This is a review and detailed measurements of the Grimani Systems Rixos-L active DSP speaker. It was sent to me by the company and costs about USD $8,200.
Speaker is designed to go into the walls or mounted on them and then covered by a screen for home theater applications. The former is aided with a depth of just 6 inches. Each speaker is manufactured in US and can have its termination customized for each use (my sample had a "pigtail").
Configuration is 2.5 way (one woofer playing to higher frequency) and actively driven through a four-channel compact DSP amplifier from Italian company, Powersoft (Mezzo 604A):
Typical of products in custom installation domain, Phoenix type connectors are used for both speaker terminals and inputs. The amplifier can be managed and fully configured over the Ethernet network. A free application is provided which to a new user seems impossible to use. But once you get past the start-up pain, you are greeted with the standard screen for configuring filters. Here the combination of crossover filters and corrections for each output.
Woofer 1:
Woofer 2:
Tweeter:
Grimani System's primary business is design of world-class home theaters and these speakers were designed to allow their integration simpler into this application. As such, full room EQ can be incorporated into the same DSP interface after manual measurements. To that end, what I measure is the stock configuration and you could make frequency response corrections yourself as you see fit.
The one thing I did not like much was fair amount of hiss generated by the amplifier into the tweeter. It is audible to 2 to 3 feet but not at listening distance. If seating distance is too low for the noise to be inaudible, an L-PAD can be put in to lower the sensitivity of the tweeter, or use the lower in line speaker that has less sensitivity. The discrete implementation of a DSP speaker allows more options than when we run into the same with integrated powered monitors.
Note that the stock configuration has a high-pass of 80 Hz, making it ready for subwoofer integration which is standard for this type of application.
Having seen our company, Madrona Digital jump through hoops to integrated traditional speakers into a custom theater, I was all smiles as I saw the capabilities and thoughtful design of this speaker.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
Reference axis is specified by the company as -10 degrees V and 20 degrees H. This is would (more or less) be the natural angles of seating for a flat mounted speaker. Performance is notably improved using these angles, especially the vertical axis.
Note: I have know the company founder, Tony Grimani for years. While we have not had direct interactions (until this project), I consider him one of the top home theater designers in the world and a great teacher of said technology.
Grimani Systems Rixos-L Measurements
As usual, we start with our frequency response graphs:
At first the response seems rough but the variations are small. Company explains that this is an aspect of the design. One could correct them using the built-in EQ but the variations are too small psychoacoustically be worth the correction. We see evidence of very good directivity other than a minor variation around 1.1 kHz. As noted, the low frequency roll off is intentional.
Here is the early window reflections:
As noted, the standard assumes free-standing speaker which would be rare for this product. Eliminating the rear wall bounce would improve things although as is, it is pretty close to the on-axis which is what we want. As a result, predicted-in-room response is very good:
Here is the near-field response of all the drivers:
It is a relatively good match to the programmed EQ curves. Notice the effect of the second woofer extending the response. Toward the end, I think that woofer is starting to struggle a bit, causing some distortion:
Outside of that, the dynamics capability is excellent:
Beamwidth shows the very controlled directivity:
The reference axis is assymetrical and hence the deviation there. Otherwise, this will make for an easier speaker to design the room around as the reflection angles can be nicely computed. And in a broadband manner. Here is the same as a heat map:
The reason for -10 degree vertical becomes obvious when you see the vertical dispersion:
Here is our waterfall and step responses:
Rixos-L Listening Tests
As you can imagine, this speaker plays with authority. There is no hint of strain as I kept increasing the volume until I could no longer stand it. I found the tonality a bit bright as I often do so used the standard EQ tools as a way to create a room curve:
The dip is a standard room mode that I have which needed some correction here. So again, none of this is correction for the speaker but for my taste and room.
With that in place, the sound was good on music but there is no deep bass response. Indeed attempting to play anything with sub-bass content, just produces faint sounds in that department. A proper evaluation would call for an optimized sub-woofer which I did not have time to setup.
Conclusions
The Rixos-L is really a component of a custom/much larger system. Evaluating it in a vacuum was somewhat challenging. Still, we managed to get measurements which correlated well with company's own CEA-2034 measurements (ours being higher resolution). Overall performance is competent with design factors which should make integration much simpler than traditional speakers made for this application. Inclusion of DSP means you can have any sound you want given the excellent directivity.
In working with the company, not only do you get insight about their speakers, but how to integrate them into a home theater system given the depth of knowledge in the company. So ideally, you would buy this speaker in consultation with the company designing the whole theater for you.
Within the limited context I could evaluate this component, I can recommend it. Love to hear it one day as part of a complete system.
Let me thank the member which reached out to the company to send me a sample last year. And the amazing patience and perseverance the company showed in working with me to test this speaker over period of many months. I even extracted two boxes of nice Chocolate from Tony!
