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Canon S-50 Wide Directivity Speaker Review

AudioTodd

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MBL speakers sound great even though they have the same diffraction errors at the high frequencies. The problem is that they are outrageously expensive and inefficient.

Magnepan speakers are dipoles, but as very flat panels, they end up delivering very good sound, although again, they do not measure well. They are spectacular for “singer with a guitar” type music.

In both cases, I think it may be challenging to have them as your only speaker for all of your music if you have eclectic tastes
Hence why I have 2-3 pairs of speakers in each of my two main listening rooms!!!
 

restorer-john

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I sent it in partially to see how the Klippel would deal with very complex sound field and as @StevenEleven has pointed out, this helps us push the limits of the preference score as we have seen a few outlier speakers with this being one of the best outliers.

It's in the name of science.

Here's how the Americans did it in the late 60s/early 70s.

I have a pair of these Empire Royal Grenadier 9000M mk2 in my storeroom, complete in the original cartons with solid marble tops. My Dad's speakers as I was growing up. Omni design with a "diffuser" inside the cabinet base, facing into the massive 15" driver. Sound/air exits all around the speaker. As a little boy, I used to lie on the carpet and feel the air in my face when he'd turn it up a bit.

Klippel would have a ball with these. Amir, not so much. ;) Terminals on the bottom too.

(not my pic)
1591844727408.png


7 sided, non parallel sealed cabinet.
15" downfiring AlNiCo magnet woofer exiting all around the base grille.
4" dome mid
1" dome treble unit (both in a die cast housing)
1" thick Portugese marble tops.

I think they are around 125lbs each packed...
 
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Absolutely beautiful speakers those Empire's. My dad's really good friend who was an ophthalmologist had a pair of those. The first time I ever heard Nat King Cole on a stereo system. :)

Dave.
 

Billy Budapest

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I was sitting on it during the measurement so no distortion was coming there. I had eaten something that may have produced some "gas." So perhaps that was the issue with high frequencies.

I would think gas would produce rumble*, leading to spurious measurements in the low frequencies.



*rumble in the stomach, that is! ;)
 

jhaider

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With the backlog I suppose you have what's the point in measuring this 30-years old weird stuff?

My guess is someone was willing to submit it, and it’s cool.

I hope Amir gets to test a Sausalito speaker at one point if he like this one, warts and all.

Ditto! Also one of the old Mirage OMD-5 mini standmounts. Honestly I think they look better than they sound (especially in “Karelia Birch” veneer) but it would be interesting to see verticals. I’m not shipping mine because (a) they’re in my office, which is currently only accessible for essential client business and (b) I don’t know if I have the original boxes.
 

pavuol

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So if not atom nucleus, at least you can split sound particles at home. Results are analogical, you get some pure energy and some nasty waste :)

Nice mushroom for your messroom! :cool:
 

restorer-john

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My dad's really good friend who was an ophthalmologist had a pair of those.

That's so cool. They were pretty darn expensive back in the day, it was only those medical professionals who could afford them, LOL.

In the US they were $300 each and by the time they made it to Australia, they were AU$700 each. $1400pr was a fortune in 1971 for HiFi speakers.
 

Bruce Morgen

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Here's how the Americans did it in the late 60s/early 70s.

I have a pair of these Empire Royal Grenadier 9000M mk2 in my storeroom, complete in the original cartons with solid marble tops. My Dad's speakers as I was growing up. Omni design with a "diffuser" inside the cabinet base, facing into the massive 15" driver. Sound/air exits all around the speaker. As a little boy, I used to lie on the carpet and feel the air in my face when he'd turn it up a bit.

Klippel would have a ball with these. Amir, not so much. ;) Terminals on the bottom too.

(not my pic)
View attachment 68318

7 sided, non parallel sealed cabinet.
15" downfiring AlNiCo magnet woofer exiting all around the base grille.
4" dome mid
1" dome treble unit (both in a die cast housing)
1" thick Portugese marble tops.

I think they are around 125lbs each packed...

I sold these things back the day. From a listening perspective, they didn't hold up well compared to the better bookshelf models of that era -- AR-3As, KLH 5s, and later JBL L-100s and EV Interface As pretty much blew them out of the water -- but they were known as "wife pleasers" because they looked enough like furniture to mollify the more decor-conscious among 1970s womenfolk. I vaguely remember Tannoy having a much better furniture-like floor-stander built around their "Monitor Gold Dual Concentric" driver -- perhaps one of the many websites devoted to vintage Tannoy products can identify it. A decade or two later, JBL came out with the wonderful HP520, with its stylish glass top -- now that was a stylish floor-stander that really performed.
 

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daftcombo

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Does this review show that wide directivity deserves to be correlated with high-fi?
 

Frank Dernie

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Brutal! I have to say it doesn't sound like -0.1 speaker. The equal weighting of high frequencies with others is a mistake I think in the algorithm. Response is actually pretty good up to 3 kHz or so.
This is a fairly typical "full-range" driver type response. The first speakers I made, 52 years ago (o_O), had full range drivers, they probably had better bass, since they were 8" units (considered small back then but I have seen 8" advertised as a "big woofer" recently)!
I wouldn't expect smooth treble from a wizzer cone type speaker, but they certainly don't sound as bad as these measurements imply, so yes, I think this is a good bit of data to show the preference ratings need another look, as several people have noted.

