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Most smoothed frequency response ever? Ex Machina Quasar MKII

Recluse-Animator

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https://exmachinasound.com/quasar-mkii/
quasar-4__49657.1643449174.1280.1280.jpg

The larger of our first two monitors, Quasar is an ideal choice for nearfield through mains monitoring in all but the largest rooms. Like it's younger brother, Quasar features custom SEAS drivers with cutting edge diaphragm materials, acoustically inert, sealed Valchromat® cabinets, Hypex Ncore® amps and AKM Velvet Sound conversion, and a dedicated SHARC® DSP per speaker deploying our proprietary calibration technology. And, like all our monitors, it offers an ultra-wide sweet spot, linear phase and magnitude response, vanishingly low distortion and superb transient response, for effortless clarity and highly detailed insight into your mixes. But with twice as many subs, and nearly twice as much power as Pulsar, you can add ridiculous low frequency extension and earth shattering output to that list as well. Hyper accurate tools? Massive sounding client pleasers? With Quasar, you get both.

PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENTS:​

  • Magnitude Linearity: +/- 1db 30hz - 30khz
  • Low Frequency Cutoff: -6db at 23hz
  • Phase Linearity: +/- 15 ° 30hz - 30khz
  • Maximum Continuous SPL (100hz - 30khz at 1m): 112db
  • Maximum Continuous LF SPL (30hz at 1m): 104db
  • THD + N (94db at 1m): <.5% 100hz - 30khz

SPECIFICATIONS​

DRIVER COMPLEMENT
  • 25mm / 1 ”GrapheneQ ™ tweeter, coaxial alignment with midrange.
  • 176mm / 7 ”” Textreme ™ carbon-fiber midrange, underhung surround, FEA optimized geometry for tweeter waveguide.
  • 221mm / 8 ”long-throw aluminum alloy subwoofer.
AMPLIFIED
  • Hypex Ncore: 250W RMS Subwoofer, 100W RMS Midrange, 75W RMS Tweeter
CROSSOVERS
  • Digital 8th order, phase corrected. 200hz LM, 2khz MH
DIMENSIONS (HxWxD)
  • 742 x 289 x 396 mm (29.2 x 11.4 x 15.6 inches)
WEIGHT
  • 49kg / 89lbs per speaker

Clicking on images will make them larger.​
Flat eh:
Pulsar-Frequency-Response-30cm-cal-position-2-2048x762.png

Impulse response:
Pulsar-Impulse-Response-2.png

Phase response:
Pulsar-Phase-Response-2-2048x762.png

THD:
Pulsar-THD-Ratio-94db-at-cal-position-2-2048x762.png

Horizontal polar:
Pulsar-Horizontal-Polar-2.png
 
Last edited:

ernestcarl

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I have a feeling these speakers are perfectly fine (other my own dislike for the price), so why bother showing measurements in such an exaggerated manner? It only makes it feel like they are overcompensating for other things… And where are the off-axis curves?
 

dougi

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I have a feeling these speakers are perfectly fine (other my own dislike for the price), so why bother showing measurements in such an exaggerated manner? It only makes it feel like they are overcompensating for other things… And where are the off-axis curves?
The horizontal polar plot does provide an alternate off-axis view in that plane. The vertical is missing though.
 

ernestcarl

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The horizontal polar plot does provide an alternate off-axis view in that plane. The vertical is missing though.

It turns out vertical is on the link, but resolution might as well be equivalent to 1/3 smoothing (or less). Why even bother…
 

dasdoing

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There is no way that that is an impulse response of a real speaker.

well, if any of the graphs are true, powerfull DSP has been aplied. also, the use of linear phase crossovers makes corecting phase much easier.

I wonder how much latency it has with that much correction
 

ernestcarl

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well, if any of the graphs are true, powerfull DSP has been aplied. also, the use of linear phase crossovers makes corecting phase much easier.

It's still zoomed-out way too much.

No doubt one can equalize a speaker with FIRs to be uber flat on-axis -- but why focus only on the on-axis response of a speaker? Something has got to give elsewhere i.e. there are always compromises that have to be worked out in any design.

"Realistic" plots of the LS50 meta as measured by Amir here on ASR: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ef-ls50-meta-review-speaker.25574/post-871427
 

ernestcarl

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I wonder how much latency it has with that much correction

From their FAQ:

How much latency do the speakers have?

In full processing mode, the DSP introduces about 46ms of latency; in low latency mode, less than 3ms.
 

gnarly

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From their FAQ:

How much latency do the speakers have?

In full processing mode, the DSP introduces about 46ms of latency; in low latency mode, less than 3ms.
Good for you ernestcarl, latency is quite telling when it comes to understanding 'good looking' response curves.
(46ms leads me to believe they're using 4k taps at 48kHz which is fine for 8th order linear phase crossovers at 200Hz)

fwiw guys, I've found it's not hard at all to get the same near perfect, frequency response (magnitude) and phase response on DIY speakers, as shown for the Exmachinas.
And with that mag and phase response, automatically comes a near perfect impulse and step response (just like as the impulse response shown).

It's not hard to do, even for 5-ways
Trick is active FIR on each way.....and tuning to a spot. (the spot can be either directly on-axis or a bit off-axis, doesn't matter)
Whenever I see such near perfect response curves as the Exmachina's, is obvious what's going on.

Not that that's a bad thing......
In fact, I'd say it's a good thing if response away from the spot holds up well.....(back to ye ole smooth directivity).
Then it's a downright excellent thing !

The Exmachinas look like nicely thought out boxes (although digital in via ethernet would be a good added capability).
And I'd like to see polars below 1000Hz, ......and with a heck of a lot less smoothing (horiz & verts are both on their website ).
Much better still, would be sets of off-axis curves. I'd like to see how well their spot tuning truly holds up.
 

gnarly

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Tech guy: how much smoothing?
Marketing: yes.
That straight line isn't simply from overly excessive smoothing.

Response can literally be made that flat with 1/6th -1/12th octave smoothing.......but again, using FIR to a spot.
 

gnarly

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To me It's pretty obvious Exmachina is using FIR tuning, to a spot.
And as YSC and voodooless point out, the graphs are the same for different models.
I also noticed the low freq cutoff is claimed -6dB @ 23 Hz. I'd make it more like 28Hz going by their graph.

So it seems to me they are using FIR tuning to a spot make it look extra good, and then marketing bias to make it look extra, extra, good. :p

All that said, doesn't mean it's not a good speaker imo.
Just means we need better info, model specific haha, polars, and smoothing disclosure.
And hey, how about measurements when the speaker is not on FIR...the ones with 3ms latency.

Anyway, switching gears...I thought i'd back up my earlier statements that their frequency response and phase graphs don't necessarily mean heavy smoothing.
And that the impulse response could be real.

Got a major version upgrade to Smaart yesterday, and just now tried out it's improved capability with a quick "FIR tune to a spot", on a 4-way main speaker.
Done indoors at about 1m on a synergy, made for 120Hz up.

All graphs below have zero smoothing.

The first shows each of the 4 sections measured acoustic response. I need to say acoustic response because the responses almost look electrical, given how well formed they are. The power of FIR (to a spot) :)
120Hz high pass on low setion, with xovers then at 300Hz, 700Hz, and 6300Hz. All 16th order linear phase.
syn10 spot tune sections.JPG




Second graph is with all sections playing.

syn10 spot tune full JPG.JPG



Third is the impulse response.
syn10 spot tune impulse match EXm.JPG




So i hope that helps show how good 'FIR to a spot' can look....
The question always is, how well does a tune to a spot hold up over polars.

That's the info Exmachina owes customers imho.
 
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