This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Ascilab active 3-way monitor with DSP and cardioid response. A member was kind enough to let me review his preorder. US Cost is $3,125 each (inclusive of tariff). Pricing varies in different regions.
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 C8C is a substantial package with drivers seemingly on every available surface! Packaging is on the serious side with very nicely rounded corners and such. A set of grills with magnetic mount is provided for the front midwoofers (nothing is available for the side woofers due to excursion).
Three amplifier channels are used per speaker courtesy of Hypex Fusion Amp "Plate" with included DSP:
Both analog and digital inputs are provided. The user interface though can be a bit confusing. Company is working on a quick start to get you through it better. What seems to be input selector button, is actually three different modes of operation. I left it in the "P2" default linear filtering. Input is auto-switching out of the box. You can hook up a USB cable and change the settings including a multi-band EQ to tailor the sound and/or optimize for the room.
A front LED is provided which blinks while searching for a signal. It stays green when input is selected and is playing. It turns red to indicate overload so I would not cover it unless you are sure you never overdrive it.
There is a companion BX8C bass module which extends the bass response down further. That option is not yet available. For that matter, the C8C is not available for 2 to 3 months either. What is shipping is pre-orders from early January.
EDIT: new firmware slightly improves the response: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/ascilab-c8c-v1-1-measurement-update.70219/
Ascilab C8C Speaker Monitor Measurements
Before I show you the frequency response, let me post a graph I rarely publish. It is the computed response from Klippel NFS vs reality:
The dashed red is the target. As you see, it is 1% -- good enough for speakers. In low frequencies, this is trivial to achieve due to simplicity of the woofer response. At higher frequencies however, the tweeter output combines with diffraction sources, port/cabinet resonances, etc., creating a complex soundfield. Klippel NFS can deal with this but requires many more measurement points. By default, I use about 1000 sweeps which is able to keep the high frequency error rate around 1% for most speakers. Here, we see that the same sampling resulted in much lower error rate indicating a very clean output from the speaker, devoid of typical interference sources. The previously measured A6B acted similarly. Very nice early indicator of a good design!
Now to the main dish, the frequency response:
Another pleasant surprise: deeply extended frequency response and on-axis is that almost ruler flat other than a slight bump from 4 to 5 kHz. Company measurements show a lower amount so almost negligible compared to mine. I will test the audibility of this in listening test section. Otherwise, this is impeccable response.
Company suggested a 20 degree toe in/out and indeed, that nicely flattens that region:
The early window shows a bit of high frequency boost but interestingly, as it sums up with the on-axis in predicted in-room response, that goes away:
The cardioid response attempts to continue the directivity of the tweeter down to much lower frequencies and we can see that:
This ostensibly reduces room reflections although the modal response remains below 100 Hz. The BX8C extension should deal with that.
Here is our horizontal directivity:
Vertically the dual woofers bring cancellations causing a very narrow directivity. So stay at tweeter axis:
Response is quite good at 86 dBSPL but slightly strained at 96 dBSPL:
We can dig in more with my new low frequency sweep comparison:
We see dual new mechanisms of distortion, one kicking in around 62 Hz and the other at 40 Hz. I don't see the former much of a limitation but the latter, was definitely audible at 101 dBSPL. Compared to A6B, the limit was much higher and maximum distortion, lower. Again, we will examine all of this in the listening tests.
Finishing off, here are the near-field response, step response and waterfall:
I could not correlate the resonances in CSD with other measurements so don't know what is up there.
Ascilab C8C Speaker Listening Tests
I again had my youngest son with me to listen to these speakers for a second option and another set of eyes. I placed the C8C in my main listening area near my everyday speaker on a solid stand. As with A6B, very little vibration was coupled through the stand and floor -- something I do enjoy to some extent in my standard setup.
First impression was truly "wow!" Clean and deep bass combined with highs that jumped out of the speaker as if to tell their own story. Latter gave every sense of detail you ever wanted. I mean really, this is as much accuracy and pleasure you could ask for in such a compact speaker (half the height of my usual towers). Track after track put a smile on my face. I just don't remember testing speakers that produced such a response.
