KEF Blade 2 vs Ascend ELX Towers as End Game

[mj30250]

Your comment made me look a bit more closely at what I said. I agree with you, and it reminded me that contour plots can be misleading. And I was guilty of being misled. So... I would like to take back what I said about the directivity of the Blades vs. the ELX's and issue an apology. I'll explain where I got it wrong.


View attachment 431137View attachment 431138

The contour plot was the basis of my comment that the KEF's had more narrow directivity. But take a closer look at the legend on the right - the colour schemes are on different scales. On the left, the range is from 90dB to 40dB (i.e. 50dB scale). On the right, the range is 0dB to -30dB (i.e. 30dB scale). Because Erin configured his graph to display a more dramatic colour change, his contour plot makes the KEF's look narrower. My eyes automatically focused on the red part. I think most eyes would.

The lesson here is: unless the contour plots you are comparing are using the same colour scale, a quick glance will mislead you. I knew that, but I forgot it.


View attachment 431144

We can get a better idea of the directivity by looking at the sound power DI (SPDI, orange line in both graphs).

The SPDI is the logarithm of the ratio of (on axis / sound power). "On axis" means that the mic was placed 1m from the speaker on axis and a single sweep was taken. "Sound power" is the total amount of sound radiated by the speaker in a spherical pattern taken from a few dozen mic positions and averaged.

The Early Reflections DI (ERDI, purple in both graphs) is the logarithm of the ration of (early reflections / sound power). "Early reflections" is the average of several measurements taken on a vertical and horizontal arc from the speaker.

In both cases, the difference between minimum and maximum tells you the directivity. We also want to see a smooth looking graph from minimum to maximum. The bigger the difference, the narrower the dispersion.

Here we can see that the SPDI of the ELX is about 13dB, whilst for the KEF it is 10dB. So the ELX has slightly more narrow dispersion than the KEF's. The ERDI is about the same, 7dB for both speakers.

Once again, I apologise. I should have looked more carefully. I keep saying that the measurements are objective, but interpretation is subjective and prone to mistakes. I will assume that both sets of measurements were taken correctly and not subject to silly errors in setup because that can happen, too.

You can align the scales by viewing the plots on spinorama.org. Below are the horizontal contours (normalized to on-axis) for both speakers. Throughout much of the treble (roughly a 5kHz range), the ELX towers are clearly wider. Whether that is a positive or not will depend on your room and personal preferences, of course. And to your point, when looking at the spinorama, the ERDI averages both vertical and horizontal reflections together. The ELX ribbons have a significantly smaller vertical window than the Blades, which contributes to the narrower overall dispersion calculated within the ERDI. Does this distinction matter? I think it does, largely because our ears are arrayed horizontally - hence when discussing perceived "spaciousness" in a stereo system, horizontal dispersion plays a larger role than vertical, IMO.

 

[kemmler3D]

Your comment made me look a bit more closely at what I said. I agree with you, and it reminded me that contour plots can be misleading. And I was guilty of being misled. So... I would like to take back what I said about the directivity of the Blades vs. the ELX's and issue an apology. I'll explain where I got it wrong.


View attachment 431137View attachment 431138

The contour plot was the basis of my comment that the KEF's had more narrow directivity. But take a closer look at the legend on the right - the colour schemes are on different scales. On the left, the range is from 90dB to 40dB (i.e. 50dB scale). On the right, the range is 0dB to -30dB (i.e. 30dB scale). Because Erin configured his graph to display a more dramatic colour change, his contour plot makes the KEF's look narrower. My eyes automatically focused on the red part. I think most eyes would.

The lesson here is: unless the contour plots you are comparing are using the same colour scale, a quick glance will mislead you. I knew that, but I forgot it.


View attachment 431144

We can get a better idea of the directivity by looking at the sound power DI (SPDI, orange line in both graphs).

The SPDI is the logarithm of the ratio of (on axis / sound power). "On axis" means that the mic was placed 1m from the speaker on axis and a single sweep was taken. "Sound power" is the total amount of sound radiated by the speaker in a spherical pattern taken from a few dozen mic positions and averaged.

The Early Reflections DI (ERDI, purple in both graphs) is the logarithm of the ration of (early reflections / sound power). "Early reflections" is the average of several measurements taken on a vertical and horizontal arc from the speaker.

In both cases, the difference between minimum and maximum tells you the directivity. We also want to see a smooth looking graph from minimum to maximum. The bigger the difference, the narrower the dispersion.

