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Ex Machina

Elkios

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This was probably the most disappointing speaker I have had in my studio, considering the price tag. They appear super precise at first, because of a severe lack of lowmid information and a very “fast” transient response. They feel sluggish and untamed in the sub region however, which makes the overall impression out of balance, the D&D 8C beat them by miles in pretty much every aspect - my soffit mounted ATC110 where ahead of both them, as the whole room is built and treated around them and the headroom is enormous.

The right pair of ATC in the right room is the benchmark in natural and effortless presentation IME, unfortunately that room can be an expensive endeavor.
Very interesting a review done by Phil Ward made comment of a similar opinion initially of the low mid upper bass . I've seen an independent test result done by Audio Precision . They were indeed flat with good directivity and impulse response as good as Exmachina promise. The slow bass looking at the test results seem impossible to sound sluggish . Group delay is very low . I still need to listen again but my experience of the bass and upper mids were a little different to you .I will say without the DSP mode in full correction I scratched my head a bit but otherwise in full DSP great. Unfortunately I did not have the luxury to spend quality time with them .Were they mk2 you had? I still and have always been a big fan of most of the active ATC 's my bench mark as well . You are a very lucky person to have those up in the wall I believe what you are saying . They would be special for sure.
 

Torbachkristensen

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96E64CE9-6DFE-4540-8851-C193903DD591.jpeg
I really do feel lucky to have ever heard music in this room - let alone work in it every single day. Truely a blessing.

I know there are nothing inherently wrong with the low end of the ex machina, but the odd representation in the low mid makes the balances feel odd. To me they where a little off but sounded good when listening to music, but I slowly started to feel like snares and vocals especially, where not represented how I had heard them hundreds of times on all other speakers. And then they fell waaaaay off when I tried to work on them - I could not hear what I was doing in the lower mids, and that is not a good attribute for a studio monitor.

To my ears it seemed like they had a very precise transient response, but they were hollowed out in the “mud” area 200-500hz’ish, and that made everything sound super articulate, precise and clear on them. Also stuff that really wasn’t.
 
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Elkios

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View attachment 218497I really do feel lucky to have ever heard music in this room - let alone work in it every single day. Truely a blessing.

I know there are nothing inherently wrong with the low end of the ex machina, but the odd representation in the low mid makes the balances feel off. To me they where a little off but sounded good when listening to music, but I slowly started to feel like snares and vocals especially, where not represented how I had heard them hundreds of times on all other speakers. And then they fell waaaaay off when I tried to work on them - I could not hear what I was doing in the lower mids, and that is not a good attribute for a studio monitor.

To my ears it seemed like they had a very precise transient response, but they were hollowed out in the “mud” area 200-500hz’ish, and that made everything sound super articulate, precise and clear on them. Also stuff that really wasn’t.
That's a sick room . What subs are you useing ? You must be flat down to easy 16hz with those . Sealed as well? The entire description you are giving me sounds very much what I heard with the Exmachinas but I missed out on all the faults . Were you fully utilising the dsp and were they mk2 ? I will have to go back again for a much longer session . My problem I'm just a listener though I used to play drums and a Uke
 

Torbachkristensen

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I heard them about a year ago, dealer brought them. Full dsp mode yes, whether it was MKII i am not aware? What was the release date for those?

And as a sidenote i hate when manufacturers claim to have invented the holy grail, and then ooops, a year later an MKII suddenly appears. So that speaker wasn’t perfect after all or what? (I am especially looking at you Barefoot Sound).

The subs are Seaton Sound 18” sealed subs yes, I bought them passive and I do the crossover in my Merging Anubis and power them with an ATC P2. Flat down to at least 15hz yes.
 

Elkios

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I heard them about a year ago, dealer brought them. Full dsp mode yes, whether it was MKII i am not aware? What was the release date for those?

And as a sidenote i hate when manufacturers claim to have invented the holy grail, and then ooops, a year later an MKII suddenly appears. So that speaker wasn’t perfect after all or what? (I am especially looking at you Barefoot Sound).

