics. A bit better than a wet thumb in the air. What I am researching is much more sophisticated. For now, the graph I presented is far more informative than anything that comes out of that spec.

 

[Penelinfi]

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.

Radiant also have passives on the sides.

Similar speakers with rear passives include :
• March Audio Sointuva (the AsciLabs is very similar driver setup on front, March audio has been available for years already with very similar measurements)

• Buchardt speakers esp. e50 (not Purifi passives though)

 

[Paul7777x]

Anyone considering the Clarity 6.2 along with the Ascilabs or the Buchardts, might also wish to know that the Lyngdorf TDAis, 1120, 3400, and I presume, the new 2210, have a Lyngdorf tuned ‘pre-equaliser’ (so to speak) before RP for the Clarty 6.2s

That fact alone may help swing a decision.

 

[JimWeir]

This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Ascilab A6B Stand-mount speaker with Purifi woofer and passive radiators. I purchased this from the company. The US cost is $1,955 each. Price varies in different countries due to tariff, local taxes, etc.
View attachment 515071
Please excuse the tapes. They are holding the magnetic rings in for shipping. I plan to sell these speakers after review so wanted to keep them in as new condition. On that front:

NOTE: My company, testedaudio.com, is the exclusive distributor for Ascilab products in North America. While objective tests remain the same as for any other speaker, subjective remarks may have business bias.

The A6B manages to act serious and stately at the same time. The rounded corners and invisible fasteners give it an elegant look. And the solid weight, an impression of quality.

I am not a fan of the wrinkles in the Purifi woofer surrounds. However, in the A6B when seen in normal lighting, they mostly disappear so were not an issue for me. The review picture however, highlights them to the max.

Speaker has dual Purifi passive radiators on opposing sides and are a nice indicator of when the speaker is being pushed by their excursion.

The bottom of the speaker is lined with some kind of neoprene which I much appreciate as it acts as some level of damping. To wit, I did not have to employ my elastic material for its measurements on top of Klippel Near-field scanner.

Ascilab A6B Speaker Measurements
As usual, we start with our all important, anechoic "CEA/CTA-2034" standardized frequency response and directivity measurements:
View attachment 515074
We have a very nice on-axis response (black). There is a bit of a drop in bass but then again, it extends way below to nearly 30 Hz with reasonable output!

The early window, and for that matter, sound power, track the on-axis extremely well indicating good directivity which we will examine more later.

We can see the bass extension comes from passive radiator tuning being on the low side:
View attachment 515075
The peak is around 40 Hz. As noted, resonances from the woofer is highly controlled. And given the fact that we don't have a port, there is not much to worry about with respect to enclosure resonances bleeding out. You pay a lot more for the radiator as opposed to just a port but this is the benefit it brings.

Early window sum looks very good, encouraging a room without much "treatment:"
View attachment 515076

With the resulting prediction of in-room response being what we look for:
View attachment 515077

Beamwidth is highly controlled, all the way to upper registers, courtesy of computer optimized waveguide:
View attachment 515078
The small penalty there is narrower beam width which translates into more focused imaging and less diffusion. Don't treat the side walls as to let that do its thing to widen the source image.

View attachment 515079

Vertical directivity is what it is for a 2-way speaker:
View attachment 515080

Stay at the tweeter axis.

Let me give you my usual distortion charts and then something new:
View attachment 515081
View attachment 515082

I have been on a mission to better correlate distortion measurements to audibility. Here, I could hear the start of very low frequency distortion at 96 dBSPL and heard the speaker nearly completely run out of excursion at 101 dBSPL. How can we better figure out from the graphs. Check this work in progress:
View attachment 515083
These are THD% levels charted below 200 Hz. That is where I heard the distortion. Above that, we are overdriving the speaker anyway relative to music.

We see a more or less plateau above 100 Hz indicating we have made the right choice regarding cut off at 200 Hz.

Below that we see different slopes in distortion. We see two distinct new distortion sources coming into play which I have marked as secondary and tertiary. I have placed a circle at the knee of those events. What this says is that you can play down to 42 Hz at 96 dBSPL whereas if you crank up to 101 dBSPL, you best stop at 65 Hz! This matches my hearing of the sweeps where I heard slight distortion at the very start of the 96 dBSPL sweeps. Whereas with 101 dBSPL, that lasted quite a lot longer and at much higher levels of audible distortion.

Going the other way, if you are playing at 81 dBSPL, you can essentially take advantage of the full response down to 30 Hz. We will see if this and the above prediction proves to be the case in listening test section.

Assuming above is correct, you don't need a subwoofer for 81 dBSPL and possibly 86 dBSPL. Above that, a subwoofer would be needed for those playback level and the frequency for that crossover is on the chart.

