AsciLab F6B Bookshelf Speaker Review

[J0my]

Why does C have two definitions?

It is a little confusing but I see at the start means it's a ceramic aluminium aluminium woofer and and the end denotes a cardioid enclosure. It could be written to be a bit more clear though.

 

[vinodk69]

Going crazy trying to decide between this speaker & B&W 706 S3(open box) and Revel Concerta2 F35(clearance sale). With current pricing they are within $300-400 of each other. I recently bought open box KEF Concerta Meta at a great price & am loving them. They go down to decent in-room lows for music. Not a big bass head but I like to listen to music in direct mode with no sub from Wiim Ultra & CD player running through DAC. Looking for a speaker that will have decent in-room low end. My living room is combo music/HT room which is 13 x 18 ft. Of course wiill use sub for HT. My setup is Integra DRX-3.4 strapped to OSD audio HTA-5200 amp with KEF Q150's working as center & surrounds. Not sure if anyone has compared F6B with KEF, B&W & Revel.

 

[Luvchampagne]

Going crazy trying to decide between this speaker & B&W 706 S3(open box) and Revel Concerta2 F35(clearance sale). With current pricing they are within $300-400 of each other. I recently bought open box KEF Concerta Meta at a great price & am loving them. They go down to decent in-room lows for music. Not a big bass head but I like to listen to music in direct mode with no sub from Wiim Ultra & CD player running through DAC. Looking for a speaker that will have decent in-room low end. My living room is combo music/HT room which is 13 x 18 ft. Of course wiill use sub for HT. My setup is Integra DRX-3.4 strapped to OSD audio HTA-5200 amp with KEF Q150's working as center & surrounds. Not sure if anyone has compared F6B with KEF, B&W & Revel.

Listened to F6b and Revel f35 and F36.
Even if you're not a bass head, you probably will want a sub with the F6b. You can get away without a sub with the F36. F35 is a maybe sub.
Difference is the clarity and sound stage. F6b really excels at that.
I bought the F36 for my GF and spent some time experimenting with different amps before I took them to her home. Compared them to my Salon2 and my Aerial Acoustics Model 8. Not the same detail. Not the same mid bass punch. Not the same sound stage. But, still very good.
The F6b with subwoofer is impressive. I did not listen side by side with the other speakers. My subjective impression would be F6b with subwoofer > F36

 

[Purité Audio]

Why does C have two definitions?

AsciLAB haven’t actually released a cardioid design yet so not that confusing.
Soon though!
Keith

 

[AsciLab]

Audiophonics will be our designated dealer for the EU region.For detailed information regarding sales in Europe, please contact Audiophonics directly.

 

[Esprit]

Thanks to both of you

 

[Matias]

Audiophonics will be our designated dealer for the EU region.For detailed information regarding sales in Europe, please contact Audiophonics directly.

Excellent choice, much success to both of you!
@Audiophonics

 

[BeeKay]

Audiophonics will be our designated dealer for the EU region.For detailed information regarding sales in Europe, please contact Audiophonics directly.

Perfect!
I wished this would be your choice.

 

[SMen]

Audiophonics will be our designated dealer for the EU region.For detailed information regarding sales in Europe, please contact Audiophonics directly.

Being in France about an hour away that could work if I was tempted ... I will be interested to know the price though.

 

[B.A.T.]

Amazing speaker! My only concern would be the low crossover frequency of the tweeter. However the measurements show no sign of any unwanted distortion or resonance due to this. Among dome tweeters an 500 - 600 Hz resonance frequnecy counts very good, but that means a 1kHz crossover point with a 12 dB/octave 2nd order crossover (like in this case) would be problematic since the tweeters resonance peak is too near to the crossover point. My first guess would be they use a Zobel circuit in the crossover to handle the impadance peak, but please give me some ideas about it.

Edit: Due to the measurements it seems more like a 2nd order crosover on tweeter side, however the Ascilab site says it's a 4th order one, which makes more sense in this case.