The subs are Seaton Sound 18” sealed subs yes, I bought them passive and I do the crossover in my Merging Anubis and power them with an ATC P2. Flat down to at least 15hz yes.
About 4 months ago for mk2 . Yes but I admire that they have followed through by offering mk1 owners upgrades and not just going you have to buy an entire new system . That's similar to what ATC used to do with older non sl drivers in particular the scm50 .
So you get the floor shaking in that room . Nuts what big subs can even do to a concrete slab . There is a company called Ground Zero Engineering from Germany that make a very impressive 33inch with about 70mm xmax . Fs raw driver is about 24hz it can handle 15kw . I've built a few subs with their smaller subs they are very impressive
 

Torbachkristensen

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About 4 months ago for mk2 . Yes but I admire that they have followed through by offering mk1 owners upgrades and not just going you have to buy an entire new system . That's similar to what ATC used to do with older non sl drivers in particular the scm50 .
So you get the floor shaking in that room . Nuts what big subs can even do to a concrete slab . There is a company called Ground Zero Engineering from Germany that make a very impressive 33inch with about 70mm xmax . Fs raw driver is about 24hz it can handle 15kw . I've built a few subs with their smaller subs they are very impressive
Yes, but the difference is that ATC have more or less only optimized the design as manufacturing and parts could be optimized - things have gotten quite a bit more precise in the almost 60 years since they introduced the ATC 50’s. Remember it took them until 2010’s to perfect, develop and manufacture their own tweeter - the attention to detail is admirable.

Actually nothing in the room is shaking - all speakers are completely decoupled. They are inserted in custom built foam padded MDF boxes, mounted to industrial springs with sub-10hz resonance, hanging from an H-beam steel skeleton mounted in the ceiling. So they are completely free floating. The frame around them is just cosmetic, not touching the actual speakers.
 

Elkios

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Yes, but the difference is that ATC have more or less only optimized the design as manufacturing and parts could be optimized - things have gotten quite a bit more precise in the almost 60 years since they introduced the ATC 50’s. Remember it took them until 2010’s to perfect, develop and manufacture their own tweeter - the attention to detail is admirable.

Actually nothing in the room is shaking - all speakers are completely decoupled. They are inserted in custom built foam padded MDF boxes, mounted to industrial springs with sub-10hz resonance, hanging from an H-beam steel skeleton mounted in the ceiling. So they are completely free floating. The frame around them is just cosmetic, not touching the actual speakers.
Yes the tweeter is impressive no ferrofluid off the bat. My daily listen are scm19a.Interestingly I never liked the scm25a bass compared to the others a bit slouchy and top end not so great but I liked the scm150a a lot in a big treated room . Very much a scaled up version of my 19a sound wise just more of everything but family sound . The 25a is a different critter .Did you also try the Genelec 8361? The room must be worth an absolute ton .What is your RT ? What country city is the studio?
 

Torbachkristensen

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I did not audition anything other before building, because I knew I wanted a real soffit mount and all the benefits that they come with, and that was one of the reasons I even built a new room. There are not a lot of contenders in this space - there are lots of other options, but not many of them are fit for a propper soffit mount, and custom solutions quickly get out of hand in the quality vs price performance. And ATC is a no compromise company that have developed their speakers over decades, which means you’re not paying for 4-5 recent years of R&D, but for the utmost quality drivers. At least that is my experience.

To be honest, I think the only real contender I looked at was PMC, but they have decided to provide a similar product at 4-5 times the price, it doesn’t make sense on any level. I could/should maybe have ordered custom ATC subs, but I went for a sealed box to have the sub low end as fast and tight as possible. The 110’s really do extend deep enough that I could work without the subs though. There are a bunch of other large (sounding) studio solutions like Neumann, Genelec, Kii, Augspurger, Quested and Barefoot ( which is a joke, they sound absolutely horrendous), but I was not really in doubt when it came to a decission, since the 110’s are basically made for the job :) the 25 and 45 is a little weird yes, but I understand the company’s effort to provide a smaller and less expensive solution.

My studio is in Copenhagen! I can’t remember the RT, but I know it is close to perfect for the designers target, except the HF is slightly overdampened. He is still developing the diffusers, it will come eventually :) will see if I can find the measurements!
 

dfuller

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Barefoot ( which is a joke, they sound absolutely horrendous)
Can confirm, where I work we have probably half a dozen pairs of MM27s around and they sound just... so bad.
 

Torbachkristensen

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Can confirm, where I work we have probably half a dozen pairs of MM27s around and they sound just... so bad.
Yeah, I really think they are one of the worst examples of how Pro Audio sometimes work, since 90% of the consumers are really not very good at hearing/mixing.

