GR Research Speaker Upgrade Review (Sierra-2EX V2)

[Everett T]

It's not just speaker manufacturers Danny is critical of, but also the driver manufacturers. Here he not only took a swipe at the Seas Excel Magnesium line, he managed to tout his own woofer while doing so.

 

[R-Carpenter]

Quite a bit of Danny's marketing is very standardized.
Invent a problem and offer a solution.
For example: your speaker cables deprive you of fully enjoying your system. They lower resolution.
Solution: purchase this upgraded high resolution speaker cable. Same goes for capacitors, resistors etc. It's not new.

As far as drivers go, perhaps he had to meet a price point, producing his woofer and cast aluminum baskets were too expensive. So, of course cast metal baskets ring and solution is to use plastic. I think these woofer baskets were used by many manufacturers including Jordan and if I am not mistaken, were offered by Tymphany.

This marketing strategy is used all over the place. You may even say, it is used in sales of proper good speakers. Many manufacturers offer "upgraded" models year after year than in fact, nothing much is changed. Or cell phones....

 

[Paul7777x]

Quite a bit of Danny's marketing is very standardized.
Invent a problem and offer a solution.
For example: your speaker cables deprive you of fully enjoying your system. They lower resolution.
Solution: purchase this upgraded high resolution speaker cable. Same goes for capacitors, resistors etc. It's not new.

As far as drivers go, perhaps he had to meet a price point, producing his woofer and cast aluminum baskets were too expensive. So, of course cast metal baskets ring and solution is to use plastic. I think these woofer baskets were used by many manufacturers including Jordan and if I am not mistaken, were offered by Tymphany.

This marketing strategy is used all over the place. You may even say, it is used in sales of proper good speakers. Many manufacturers offer "upgraded" models year after year than in fact, nothing much is changed. Or cell phones....

Absolutely this.

I’d like to see a good semantic analysis of the claims made by this Danny guy and his kind. Along with the marketing of almost everything.

I’d like to see it. But I can already tell the result.

… null in all aspects.

 

[Danish ear]

There is a solution to all of this, "Audio specialist malpractice insurance".
Sorry, couldn't resist

 

[sam08861]

Saw this and came here for clarity....

[redundant post of offsite GR content removed by staff]

Is it true that EMI tests were performed on a cord in a wall with no load?
Or that the xo was tested with incorrect polarity?

The comments on the time gating, smoothing the graphs (not the data), FR and ringing seemed legitimate, but have previously seen notch filters as room correction as opposed to speaker correction for ringing. Not sure I buy the overpriced parts bit as that's Danny's bread and butter, but the remainder came off as logical.

Honestly not trying to stir the pot, but it seems this one is on full churn already and I'm genuinely curious as to the veracity of the claims.

 

[Everett T]

Saw this and came here for clarity....

Spoiler: GR youtube response on Amir's upgrade review

Is it true that EMI tests were performed on a cord in a wall with no load?
Or that the xo was tested with incorrect polarity?

The comments on the time gating, smoothing the graphs (not the data), FR and ringing seemed legitimate, but have previously seen notch filters as room correction as opposed to speaker correction for ringing. Not sure I buy the overpriced parts bit as that's Danny's bread and butter, but the remainder came off as logical.

Honestly not trying to stir the pot, but it seems this one is on full churn already and I'm genuinely curious as to the veracity of the claims.

If you plug a power cord into the wall, it has power running through it, the draw is easily shown and the video that Amir did explains this. No different than someone sticking a screw driver into an outlet, your body just completes the circuit.

Regarding smoothing and gating, that is data. Danny says he takes measurements with higher resolution and just uses smoothing for display purposes but he has never presented a higher resolution graph for showing what might need correcting.

 

[sam08861]

No different than someone sticking a screw driver into an outlet, your body just completes the circuit.

Thanks!

Please forgive my lay understanding of electronics. Isn't that different, in that the disconnected plug end has an air gap between hot and neutral, vs a complete circuit to ground, (albeit poor), as in the above example?

Assuming the test could be redone with a running amp and load to validate the claims easily enough.

Watching the video now.

 

[tw 2022]

Quite a bit of Danny's marketing is very standardized.
Invent a problem and offer a solution.

this is sadly standard fare in American economics the last few decades.... "the free market" goes unchecked in predatory practices ..I see this in home improvement ads, things like large air conditioning companies declaring that ac units "life expectancy" is 10 -12 years .. the truth is all the parts can be replaced as long as they exist .. if you can diy you could make a unit last decades and work well ... but that cuts into profits ... so units have expected lifespans and very inflated service prices (labor) to encourage replacement... Danny follows the same business model , preying on the audio illiterate ...

 

[Everett T]

Thanks!

Please forgive my lay understanding of electronics. Isn't that different, in that the disconnected plug end has an air gap between hot and neutral, vs a complete circuit to ground, (albeit poor), as in the above example?

Assuming the test could be redone with a running amp and load to validate the claims easily enough.

Watching the video now.

In the video Amir explains that the plastic between the hot and neutral of the acts as capacitor, albeit a very small one.

 

[sam08861]

In the video Amir explains that the plastic between the hot and neutral of the acts as capacitor, albeit a very small one.

I did see that, but I think fundamentally different, no?

Am I mistaken in that a driven amp would have more current flowing through the power cord, and therefore a higher level of flux/noise emitting from the power cable itself? Apologies if my understanding of physics and electronics is lacking with regard to Ampere's law.

 

[Everett T]

I did see that, but I think fundamentally different, no?

Am I mistaken in that a driven amp would have more current flowing through the power cord, and therefore a higher level of flux/noise emitting from the power cable itself? Apologies if my understanding of physics and electronics is lacking with regard to Ampere's law.

