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Eve Audio SC305 Studio Monitor Review

Rate this Speaker

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 12 14.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 47 58.0%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 20 24.7%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Total voters
    81

Bruce Morgen

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Kali In5 or In8 on its side is surely superior.

I use a horizontally-oriented IN-5 for my center channel between my L+R pair of 2nd Wave IN-8s. As one might imagine, the results are seamlessly excellent in the near field.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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Perhaps it intentionally simulates the compromised directivity of the end user's transducers
I had that same thought myself, for what its worth...

Whenever I see any form of MTM, it just says "broken" to me. But if you pass out drunk at the console and fall over sideways, it sounds better. Its all just a matter of perspective :p
 

KSTR

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Wouldn't this be called a 2.5 way? The "sub" and the woofer plays in parallel up to a frequency which compensates for the baffle effect. In a 3-way, woofer and mid-woofer are "crossed" over.

What I fail to understand is how come they managed not to cut off the "sub" woofer properly and allowed driver break-up to mess the output while using an active crossover. Strange...
Yes "2.5-way" even though that is a misnomer for a technically correct construction of this type. It more like classic 3-way with down-extended midrange, notably as the phase reponse would follow a 3-way with the same crossover points (from the needed allpass on the midwoofer to track the phase of the woofer).
Don't know what they did here, of course.

As for breakup, this measurement here is a good example why these close-up responses of the individual drivers are only very (very!) ballbark. There is always leakage from the other drivers which leads to uncontrolled constructive or destructive summation at the point where the mic is.
And how do you even choose that point for the woofer/mid-woofer? Since it must be very close to the membrane there simple is no correct position (and center on the dustcap is the worst position, btw).
We have identical woofers here, so their breakup pattern must be structurally the same. Further, the woofer cannot have the same energy in the break-up region than the midwoofer when it's actually working on at least a 1st order roll-off (more likely, 2nd order).
Two very clear indicators that the close-up measurements are not showing what's really going on and have a huge uncontrolled uncertainity to them (IMHO completely useless).
 
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amirm

amirm

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Two very clear indicators that the close-up measurements are not showing what's really going on and have a huge uncontrolled uncertainity to them (IMHO completely useless).
Only if you don't know how to read and correlate them to the anechoic frequency response errors. Resonances in cabinet/port routinely show up in port measurements and most definitely correspond to the same in anechoic measurements. Near-field measurements are made at point blank near the driver so contributions from other sources is minimized. To be sure, it is not a replacement for anechoic measurements of each energy source but their diagnostic power is quite strong.
 

KSTR

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IME their "diagnostic power" for actual roll-offs and breakup is very compromised. I do agree that for checking port leakage they have some value, especially for rear ports or when the path length difference is generally large.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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IME their "diagnostic power" for actual roll-offs and breakup is very compromised. I do agree that for checking port leakage they have some value, especially for rear ports or when the path length difference is generally large.
Since they are being provided as a supplemental measurement I don't see any real issues with including them. Obviously the tweeter next to each woofer can potentially contribute to what is measured, and this is the case with other speakers where the drivers can't be isolated. But they still provide useful information such as some idea of where the actual cross-over point falls, port tuning, etc. Taken on their own they don't necessarily mean a lot and some care is needed in interpreting them, but as part of a larger measurement they can allow additional insight into what's going on, which at least makes them useful for me even with my own COTS speakers to get a rough idea of how the cross-overs are set up.
 

crappypanther

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This design looks like the one used for the new Focal Aloha Twin Evo, and the selection for the woofer, which one is medium and which one is the sub...
This design is used in a huge number of 2.5-way studio monitors.
P.S. 305 is postman panther
 
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dasdoing

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The grill in front of the tweeter is magnetic and can be removed and rotated. Company said it makes no difference so I left it in place although measurements may indicate you should remove it.

this is a PA speaker I am using as my mains:

IMG_20220925_101724_2.jpg


I expected gigantic interference from this massive grill and started using them without it. there is even a sheet of foam behind it. After a while I found it ugly without the grill and actualy tested the diference. I couldn't detect any ill effect at all, not at 60cm, not at LP
 

hege

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It is actually a 3-way speaker with one of the woofers playing down low like a small sub. As such, there are three amplifiers. You can choose which woofer is playing the major role and which is acting like a "sub."

It's only 3-way for marketing. This is purely a classic "2.5-way", doesn't matter if the drivers are active driven with their own amps. Your description is wrong and confusing, there is no single "sub", both the woofers play down to 50hz.

Woofer 50hz-350hz
Woofer-Mid 50hz-3000hz
Tweeter 3000hz-up

This is better described even on the product page itself (Tech talk):


Our three-way systems are designed around the concept to distribute the frequencies properly between all individual components and raise the efficiency of your speakers effectively.

With the SC305 one of the woofers is delivering sound only up to 350 Hz, functioning as a kind of "bass woofer". The other woofer gives you a fuller range up to the 3000 Hz crossover frequency as a bass-midrange driver.

This means less effective physical work being made by each individual woofer, which in turn will result in less mechanical inertia and a more efficient sound transmission. Both woofers consist of our proprietary 5" SilverCone, the same that is used in the smaller SC205 model and features our sophisticated low distortion copper cap magnet system. However, due to the fact that two of these woofers are being used simultaneously, you get a bigger frequency response - down to 50 Hz.