Finishing our measurements, we see some traces of resonances in waterfall graph:
View attachment 515084
Step response of the woofer is very smooth/clean:
View attachment 515085

Edit: impedance and phase:
View attachment 515092

Ascilab A6B Listening Tests
I paired the A6B with Topping LA90 amplifier which has modest amount of power. I did this to see how much power is needed given the fact that the sensitivity of A6B is a couple of dBs lower than average. I was pleasantly surprised that in near and mid-field listening, there was plenty of power available, albeit with one channel being driven.

First impression was quite a surprise: there was impressively clean and deep bass even in tracks that don't sport that spectrum! Research indicates 30% of our enjoyment comes from bass and there is no better example of this. The extra warmth, especially when it is this clean, balances tonality and creates butterflies in your stomach. I am not used to such a compact speaker being able to deliver such a bass.

I quickly skipped to my reference track for deep bass. This sized speakers either faintly reproduce the sub-bass, or distort it at slightly higher levels. The A6B in sharp contrast, reproduced the low energy like it was a full range speaker!!! It is one thing to see frequency response down to nearly 30 Hz, it is another to experience it with real music.

Excited, I cranked up the volume and bam! Massive distortion set it, just like the 101 dBSPL. You hear a static and see the dual radiators try to detach themselves as the fly out left and right! Crank it down a bit and you get a bit of roughness in bass. A bit more and you are back in business.

Note that the above test track has some of the lowest frequency energy track I have. On music with milder version of it, the A6B produced clean and authoritative bass that I could feel in my stomach (from 2 meters/6 to 7 feet away) and feel the air brushing against my face! I could get to mild distortion with cranking up the volume up again but not as bad as my reference track.

With general music tracks, no worries where there whatsoever with bass distortion and frankly any distortion. The high frequency notes would stand out in the midst of bass notes like nobody's business. Even tracks I have that don't sound very good on speakers (I use them for headphone testing), sounded nearly excellent here! The rest, wow, I kept smiling in disbelief! This is the most perfect speaker I have heard in this size. It just can't blast out its beautiful very low frequency beyond medium levels of loudness.

I am stunned....

Of course, at no time did I feel the need to EQ anything.

Nicely so, very little vibration was coupled to my desk where I had it -- unlike many speakers that uncover all kind of resonances in this setup (my far field listening space is down).

Imaging is rather focused as predicted. You hear the sound come from a circle close to the speaker.

As a side effect of my testing in near and mid-field, these speakers will also make an excellent studio monitor. I checked for horizontal directivity and it is excellent across 2 to 3 chair widths. Even after that, the drop off in high frequencies is rather small.

Conclusions
What a shame that I have started to sell these speakers and hence, my personal experience may not be trusted much. If you at all value my ethics, I am telling you, this is a speaker you have to experience. It will easily blow away any expectations you have.

Going into this review, I was kind of depressed. I an not into, "more expensive parts mean more performance" as some of you no doubt know. Those parts have pushed the price of this speaker rather high. What Ascilab has done with its tuning to deliver very low bass response that is ultra clean, is what justifies its cost. Yes, laws of physics can't be broken. It can't shake the house but if you are just a hair less power hungry than I am, you will be fully satisfied without having to mess with subwoofers and such.

As noted, I would give the A6Bs a serious consideration for mixing and mastering in smaller rooms. Pair it up with an ultra quiet amplifier like I did and you don't have none of the hiss issues of active monitors.

Please note that as of this writing, there is no production available of the A6B. Earliest time is May which means we will get them in June. I am going to put up my pair on Tested Audio but I have to say, I am so tempted to just keep them for myself! They are that good.

Needless to say, I am going to recommend the Ascilab A6B speakers. Objectively and subjectively, they have left me without pants.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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Good stuff. Physics is your friend. Reducing the sensitivity to 82dB allows you to get bass response to 30Hz from a modest cabinet. And as you found out, at the expense of limiting output.

The rest is just well designed wave guide implemented baffled loudspeaker.
At $4000 a pair pretty decent. You don’t test peak transient output. But with SMPTE 20dB crest factor the likely ideal highest playback limit is that fairly nice 86dB level performance.

 

[AsciLab]

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...

At the first page there is a spec sheet that shows its material is MDF. So I didn’t answer twice to your question.

MMA was quite great material indeed. But after the very first batch we faced a lot of difficulty so we had to change the material.

As I posted early to keep the same performance we improved internal bracing.
In result the only disadvantage is a few centimeters deeper than previous version.

 

[kemmler3D]

Overall really excellent and it's nice to see a Purifi-based speaker on here, not too many come through, probably because the drivers are $$$.

I think this will be a good comparison to the Purifi SPK16 if it ever hits the NFS. As it stands it's hard to find anything to really dislike about this result.

 

[tw 2022]

I have come to (begrudgingly) accept that, in modern times, if you want top quality material and craftsmanship, you need to pony up. Everything nowadays is made of cheap plastic, thin metals, or mass-produced commodity material like MDF. If you want top end material, you need to pay top end dollar.