 

[AsciLab]

Amazing speaker! My only concern would be the low crossover frequency of the tweeter. However the measurements show no sign of any unwanted distortion or resonance due to this. Among dome tweeters an 500 - 600 Hz resonance frequnecy counts very good, but that means a 1kHz crossover point with a 12 dB/octave 2nd order crossover (like in this case) would be problematic since the tweeters resonance peak is too near to the crossover point. My first guess would be they use a Zobel circuit in the crossover to handle the impadance peak, but please give me some ideas about it.

We use acoustical 4th order slope.
Thanks to our deep waveguide loading, electrical crossover is like 1.8kHz for tweeter.
Almost no stress for tweeter, rather high level of sine sweep like over 100dB can burn tweeter by top frequency heating. But it happens for all tweeters.

 

[B.A.T.]

We use acoustical 4th order slope.
Thanks to our deep waveguide loading, electrical crossover is like 1.8kHz for tweeter.
Almost no stress for tweeter, rather high level of sine sweep like over 100dB can burn tweeter by top frequency heating. But it happens for all tweeters.

Thanks for clarifying, this makes sense. An 1.8 kHz electrical crossover point is a sane solution, and in this cabinet it won't be a limiting factor.

 

[B.A.T.]

I've found various info about the enclosure material. Is it some kind of wood or aluminium?

 

[AsciLab]

I've found various info about the enclosure material. Is it some kind of wood or aluminium?

It is made of MDF with a density of 700 kg/m³ or higher.

 

[Paffi]

Audiophonics will be our designated dealer for the EU region.For detailed information regarding sales in Europe, please contact Audiophonics directly.

Perfect, then trying them at home will be possible. Now I've only to choose the right model.

 

[M.C. Logan]

Well, the wires inside the cabinet are only a few inches long, while cabling from the amplifier to the speaker may be 30 feet or more ... that distance makes a difference. Using 14 ga or 12 ga wire makes sense at these distances, the lower resistance helps the amplifier's damping factor keep the woofer under better control.

For example, 1 foot of 22 ga copper wire has 0.0165 ohms resistance, this might represent the internal wiring.

But if you used the same 22 ga wire to connect to an amplifier 20 feet away, now you are putting 0.33 ohms in series with the speaker. Using 12 ga wire for that same 20 foot length would be 0.033 ohms, TEN times lower resistance. So there is a technical reason to use heavier gauge wire to connect a speaker.

And 12 ga wire is pretty cheap- a 50 ft roll of it from Parts Express is $15.00 so we are not talking about anything fancy or huge in terms of cost or physical size.

If you wanted to go crazy, you could get 4/0 ( 0000 ga ) cable from Amazon at $10.49 per foot. 20 feet of 4/0 cable has a resistance of 0.001 ohms.... 30 times lower resistance than the 12 ga wire, but overkill really- $840 vs $15. (The $10.49 per foot cost is a single conductor, and you need TWO wires between each speaker and the amp, so a total of four 20 foot lengths.) It would certainly look impressive. And there are people out there who pay $15,000 for speaker wire....

Who has speakers 40ft apart? My speaker cables are 5ft each, with 2ft to spare.

 

[Robbo99999]

Who has speakers 40ft apart? My speaker cables are 5ft each, with 2ft to spare.

Routing of wire all around the edges & ceiling so you can't see it in an extremely large room where the speakers aren't near a wall, maybe?

 

[EJ3]

Routing of wire all around the edges & ceiling so you can't see it in an extremely large room where the speakers aren't near a wall, maybe?

I have had 20+ foot speaker runs under the carpet in my mother's living room when I was young. & that was direct to the speakers, not around the room, through the walls.

 

[Robbo99999]

I have had 20+ foot speaker runs under the carpet in my mother's living room when I was young. & that was direct to the speakers, not around the room, through the walls.

I setup a 5.1 AVR system for my parents in their new place when they moved a few years ago and I needed loads of length of wire to run along different beams so along the ceiling to the rears so that the wire couldn't be seen nor tripped over - that's what gave me the idea about that guy needing all length of speaker wire even if his speakers might not be all that far apart.

 

[M.C. Logan]

Routing of wire all around the edges & ceiling so you can't see it in an extremely large room where the speakers aren't near a wall, maybe?

I really cannot imagine that as anything other than an extreme corner case. Most rooms are less than 30ft in maximum dimension, the majority significantly less. Why would you have speakers so far from a wall, you just create dead (valuable) space behind them?