Leave it to the Germans, Abacus Mirra 14

[oivavoi]

Sorry but that doesn't really sound science oriented. I know the company since many decades and they were an old and very good electronic manufacturer who relatively recently jumped also into the loudspeaker market and imho cannot be compared there to our known science oriented references.

What would be the "science-oriented" way of deciding between waveguides and flat baffles? Do you know of any controlled listening experiments which compare waveguides and flat baffles, and conclude unequivocally that waveguides perform better? I don't, at least.

While I don't know the history of Abacus in deatail, I do remember that I considered getting a pair of loudspeakers from them six or seven years back, so they have been making loudspeakers for some years at least.

 

[Rizzle]

Sorry but that doesn't really sound science oriented. I know the company since many decades and they were an old and very good electronic manufacturer who relatively recently jumped also into the loudspeaker market and imho cannot be compared there to our known science oriented references.

I don't have a scientific background (well, not in audio), but from what I've understood:

• They experimented extensively with waveguides
• According to their results, the effect of waveguides was overestimated
• Customer feedback to them ideally is:
  • Professional users, preferably with measurements
• After my email back-and-forth they even added a section on the product page explaining why they didn't go for a waveguide

I don't want to compare who is the better researcher, or who is more knowledgeable. But the approach they take seems to me like its a scientific one. Experimentation, peer reviews, adjustments made on (new) available data (in different environments), and explaining why they made the decisions they made.

I don't want to come across as someone blindly defending them, I don't have any affiliation with Abacus, but I like this approach on product development.

 

[thewas]

What would be the "science-oriented" way of deciding between waveguides and flat baffles? Do you know of any controlled listening experiments which compare waveguides and flat baffles, and conclude unequivocally that waveguides perform better? I don't, at least.

The target is not the waveguides themselves but a smooth directivity where the known research has shown an undeniable correlation to listeners preference. If you use small enough drivers (for example 3-4 ways) you can achieve smooth directivity even without them but barely in the most commonly offered configurations like 6.5"/1".

 

[thewas]

I don't have a scientific background (well, not in audio), but from what I've understood:

• They experimented extensively with waveguides
• According to their results, the effect of waveguides was overestimated
• Customer feedback to them ideally is:
  • Professional users, preferably with measurements
• After my email back-and-forth they even added a section on the product page explaining why they didn't go for a waveguide

I don't want to compare who is the better researcher, or who is more knowledgeable. But the approach they take seems to me like its a scientific one. Experimentation, peer reviews, adjustments made on (new) available data (in different environments), and explaining why they made the decisions they made.

I don't want to come across as someone blindly defending them, I don't have any affiliation with Abacus, but I like this approach on product development.

I have heard such claims from several small companies who don't have the R&D to design their own waveguides and design loudspeakers the way loudspeakers were designed in the 60s but have never seen any documented proof on those like the peer-reviewed articles you mention which is also understandable when you consider their small size, they aren't giants like Samsung, Sony etc. who can afford such parallel scientific research.

 

[q3cpma]

I don't have a scientific background (well, not in audio), but from what I've understood:

• They experimented extensively with waveguides
• According to their results, the effect of waveguides was overestimated
• Customer feedback to them ideally is:
  • Professional users, preferably with measurements
• After my email back-and-forth they even added a section on the product page explaining why they didn't go for a waveguide

I don't want to compare who is the better researcher, or who is more knowledgeable. But the approach they take seems to me like its a scientific one. Experimentation, peer reviews, adjustments made on (new) available data (in different environments), and explaining why they made the decisions they made.

I don't want to come across as someone blindly defending them, I don't have any affiliation with Abacus, but I like this approach on product development.

Why these drivers? Why not a waveguide?
Of course, ABACUS has already experimented with sound guides. It has been shown, however, that complex sound guidance can be a task, but certainly not the only one and perhaps not even the decisive one. Even if no ABACUS loudspeaker has been explicitly optimized in terms of its radiation behavior, in a direct comparison similar competitor products were left behind in terms of localization sharpness and spatial imaging. In the end, of course, this is always due to the taste and the actual purpose.

What I've understood is "bullshit and handwaving", unless Google Translate is distorting their message.

 

[changer]

I have to agree, it reads a bit like a build-up against possible criticism of their already developed product, to immunize their potential buyers. As in "directivity can be optimized/an issue, but must not". Also, the rest of the product page reads more or less like they had experience with 2/3 drivers and thought if they'd make it active and add a tweeter, this would make a great Neumann/KH-style monitor already. They did not consider directivity before and now they have it. Maybe they have never looked into waveguides for dome tweeters or mid-high woofers before.

 

[Lambda]

What I've understood is "bullshit and handwaving"

No that's accurate

I'm wondering if anybody here has enough background knowledge to say something about their amplifiers,

Pure marketing BS.

 

[seyl3r]

Pure marketing BS.

Can you explain why? They talk about lots of advantages of their approach and it's obviously different from others. I'm really interested in an electrical explanation.