One would think for a pair of $4k speaker, it should be pretty top end, but you have to do the math backwards, the manufacturer's budget is probably only 1/5th the MSRP to R&D and manufacture these speakers and those Purifi drivers ain't cheap.

There are other things I want to say, but I won't.

a few of the smaller outfits still rely on quality parts , but in general I agree with the thought there are many brands that don't ....seems ascilab seems to give decent value , but up against (for instance) philharmonic audio or ascend they might come up just a little short on overall physical quality of drivers and / or cabs.. not a shot at ascilab, just a thought as to the extra value those brands may be....

 

[AudioJester]

Anyone considering the Clarity 6.2 along with the Ascilabs or the Buchardts, might also wish to know that the Lyngdorf TDAis, 1120, 3400, and I presume, the new 2210, have a Lyngdorf tuned ‘pre-equaliser’ (so to speak) before RP for the Clarty 6.2s

That fact alone may help swing a decision.

Gosh, those Lyngdorf devices are crazy expensive

 

[PristineSound]

a few of the smaller outfits still rely on quality parts , but in general I agree with the thought there are many brands that don't ....seems ascilab seems to give decent value , but up against (for instance) philharmonic audio or ascend they might come up just a little short on overall physical quality of drivers and / or cabs.. not a shot at ascilab, just a thought as to the extra value those brands may be....

Keep in mind two things though, Philharmonic and Ascend sell direct, Ascilab does not. And Ascilab are imported finished product, hence subject to tariff on the finished product as a whole.

The above two circumstances has added significant additional costs to Ascilab speakers in the US. You can go to some Korea online retailers to see the premium that Americans have to pay.

 

[slaweks]

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.

"With two subs, you have to figure out the crossover solution (hardware) and then a lot of measuring and moving subs, etc"
Or you use Dirac ART.

 

[Bwaslo]

Or Wiim Roomfit

 

[Everett T]

a few of the smaller outfits still rely on quality parts , but in general I agree with the thought there are many brands that don't ....seems ascilab seems to give decent value , but up against (for instance) philharmonic audio or ascend they might come up just a little short on overall physical quality of drivers and / or cabs.. not a shot at ascilab, just a thought as to the extra value those brands may be....

Those two brands basically use off the shelves drivers, with some minor tweaks to a couple to meet a specific parameter. Also Philharmonic has a distribution network outside of the US. I'm glad to see Asci using high value and high performance hardware so far. Will be interesting to see what happens after they get their feet firmly planted.

 

[Kevinfc]

I believe everything you say about this speaker. Your writing seemed like you were struggling to contain your elation. In any event, I will wait to hear from others, but certain of confirmation.

 

[Everett T]

Gosh, those Lyngdorf devices are crazy expensive

With RP included I consider them a value, lol. The McIntosh MEN220 (RP) retails for almost $8k,

 

[Ajax]

Knowing that even a SOTA speaker such as the A6B struggles with sub base (below 60hz) does it not follow that, irrespective of what speakers you have, ALL stereo systems should incorporate a high pass filter on the mains together with a sub, especially if you want to achieve an SPL inexcess of say 90db with 100db peaks.

I'm using a 100W Wiim Amp Ultra with Room Fit ($550) to drive a pair of B&W AM01 ($600) external speakers with an old second hand 112" Velodyne sub ($200) crossed over at 70 db within the Wiim App. The system is outside on my patio, with a roof over and two open sides, and to my ears it sounds wonderful.

The high pass filter not only saves the speakers from over excursion and opens up the midrange, but also reduces the load on the amp, as it works hardest to produce sub base. I would imagine it would contribute to the systems longetivity, however, I have no evidence to support that.

 

[SorenTyson]

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.

Well, as usual I have to thank you for testing the equipment to the limit. Then we can each apply to our own use cases. For an in room stereo setup, the dB to hit those distortion levels would be well above my listening level.

 

[daniboun]

At the first page there is a spec sheet that shows its material is MDF. So I didn’t answer twice to your question.

MMA was quite great material indeed. But after the very first batch we faced a lot of difficulty so we had to change the material.

As I posted early to keep the same performance we improved internal bracing.
In result the only disadvantage is a few centimeters deeper than previous version.

Thanks for the answer )
Would be nice to see some pictures.

 

[amirm]

Or you use Dirac ART.

That limits you a ton as far as hardware you can use.

 

[amirm]

The high pass filter not only saves the speakers from over excursion and opens up the midrange, but also reduces the load on the amp, as it works hardest to produce sub base. I would imagine it would contribute to the systems longetivity, however, I have no evidence to support that.

I have noticed the same but it comes at the expense of some loss of low end extension. For loud playback, it would make sense. But not as much for low and medium level playback.