CSS Criton 1TD-X Kit Speaker Review

[badspeakerdesigner]

If your source is a computer EQ is free, if not then it costs money.

I'd argue if you're looking for an upgrade that fits your placement without EQ, you'll want something with a similar roll off to the 3020i, but also something with better dispersion. The real shortcomings of the 3020i and Criton are that they are typical dispersion mismatched speakers, common problem of trying to run 6" woofers to a 1" dome tweeter. Basically anything with a waveguide on the tweeter will alleviate the problem.

 

[VladimirJ]

If your source is a computer EQ is free, if not then it costs money.

I'd argue if you're looking for an upgrade that fits your placement without EQ, you'll want something with a similar roll off to the 3020i, but also something with better dispersion. The real shortcomings of the 3020i and Criton are that they are typical dispersion mismatched speakers, common problem of trying to run 6" woofers to a 1" dome tweeter. Basically anything with a waveguide on the tweeter will alleviate the problem.

Unfortunately, it's not a computer, but a streamer, so the eq would need to be a hardware one.
I will try out some speaker solutions, as much as it will be possible, but I do hope I will be able to change my room situation a bit as well.
Thank you!

 

[droid2000]

Unfortunately, it's not a computer, but a streamer, so the eq would need to be a hardware one.
I will try out some speaker solutions, as much as it will be possible, but I do hope I will be able to change my room situation a bit as well.
Thank you!

If you can't move the speakers away from the front wall, then plug the speaker ports with socks to see if that helps.

DSP is the way to go though if you can swing it. I'm using a cheap Mac Mini for DSP. Others have had success with standalone hardware units like this https://www.minidsp.com/products/minidsp-in-a-box/minidsp-2x4-hd

 

[maty]

What would be regarded as a "large" room?
At least, large enough for the 1TD-Xs?

Leaving aside the larger or smaller size of the room for a speaker that drops so much in frequency, what is evident is that it needs separation from the rear and side walls.

The lower in frequency a speaker is, the easier it is to excite nodes in the room.

Once you have the speaker or have built it, it is best to try plugging the rear bass-reflex if you can not get it far enough away from the walls.

 

[VladimirJ]

Leaving aside the larger or smaller size of the room for a speaker that drops so much in frequency, what is evident is that it needs separation from the rear and side walls.

The lower in frequency a speaker is, the easier it is to excite nodes in the room.

Once you have the speaker or have built it, it is best to try plugging the rear bass-reflex if you can not get it far enough away from the walls.

Thanks, I will do that once I get them back from a loan.
I was asking about the room size since the other speakers I'm interested in are the Whatfedale Linton 85s and I'm affraid they might be an overkill in my room.

 

[maty]

- QA 3020i speakers (which I wanted to upgrade)
My room is 5 x 3,5 x 2,7 meters, with an opening towards the kitchen (on the right hand side, from my seating position).

Maybe, if you live in NA: Ascend Acoustics Sierra-2EX V2 https://ascendacoustics.com/products/sierra-2ex-v2-pair?variant=40390917750838

-> You need watts

Old model (V1, crossover not optimized)

 

[MabeHall]

Not sure exactly why u are hearing this. I have the 2td-x and don't feel this way. I do have some acostic treatment in my room.

I told my wife about ur comment and she agreed with me. There is no boomyness at all. My speakers are set up a good 3 1/2 feet from the wall.

 

[VladimirJ]

I told my wife about ur comment and she agreed with me. There is no boomyness at all. My speakers are set up a good 3 1/2 feet from the wall.

Unfortunately, that is a no-go in my listening room. I simply don't have the space needed for that.
On the other hand, I found them bass-heavy in my other listening room, where they were removed approx. 2 feet from the back wall and at approx. 5 feet from side walls.

 

[Paweł L]

Bass heavy, no a problem. Just lower the value of the large inductor and it will bring the mids up a bit. Can't remember what was the original value, but I think lowered it by 0.5mH. Also increasing the length of the port by 2-3cm will tune the port lower with less upper/mid bass energy. Might work better for some rooms. Then closing the port with foam will turn the design into aperodic closed box, where the cut off frequency is higher but the slope is shallower.

 

[Paweł L]

What would be regarded as a "large" room?
At least, large enough for the 1TD-Xs?

Stop looking at this graph as it doesn't show the baffle step diffraction effect. This measurement is taken a few cm from the membrane of the particular driver and has nothing to do with anechoic measurement at a distance larger than 0.5m. I bet that measured at 1-2m the speaker is almost flat from 100 to 1kHz. Most likely the boominess comes from the way your speakers are set up, listening position and room itself.