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Speaker is designed to go into the walls or mounted on them and then covered by a screen for home theater applications. The former is aided with a depth of just 6 inches. Each speaker is manufactured in US and can have its termination customized for each use (my sample had a "pigtail").
Configuration is 2.5 way (one woofer playing to higher frequency) and actively driven through a four-channel compact DSP amplifier from Italian company, Powersoft (Mezzo 604A):
Typical of products in custom installation domain, Phoenix type connectors are used for both speaker terminals and inputs. The amplifier can be managed and fully configured over the Ethernet network. A free application is provided which to a new user seems impossible to use. But once you get past the start-up pain, you are greeted with the standard screen for configuring filters. Here the combination of crossover filters and corrections for each output.
Woofer 1:
Woofer 2:
Tweeter:
Grimani System's primary business is design of world-class home theaters and these speakers were designed to allow their integration simpler into this application. As such, full room EQ can be incorporated into the same DSP interface after manual measurements. To that end, what I measure is the stock configuration and you could make frequency response corrections yourself as you see fit.
The one thing I did not like much was fair amount of hiss generated by the amplifier into the tweeter. It is audible to 2 to 3 feet but not at listening distance. If seating distance is too low for the noise to be inaudible, an L-PAD can be put in to lower the sensitivity of the tweeter, or use the lower in line speaker that has less sensitivity. The discrete implementation of a DSP speaker allows more options than when we run into the same with integrated powered monitors.
Note that the stock configuration has a high-pass of 80 Hz, making it ready for subwoofer integration which is standard for this type of application.
Having seen our company, Madrona Digital jump through hoops to integrated traditional speakers into a custom theater, I was all smiles as I saw the capabilities and thoughtful design of this speaker.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
Reference axis is specified by the company as -10 degrees V and 20 degrees H. This is would (more or less) be the natural angles of seating for a flat mounted speaker. Performance is notably improved using these angles, especially the vertical axis.
Note: I have know the company founder, Tony Grimani for years. While we have not had direct interactions (until this project), I consider him one of the top home theater designers in the world and a great teacher of said technology.
Grimani Systems Rixos-L Measurements
As usual, we start with our frequency response graphs:
At first the response seems rough but the variations are small. Company explains that this is an aspect of the design. One could correct them using the built-in EQ but the variations are too small psychoacoustically be worth the correction. We see evidence of very good directivity other than a minor variation around 1.1 kHz. As noted, the low frequency roll off is intentional.
Here is the early window reflections:
As noted, the standard assumes free-standing speaker which would be rare for this product. Eliminating the rear wall bounce would improve things although as is, it is pretty close to the on-axis which is what we want. As a result, predicted-in-room response is very good:
Here is the near-field response of all the drivers:
It is a relatively good match to the programmed EQ curves. Notice the effect of the second woofer extending the response. Toward the end, I think that woofer is starting to struggle a bit, causing some distortion:
Outside of that, the dynamics capability is excellent:
Beamwidth shows the very controlled directivity:
The reference axis is assymetrical and hence the deviation there. Otherwise, this will make for an easier speaker to design the room around as the reflection angles can be nicely computed. And in a broadband manner. Here is the same as a heat map:
The reason for -10 degree vertical becomes obvious when you see the vertical dispersion:
Here is our waterfall and step responses:
Rixos-L Listening Tests
As you can imagine, this speaker plays with authority. There is no hint of strain as I kept increasing the volume until I could no longer stand it. I found the tonality a bit bright as I often do so used the standard EQ tools as a way to create a room curve:
The dip is a standard room mode that I have which needed some correction here. So again, none of this is correction for the speaker but for my taste and room.
With that in place, the sound was good on music but there is no deep bass response. Indeed attempting to play anything with sub-bass content, just produces faint sounds in that department. A proper evaluation would call for an optimized sub-woofer which I did not have time to setup.
Conclusions
The Rixos-L is really a component of a custom/much larger system. Evaluating it in a vacuum was somewhat challenging. Still, we managed to get measurements which correlated well with company's own CEA-2034 measurements (ours being higher resolution). Overall performance is competent with design factors which should make integration much simpler than traditional speakers made for this application. Inclusion of DSP means you can have any sound you want given the excellent directivity.
In working with the company, not only do you get insight about their speakers, but how to integrate them into a home theater system given the depth of knowledge in the company. So ideally, you would buy this speaker in consultation with the company designing the whole theater for you.
Within the limited context I could evaluate this component, I can recommend it. Love to hear it one day as part of a complete system.
Let me thank the member which reached out to the company to send me a sample last year. And the amazing patience and perseverance the company showed in working with me to test this speaker over period of many months. I even extracted two boxes of nice Chocolate from Tony!
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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