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Carmody S2000 DIY Speaker Kit Review

richard12511

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Alright... I'll be that guy. And, I know this may be taken personally because it is hard to not take questioning of a review personally (I know, I almost always take questions personally and have to remind myself to not do that). So, don't take it personally. We are trained to look at data and make education decisions based on what the data shows us vs our own experiences with measurements and sound. That's what I'm doing here.

That said...

The measured response above 4kHz is about 4dB down. That's not pocket change. I have blasted speakers for having 3dB boosted treble and, while a shelved down response wouldn't be as offensive, there is zero doubt this response would be much too "recessed" for my liking. That would be a no go off the bat for me. Hopefully this could be easily remedied.

The distortion on the bass is extremely high, reaching nearly 5% THD at 96dB @ 1m. I know it's a 4.5-inch speaker so logic says you just wouldn't push it that high... but on the flip side, even a 100Hz crossover would still net you quite high distortion levels. So, as long as you don't plan to listen to it above the mid-80's it would be OK. But that's some very high distortion, all things considered.

I agree, the stated 3kHz crossover doesn't jive at all with the NF measurements. Odd.
The directivity measurements also don't make much sense there. If you look solely at directivity you'd think the woofer/tweeter crossover is higher and/or the woofer slope is shallow. Odd, again.

I am not one to jump on the "I don't get the correlation with the measurements and the Panther"... and I totally get the Panther rating is derived based on your overall satisfaction with the speaker. But this one... this one... has seriously made me go "what?". To get the highest tear (or close to it?) with this response and other measurements just doesn't make sense to me.


And I swear, if any of you go "oh, the score is good", I'm gonna come through the internet after you. :D ;) :D

The score is only .5 less than the Revel F328Be.
 
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amirm

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And I swear, if any of you go "oh, the score is good", I'm gonna come through the internet after you. :D;):D
Well, what is good for the goose, is good for the gander. :D
 

hardisj

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my two cents on the garage heater. Do what I did. Wire in a 240v heater. This is the one I use. It can be 30degF outside and it takes this thing about 20-30 minutes to heat my 3-car garage up to 70degF.

https://king-electric.com/product/model-kbp/

Of course, my garage is insulated. But, that heater is the real deal. Don't mess around with crappy little space heaters. I did and learned the hard way. Get a 240v, wire it in and start sweating in the winter time. :)
 
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amirm

amirm

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I actually have the entire ceiling of the garage wired for infrared panel heating. I figured for working in the garage, I only needed to heat up my body, not the air. Here I am now needing to heat up the air.
 

Rick Sykora

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Interesting. @Rick Sykora, is there an inline tweeter resistor and if so, what is its value?

No schematic was supplied. Pretty sure there is a resistor inline. The two candidates are 5 and 15 ohms. Would have to disassemble to be sure. Did confirm the crossover was built to spec and the pair match well.

While our FR plots are comparable, mine has the tweeter response rising as it approaches 20 kHz. See here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/build-of-carmody-s2000.15600/#post-508876
 

Steve Dallas

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I once owned a tube guitar amplifier company and built the first 600 amps myself in my garage. I used a kerosene heater and lived to tell the tale. I probably lost countless brain cells however, which explains the completely irrational pursuit of great sound in a room shaped like a cube.
 

hardisj

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amirm

amirm

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Amir should A/B them level matched to 85dB :p
Maybe have the Mrs. give is a go too.
:). You did not post the radar plot for F328Be. Can we see them side by side?
 

Helicopter

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Alright... I'll be that guy. And, I know this may be taken personally because it is hard to not take questioning of a review personally (I know, I almost always take questions personally and have to remind myself to not do that). So, don't take it personally. We are trained to look at data and make education decisions based on what the data shows us vs our own experiences with measurements and sound. That's what I'm doing here.

That said...

The measured response above 4kHz is about 4dB down. That's not pocket change. I have blasted speakers for having 3dB boosted treble and, while a shelved down response wouldn't be as offensive, there is zero doubt this response would be much too "recessed" for my liking. That would be a no go off the bat for me. Hopefully this could be easily remedied.

The distortion on the bass is extremely high, reaching nearly 5% THD at 96dB @ 1m at 200Hz. I know it's a 4.5-inch speaker so logic says you just wouldn't push it that high... but on the flip side, even a 100Hz crossover would still net you quite high distortion levels. So, as long as you don't plan to listen to it above the mid-80's it would be OK. But that's some very high distortion, all things considered.

