AV123 / GR Research X-Voce Speaker Review

[pollock0424]

@amirm
Did you try putting a wet blanket on it instead? That could've solved the problem once and for all

 

[iamsabit]

Maybe we should crowdsource a crossover upgrade, and instead of the usual tubes, we’ll throw in a nice hotel grade towel

What remaining little regard I had for him completely evaporated when he lambasted the Yamaha NS-1000M crossovers as "pretty cheesy" and "it's bad, it's bad, it's bad".

Built from 1974 (nearly 50 years ago), the NS-1000M crossover is a low DC resistance design, metallised paper, self healing capacitors, multiple paralleled high quality caps and excellent terminals. And ferrite core inductors Danny, not steel core. The spring terminals will grip and hold bare wire between metal much better than his cheesy tube connectors.

And then you've got his 'measurements' above, vs these:

Yamaha-NS1000

Quite different. Both made with a Clio system...I feel sorry for the person who had his NS-1000Ms butchered by that guy.

GR Research Baffle upgrade package!

 

[Hipocrates]

the ugliness you seem reticent to moderate brings dumb people to ASR who I don't wish to interact with.

That's the nature of open forums, and such, ask more work for the moderator team is a big ask, however you can always use the ignore button and clean up what you read a lot.

 

[pollock0424]

Bad Engineers, Pseudoscientists, Charlatans need not be spared. If one claims a product to be High Fidelity then I expect it to be that and nothing less..


You'll be torn apart in Engineering and Science if you write a rubbish paper/research/journal. Only thing that might save you is a name change..Audio world needs that because the concentration of charlatans is abound in this realm. Good for these charlatans as lives don't depend on audio so no strict enforcement of standards...

If your products can't measure up then simply don't publish specs. There are a few big corporations that don't publish specs because for them a customer enjoying music and having a robust product/service is paramount.

Enjoying the gear/music is fun but to me, measurements, tweaking, and engineering is even more fun.

 

[scanspeak]

 

[Rick Sykora]

@amirm
Did you try putting a wet blanket on it instead? That could've solved the problem once and for all

Wet blankets are on reserve for when this speaker catches the dumpster on fire!

 

[Futility]

I'd like to thank the Academy ask the community if any of you would be interested in spending some time tinkering and try to fix this particual speaker?

If you are able and willing, we could send X-Voce for you to do as you please to evaluate and improve it (if at all possible). Perhaps, one of you will find the crux of the problem and help other owners make it sound better. You can keep the speaker - just publish your findings. Any takers?

 

[Hipocrates]

I'd like to thank the Academy ask the community if any of you would be interested in spending some time tinkering and try to fix this particual speaker?

If you are able and willing, we could send X-Voce for you to do as you please to evaluate and improve it (if at all possible). Perhaps, one of you will find the crux of the problem and help other owners make it sound better. You can keep the speaker - just publish your findings. Any takers?

The thing is that the whole design is bad.

./ Too many peaks and deeps, so it will need a new crossover.
./ It needs a new cabinet
./ MMTMM layout is questionable
./ Is a big central speaker. A dedicated HT Room will have a better solution probably behind a screen, so maybe is useful to someone with a big TV and a nice room.

I don't think those drivers are bad (I bet one can make some fun 8Ω MTM floor standers speakers with them) but all the effort to make that design work would be more productive creating/building something new or different, the whole premise of the speaker is flawed, plus is not like it is a nice piece of audio history, is just a ''DIY" on budget kit with a bad design behind it.

 

[Rick Sykora]

I'd like to thank the Academy ask the community if any of you would be interested in spending some time tinkering and try to fix this particular speaker?

If you are able and willing, we could send X-Voce for you to do as you please to evaluate and improve it (if at all possible). Perhaps, one of you will find the crux of the problem and help other owners make it sound better. You can keep the speaker - just publish your findings. Any takers?

Thanks for the offer, but have too many better speakers waiting for my attention and isn't this one really Danny's design to fix?

 

[Sonny1]

Great review. Danny can provide special towels with high thread count or maybe cryo them for a little extra for real audiophiles. I watched the YouTube video and it was very well done and not mean spirited at all. It was objective and fact based. After watching Amir’s video, I watched a few GR videos and there is no comparison. Danny does videos where he pokes fun at other manufacturers (“what were they thinking?”) while he offers “fixes” for their designs. He also offers these fixes for twenty year old designs and expired designs. Not knocking him, we all have to make a living. It’s just not something I’m interested in buying but I wish him luck.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

Not knocking him, we all have to make a living.

