AV123 / GR Research X-Voce Speaker Review

[Sokel]

Can someone please tell how to simulate a towel in VirtuixCAD2?

 

[Multicore]

Make sure you don't let @amirm get a scent of your design. He may want to Klippel it...

After this experience? I wouldn't be surprised if he gave up reviewing speakers altogether and wouldn't blame him.

 

[DanTheMan]

How Danny ended up with a group of rabid, pitchfork bearing parishioners is beyond me. Even when I was a total newb I could see right through this guy. My first interaction with him was after a mod I made of a Behringer speaker. My nearly free and easy to accomplish cabinet mods clearly improved the response in a measurable fashion, but he was trying to say they were useless and the real way to improve that speaker was to spend a lot of money on crossover parts and rounding over the woofer cutout. I suggested it was better to do the cheap and easy thing that would measurably improve the speakers first before doing things that had no evidence to support their efficacy and cost a lot of money. Seconds later the pitchforks and torches swarmed me. The mob was angry. It was easy to politely defend my position, but the hostility snowballed and they vanquished me. I wonder if they did the same to the guy who had problems with this terrible design? How did he get silenced? you know full well that Danny remembered that “con“versation.

 

[Jasperous]

View attachment 326551

The face!! It's priceless!!

 

[GPx86]

A product made 16 years ago by a company that is now defunct, for a product nobody is going to own and cannot buy? What is the point? It's pretty obvious you're just trying to demean GR Research. I'll admit I am skeptical of his operation, but this "review" post reads like a clearly veiled attack at GR Research and AV123.

 

[Futility]

A product made 16 years ago by a company that is now defunct, for a product nobody is going to own and cannot buy? What is the point? It's pretty obvious you're just trying to demean GR Research. I'll admit I am skeptical of his operation, but this "review" post reads like a clearly veiled attack at GR Research and AV123.

To this day X-Voce remains the ONLY center channel speaker offerred for sale by GR Research. Exact same design. People still own, use and buy it.

How is this review an "attack" when the speaker measures bad and clearly has issues? Even more so - this test made us look at similar problems with X-Static speakers.
I would love Danny to do his own assessment and measurements and (if possible) a fix of this particular specimen. It can be easily arranged. He can even do an upgrade video.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

A product made 16 years ago by a company that is now defunct, for a product nobody is going to own and cannot buy? What is the point? It's pretty obvious you're just trying to demean GR Research. I'll admit I am skeptical of his operation, but this "review" post reads like a clearly veiled attack at GR Research and AV123.

Sometimes people send old stuff to Amir. There are many examples of old "vintage" components in the review index. Danny sticks to his guns and criticizes speaker manufacturers with pretty regular intervals on YouTube for using bad parts and bad designs.
Danny is a manufacturer himself.
Why shouldn't he be criticized on the same turf and terms as well?

 

[dtaylo1066]

Over the years I have been reading ASR I have come to the conclusion Amir is about as objective as one can be when reviewing products. The numbers speak to his criticism and vice versa. If a company's products continually don't measure up to ASR standards and its members' philosophy on audio gear, then that's kind of too bad for the manufacturer.

There are plenty of more subjective forums or review sites where GR-Research products have or might get good reviews. I have personally heard some of Danny's speakers at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest and I thought some sounded pretty good. But I cannot deny the specs.

And there has been plenty of old audio equipment tested at ASR, which I find kind of fun to read about and compare to today's products.

Some used to say Amir had it in for Schiit Audio based on a series of thumbs down reviews. In the past two years he has applauded a number of Schiit products, and they seem either to offer their products and welcome -- or at least tolerate -- his reviews. Recent Schiit reviews seem to fall into the ASR review camp of good or excellent product and made in America for a highly competitive price.

I am not a 100% objectivist when it comes to audio, but I cannot deny the numbers and specs published by Amir, and take them into account when thinking of buying a product.

 

[Geert]

A product made 16 years ago by a company that is now defunct, for a product nobody is going to own and cannot buy?

1. It's designed by Danny for that company
2. It's effectively for sale: https://gr-research.com/product/x-voce-kit/

 

[pseudoid]

A product made 16 years ago by a company that is now defunct, for a product nobody is going to own and cannot buy? What is the point? It's pretty obvious you're just trying to demean GR Research. I'll admit I am skeptical of his operation, but this "review" post reads like a clearly veiled attack at GR Research and AV123.

I feel for you, if you have not found any merit to this otherwise great and educational post and what follows.

Thank you @Rick Sykora, for his explanation(s).

 

[CleanSound]

How Danny ended up with a group of rabid, pitchfork bearing parishioners is beyond me. Even when I was a total newb I could see right through this guy. My first interaction with him was after a mod I made of a Behringer speaker. My nearly free and easy to accomplish cabinet mods clearly improved the response in a measurable fashion, but he was trying to say they were useless and the real way to improve that speaker was to spend a lot of money on crossover parts and rounding over the woofer cutout. I suggested it was better to do the cheap and easy thing that would measurably improve the speakers first before doing things that had no evidence to support their efficacy and cost a lot of money. Seconds later the pitchforks and torches swarmed me. The mob was angry. It was easy to politely defend my position, but the hostility snowballed and they vanquished me. I wonder if they did the same to the guy who had problems with this terrible design? How did he get silenced? you know full well that Danny remembered that “con“versation.