Here we can see that the SPDI of the ELX is about 13dB, whilst for the KEF it is 10dB. So the ELX has slightly more narrow dispersion than the KEF's. The ERDI is about the same, 7dB for both speakers.

Once again, I apologise. I should have looked more carefully. I keep saying that the measurements are objective, but interpretation is subjective and prone to mistakes. I will assume that both sets of measurements were taken correctly and not subject to silly errors in setup because that can happen, too.

Thanks for the correction, I also just eyeballed the colors and didn't bother to look at the actual DI so appreciate the call out.

 

[Keith_W]

You can align the scales by viewing the plots on spinorama.org. Below are the horizontal contours (normalized to on-axis) for both speakers. Throughout much of the treble (roughly a 5kHz range), the ELX towers are clearly wider. Whether that is a positive or not will depend on your room and personal preferences, of course. And to your point, when looking at the spinorama, the ERDI averages both vertical and horizontal reflections together. The ELX ribbons have a significantly smaller vertical window than the Blades, which contributes to the narrower overall dispersion calculated within the ERDI. Does this distinction matter? I think it does, largely because our ears are arrayed horizontally - hence when discussing perceived "spaciousness" in a stereo system, horizontal dispersion plays a larger role than vertical, IMO.

Thanks. The irony is not lost on me. Here I am, telling people to learn to read the Spinorama ... whilst failing to read the Spinorama properly myself. I should skulk away in shame and hand in my ASR membership

 

[Beave]

You can align the scales by viewing the plots on spinorama.org. Below are the horizontal contours (normalized to on-axis) for both speakers. Throughout much of the treble (roughly a 5kHz range), the ELX towers are clearly wider. Whether that is a positive or not will depend on your room and personal preferences, of course. And to your point, when looking at the spinorama, the ERDI averages both vertical and horizontal reflections together. The ELX ribbons have a significantly smaller vertical window than the Blades, which contributes to the narrower overall dispersion calculated within the ERDI. Does this distinction matter? I think it does, largely because our ears are arrayed horizontally - hence when discussing perceived "spaciousness" in a stereo system, horizontal dispersion plays a larger role than vertical, IMO.

View attachment 431170

I was about to type a somewhat similar reply, but I held off because I figured somebody else would do it - and do it better than I would. You did just that. Thanks. That's one of the things I like about this forum.

 

[mj30250]

Thanks. The irony is not lost on me. Here I am, telling people to learn to read the Spinorama ... whilst failing to read the Spinorama properly myself. I should skulk away in shame and hand in my ASR membership

No need to be so harsh on yourself. Try framing it into a positive - at least you had it right the first time.

 

[Matias]

While the general assumption of "wider radiation = larger and more surrounding soundstage, narrower radiation = more precise and pint-point soundstage", I would also add that this is really in ideal symmetrical room conditions. If you add a wide radiating speaker in an asymmetric room you would only hear its asymmetries more, making the flaws more obvious. So in a way a narrow radiation is also more forgiving speaker for asymmetric rooms.

 

[TobyJ]

Your comment made me look a bit more closely at what I said. I agree with you, and it reminded me that contour plots can be misleading. And I was guilty of being misled. So... I would like to take back what I said about the directivity of the Blades vs. the ELX's and issue an apology. I'll explain where I got it wrong.


View attachment 431137View attachment 431138

The contour plot was the basis of my comment that the KEF's had more narrow directivity. But take a closer look at the legend on the right - the colour schemes are on different scales. On the left, the range is from 90dB to 40dB (i.e. 50dB scale). On the right, the range is 0dB to -30dB (i.e. 30dB scale). Because Erin configured his graph to display a more dramatic colour change, his contour plot makes the KEF's look narrower. My eyes automatically focused on the red part. I think most eyes would.

The lesson here is: unless the contour plots you are comparing are using the same colour scale, a quick glance will mislead you. I knew that, but I forgot it.


View attachment 431144

We can get a better idea of the directivity by looking at the sound power DI (SPDI, orange line in both graphs).

The SPDI is the logarithm of the ratio of (on axis / sound power). "On axis" means that the mic was placed 1m from the speaker on axis and a single sweep was taken. "Sound power" is the total amount of sound radiated by the speaker in a spherical pattern taken from a few dozen mic positions and averaged.

The Early Reflections DI (ERDI, purple in both graphs) is the logarithm of the ration of (early reflections / sound power). "Early reflections" is the average of several measurements taken on a vertical and horizontal arc from the speaker.

