Erin reviews GR-Research NX-Bravo

[M240i]

Close, Danny actually has replaced drivers on occasion but only considers his drivers which severely limits the mod design options.

As have mentioned before, he has a very narrow view of potential solutions. He recently showed a pretty good result on a B&W 805 "upgrade" but likely could have gotten a very comparable result with some equalization. His limited range is either incompetence or selfish behavior. It is not the first time he did not consider eq. Am pretty sure, this is about exploiting the situation for personal gain. If Danny was doing serious redesign, all the options you mention (and more) would be presented. Does not help that he often throws in high margin mods (like tube connectors and NoRez) whether they really help or not.

You're preaching to the choir here. I well understand his approach and inherent flaws in his process.

Regards distortion testing......I can't remember exactly which video, but it was from a few years ago when he wasn't filming in the funeral parlor in his house. He was in his shop and read verbatim from his Clio manual on the pitfalls of meaningful distortion testing. This is the belief system he's working from. Take that FWIW.

 

[RickS]

Would you mind to link to such video, can't find a single one.

See here...

danny's newest videos on speaker distortion...

NOTE: This thread is the result of a thread merger and has gone through restoration to get it to ASR standards. I'm not for tube connectors, wires (some prefer to solder them on), speaker wires, or expensive crossover parts. But I am for smooth response and especially a clean waterfall...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Heinrich]

danny's newest videos on speaker distortion...

NOTE: This thread is the result of a thread merger and has gone through restoration to get it to ASR standards. I'm not for tube connectors, wires (some prefer to solder them on), speaker wires, or expensive crossover parts. But I am for smooth response and especially a clean waterfall...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Thanks, now I remember that thread. He has a valid argument, that x% distortion, seen as an overtone, competes with the nartural overtones of the instruments/voice. Then he contradicts his argument, when stating that valve amps would enrich the sound by adding harmonic distortion so nicely.

Regarding the speaker in discussion, the dark side of distortion shines up. The composition of the distortion hot-spot in lower treble exposes, that HD is just a proxy for underlying non-linear properties of the transducer (chaos here?). These lead to intermodulation and all, what I would see as alterations to the 'gestalt' of a sonic event. May I say 'texture', 'timing', 'micro dynamics', clarity? At levels as high as seen here, other thn with some more regular 0.5% or so, I would not grant for top notch fidelity. To accept such in a design, especially at that price point but not only, it feels like neglect to me.

Ascilab does it, taking care about reasonable limits for HD (as a proxy for underlying non-linearities), provide smooth frequency response, look great, cost less ... I cannot help to both respect and fear the obvious attempt to finish the voyage. Once I will have to accept that I'm just there, and have to select my preferred music, happily forgetting about the means to listen to it.

ps: the intermodulation for this speaker is exceptionally high in treble

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/8anbps3421ubzown9l8dx/mton-80.png?rlkey=6ubvvah3cf420jw2smlc9s65k&st=nsjxrni7&dl=0

10% at 10kHz, this is vinyl grade ;-)
The KEF so and so reaches barely up to 1% (maybe there's a contribution from the microphone)

 

[RickS]

Thanks, now I remember that thread. He has a valid argument, that x% distortion, seen as an overtone, competes with the nartural overtones of the instruments/voice. Then he contradicts his argument, when stating that valve amps would enrich the sound by adding harmonic distortion so nicely.

Agree, have observed these contradictions from Danny and crew as well.

Regarding the speaker in discussion, the dark side of distortion shines up. The composition of the distortion hot-spot in lower treble exposes, that HD is just a proxy for underlying non-linear properties of the transducer. These lead to intermodulation and all, what I would see as alterations to the 'gestalt' of a sonic event. May I say 'texture', 'timing', 'micro dynamics', clarity? At levels as high as seen here, other thn with some more regular 0.5% or so, I would not grant for top notch fidelity. To accept such in a design, especially at that price point but not only, it feels like neglect to me.

My general take as well. Just unclear on the exact root cause. Could be the redesigned tweeter or misapplication of the tweeter or some combination of them. Would not know without some additional measurements. None seem to be forthcoming.