totti1965
Active Member
The brief but exciting listening experience with the Wilson Sasha V on Saturday (Deutsche HiFi Tage 2023 in Darmstadt, Germany) got me thinking.
Why does it sound so pure in tone?
Then I thought about the one-hour german podcast
kHz & Bitgeflüster Episode #12: The perfect loudspeaker - And why it doesn't exist - with Karl-Heinz Fink
hifi.de
or the half hour YouTube video with Karl Heinz Fink; I listened to the podcast completely at that time.....
Important: From 17.35 min on it gets really interesting in the video below (completely in german)!
Karl-Heinz Fink: the speaker whisperer | development in the smallest detail
youtube.com
Fink outed himself as a huge fan of Wilson Audio - because of the pricelessly thick cabinet walls and the extreme resonance poverty of the expensive cast stone cabinets.
Then there was something with Epos?
Fink bought the company in 2020.
Torsten Roscher (my Guru in the 1980 ies) loved the Epos from Robin Marshall (England) when I asked him in 1987 or so if there were any speakers that were in Frankfurt that he liked.
He named Beveridge (I thought they were stupid in the demo) and Epos.
Fink resurrected the ES 14 from Epos in 2022 as the ES 14 N.
Then look at the unbiased database www.Spinorama.org
Damn: Its new Epos ES 14 N is the best passive speaker in the entire database (over 300 passive speakers - you have to choose: Measuring Quality high!).
Anyway, if you click that even a little equalizing is allowed.
Even without equalizing still top ten of the passive speakers.
Why is it so good?
1.
The radiation into the room is wonderfully even. So it can be corrected perfectly. So with Fink's boxes, the room also has a harmonic frequency response. Everything seems more natural. Some frequencies are not preferred at certain radiation angles - which ruins the localization with many loudspeakers.
Studio monitors are often only clean on axis. They need an extremely damped room to sound really good. Gregor and I heard this among other things in the room acoustics lecture.
Fink's Epos ES 14 beat even the Neumann KH 150 (also with some frequency response correction) In the living room, the Epos are winners!
2.
The cabinet walls are thick and the baffle is 4.5 cm (1.75 inches) thick.
Wilson sends its regards here as well!
3.
The speaker is slanted a few degrees so that the acoustic centers of the midrange are at least a few cm in front of those of the woofer and everything reaches the listener at the same time.
Also Wilson philosophy.
4.
The magnet systems of the drivers are made in such a way that distortion is minimized via shorting rings.
Also, crazy mix of materials for the magnets and most elaborate design of the drive.
Again, Wilson: Gregor, a friend of mine, did note that the drivers are off-the-shelf externally (Top Scan Speak series). In fact, Wilson emphasizes modifications and their own ideas in the drive.
5.
Impedance:
Michael, a recent Speaker guru from the Frankfurt area (the one with the anti-fascist past in his family history) is right:
Impedance is everything. Even in the dynamic range!
Even during the oscillation process the impedance of a chassis changes constantly.
No amplifier can compensate for this.....
Brings impurities....
That's why the shape of the magnet system has to be tweaked,
until the impedance is exactly the same for every membrane position of the chassis.
Then the magnet(s) may look a bit messy and oddly shaped, but the music will not.
6.
Distortions:
The distortions of the Epos ES 14 N are, due to the massiveness of the speaker and the great magnet systems, the lowest I have ever seen in a measurement write-up in my life - and I have been reading stereoplay for 40 years! All distortions at 87 dB below 0.4% - and even in the bass down to 60 Hz. (Klippel System used!) Mostly even below 0.1 %. The Geithain ME 901 is perhaps similarly clean and comes down an octave in the bass - but otherwise I can't think of such a clean speaker. Even the best Neumann studio monitors, at least the record holders from Amir, have about twice as much distortion between 60 and 120 Hz!
So today watched a few more youtube videos on the Epos ES 14 N (with in-ear monitors).
The Epos at the fair in Fankfurt: Count Basie plays "Blues for the Barbecue" - definitely listen to it with headphones!
FINK Team and the new Epos ES14N designed by Karl-Heinz Fink // HighEnd 2022 Munich
youtube.com
Mannnnnnnn, you notice even with such a fucking YouTube video how fucking natural and musical and pure this thing sounds!!!!
On his private blog the master personally explains why the Epos sounds so good (the impedance thing was totally new to me!), why it's hard to build speakers with 6 dB crossovers, how you can prove by measurements that a tilted baffle leads to more time-correct radiation etc. etc. etc.
Technical information at Fink: Someone who REALLY knows and likes to share his knowledge.
Quite similar to the sound engeneer I spoke with at saturday (Dominique Klatte from Jazz-on-Vinyl)
I am sure that the Epos speakers can bring a similar purity in sound as the Wilson......
A typical needle in a haystack!
Unfortunately or God-be-thanked (trade fair participations ruin prices, which the end consumer must then pick up again!) Epos and Fink was not at the fair the day before yesterday
Because of all of that - the Epos ES 14 N now is definitely on my shortlist!
