Fluid Audio Image 2 Review (Monitor Speaker)

[FeddyLost]

Barefoot Footprint 01 direct competitor.
IMO they should make it cheaper or obviously better.

 

[tifune]

The reason I've had my eyeball on this speaker for so long is the combination of the large horn waveguide on an AMT. Nobody does that, let alone in a three-way sealed design. That's ultimately what you're paying for, regardless of raw specs.

What advantage(s) would you anticipate from this design paradigm? I've only heard a few ribbon tweeters and hated all of them (Triton, ML Motion XT, some old Adam) but I keep hearing how great AMT is so trying to keep an open mind

 

[Lambda]

Finlay a monitor with digital input.
i think its super stupid to go from an PC into an DAC and back in an monitor like the JBL305 that only has ADC as input.

But the price is a bit to high

 

[somebodyelse]

Finlay a monitor with digital input.
i think its super stupid to go from an PC into an DAC and back in an monitor like the JBL305 that only has ADC as input.

But the price is a bit to high

Not the first reviewed here with digital input (most Genelec 83xx, D&D 8c spring to mind), but I wish it were a more common feature.

 

[dasdoing]

I like it, but the vertical looks very bad between 1000 and 2000. this will reflect back from the ceiling

 

[Lbstyling]

They need to round over the mouth of the horn to improve the mid/high smoothness issue likely caused by diffraction on the wave transition from the tweeter throat to front baffle. Otherwise this is very good.

If they did this, short of any unexpected surprises, I don't think there is anything to compete with it near the price.

Next priority would be to reduce distortion in the critical mid, but that is above and beyond at the price point IMO.

I noticed arendal have gone further and figured out that rounding the mouth past 90 improves this even further as mabat discovered (assuming what looks like a 'roll back' is indeed a 'roll back' on that waveguide)

KEF ls meta paper suggests narrower baffles are better for controling directivity smoothly albeit not 'CD' targeting.

I think speakers are about to jump in quality across the board. I am tempted to go for the LS60, but given the price, I think the competition is catching up!

 

[Rahan]

It seems to be 2 steps over their actual products. It worth our a try!

 

[375HP2482]

Looking at the measurements I don't see what this unit yields that cannot be had with the recent Polk ES20.

 

[Zvu]

I agree. I get the technical superiority of minimal baffle. But not quite sure of the sales numbers.

I have listened to the Blade 2. And Muon. And as much as I wanted to like them; I didn’t like them as much as I wanted to. And maybe they do sound different to, say the Revel F328Be; but I think I like the F328Be more; despite it having square edges.

Do you remember years ago a car manufacturer had a bubble shaped car. Lots of soft edges: good for aerodynamics. But it was very polarising. And then manufacturer canned it.

The problem is that all listening is sighted. And sighted listening skews the preferences. That’s science.

A) What the ideal loudspeaker cabinet shape, from an acoustic’s point of view B) will people like it/buy it.

Well, that's where preference or psychological factors might be coming into the equation. It is hard to get the sound of a loudspeaker the first time you hear it - at least for me. I have to listen to it at least a couple of days. You know how you hear a song somewhere and you are indifferent at the time ? But every next time you hear it just becomes better and better. Next thing you know, you wake up, brush your teeth and humming that melody thinking "what a great song". Our brains all have sensors for the outer world of different sensitivity and range and there are some sensors that are specific for some groups of people. I don't like my own system the same every day - so it's not only sighted listening that is/could be the problem.

If you approached listening session having high expectations (as you should by the way, for that amount of money) that could be the blockade by itself. Other thing could be that the room you listened those in, favored lower directivity of 328Be a bit more than Blade. Maybe you liked Sd-1320cm2 much more than Sd-960cm2 in bass section. And what ever the reason may be, one thing is true - you're not wrong. Both of those loudspeaker have some compromises and you just adhere to one over other - because : )

 

[2020]

What advantage(s) would you anticipate from this design paradigm? I've only heard a few ribbon tweeters and hated all of them (Triton, ML Motion XT, some old Adam) but I keep hearing how great AMT is so trying to keep an open mind

Most AMT's I've seen are designed for tight vertical dispersion, plus the rectangular shape also encourages this. I'm not really a fan of that, I like when there's a larger wave guide and you have room to move around. But you only see things like the JBL waveguide with domes, or a compression driver on the 7 series.