They claim to be focused on precision and reliable truthful monitoring, but fact is that what they do supply is brute force and not much else. And that’s fine, but the prices combined with the BS marketing is borderline stealing from people.
 

Dolomick

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This was probably the most disappointing speaker I have had in my studio, considering the price tag. They appear super precise at first, because of a severe lack of lowmid information and a very “fast” transient response. They feel sluggish and untamed in the sub region however, which makes the overall impression out of balance, the D&D 8C beat them by miles in pretty much every aspect - my soffit mounted ATC110 where ahead of both them, as the whole room is built and treated around them and the headroom is enormous.

The right pair of ATC in the right room is the benchmark in natural and effortless presentation IME, unfortunately that room can be an expensive endeavor.
This is an honest question… how can there be a “severe” lack of lowmid info when they measure so flat? Is it because you are used to ATC’s which are not flat, perhaps? So in this case maybe you are used to super present mids and you perceive flat response as a “severe lack” in low mids?
 

Torbachkristensen

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This is an honest question… how can there be a “severe” lack of lowmid info when they measure so flat? Is it because you are used to ATC’s which are not flat, perhaps? So in this case maybe you are used to super present mids and you perceive flat response as a “severe lack” in low mids?
Measurements is one thing, in room response another. And it does make sense actually, the crossover is at 200hz, which, phase corrected or not, will still affect the dispersion and hence in room response. Bad (but probably common) place to put a crossover if you ask me, and if you read between the lines in some reviews it is actually clear there are problems around this crossover. DSP correction of crossover can only do so much to alleviate cancellation problems in an actual room. And 8th order crossover? How can you think that does not come with tradeoffs? I would suspect directivity measurements to be pretty bad.

My ATC110’s are ruler flat in my room. They are manufactured to perform with soffit mounting, and as such you will not see correct freestanding measurements of them - they need to be implemented into the room design. Which is cumbersome and expensive. They don’t sound like any ATC speaker you will have heard freestanding.
 

Dolomick

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Thanks for the reply. The only review I’ve been able to find is the SoundonSound one, and he does clarify that “When material comes along that lives in the upper bass/lower mid band, the Pulsar plays it appropriately and any thoughts of detachment dissipate completely.” He speculates it’s due to the lack of cabinet resonance which we are so used to hearing. Have you seen other reviews I could read by respected magazines? Certainly when comparing them to the Barefoot Footprints, I felt like I could hear a ton of the cabinet itself with the Footprints, and a lot of low mid mud compared to the Pulsars.

Here’s my situation…. I’ve got these on demo for $5400 (mk 1, open box deal). Have tried KH310’s, Hedd Type 20mk2’s, and Footprints. I make bass heavy electronic music and would prefer no sub for several reasons. I like the Pulsars so far and for this price, it seems like the best option. What else would beat this for $5k? I didn’t love the ported bass on the Focal trios either, and D&D 8c’s are almost double the price. Messanovic RTM-10’s maybe used are about the only other things in this price (still almost $2k more).
 

Torbachkristensen

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Thanks for the reply. The only review I’ve been able to find is the SoundonSound one, and he does clarify that “When material comes along that lives in the upper bass/lower mid band, the Pulsar plays it appropriately and any thoughts of detachment dissipate completely.” He speculates it’s due to the lack of cabinet resonance which we are so used to hearing. Have you seen other reviews I could read by respected magazines? Certainly when comparing them to the Barefoot Footprints, I felt like I could hear a ton of the cabinet itself with the Footprints, and a lot of low mid mud compared to the Pulsars.

Here’s my situation…. I’ve got these on demo for $5400 (mk 1, open box deal). Have tried KH310’s, Hedd Type 20mk2’s, and Footprints. I make bass heavy electronic music and would prefer no sub for several reasons. I like the Pulsars so far and for this price, it seems like the best option. What else would beat this for $5k? I didn’t love the ported bass on the Focal trios either, and D&D 8c’s are almost double the price. Messanovic RTM-10’s maybe used are about the only other things in this price (still almost $2k more).
If you feel they work for you, and they are better in your room than mine, then go for it. As I said I believe it is a directivity problem around the crossover, and as so it will present itself very different from room to room. As I understand they can be upgraded to MkII even.