Best regards,
thw
Why does it sound so pure in tone?
Then I thought about the one-hour german podcast
kHz & Bitgeflüster Episode #12: The perfect loudspeaker - And why it doesn't exist - with Karl-Heinz Fink
hifi.de
or the half hour YouTube video with Karl Heinz Fink; I listened to the podcast completely at that time.....
Important: From 17.35 min on it gets really interesting in the video below (completely in german)!
Karl-Heinz Fink: the speaker whisperer | development in the smallest detail
youtube.com
Fink outed himself as a huge fan of Wilson Audio - because of the pricelessly thick cabinet walls and the extreme resonance poverty of the expensive cast stone cabinets.
Then there was something with Epos?
Fink bought the company in 2020.
Torsten Roscher (my Guru in the 1980 ies) loved the Epos from Robin Marshall (England) when I asked him in 1987 or so if there were any speakers that were in Frankfurt that he liked.
He named Beveridge (I thought they were stupid in the demo) and Epos.
Fink resurrected the ES 14 from Epos in 2022 as the ES 14 N.
Then look at the unbiased database www.Spinorama.org
Damn: Its new Epos ES 14 N is the best passive speaker in the entire database (over 300 passive speakers - you have to choose: Measuring Quality high!).
Anyway, if you click that even a little equalizing is allowed.
Even without equalizing still top ten of the passive speakers.
Why is it so good?
1.
The radiation into the room is wonderfully even. So it can be corrected perfectly. So with Fink's boxes, the room also has a harmonic frequency response. Everything seems more natural. Some frequencies are not preferred at certain radiation angles - which ruins the localization with many loudspeakers.
Studio monitors are often only clean on axis. They need an extremely damped room to sound really good. Gregor and I heard this among other things in the room acoustics lecture.
Fink's Epos ES 14 beat even the Neumann KH 150 (also with some frequency response correction) In the living room, the Epos are winners!
2.
The cabinet walls are thick and the baffle is 4.5 cm (1.75 inches) thick.
Wilson sends its regards here as well!
3.
The speaker is slanted a few degrees so that the acoustic centers of the midrange are at least a few cm in front of those of the woofer and everything reaches the listener at the same time.
Also Wilson philosophy.
4.
The magnet systems of the drivers are made in such a way that distortion is minimized via shorting rings.
Also, crazy mix of materials for the magnets and most elaborate design of the drive.
Again, Wilson: Gregor, a friend of mine, did note that the drivers are off-the-shelf externally (Top Scan Speak series). In fact, Wilson emphasizes modifications and their own ideas in the drive.
5.
Impedance:
Michael, a recent Speaker guru from the Frankfurt area (the one with the anti-fascist past in his family history) is right:
Impedance is everything. Even in the dynamic range!
Even during the oscillation process the impedance of a chassis changes constantly.
No amplifier can compensate for this.....
Brings impurities....
That's why the shape of the magnet system has to be tweaked,
until the impedance is exactly the same for every membrane position of the chassis.
Then the magnet(s) may look a bit messy and oddly shaped, but the music will not.
6.
Distortions:
The distortions of the Epos ES 14 N are, due to the massiveness of the speaker and the great magnet systems, the lowest I have ever seen in a measurement write-up in my life - and I have been reading stereoplay for 40 years! All distortions at 87 dB below 0.4% - and even in the bass down to 60 Hz. (Klippel System used!) Mostly even below 0.1 %. The Geithain ME 901 is perhaps similarly clean and comes down an octave in the bass - but otherwise I can't think of such a clean speaker. Even the best Neumann studio monitors, at least the record holders from Amir, have about twice as much distortion between 60 and 120 Hz!
So today watched a few more youtube videos on the Epos ES 14 N (with in-ear monitors).
The Epos at the fair in Fankfurt: Count Basie plays "Blues for the Barbecue" - definitely listen to it with headphones!
FINK Team and the new Epos ES14N designed by Karl-Heinz Fink // HighEnd 2022 Munich
youtube.com
Mannnnnnnn, you notice even with such a fucking YouTube video how fucking natural and musical and pure this thing sounds!!!!
On his private blog the master personally explains why the Epos sounds so good (the impedance thing was totally new to me!), why it's hard to build speakers with 6 dB crossovers, how you can prove by measurements that a tilted baffle leads to more time-correct radiation etc. etc. etc.
Technical information at Fink: Someone who REALLY knows and likes to share his knowledge.
Quite similar to the sound engeneer I spoke with at saturday (Dominique Klatte from Jazz-on-Vinyl)
I am sure that the Epos speakers can bring a similar purity in sound as the Wilson......
A typical needle in a haystack!
Unfortunately or God-be-thanked (trade fair participations ruin prices, which the end consumer must then pick up again!) Epos and Fink was not at the fair the day before yesterday
Because of all of that - the Epos ES 14 N now is definitely on my shortlist!
Best regards,
thw
