I‘ve been very intrigued by Erin’s reviews of the Arendal 1961 Bookshelf and 1961 Tower.
But since I like to have a little bit more headroom (dedicated and acoustically treated HT room, listening position about 3m/10ft away), my focus is on the 1723 Monitor S.
On almost every forum on the internet those Arendal speakers are praised for their dynamics and high output capabilities.
But I have strong doubts…
Afaik, the 1723 Monitor S is just like the 1723 Bookshelf S, but with a second mid-woofer.
Is it possible to infer from the distortion results of the Bookshelf S to those of the Monitor S (with the second mid-woofer)? Something like „distortion graphs are likely to be 5dB lower below the crossover region“ or so…?
I only found one measurement of the 1723 Monitor S: https://arendalsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Arendal-MonitorS-AR413.pdf.
Here, on the third page, it seems that 2nd and 3rd harmonics are <= -50dB for 100Hz+ @90dB, but I doubt it was using Klippel and hence I’m afraid the results might be less reliable.
But since I like to have a little bit more headroom (dedicated and acoustically treated HT room, listening position about 3m/10ft away), my focus is on the 1723 Monitor S.
On almost every forum on the internet those Arendal speakers are praised for their dynamics and high output capabilities.
But I have strong doubts…
- When looking @hardisj‘s review of the 1723 Bookshelf S (see review), you can see that distortion rises quite early at 96dB@1m (especially in the range of 200-1000 Hz, up to -35dB). And this is only @1m, in my listening postion ~3m away, 96dB is no more than ~87dB, far less than reference level. And most likely, as SPL increases, distortion will increase further.
- Moreover, since the 1723S speakers are THX Ultra certified, one might assume they‘re capable of achieving 105dB reference level @ 12ft. However, with a measured (anechoic) sensitivity of only 81.6dB @ 2.83V/1m for the 1723 Bookshelf S and a recommended amplification of up to 250W by the manufacturer, you hardly achieve reference level even at 1m (with 250W and the measured sensitivity, I calculated max SPL and it would only amount to 102.58dB@1m !).
Afaik, the 1723 Monitor S is just like the 1723 Bookshelf S, but with a second mid-woofer.
Is it possible to infer from the distortion results of the Bookshelf S to those of the Monitor S (with the second mid-woofer)? Something like „distortion graphs are likely to be 5dB lower below the crossover region“ or so…?
I only found one measurement of the 1723 Monitor S: https://arendalsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Arendal-MonitorS-AR413.pdf.
Here, on the third page, it seems that 2nd and 3rd harmonics are <= -50dB for 100Hz+ @90dB, but I doubt it was using Klippel and hence I’m afraid the results might be less reliable.
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