If you go to Danny's videos and post any comments that challenges him, reference any real science or ask him to defend his products against damning measurements, he has a drone of army who will delete any negative comments.

I actually ask him to comment on this speaker because I think he owes it to his would be customers and current customers, as soon as I posted that comment, it was deleted. So tried posting "Great work Danny!" and that comment did not get deleted, so I tried again to ask him to comment on this review, he (or his army of drones) deleted that comment again and my "Great work Danny!"" was still there.

You know what they call that in autocratic governments? Propaganda, media control and censorship, that's how you keep a group of people ignorant and under control.

 

[Bob101]

Did it have tube connectors ?
If not that could explain the measurements.

Yup... Imagine the sound with banana plugs!

 

[Penelinfi]

Yup... Imagine the sound with banana plugs!

Would have been even more curved, right?

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Why would someone not measure below 200hz? It's not like it costs more money to measure a broader scope...

Due to room modes measuring below ca 200Hz is not easy. Ideally you use a Klippel or an anechoic chamber which is indeed expensive. Or you do it outside but need to be careful which is elaborate and only possible when dry outside.

But Danny could have done it anyway. Even if he wouldn’t get the precision he would have gotten the general idea that sth is fundamentally wrong. Yet he choose not so and relied on pseudo science and snake oil babble. Speaks to his competence and motivation.

 

[Bob101]

Or designing explosive ordnance.

Air Traffic Control.

 

[Matt_Holland]

Why would someone not measure below 200hz? It's not like it costs more money to measure a broader scope...

Knowing how Clio works, the measurements Danny makes will have captured enough data in the impulse response to give a response down to 20Hz. As we know he gates the impulse response so the MLS gives frequency data down to around 200Hz so that he can show a pseudo anechoic frequency response. The files saved are the full impulse and can be gated however you like to generate the frequency response.

For his upgrade videos it seems fair to focus on the gated frequency response as this is the area of concern, I.e. the crossover regions. Although occasionally he will modify a port to minimise a resonance so it would be nice to see some frequency response measurements with the mic placed very close, just to back up any improvements shown in the impedance curve.

For his own designs though I’m not sure why Danny doesn’t come up with at least a reasonably repeatable and consistent method for measuring the LF drivers close up (say ~1cm) and then splicing that response with pseudo anechoic response. It’s old school and flawed but at least you can qualify your measurements as such and give people some idea of what’s going on below 200Hz.

Or even just find the least bad position in his premises to measure the speaker where he accepts a certain amount of room reflection into the low frequencies by using a longer time duration for the gate. Again, you qualify your measurements as such and at least if all your measurements are made under the exact same conditions then relative comparisons can be made between different speakers even if the absolute accuracy is low compared to true anechoic or NFS.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Taking it further. One wouldn’t even need to measure to perceive that huge deviation from a flat response. Not even do a blind test. Especially someone who claims how great his hearing is.

 

[rogu3]

To me Danny comes across as Ray Samuels of good old Head-Fi days

Oh man. Having been there for that era of Head-fi and having owned an RS Audio product (thankfully not one of the $$$$ ones), this gave me a good laugh.

 

[lc6]

Knowing how Clio works, the measurements Danny makes will have captured enough data in the impulse response to give a response down to 20Hz. As we know he gates the impulse response so the MLS gives frequency data down to around 200Hz so that he can show a pseudo anechoic frequency response. The files saved are the full impulse and can be gated however you like to generate the frequency response.

For his upgrade videos it seems fair to focus on the gated frequency response as this is the area of concern, I.e. the crossover regions. Although occasionally he will modify a port to minimise a resonance so it would be nice to see some frequency response measurements with the mic placed very close, just to back up any improvements shown in the impedance curve.

For his own designs though I’m not sure why Danny doesn’t come up with at least a reasonably repeatable and consistent method for measuring the LF drivers close up (say ~1cm) and then splicing that response with pseudo anechoic response. It’s old school and flawed but at least you can qualify your measurements as such and give people some idea of what’s going on below 200Hz.

Or even just find the least bad position in his premises to measure the speaker where he accepts a certain amount of room reflection into the low frequencies by using a longer time duration for the gate. Again, you qualify your measurements as such and at least if all your measurements are made under the exact same conditions then relative comparisons can be made between different speakers even if the absolute accuracy is low compared to true anechoic or NFS.

Some low-frequency speaker measurements are made out in the open air, i.e. away from any walls objects that could acoustically interfere. For example, this sub measurement by AH. Is such a ground-plane evaluation a valid approach?

 

[Matt_Holland]

Some low-frequency speaker measurements are made out in the open air, i.e. away from any walls objects that could acoustically interfere. For example, this sub measurement by AH. Is such a ground-plane evaluation a valid approach?

Yes I think so for low bass, although I think it’s preferable to have the speaker in free space to measure the baffle step accurately. The ground reflection will be far too short in time to get accurate mid and high frequencies. A platform about 3m high is probably far enough away from a boundary (the ground) to get some accurate data down to 50-60Hz.

I must admit I haven’t worked on loudspeaker design and measurements for about 10 years so I wouldn’t take my advice as gospel.