Again, which describes a 2.5-way speaker which as a concept is described similarly on a million google results.
 
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sarumbear

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Yes "2.5-way" even though that is a misnomer for a technically correct construction of this type. It more like classic 3-way with down-extended midrange, notably as the phase reponse would follow a 3-way with the same crossover points (from the needed allpass on the midwoofer to track the phase of the woofer).
Don't know what they did here, of course.
My understanding for definition of the “way” is how many complementary LP & HP filters a speaker has. This unit has just one, hence I wouldn’t call it a 3-way. Then again, you mention an all pass filter for the mid-woofer, which complicates my definition :)
 

617

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It's only 3-way for marketing. This is purely a classic "2.5-way", doesn't matter if the drivers are active driven with their own amps. Your description is wrong and confusing, there is no single "sub", both the woofers play down to 50hz.

Woofer 50hz-350hz
Woofer-Mid 50hz-3000hz
Tweeter 3000hz-up

This is better described even on the product page itself (Tech talk):




Again, which describes a 2.5-way speaker which as a concept is described similarly on a million google results.
I don't know what the legal definition of a 'way' is in this context but I would agree that this speaker is a 2.5 way.

In theory you could have four amps powering a single driver, but that doesn't make it a 4 way speaker.
 

KSTR

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My understanding for definition of the “way” is how many complementary LP & HP filters a speaker has. This unit has just one, hence I wouldn’t call it a 3-way. Then again, you mention an all pass filter for the mid-woofer, which complicates my definition :)
2.5-way sure is the commonly used terminus for this kind of speaker and I would think this more like a marketing than an engineering term.
My definition of a "way" is something that has it own distinct passband... that two of those passbands happen to overlap is just an additional aspect.
Then again, in the end this is nitpicking semantics and not actually of any importance.

I now looked closer at the directivity map and the asymmetry at ~400Hz might suggest the absence of the allpass filter, as is the very gentle knee of the woofer roll-off. That's the usual (and practical) way for designing a passive 2.5-way which might have been the template here.
 

617

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2.5-way sure is the commonly used terminus for this kind of speaker and I would think this more like a marketing than an engineering term.
My definition of a "way" is something that has it own distinct passband... that two of those passbands happen to overlap is just an additional aspect.
Then again, in the end this is nitpicking semantics and not actually of any importance.

I now looked closer at the directivity map and the asymmetry at ~400Hz might suggest the absence of the allpass filter, as is the very gentle knee of the woofer roll-off. That's the usual (and practical) way for designing a passive 2.5-way which might have been the template here.
Correct. Some 2.5 ways just put a big cap on one of the woofers making a gentle low pass at 6db/octave or so. This is the old fashioned way of making a 2.5 way speaker.

Eve makes both proper three way horizontal speakers in both the symmetric center channel style and the bridge monitor style you see from neuman and hedd as well.
 

sarumbear

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I now looked closer at the directivity map and the asymmetry at ~400Hz might suggest the absence of the allpass filter, as is the very gentle knee of the woofer roll-off. That's the usual (and practical) way for designing a passive 2.5-way which might have been the template here.
What I found it strange is why not increase the LP cut off rate at the higher frequency and reduce the effects of driver breaking up. They spend the money on a separate amplifier and an active crossover, why not add another op amp where the added cost would be negligible.
 

KSTR

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What I found it strange is why not increase the LP cut off rate at the higher frequency and reduce the effects of driver breaking up. They spend the money on a separate amplifier and an active crossover, why not add another op amp where the added cost would be negligible.
We don't know the actual roll-offs and we don't know the actual breakup, we only have some pointers from the measurements. As Amir has stated, you only know when measuring the ways in full isolation (the tweeter output can be easily reduced by just placing your palm on it, or some layers of cardboard-backed felt tacked over it).
This speaker is DSP-based and to my knowledge EVE have/had an excellent anechoic chamber so I would speculate the potential for a better XO design (and general response smoothness) was there but it was not fully utilized for reasons we don't know.
 

sarumbear

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Correct. Some 2.5 ways just put a big cap on one of the woofers making a gentle low pass at 6db/octave or so. This is the old fashioned way of making a 2.5 way speaker.
When I was designing the Silver 5L we made a few anechoic measurements and find that the baffle effect, the transition between 2Pi and 4Pi, is nearer to 3dB octave. Designing the passive filter was not straight forward. LEAP took hours to come up with the values. (In 1992.)
 

Robbo99999

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Hey up, this is a peaky little speaker.....smooth is not the word! The peakiness also reaches as far as the directivity too - (yuck?). I did indeed think this was an MTM speaker before I read the review. Seems like a hard sell for $1000, I'll vote accordingly. (Ah, there is no vote).
 

pseudoid

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This is a bit off-topic and aimed at the ears of the manufacturers:
What is up with these company websites that require you to accept cookies? Else they block you from visiting.:mad:
Either way, I am going to delete your cookie, when I close your website but when you give me no option to 'opt out'... you just told me to get lost!
D'accord!
 
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