In both cases, the difference between minimum and maximum tells you the directivity. We also want to see a smooth looking graph from minimum to maximum. The bigger the difference, the narrower the dispersion.

Here we can see that the SPDI of the ELX is about 13dB, whilst for the KEF it is 10dB. So the ELX has slightly more narrow dispersion than the KEF's. The ERDI is about the same, 7dB for both speakers.

Once again, I apologise. I should have looked more carefully. I keep saying that the measurements are objective, but interpretation is subjective and prone to mistakes. I will assume that both sets of measurements were taken correctly and not subject to silly errors in setup because that can happen, too.

I'd like to give this post some love. I think it represents the best of ASR: a helpful, ego-free reflection on the available data, designed to help a less expert person make a decision they'll be happy with.

Kudos.

(Said as someone who has benefited from just this kind of help previously on ASR)

 

[Absolute]

Call Ascend and they will say the ELX towers are endgame. Erin refers to the Blades as end game. Not trying to get anybody to say who is right as I know this is subjective but is the law of diminishing returns very evident here? Would it be worth spending $5000 more or so to get a used pair of Blade 2’s over the ascends? Both would be used for music and HT with subs in a large room.

One might be better than the other in any given scenario, but I'd expect it to be a toss-up which one would get the edge in a double blind test in a random room given the different dispersion characteristics. Narrow vertical dispersion might be a pluss in many rooms. Blade looks better at face value, but worth 5k more? Now, that depends on several factors. What is a large room in this case? Single-seat listening? Multi-seat? Distance to speakers? Music only? Do you dance around? Spl requirements? Resale value considered? Acoustics? Care about esthetics? How much is 5000$ to you?

To me the price difference is substantial, meaning that if I had no money right now and would have to save up every cent, 5000$ would realistically take me about 5-6 months to set aside. The difference in performance would then have to be pretty noticeable to justify that to me.

Instead of agonizing over which speaker look the best on a graph, ask which speaker solves the sound quality problems the most? In my world, those two speakers are fighting in or around the same weight-class because they both answer the question in a similar way.
Nice frequency response and somewhat controlled dispersion, and that's it. They both solve those problems very well.
However, not a single care in the world for in-room SBIR problems in the most critical area (below 400 hz) or for capacity issues in a large-ish room.

With that in mind, no speaker is end-game in terms of sound quality unless you successfully design the room and sound system around the problems you want to solve. Low-capacity speakers with small woofers in a large, acoustically treated room is far from end-game in my book. Most people will disagree, of course.

But, as we all know, most people are wrong.

 

[MarkS]

End game would be described by myself as whatever level investment you're willing to go, and whatever you like at around that price point..for me it would be about $2000 for speakers and about $1000 for the accompanying subwoofer...

At this price point there are many excellent options. IMO, spending more on speakers does not get you much without a dedicated, optimized, treated room to put them in. And then whether you are going to go two-channel or multi-channel. And a lot also depends on what qualities of the sound are most important to you. Do you care more about precise imaging on a flute solo or rock-concert-level chest-thumping bass?

 

[tw 2022]

At this price point there are many excellent options. IMO, spending more on speakers does not get you much without a dedicated, optimized, treated room to put them in. And then whether you are going to go two-channel or multi-channel. And a lot also depends on what qualities of the sound are most important to you. Do you care more about precise imaging on a flute solo or rock-concert-level chest-thumping bass?

I lean towards clean, clear reproduction, but good dynamics don't hurt my feelings...I currently have emotive b1 mains that were modified by Dennis Murphy.( mine were the prototype for the mod). I'm thinking my next stop is either Philharmonic bmr's or ascend Sierra books .. I'm in a small room with an SVS pb1000 pro sub( I like the built in dsp) ... If I "cheap out" I might grab ascend sierra 1v2's, but the bmr's seem logical to me as an upgrade

 

[Karmacoma]

I'd take the blade 2. Imaging is better which to me is very important as it's part of the feeling of accuracy of a speaker, that's #1 in your brain's hierarchy of sound stimuli importance.
Not only do they sound endgame, they also look endgame, which is part of the feeling to have an endgame speaker to me. Now I'm just curious what the guy who's selling them will replace them with... which tells us that wasn't his endgame.

 

[sdrichard]

Not only do they sound endgame, they also look endgame, which is part of the feeling to have an endgame speaker to me.

Totally agree. OMA's Jonathan once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, audio hobby is a life style. And style is important, to me at least.

 

[RickS]

Your comment made me look a bit more closely at what I said. I agree with you, and it reminded me that contour plots can be misleading. And I was guilty of being misled. So... I would like to take back what I said about the directivity of the Blades vs. the ELX's and issue an apology. I'll explain where I got it wrong.