 

[Lambda]

approach and it's obviously different from others.

how, why?
They using a classic class AB amp and the saying it has a low output impedance and therefore high damping.
Nothing new or special here. getting low output impedance is not hard those days and with (negative) feedback you can make it what ever you want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_amplifier_classes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_collector
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_base
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_drain

 

[withoutsuit]

Sorry but that doesn't really sound science oriented. I know the company since many decades and they were an old and very good electronic manufacturer who relatively recently jumped also into the loudspeaker market and imho cannot be compared there to our known science oriented references.

did you test their speakers? I'm just testing the Cortex 11 at home and I'm deeply impressed and also eager to hear the Mirra 15... The mirra 14 was developed together with some producers (as beta testers). One of them classified the mirra at the level of Neumann KH310.

 

[thewas]

did you test their speakers? I'm just testing the Cortex 11 at home and I'm deeply impressed and also eager to hear the Mirra 15... The mirra 14 was developed together with some producers (as beta testers). One of them classified the mirra at the level of Neumann KH310.

I (and many here) trust objective measurements more than subjective opinions, names and job attributes, if loudspeakers are good, it should be no problem to provide detailed measurements for them.

 

[withoutsuit]

I (and many here) trust objective measurements more than subjective opinions, names and job attributes, if loudspeakers are good, it should be no problem to provide detailed measurements for them.

Yes, I know. I see no contradiction here. It's a pitty, that there is no measurement of their products available here, probably because they are not very well known international. Their marketing is very poor, they do absolutely no paid advertisment in any magazine, which is positiv at the one hand, but negative when It cames to prominence and therefore related tests. Hopefully, armin will get his hands on it somehow in the future.

So you didn't hear them until know, right? That was my initial question, caused by your statment "imho cannot be compared there to our known science oriented references." I wondered, on which facts this statement was based. My impression of the company is, that they are absolutely science oriented and nothing else. No vodoo.

 

[thewas]

So you didn't hear them until know, right?

This argument is very old and tiring as its irrelevant to the objective judgement of an audio device.

That was my initial question, caused by your statment "imho cannot be compared there to our known science oriented references." I wondered, on which facts this statement was based.

Very few measurments provided and the ones that exist (plus also the driver and enclosure design) show not really a reference engineering.

My impression of the company is, that they are absolutely science oriented and nothing else.

And on what facts (like for example white papers, publications) do you base that?

 

[YSC]

I have a gut feeling is that when small companies which understandably don't have the resources to optimize the waveguide, spending time and cost on better component to create better on axis FR is a better option, it's easier to tell your client to setup a sweet spot for on axis sound, and with not terrible 10-20 degrees off axis sound than trying to add a waveguide without the resources to properly optimize it.

Much like the rear spoilers in a car, if it's a well optimized one, it improves your downforce yet cost not a lot of your acceleration or top speed, but if you just go DIY a spoiler and fit it into a corolla... you know it will highly likely just make things worse

 

[Chimiel]

I just heard the Mirra’s, they are great. Probably better than the KH 310. But their aftersales not so, if they ever need service, you’re f**ked.

 

[hege]

But their aftersales not so, if they ever need service, you’re f**ked.

Feel free to clarify?

Anyway... they already released a Dynaudio Core 59 clone too.

Pivota 42

Aktiver 3-Wege Studio-Midfield-Monitormit drehbarem Mittel-Hochton-Teil (Paarpreis)

www.abacus-electronics.de

I like that it's sealed (I guess that's their motto for all of their speakers). But other than that, they seem to have a million different speakers and pretty much no real measurements or SPL figures. Not that it's hard to estimate how much a sealed 12" BMS can output.

Even PA models now:

Public 12-1

Aktives PA-System mit 12" und 1" Treiber(vorläufiger Paarpreis)

www.abacus-electronics.de

Also an upright version of Mirra 14:

Mirra 15

Aktiver 3-Wege Studiomonitor (Paarpreis)

www.abacus-electronics.de

 

[sesas]

I stumbled upon this monitor and it seemed like a very interesting product to me:
https://translate.google.com/transl...ktivlautsprecher/studiomonitore/mirra-14.html

• Good quality components
  • Wavecor TW030WA09/10, WF120BD05/06 and WF223BD01/02
• DSP room correction available
• Decent price if it performs as promised: €2490.- per pair (€1990.- for early birds)

View attachment 110394
View attachment 110395

Their own measurements look good, and I'm a big fan of the "science-based" crowd development approach to speaker development "ABACUS expects feedback from a professional application environment, if necessary with specific suggestions for improvement and ideally measurements" (this is specifically aimed at people that participate in the crowd development deal).