Also I think even the cheap FFT analysers on phones are near enough to show that most of the "music" is below 1kHz so having a peaky response above 3kHz is innaccurate, undesireable and looks horrid but only screws up the music's overtones changing timbre a bit but leaving most of the "music" fine.
IMHO.
Thanks for the Nina link btw I am a big fan and it started my day nicely!
 
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restorer-john

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later JBL L-100s and EV Interface As pretty much blew them out of the water

The JBL Century L-100s are (and were) a truly horrible speaker. I've owned them and sold them on as quickly as I could. I wish they were good, but they are ear burners. As for the AR-3s, I just don't get the love. They look and sound hideous to me.

1591860981008.png


Dad had a lot of speakers, the Empires stayed in the loungeroom and at one point had crystal decanters with whisky/sherry on top. Ah, the 1970s eh?

If you were selling the Empire's back in the day, you'd probably be aware the first 9000M used a 15lbs ceramic magnet on the woofer and a bespoke Empire manufactured compression tweeter, whereas the 9000M mk2 used a totally different AlNiCo magnet 15" bass driver and a modified (painted) Philips poly dome treble unit. They were quite different, more efficient and an increased power handling.

Sure, one day I'll pull them out and go crazy with active three way classD amps with DSP just for fun. Like a sleeper-car nobody would know. :)
 

Koeitje

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With the backlog I suppose you have what's the point in measuring this 30-years old weird stuff?
I agree that old speakers aren't that interesting, but this is such an unique speaker it is worth looking at. Also don't mind extremely popular older speakers to be tested.
 

bigx5murf

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Wow, never expected to see this here. I have a pair of Canon S-25. They're the same concept, but more conventional. No coaxial, just a traditional 2way, with metal dome firing into a wide waveguide, and a front firing woofer. I bought them locally for $40 just a couple months ago.
20200422_170845.jpg
 

Philberish

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Wow! This is particularly fascinating stuff 'cause as some of you will appreciate, I was part of the team responsible for the S-50 (and all the subsequent Canon Audio speakers). I won't go into any of that story here 'cause I've covered it in the blog posts (https://musicandmiscellany.com) that you've been kind enough to link to. What I will do though is comment on the measurements and some of the discussion they've raised.

First, although I always had my doubts about the use of the the parasitic cone (the S-50 design was mostly frozen when I joined Canon Audio in 1990), I really don't remember the top end response of the S-50 being quite as uneven as the sample measured here. It was never great of course, but I'm pretty sure it was better than this. Similarly, the distortion performance was better – that 1.5kHz - 5kHz mess wasn't present. I wonder what the history of the particular speaker is and whether they've been well looked after? The parasitic cone shown in the photograph has definitely gone a strange colour (it would originally been the same colour as the cone) so I wonder if its mechanical properties have degraded over the years? Sadly, considering my decades working with speakers, I don't really know anything about the ageing of paper diaphragms and how their characteristics change.

The resonance of the dome is an odd one. There's a rubber o-ring at the join between the dome and the baffle, in place both to provide an air-seal and to damp the dome bell resonance, so I wonder if it has perished? It's also possible that the screws holding the dome in place (one on the underside of the baffle, two on the top under the central plug) have come loose - that might well be the case if the o-ring has disintegrated. Replacing the o-ring is, by the way, a pretty simple job.

Along with the HF unevenness, the measurements reveal what was of course the fundamental problems with the Canon "off-centre acoustic mirror" (and the many examples of axially aligned conical mirrors): Firstly, the mirror loads the driver over a narrow mid-band (I forget exactly where it was but I think it was in the high hundred Hertz) where the ear is really sensitive, so even if you can EQ it flat(ish), which was done on the S-50, it still tends to result in a characteristic colouration. Secondly, even though the mirror is actually a surprisingly effective dispersion control device, wherever you listen/measure you're always going to have a degree of direct sound arriving first, and that results in all sorts of audible comb-filtering effects. Despite the fundamental problems though, as described in the subjective assessment, the S-50 had some really interesting qualities. It wasn't really "hi-fi" in the sense that it produced an accurate reproduction of the source material, and that was never really the intention, but it could be a genuinely engaging and entertaining listen. I kind of wish I had a pair.

Lastly, having expressed doubts about the parasitic tweeter in my blog posts, I was contacted not long afterwards by an S-50 owner, who like me, had been wondering about the possibility of fitting a contemporary dual-concentric driver. Since the original KEF dual-concentric patents lapsed a few years ago there's been quite a few similar drivers launched, so the dual-concentric S-50 idea is now rather more feasible than it was in 1990. So, once lockdown is over and things picks up again the plan is to give it a go. I'll report back.

Thanks again for the S-50 measurements and chat! You've made my day.

Phil

PS. So sad that Allen Boothroyd, who did the S-50 industrial design, isn't around to see folks still chatting about it - he left us a couple of months ago. It was a project he was very committed to and very proud of.
 
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BDWoody

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Thanks again for the S-50 measurements and chat! You've made my day.

Welcome! Look forward to many more posts from you.

This is part of why i love this forum...you never know who will be joining the discussion.
 
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