I agree, the stated 3kHz crossover doesn't jive at all with the NF measurements. Odd.
The directivity measurements also don't make much sense there. If you look solely at directivity you'd think the woofer/tweeter crossover is higher and/or the woofer slope is shallow. Odd, again.

I am not one to jump on the "I don't get the correlation with the measurements and the Panther"... and I totally get the Panther rating is derived based on your overall satisfaction with the speaker. But this one... this one... literally made me go "what?". To get the highest tier (or close to it?) with this response and other measurements just doesn't make sense to me.


And I swear, if any of you go "oh, the score is good", I'm gonna come through the internet after you. :D ;) :D
3db up is way worse than 4db down. Look at predicted in room response and maybe we are not giving emough credit for the off axis response.

Also, I say 4db down is pocket change on a speaker that costs less than 300 dollars.

You should see what my 1970s Klipsch Heresys do with pink noise in my room.
 

Rick Sykora

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@amirm could not easily remove the crossover, but using meter, confirmed the 5 ohm resistor is inline with tweeter. :cool:
 

hardisj

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3db up is way worse than 4db down. Look at predicted in room response and maybe we are not giving emough credit for the off axis response.

Also, I say 4db down is pocket change on a speaker that costs less than 300 dollars.

You should see what my 1970s Klipsch Heresys do with pink noise in my room.

I knew that might get flipped on me. My point was more in the vein that a shelf either way isn't ideal. And I could make the case that I would prefer to have a high shelf over a low shelf because I can attenuate more easily than add output (often, adding that much via DSP would result in "hiss" if the SNR of the components isn't ideal, and one could argue that at the cost of these speakers, one might not have a very clean signal path).

As for the PIR, the regression line Amir drew is noted at 10dB from 200Hz to 20kHz. Don't let that throw you off. The typical -1dB/octave line would be about 6.5dB from 200Hz to 20kHz. This is important. To put it in to context, even with the PIR taken in to account, the HF response would still be about 4dB too low with the typical -1dB/octave target slope.
 

Rick Sykora

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Compare the impedance curves. Eyeballing it, it looks like there *might* be a slight difference between the 5-10kHz region (maybe 1 Ohm). But, maybe that's just my eyes. They could be the same.

View attachment 93209


index.php

No, prob not your eyes, there are 2 likely explanations. One is scaling differences, the other is the output level in measuring the impedance. Recall Amir drives the speaker at a higher level than I do. The key parts are that the frequency peaks and valleys are aligned.

Cannot expect the impedance values to match unless drive level is the same (and we know that they are not) :).
 

hardisj

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No, prob not your eyes, there are 2 likely explanations. One is scaling differences, the other is the output level in measuring the impedance. Recall Amir drives the speaker at a higher level than I do. The key parts are that the frequency peaks and valleys are aligned.

Cannot expect the impedance values to match unless drive level is the same (and we know that they are not) :).

That's not true. At least, not for the HF.

Here is an example of two extremes. One with 0.10vRMS vs 2.83vRMS. I do this with all my tests so you can look through others.

Revel%20F226Be_Impedance_0.1v_&_2.83v.png




and here is a $90/pair bookshelf speaker to prove that it's not just good QC by Revel:

Neumi%20BS5_Impedance_0.1v_&_2.83v.png
 

andreasmaaan

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Surely these differences are within measurement error? I see at most a 0.4 Ohm difference above 5kHz.
 

Rick Sykora

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Surely these differences are within measurement error? I see at most a 0.4 Ohm difference above 5kHz.

Agree, am sure Amir’s measurements are better than mine. Have improved equipment on my bench, but these were measured long before I got my new setup.

If one thing I learned in 30 years of industry, unless you are duplicating with same equipment with same conditions, you may not see the same results. :cool:
 
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hardisj

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Two things:
An impedance sweep is easy. Especially of a speaker. There shouldn’t be a noticeable difference between setups. If there is, one of setups is wrong and is not a reliable source of data. And as I have shown, drive level is not a factor in HF.

I questioned the impedance as a way to see if that might explain the HF drop. I didn’t say it was there. I just noted that it would be an easy way to explain the HF difference IF the two showed a marked difference (which I did not think they did).

That’s all I wanted to convey. Peace, love and Mickey Mouse! :)
 
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