There's been debates here whether or not Twitter type effects anything or if we can really detect it but people have said that an AMT Tweeter is "effectively" a larger surface area from the folded design and might have better transient response.

I'm just personally drawn to different implementations of products in general, I would like to think that they are trying to bring us more value by deviating and have something different.

 

[heflys20]

Looking at the measurements I don't see what this unit yields that cannot be had with the recent Polk ES20.

If I'd were to guess: Better construction, a different sound signature (it's sealed and a three-way), more low-end; will likely get louder more efficiently (675 watts of power), self powered (built in eq, digital connection and the ability to be updated through USB connection).

Just need to get that low-end distortion a little bit more controlled. Hopefully the final product succeeds in this.

 

[pseudoid]

...plus the rectangular shape also encourages this...

Is there such a thing as a 'circular' AMT design that makes good use of it (concentric rings?) for better dispersion?

 

[2020]

Is there such a thing as a 'circular' AMT design that makes good use of it (concentric rings?) for better dispersion?

I think it's been done before but I can't really find anything out about it. You'd have to look into exotic Tweeter designs that are usually expensive and never filter down to the consumer level.

As far as I last remember, the Aria air blade was a take on a 180 AMT Https://www.audioexotics.com/product/arya-air-blade-tweeter-audio-exotics-product-of-the-year-2020/

And I believe this year or the year before somebody has been trying to come out with a 360° design, like full wrap around left and right, not in all directions

 

[bennybbbx]

Do I put too much emphasis on step response?
(I’m coming from Vandersteen 2C, but Thiel and Dunlavy people would likely also wonder.)

the fluid audio have excellent phase and step response and is a good time alligned speaker.
this images i have not post before. look the images how the step reponse of a 1.5 khz AllPass filter look. A Allpass have full linear frequency and have only phase shift. it have much larger delay in rise time in Step Response as the 1.5 khz LP filter. so this confirm that step response show also if a speaker have good phase seems

I have attach the rew mdat file and in this screenshot can see how i create the filters to show step response. generate measurement from filters do that. so you can test more

i create later a own thread with audio examples filters that simulate a speaker with diffrent delay of woofer to tweeter that it can hearable even if dealy is 100 microseconds and how the step response then look

 

[375HP2482]

If I'd were to guess: Better construction, a different sound signature (it's sealed and a three-way), more low-end; will likely get louder more efficiently (675 watts of power), self powered (built in eq, digital connection and the ability to be updated through USB connection).

Just need to get that low-end distortion a little bit more controlled. Hopefully the final product succeeds in this.

The Fluid aspires to be a poor man's Dutch & Dutch.

Examining the 96 dB profiles, the ES-20 appears to have comparably low LF distortion. And the 86 dB LF profile is cleaner on the ES-20. It's not as loud down there as the Fluid due to the Fluid's active equalization, but one could likewise EQ the ES-20.

 

[heflys20]

The Fluid aspires to be a poor man's Dutch & Dutch.

Considering the massive price difference, I don't see the issue. $3800 a pair vs nearly $13000 (D&D studio version).

Examining the 96 dB profiles, the ES-20 appears to have comparably low LF distortion. And the 86 dB LF profile is cleaner on the ES-20. It's not as loud down there as the Fluid due to the Fluid's active equalization, but one could likewise EQ the ES-20.

The ES-20 also has a number of resonances, likely due to its budget construction. Even if you were to EQ it, I seriously doubt it'll be able to compete (sonically) with a sealed, 3-way speaker.

 

[Thunder22]

Company has offered to send me production units in June-July time frame.

I can't wait to read the review around Easter of 2023.

 

[Holmz]

I can't wait to read the review around Easter of 2023.

Come again?

 

[heflys20]

Come again?

Lol. He's implying that Amir isn't punctual with reviews.

Personally, I don't mind, since Amir is doing this as a service.

 

[uwotm8]

About 40 Hz F3, well I got Wharfedale PowerCube 8+ DX poor man's "sub" in mint condition (shipping now). It considered "okay for moderate levels and no really low bass" among reviews and yes it goes down to 40 Hz roughly (insufficient bass skills are factory compensated with real wood veneer finish). That said, I don't think that going down to 40 Hz is enough if we need go full retard range. D&D goes down to 20 iirc and that's different.