While I was admiring the highs floating in air, I wonder if some of that was due to the slight boost in 4 to 5 kHz that I saw in the on-axis response. So I dialed in a quick and dirty filter which later on, I programmed into the speaker using Hypex Filter Design software:
With this filter in pace, the highs no longer took front stage over voices and such. Company suggested a milder setting of 4,500 Hz and -1 dB. That did not attenuate the highs that I was hearing. But we are really in "circle of confusion" here. Who knows what is exactly right here. I did play the same clips with my Salon 2 speaker and while no quick AB was possible, I did think my filter was closer to what the Revels produced. Fortunately owners can mess with this all they want.
How about sub-bass response? I used my special track and was again, surprised how loud I could crank it and how deep the response was. Up to quite high levels of playback, the deep bass was produced with the warmth I expect only from truly full range speakers. I am talking volumes that only I can tolerate compared to most people.
Turning up 1 or 2 dBs above this created audible distortion. A bit more and the clipping indicator came on indicating the amp was also running out of power.
While professional monitors limit you from turning up the levels too much, the C8C let me keep pushing the sub section well into excursion and amplifier limits. My advice: don't do that. We are talking a single speaker fully filling my huge space before any of this happened. But if you do need to go there, the BX8C should fill that need.
Note that other than this special track I have, I could not get the drivers upset. I could, get the clipping light to come on from time to time but that again, was at very loud levels and distortion not audible.
Bottom line: A+ reproduction with very high, but definite limit to ultra low bass response.
Conclusions
This what happens when you trust your parachute to work and jump out of a plane. Trust the science that creating a very accurate speaker with extreme deep bass response will put a smile on your face. That is what the C8C does. It delivers in every aspect, other than blowing your hair back at 20 Hz. With so many smaller speakers dying off at 40+ Hz, this is revelation. Yes, the cost is high but consider that you have just about everything you need. I just connected my Eversolo streamer to it and was good to go. A minimalistic system with superb performance. The combination with BX8C should be insane as it fills the only hole we have here with highest levels of playback.
It is my pleasure to recommend Ascilab C8C Active DSP speaker.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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 C8C is a substantial package with drivers seemingly on every available surface! Packaging is on the serious side with very nicely rounded corners and such. A set of grills with magnetic mount is provided for the front midwoofers (nothing is available for the side woofers due to excursion).
Three amplifier channels are used per speaker courtesy of Hypex Fusion Amp "Plate" with included DSP:
Both analog and digital inputs are provided. The user interface though can be a bit confusing. Company is working on a quick start to get you through it better. What seems to be input selector button, is actually three different modes of operation. I left it in the "P2" default linear filtering. Input is auto-switching out of the box. You can hook up a USB cable and change the settings including a multi-band EQ to tailor the sound and/or optimize for the room.
A front LED is provided which blinks while searching for a signal. It stays green when input is selected and is playing. It turns red to indicate overload so I would not cover it unless you are sure you never overdrive it.
There is a companion BX8C bass module which extends the bass response down further. That option is not yet available. For that matter, the C8C is not available for 2 to 3 months either. What is shipping is pre-orders from early January.
EDIT: new firmware slightly improves the response: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/ascilab-c8c-v1-1-measurement-update.70219/
Ascilab C8C Speaker Monitor Measurements
Before I show you the frequency response, let me post a graph I rarely publish. It is the computed response from Klippel NFS vs reality:
The dashed red is the target. As you see, it is 1% -- good enough for speakers. In low frequencies, this is trivial to achieve due to simplicity of the woofer response. At higher frequencies however, the tweeter output combines with diffraction sources, port/cabinet resonances, etc., creating a complex soundfield. Klippel NFS can deal with this but requires many more measurement points. By default, I use about 1000 sweeps which is able to keep the high frequency error rate around 1% for most speakers. Here, we see that the same sampling resulted in much lower error rate indicating a very clean output from the speaker, devoid of typical interference sources. The previously measured A6B acted similarly. Very nice early indicator of a good design!