There is not much else fullrange in that pricerange, if you rule out adding subs, and you have been offered almost half off the MSRP. Good deal :)
 

Dolomick

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If you feel they work for you, and they are better in your room than mine, then go for it. As I said I believe it is a directivity problem around the crossover, and as so it will present itself very different from room to room. As I understand they can be upgraded to MkII even.

There is not much else fullrange in that pricerange, if you rule out adding subs, and you have been offered almost half off the MSRP. Good deal :)
Thanks again for your reply! Yes the upgrade is $1600 for new coaxial elements and a new DSP board which improves bass response, among other things. They sound great in my room at nearfield distance. You have much more experience, so just wanted to hear from you. It seems there isn't much else in this price range, as I suspected.
 

Bighornz

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Hi gang, just made the call to replace Focal SM9's with Quasars. I'll give you my thoughts but wanted to say thanks for all the detail; it was helpful in making the decision.
 

Bighornz

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How are the Quasars ?
I've been mostly writing since the install, with only some mixing. My first impression was that the high end is extremely good. I had always liked the top end of the SM9's but the Quasars instantly felt better to me: tighter and faster... more clarity. The low-latency mode was a concern of mine b/c I spend more time writing and recording than mixing but the difference has not been a problem at all, they still give me all the positive feedback I need. The sweet spot is bigger when that's turned off but my room is pretty true and it hasn't been an issue. I understand the previous comments about the crossover point and the low mid being "pulled back" a bit but in my room it's more that they just feel tight. I do work with a lot of low end synths and 808 style kicks but I also do a lot of orchestral stuff with samples and heavy guitars and I really like to "feel" the low end while I'm writing without monitoring really loud. The Quasars certainly deliver in that regard. I've been doing a lot of R&B since the changeover and getting the kick and bass blend has been a calk walk. The spec on the SM9's claimed to be flat to almost 20 Hz but the Quasars seem to translate better in the bottom. The apparent low frequency response is just clearly better than the Focals. I know it's not a fair comparison price-wise but after almost a month, I feel the change has been very positive. My one complaint is that at almost 30" tall, they're a little visually imposing when compared to the SM9's (but sometimes that can be a good thing, I suppose).
 

Elkios

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I've been mostly writing since the install, with only some mixing. My first impression was that the high end is extremely good. I had always liked the top end of the SM9's but the Quasars instantly felt better to me: tighter and faster... more clarity. The low-latency mode was a concern of mine b/c I spend more time writing and recording than mixing but the difference has not been a problem at all, they still give me all the positive feedback I need. The sweet spot is bigger when that's turned off but my room is pretty true and it hasn't been an issue. I understand the previous comments about the crossover point and the low mid being "pulled back" a bit but in my room it's more that they just feel tight. I do work with a lot of low end synths and 808 style kicks but I also do a lot of orchestral stuff with samples and heavy guitars and I really like to "feel" the low end while I'm writing without monitoring really loud. The Quasars certainly deliver in that regard. I've been doing a lot of R&B since the changeover and getting the kick and bass blend has been a calk walk. The spec on the SM9's claimed to be flat to almost 20 Hz but the Quasars seem to translate better in the bottom. The apparent low frequency response is just clearly better than the Focals. I know it's not a fair comparison price-wise but after almost a month, I feel the change has been very positive. My one complaint is that at almost 30" tall, they're a little visually imposing when compared to the SM9's (but sometimes that can be a good thing, I suppose).
That's great to hear and even better for you . I think when it comes to the crunch for me I'm going to grab the Quasars as well just so I'm full range . With room gain in my lounge they will be close enough . The Pulsar won't quite get me there .
 

dfuller

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This was probably the most disappointing speaker I have had in my studio, considering the price tag. They appear super precise at first, because of a severe lack of lowmid information and a very “fast” transient response. They feel sluggish and untamed in the sub region however, which makes the overall impression out of balance, the D&D 8C beat them by miles in pretty much every aspect - my soffit mounted ATC110 where ahead of both them, as the whole room is built and treated around them and the headroom is enormous.

The right pair of ATC in the right room is the benchmark in natural and effortless presentation IME, unfortunately that room can be an expensive endeavor.
I'd just like to say, the subjective experience here lines up pretty much exactly with measurements. They have a low mid scoop and a upper bass bump. Then the bottom end is... messy.

CEA2034%20--%20Ex%20Machina%20Pulsar%20II%20%280%C2%B0%20Horizontal%29.png
 
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