View attachment 110397

Hey I reckon this crew(Abacus) are good for it! I stumbled across their baby monitor- the C-Box 3 about 4yrs ago and was well curious.
So went on a online hunt to see what I could find on them, which ended up being very little! What little I did find was mainly written in German, so I had to
use ggl translate! Subsequently all the reviews/references were all super positive and seemed to be raving about the little C-Box. I was in the market for
some thing small and maybe even portable. But definitely as accurate as I could get for the size. So prior to the C-Box discovery I was seriously checking
out the baby Genelec 8010. Not cheap for the size but at least a decent rep. Thing is, Im into all sorts of electronic music and am most definitely
partial to good punchy bass response. I did hear the baby Gens many years ago in small music shop in Glasgow and they were definitely punchy but with not much
meaningful low end to speak of.
Anyways- to try and cut a chase- I started to look far and wide for more info on the C-Box and found a few more articles on them- I think a rave review was made
by a seemingly hi end online hi fi web page- Six Moons I think? Their review was focused on the previous iteration(C-Box2). But with the updated version, the
hype seemed to be around its frequency response, which for its size seemed almost impossible. From 20K all the way down to 34HZ!! All this from a tiny box
pushing a 4in bass cone, with no DSP, bass reflex port or even passive radiator. By this time I was sold without even having a chance to audition these curious
little things! Add to that, Im all the way in Australia and if these were not to my liking, it would be a nightmare getting them here, only to have to send them back
and get me a refund! So as luck would have it, I came across another web page that- curiously enough- do a random selection of concrete versions of speakers
and monitors that seem to occupy the hi end hifi space. I find the C-Box 3 a hansom little speaker as is. But in dark grey concrete these things take on a whole new
edge in my opinion. Not to mention the fact that the cabinet should be even more inert and less prone to vibrational loss via. The standard units were around
590Euro if I remember correctly, with the concrete ones well into the 800 mark. The web site(Monolith I think) had the speakers priced in Swedish Krona. I
did the conversion and for some strange reason the price came back slightly cheaper than the standard units. I thought this cant be right? I left it for a while-
like a few months- then decided to hit them up and see what was happening- re the low price.. Eventually I was contacted by someone from the site who informed
me it was a typo, of which I thought as much! Then they got back to me again and said if I was still interested, they would honour the mistaken price and send me
a pair. As you can imagine, this was a no brainer to me =))
So, Ive had these C-Box babies for about three years now and they are indeed something special. I would put them in the super nearfield category- If there is such
a thing..! They are really about close monitoring on your desktop but could easily handle a pro studio facility by way of their amazing performance and sonic delivery.
Oh and yes they most certainly do go all the way down as quoted- maybe even a few HZ lower! All this from a closed analog concrete box! They sound incredible
and my first mix on them was a revelation. Some of the reviews spoke of these being little known secret via a few German mastering houses and studios. I thought
that might have been some hype back when I was checking them out. But now I can say hand on heart, you could easily use these units for mixing and/or mastering.
They are that good. They dont play super loud but what you do have is a perfectly formed sonic sound stage at reasonably close quarters. Everything is effortless about
these boxes and music is a joy to behold via. I'd say that, when mixing the low end, if not balanced right the C-Box's will tell you with them sounding strangely gutless
and a little flabby when the volume is extended. But as soon as you get the bottom end sorted, then everything sits right and you can turn them up and all the elements
come up and in perfect proportions. You can safely say, that I absolutely love these little monitors! Abacus are on another level. How else can you describe an outfit that
designs a box for mainly hi end but ultimately domestic purposes and they and up atop meter bridges in mastering houses and studios?! I even saw an article where
the slightly bigger CBox4 won best studio monitor in a shoot-out even though they were not designed for the job!
So to finally end, I'd go as far as to say the Mirra 14 will wipe the floor with the competition! These guys know what they are doing and this push pull biz with their amps
seems to work a treat. If they say the Mirra does 16HZ then as far as I'm concerned they will do just that )

I found this review(Below-in German of course!). The gentleman seems to think the Mirra are on another level to the Nuemann KH310 and the KS Digital C88 for whatever
they are worth.. He seem to be saying that they loved those other monitors but haven't had much use for them since taking delivery of the Mirra 14. Baring in mind I was
at the mercy of YT translator!
Anyway, apologies for my long rant! This is my first time posting here on this forum.

Regardless I hope it helped..

Cheers
S

Mirra 14

 

[Doenerkunde]

BTW I´m not so sure about a directivity mismatch between tweeter and midrange. The midrange has an outer diameter of 120mm. The crossover frequency between the shallow waveguide 30mm tweeter and midrange is 1.250hz (thanks to the astonishing Wavecor tweeters and their very low resonance frequency). On paper this does not read like a mismatch to me, but I´m just a hobbyist without formal technical education.

Could it be that the „widening of dispersion“ around 3-5khz is the result of edge diffraction? The edges are rounded, but tweeter and midrange are pretty close to them and 3-5khz = 115-68mm wavelength which could potentially match the distance between edge and drivers. It would be interesting to see measurements of the Mira15 model to compare, since it has a broader baffle.

 

[jean-benoit]

anybody else who has heard these speakers?
i like the sound of the kh310, but if these are on par or better sounding, than maybe "the new thing" is a better option. price difference in my country is not huge...