View attachment 431137View attachment 431138

The contour plot was the basis of my comment that the KEF's had more narrow directivity. But take a closer look at the legend on the right - the colour schemes are on different scales. On the left, the range is from 90dB to 40dB (i.e. 50dB scale). On the right, the range is 0dB to -30dB (i.e. 30dB scale). Because Erin configured his graph to display a more dramatic colour change, his contour plot makes the KEF's look narrower. My eyes automatically focused on the red part. I think most eyes would.

The lesson here is: unless the contour plots you are comparing are using the same colour scale, a quick glance will mislead you. I knew that, but I forgot it.


View attachment 431144

We can get a better idea of the directivity by looking at the sound power DI (SPDI, orange line in both graphs).

The SPDI is the logarithm of the ratio of (on axis / sound power). "On axis" means that the mic was placed 1m from the speaker on axis and a single sweep was taken. "Sound power" is the total amount of sound radiated by the speaker in a spherical pattern taken from a few dozen mic positions and averaged.

The Early Reflections DI (ERDI, purple in both graphs) is the logarithm of the ration of (early reflections / sound power). "Early reflections" is the average of several measurements taken on a vertical and horizontal arc from the speaker.

In both cases, the difference between minimum and maximum tells you the directivity. We also want to see a smooth looking graph from minimum to maximum. The bigger the difference, the narrower the dispersion.

Here we can see that the SPDI of the ELX is about 13dB, whilst for the KEF it is 10dB. So the ELX has slightly more narrow dispersion than the KEF's. The ERDI is about the same, 7dB for both speakers.

Once again, I apologise. I should have looked more carefully. I keep saying that the measurements are objective, but interpretation is subjective and prone to mistakes. I will assume that both sets of measurements were taken correctly and not subject to silly errors in setup because that can happen, too.

Oops, good catch and think I have fallen victim to this as well.

The scale change happens going from the raw view to normalized. Not sure why Erin felt a need to normalize (maybe to compare different speakers more readily?).

 

[traind]

And are the used Blade 2s the meta version or the older one? Erin's measurements are on the metas and I am not sure how different the original version sounds.

 

[jonfitch]

KEFs can be end game in a medium to small sized room. In a larger room I would deploy something with wider dispersion like the TAD Evolution or Genelec the Ones. I think you want uniform vertical directivity as well in a truly end-game speaker unless this is a theater sized room with the speakers dozens of feet away from the listener.

 

[richard12511]

KEFs can be end game in a medium to small sized room. In a larger room I would deploy something with wider dispersion like the TAD Evolution or Genelec the Ones. I think you want uniform vertical directivity as well in a truly end-game speaker unless this is a theater sized room with the speakers dozens of feet away from the listener.

I actually looks like the Blades have slightly wider dispersion than the Genelec Ones outside of the top octave, though not by much. They're surprisingly similar overall, even more-so than I remember from last time I compared .

 

[Purité Audio]

KEFs can be end game in a medium to small sized room. In a larger room I would deploy something with wider dispersion like the TAD Evolution or Genelec the Ones. I think you want uniform vertical directivity as well in a truly end-game speaker unless this is a theater sized room with the speakers dozens of feet away from the listener.

I wouldn’t use the ‘ones’ in a larger room, ime they are best within a few metres.
Keith

 

[sdrichard]

KEFs can be end game in a medium to small sized room. In a larger room I would deploy something with wider dispersion like the TAD Evolution or Genelec the Ones. I think you want uniform vertical directivity as well in a truly end-game speaker unless this is a theater sized room with the speakers dozens of feet away from the listener.

Can you give a more quantitative description of what a small medium and large room means? I assume a small room is about 10-13 feet (3-4m) in length/width, but other people can have different ideas. I have no idea what a large room can be, since I'm not one of those with big houses. That said, I have been to a house where the main living room (dance room?) can host a party of at least 50-75 people.

Maybe the ASR community should standardize on room size description so we don't have this confusion.

 

[PristineSound]

My ELX with ribbon tweeter just came in today.
Talked about it here: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...acoustics-elx-or-bmr-tower.59812/post-2287463

I outfitted it with Isoacoustic Gaia. Just set it up, haven't messed around with placement yet.

But . . .sounds AMAZING so far.

I also listened to the Blade 2 Meta at a dealer, they are two very different speakers. Both great speakers. . .but the Blade is almost 6 times as expensive.