HSU CCB-8 Speaker Review

[Marin]

Hi, really interesting and very sensitive speakers, I guess you can power them with your cell phone lol
I love reading listener experiences and they are just as important to me as Erin's measurements.
I assume that these two reflections cannot be heard and that they are worse for the eye than for the hearing.And they are also impossible to avoid with this design.
I think they are silent precisely because they are so sensitive, but I would like to hear your opinions, experiences ...
The strength of these speakers is their dynamics and I don't like to use the term resolution, but the micro and macro imaging is excellent considering how they are fully directional.
Am I wrong or?
Anyway looking forward to hear your options and good luck with them...

 

[ClaudeJ1]

I bought a pair of these, sound unheard, in 2015, after owning several pairs of Sound Physics Labs TD-1's. Tom Danley even told me how to improve my remaining 4 boxes I use for surrounds, by drilling taper into the Midrange Holes. The SH-50's are the best speakers I've ever owned. As my LCR's for 7.4.2 Atmos, and 2.2 stereo at the touch of a button on my Yamaha CX-A5200, they amaze me every day. YPAO room EQ with treatments in may tiny living room is the key. I sit 9 feet away from them and even it you put your ear at the horn mouth, it sounds like a single driver from 40-18,000 Hz. My super tapped horn sub on rear wall and Twin Danley TH-50's as low frequency "speaker stands" cross at 40 Hz. and I get down to 14 Hz. with no trouble at 125 db., which scares strangers. "Headroom is your friend...........Tom Danley." At 100 db sensitivity, I use less than 100 W amps per channel except the subs which get 800 watts per driver (Crown K2). Sonic Nirvana, a true reference system.

 

[kharan]

Erin's got a pair to review. The results are pretty much the same.

The question is since he got a pair from a viewer, is it the same pair that Amir got?

The person he got them from is named either named Alan or Allen.

 

[amirm]

The question is since he got a pair from a viewer, is it the same pair that Amir got?

No. I still have the speakers i measured.

 

[kharan]

No. I still have the speakers i measured.

Glad to see your measures confirmed, but dismayed to see that you didn't a pair of defective speakers.

 

[01svtL]

I tried a pair of these about a year ago. I wanted to like them. In-room bass was nice, but I just couldn’t get them to sound right. Always sounded somewhat veiled. I went back to Gen 1 LS50s and the improvement was immediate. Not even close.

 

[amirm]

Glad to see your measures confirmed, but dismayed to see that you didn't a pair of defective speakers.

When things break, they really break. It is extremely rare for a problem to be of this level.

 

[Randolf]

Just for completeness and curiosity I added Erin’s on axis frequency response and impedance measurement for comparison:

As expected, Amir’s and Erin’s measurement are very similar but for me the differences are a little bit high for usual part tolerances.

 

[SteveSBD]

I auditioned these speakers at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest about a dozen years ago (the yellow-cone version), utilizing a pair of subs in addition to the CCB-8's. As I recall (I could be mistaken), I believe Dr. Hsu himself was running the demo, and at first, I was the only person in the room. He encouraged me to walk around the room and listen from every possible angle, both sitting and standing. So I did, and I couldn't believe how the incredibly detailed soundstage remained perfect, no matter where I was in the room. It was as if I was walking around wearing open headphones that were projecting this non-moving image in front of me. I have auditioned many speakers over the years, but have never heard such a small speaker perform line-array-style feats of illusion. They make the "sweet spot" a thing of the past. I find it strange that people are using these in HT systems, because stereo is where it's at with these. It's sad to see that the measurements do not own up to the experience. But then again, my favorite affordable speakers are the ELAC Unifi2, which this site has also bashed.

 

[kyuu]

I auditioned these speakers at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest about a dozen years ago (the yellow-cone version), utilizing a pair of subs in addition to the CCB-8's. As I recall (I could be mistaken), I believe Dr. Hsu himself was running the demo, and at first, I was the only person in the room. He encouraged me to walk around the room and listen from every possible angle, both sitting and standing. So I did, and I couldn't believe how the incredibly detailed soundstage remained perfect, no matter where I was in the room. It was as if I was walking around wearing open headphones that were projecting this non-moving image in front of me. I have auditioned many speakers over the years, but have never heard such a small speaker perform line-array-style feats of illusion. They make the "sweet spot" a thing of the past. I find it strange that people are using these in HT systems, because stereo is where it's at with these. It's sad to see that the measurements do not own up to the experience. But then again, my favorite affordable speakers are the ELAC Unifi2, which this site has also bashed.

Sounds like biased expectations or some trick of the room setup. There's nothing about these speakers to suggest they would do anything like that. They aren't even close to constant directivity. And in any case, no imaging trick forgives such an awful frequency response. Dr. Hsu makes fine subwoofers, but doesn't seem to know much about what makes a good speaker for the rest of the audible frequency range.

 

[VoltronsBigToe]

I own these and just made a side-by-side comparison of the CCB-8 and the HB1-MK2 and…these findings reflect my experience. I had been a fan of the CCB-8 spatial imaging same as another commenter above, but after putting some effort into an A-B comparison, the HB1s are better. I had thought the CCB was just finicky, but it may be downright deficient. I did not EQ, used the same set of discrete amps and listening location with each, and listened with and without the mid-bass and subwoofer modules I use. I knew I gravitate toward listening to music on the speakers in my office, but didn’t realize why until now.

¯\(°_o)/¯

 

[heflys20]

Sounds like biased expectations or some trick of the room setup. There's nothing about these speakers to suggest they would do anything like that. They aren't even close to constant directivity. And in any case, no imaging trick forgives such an awful frequency response. Dr. Hsu makes fine subwoofers, but doesn't seem to know much about what makes a good speaker for the rest of the audible frequency range.

Yes . Also, I'm skeptical of a new poster singing the praises of a speaker that is mediocre in every aspect; particularly when the post is liked by another new member with no posting history. Maybe I'm being paranoid...My apologies if so.

 

[Power Pop 23]

The measurements of the Hsu CCB-8 loudspeaker at ASR (and Erin's Audio Corner) is information for owners and prospective buyers.

 

[heflys20]

You’re wrong to be skeptical. I’m the one who liked it, and I did so because I understand what he’s posting about and it reflects my experience, as well. I’m a new member, but I have no pony in this race as you can probably tell from my A-B comparison comment above. I don’t get the impression that there’s a grand conspiracy here. I’ve been using a variety of HSU subwoofers since buying one of their briefly available car audio subwoofers, and those have all been pretty good. On the other hand, I was in the market for some new speakers and reading reviews and was surprised to find this relatively recent review of a speaker I’ve had sitting in my house for years, for better or worse (and I think it’s the latter).

Also, don’t you feel like my username is a little different than people would use if they were pulling a nice grift? You know, they’d use something like speakerfan3000 or turnitto11! or monstercablesrule or wtv.

For some reason, I didn't see the other post when I responded. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[VoltronsBigToe]

I would ask the people please disregard my commentary on the AB comparison I posted earlier. I discovered that two same hardware amplifiers I was using had some buried settings that were different (tone control stuff). I repeated the test and found that there were mixed advantages and disadvantages to both speaker models after leveling the playing field. Notably, off-axis listening to a pair of CCB-8s is still interesting in its spatial imaging, soundstage, instrument separation, and layering.