True. But it's best that one makes an honest living.

Jim

 

[MaxBuck]

@amirm
Did you try putting a wet blanket on it instead?

Actually, I think that's exactly what Amir did.

 

[milosz]

So Danny designed this speaker 16 years ago - why are you measuring an old, obsolete product? I don't get it.

The concept behind this speaker is flawed - open baffle midrange in a center channel? Open baffle & other dipole speakers need to be out away from the back walls to sound decent, and center channel speakers are usually parked right under the screen... so not away from the wall unless the screen is also at some distance from the wall...

I'd like to see the impedance curve for this thing, in particular the impedance behavior of those woofers & enclosures. Something is not right - the woofers are not in an enclosure that works properly with their T/S characteristics, or maybe those are just really bad woofers.

This thing might work better if you biamped it with a MiniDSP. Even so, the implementation of open baffle mids here is never going to be good in the intended center-channel home theater context.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

So Danny designed this speaker 16 years ago - why are you measuring an old, obsolete product? I don't get it.

The concept behind this speaker is flawed - open baffle midrange in a center channel? Open baffle & other dipole speakers need to be out away from the back walls to sound decent, and center channel speakers are usually parked right under the screen... so not away from the wall unless the screen is also at some distance from the wall...

I'd like to see the impedance curve for this thing, in particular the impedance behavior of those woofers & enclosures. Something is not right - the woofers are not in an enclosure that works properly with their T/S characteristics, or maybe those are just really bad woofers.

This thing might work better if you biamped it with a MiniDSP. Even so, the implementation of open baffle mids here is never going to be good in the intended center-channel home theater context.

Trying to answer your question :

Because it is still being sold today, the vendor claims it is “perfect” and this way consumers can make an informed decision if they want to buy an obviously flawed speaker (which flaws you have also pointed out).

All good enough reasons for me to measure it and publish the results.

 

[pollock0424]

Am I the only one that sees that the directivity was created in his own likeness?

View attachment 328263

This is disrespectful! Please let us keep things civil..

 

[amirm]

So Danny designed this speaker 16 years ago - why are you measuring an old, obsolete product? I don't get it.

This is all addressed in the video and text review. Are you just going by the title without watching or reading the review???

 

[DavidM1]

Thanks Amir for another impressive review. I love seeing the veils lifted.

 

[Rick Sykora]

I come to think of if his crossover upgrade kits also change the response below 200 Hz? And if they do, nobody knows how?

Some of you know, my other mantra has been perspective matters. In that vein, if Danny's equipment was as good as Amir's Klippel, his look at this speaker would be so (1/3 octave smoothing with 25 dB scale)...



As you might expect, the response looks decent. The drop off at 200 Hz might look suspect but am using Amir's export and so is not gated as Danny's would be. With his gating resulting in less resolution, the 200 Hz point could have been higher and so lacked the drop off shown here.

So, from Danny's perspective, this speaker could have measured just fine. With enough expectation bias, could he have ignored the one-note bass? Maybe, but would not say a lot about his hearing in that case. Maybe he listened to it vertically or in a different position? Inquiring minds want to know!

If he does not have one to measure, perhaps the owner can send him this one?

 

[scanspeak]

Regardless of the measurements, I think the one-note bass would be hard to not hear!

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Some of you know, my other mantra has been perspective matters. In that vein, if Danny's equipment was as good as Amir's Klippel, his look at this speaker would be so (1/3 octave smoothing with 25 dB scale)...

View attachment 328345

As you might expect, the response looks decent. The drop off at 200 Hz might look suspect but am using Amir's export and so is not gated as Danny's would be. With his gating resulting in less resolution, the 200 Hz point could have been higher and so lacked the drop off shown here.

So, from Danny's perspective, this speaker could have measured just fine. With enough expectation bias, could he have ignored the one-note bass? Maybe, but would not say a lot about his hearing in that case. Maybe he listened to it vertically or in a different position? Inquiring minds want to know!

If he does not have one to measure, perhaps the owner can send him this one?

True. But I was rather wondering about how his upgrade kits for various speakers would change the response. If he doesn't measure it, it's a complete guesswork as how the response would be below 200 Hz with his kits.
I mean, it's still guesswork above 200 Hz because of his non-critical workflow to unveil driver faults etc..