The mains noise is basically a constant and why our equipment should be properly designed to filter out most of it, ie passively with a capacitor, so it doesn't get amplified by ICs throughout the signal path to your speakers.

 

[sam08861]

The mains noise is basically a constant and why our equipment should be properly designed to filter out most of it, ie passively with a capacitor, so it doesn't get amplified by ICs throughout the signal path to your speakers.

Certainly. However I think my question is different in that I've asked if more current is proportional to more EMI and therefore would produce a measureably different result than a 'dead' cord end. One may as well measure an empty socket as the test was performed, no?

 

[dfuller]

Certainly. However I think my question is different in that I've asked if more current is proportional to more EMI and therefore would produce a measureably different result than a 'dead' cord end. One may as well measure an empty socket as the test was performed, no?

Ultimately it doesn't matter. Rectifiers make a whole hell of a lot more hash and switching noise than anything on the AC coming into the device, and that all (meaningfully) gets filtered out.

 

[Everett T]

Certainly. However I think my question is different in that I've asked if more current is proportional to more EMI and therefore would produce a measureably different result than a 'dead' cord end. One may as well measure an empty socket as the test was performed, no?

As I understand EMI being device originating it's the equipment that would need to be dealt with and wouldn't fluctuate with current, like ground loops.

 

[sam08861]

Ultimately it doesn't matter. Rectifiers make a whole hell of a lot more hash and switching noise than anything on the AC coming into the device, and that all (meaningfully) gets filtered out.

Thanks dfuller.

That seems reasonable & I don't doubt the fundamental premise that 'power cables don't matter' as much as other things with respect to amplification of source materials at line level.

However, it seems perhaps this was tested with no load to emphasize a point about relative impacts of noise on cable vs. other things. I think there would be a lot more credibility if the unit were plugged in and actively producing music through an amp and speakers, for lay people such as myself, who may not be able to readily understand that there won't be a difference in measurements contrary to the premise.

My own curiosity, though, remains unsatisfied, and I'll have to figure out how to test myself or see if someone else has.

On another topic, addressed to the wider group...

With regard to the induced XO dip used to address ringing. Do we think these were random exhibits produced after the fact or were the waterfall measurements also available in Amir's testing, showing a slightly reduced ringing. Also, curious, as the ringing is not completely eliminated, if the benefit is a better looking graph or real audible differences. Certainly they are measurable, if legitimate and confirmable.

 

[DVinylfan]

The context:
DACs and amplifiers are a solved problem. Loudspeakers not so much.
Loudspeakers have a lot of components. Cabinets, drivers, crossovers, stuffing.
Maybe, just maybe, the CROSSOVERS are the bottleneck of the inverted bad triangle of Loudspeaker performance and Danny Richie has discovered the solution. Maybe.

 

[sam08861]

Lol, I personally don't see the value in passive crossover anymore, other than reducing the number of amps.

 

[sam08861]

Everett T said:
As I understand EMI being device originating it's the equipment that would need to be dealt with and wouldn't fluctuate with current, like ground loops.

---
I understand Ampere's law suggests more current = more flux (and therefore higher noise floor, I'm assuming)? so, I think again a slightly different question than this, but certainly appreciate what you're saying.

It's a well known phenomenon (reality) in pro audio (and in my own experience), noise often very often originates from the interplay between power cables and interconnects. This was a problem that was readily apparent, in my own bi-amped system, with a 106db efficient horn.

Cable selection and routing was tremendously helpful in remediating this, as was component selection, particularly at the active crossover and all pre-amplified components in the 'gain chain'. Using properly shielded interconnects and careful routing of power/signal cables is a well established practice for most professional audio guys, so i'm not at all convinced it's trivial.

As an aside, I certainly don't think we need expensive or exotic cables, the inexpensive shielded cables from belden, canare, mogami, etc. work just fine. However, there is significant interference between power supply cable generated noise and interconnects, IME.

 

[sam08861]

So onto the Ringing waterfall exhibits presented by Danny. Any truth to this?

I saw some graphs in Amir's results, but not sure I saw a like for like waterfall test.

This may be a critical point, on Danny' part, if true, and conversely validation on the assertions being made in this thread, if not true. Therefore, hoping there's data from Amir's testing to either verify or debunk, or someone can chime in that it's bs and how we know.

Appreciate any comments on the before/after as well. Is that amount of ringing reduction sufficient? Is Danny's approach valid?

 

[NTK]

So onto the Ringing waterfall exhibits presented by Danny. Any truth to this?

I saw some graphs in Amir's results, but not sure I saw a like for like waterfall test.

This may be a critical point, on Danny' part, if true, and conversely validation on the assertions being made in this thread, if not true. Therefore, hoping there's data from Amir's testing to either verify or debunk, or someone can chime in that it's bs and how we know.

Appreciate any comments on the before/after as well. Is that amount of ringing reduction sufficient? Is Danny's approach valid?

Loudspeaker drivers are minimum-phase devices*. Waterfall diagrams add no new information. Our ears aren't sensitive to ringing, but are to frequency response irregularities (resonances), which are revealed in frequency response measurements. Here is a post by Dr Toole on AVSForum.

[Edit] *Correction -- Multiple way loudspeaker systems are not minimum-phase devices. The acoustic summing of two (or more) drivers at the cross-over region is not a minimum phase process, and is usually designed to be an all-pass process. However, unless the loudspeaker designers went out of their way to design a broken system, the excess group delays resulted from these all-pass processes are below audibility limit (see conclusion in Blauert and Laws, Group Delay Distortions in Electroacoustical Systems).