 

[Ricardojoa]

Just plug the ports and see how it sounds

 

[D!sco]

Too much bass for you? Just get used to an adequate amount of bass already! Or just EQ! How hard is that?

 

[VladimirJ]

Too much bass for you? Just get used to an adequate amount of bass already! Or just EQ! How hard is that?

No need to be snapy... I didn't mean to offend anyone.

 

[VladimirJ]

Just plug the ports and see how it sounds

Plugged the ports. Sounds better to me. Thanks!

 

[paulgyro]

For some reason this review does not show up within the review index. Might be something good to fix so that it's easily findable.

 

[carlmart]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the CSS Criton 1TD-X Kit speaker. I requested a sample from the company and shipped a pair to me already built in nice veneer:
View attachment 263965
I believe the kit costs US $770 including an MDF flatpack. Typical of DIY kits, you get the value add of very heavy construction likely due to (3/4?) thick MDF panels. I would say it is nearly twice as dense/heavy as any speaker costing near its its KIT price. Not much to see on the back side:
View attachment 263966

Company was a delight to work with, being highly responsive and quite patient as I got to test these speakers.

Measurements you are about to see are performed by Klippel Near-field scanner. Frequency response measurements are "anechoic." Reference axis is the tweeter center.

CSS Criton 1TD-X Measurements
Here is our usual "spinorama" CEA-2034 frequency response graphs:
View attachment 263967

The on-axis as noted is generally flat and good, sans a few dB here or there. What stands out is the directivity error around crossover point where the woofer has gotten directional but the tweeter is not. This is due to lack of large waveguide around the tweeter to match the directivities of the two drivers.

Sensitivity is less than specifications and I had to push the speaker by 4 to 5 dB to get my usual reference measurement level. Be sure to have good bit of amplification power to drive these speakers.

Near-field response shows a resonance from the port/cabinet and and another from the woofer outside of its range:
View attachment 263969

Early window reflections have a bit of deviation due to the directivity error:
View attachment 263971

But interestingly enough sum up well with on-axis to produce a good predicted in-room frequency response:
View attachment 263972

As predicted from the spin, there is directivity error:
View attachment 263973
View attachment 263974

The wider response can be a benefit or not, depending on your room situation. Vertical response is typical for a 2-way speaker so stay at tweeter axis relative to your ear height:
View attachment 263975

Distortion performance was very good at 86 dBSPL and 96 dBSPL with latter above low bass:
View attachment 263976

View attachment 263977

Impedance is above average which makes it an easier load for an amplifier (requires less current):
View attachment 263981

Finally here are CSD/Waterfall and step responses:

View attachment 263978

View attachment 263979

CSS Criton 1TD-X Kit Listening Tests and Equalization
Note: my allergies are acting up and my ears are rather plugged up!

First impression was fairly positive with my female vocal tracks. After a bit though, I found the sound a bit bright so applied different EQ filters and landed on these:
View attachment 263982

Fully correcting to on-axis response in upper bass/mid-range was challenging as it improved things on some tracks, but made others boomy. So I had to back off as you see. Bass response was very good but if you cranked it up too much, it would gradually get distorted. I played with a high pass filter but at the end, I didn't like it. Proper correction in bass region requires room measurement to make sure one knows the interaction with the room modes. Other that, the sound was excellent especially on vocals, instrumental and techno music.

I was impressed by the dynamics of the speaker. That woofer has fair amount of excursion compared to what we typically see in speakers in this size. Yes, as noted, it tries to play too low of a frequency and can get distorted. Other than that though, this speaker can play loud, really loud! Despite only using one speaker, I was able to fill a very large space with very enjoyable sound.

Note that I was driving the speaker with 400+ watts of power so as noted, you need to give it fair amount of juice (if you want to listen loud).

Conclusions
The CSS Criton 1TD-X design has benefited from some good design choices such as a woofer with impressive power delivery with good on-axis and predicted-in-room frequency response. There are minor imperfections here and there but at higher level, it achieves very good fidelity. Subjective experience with a bit of filtering was very good. As a kit, it will give you the satisfaction of building something you can take pride in.

Let me also repeat the willingness of the company to have its speaker subjected to our rigorous testing where others run away fast. Or don't even respond. These things score big points in my book.

I am going to put the CSS Criton 1TD-X Kit speaker to my recommended list.

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Is there any place to find your recommended list for everything you have tested, or a list of everything you have tested to go find the recommendations?