Now to the main dish, the frequency response:
Another pleasant surprise: deeply extended frequency response and on-axis is that almost ruler flat other than a slight bump from 4 to 5 kHz. Company measurements show a lower amount so almost negligible compared to mine. I will test the audibility of this in listening test section. Otherwise, this is impeccable response.
Company suggested a 20 degree toe in/out and indeed, that nicely flattens that region:
The early window shows a bit of high frequency boost but interestingly, as it sums up with the on-axis in predicted in-room response, that goes away:
The cardioid response attempts to continue the directivity of the tweeter down to much lower frequencies and we can see that:
This ostensibly reduces room reflections although the modal response remains below 100 Hz. The BX8C extension should deal with that.
Here is our horizontal directivity:
Vertically the dual woofers bring cancellations causing a very narrow directivity. So stay at tweeter axis:
Response is quite good at 86 dBSPL but slightly strained at 96 dBSPL:
We can dig in more with my new low frequency sweep comparison:
We see dual new mechanisms of distortion, one kicking in around 62 Hz and the other at 40 Hz. I don't see the former much of a limitation but the latter, was definitely audible at 101 dBSPL. Compared to A6B, the limit was much higher and maximum distortion, lower. Again, we will examine all of this in the listening tests.
Finishing off, here are the near-field response, step response and waterfall:
I could not correlate the resonances in CSD with other measurements so don't know what is up there.
Ascilab C8C Speaker Listening Tests
I again had my youngest son with me to listen to these speakers for a second option and another set of eyes. I placed the C8C in my main listening area near my everyday speaker on a solid stand. As with A6B, very little vibration was coupled through the stand and floor -- something I do enjoy to some extent in my standard setup.
First impression was truly "wow!" Clean and deep bass combined with highs that jumped out of the speaker as if to tell their own story. Latter gave every sense of detail you ever wanted. I mean really, this is as much accuracy and pleasure you could ask for in such a compact speaker (half the height of my usual towers). Track after track put a smile on my face. I just don't remember testing speakers that produced such a response.
While I was admiring the highs floating in air, I wonder if some of that was due to the slight boost in 4 to 5 kHz that I saw in the on-axis response. So I dialed in a quick and dirty filter which later on, I programmed into the speaker using Hypex Filter Design software:
With this filter in pace, the highs no longer took front stage over voices and such. Company suggested a milder setting of 4,500 Hz and -1 dB. That did not attenuate the highs that I was hearing. But we are really in "circle of confusion" here. Who knows what is exactly right here. I did play the same clips with my Salon 2 speaker and while no quick AB was possible, I did think my filter was closer to what the Revels produced. Fortunately owners can mess with this all they want.
How about sub-bass response? I used my special track and was again, surprised how loud I could crank it and how deep the response was. Up to quite high levels of playback, the deep bass was produced with the warmth I expect only from truly full range speakers. I am talking volumes that only I can tolerate compared to most people.
Turning up 1 or 2 dBs above this created audible distortion. A bit more and the clipping indicator came on indicating the amp was also running out of power.While professional monitors limit you from turning up the levels too much, the C8C let me keep pushing the sub section well into excursion and amplifier limits. My advice: don't do that.
We are talking a single speaker fully filling my huge space before any of this happened. But if you do need to go there, the BX8C should fill that need.Note that other than this special track I have, I could not get the drivers upset. I could, get the clipping light to come on from time to time but that again, was at very loud levels and distortion not audible.
Bottom line: A+ reproduction with very high, but definite limit to ultra low bass response.
Conclusions
This what happens when you trust your parachute to work and jump out of a plane. Trust the science that creating a very accurate speaker with extreme deep bass response will put a smile on your face. That is what the C8C does. It delivers in every aspect, other than blowing your hair back at 20 Hz. With so many smaller speakers dying off at 40+ Hz, this is revelation. Yes, the cost is high but consider that you have just about everything you need. I just connected my Eversolo streamer to it and was good to go. A minimalistic system with superb performance. The combination with BX8C should be insane as it fills the only hole we have here with highest levels of playback.
It is my pleasure to recommend Ascilab C8C Active DSP speaker.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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