Palmer ORBIT 11 Cardioid Coaxial 3-way studio monitor (MSRP 799€/899$)

[Pete James]

Yes of course. Cardioïd patterns don't work in bass frequencies.
It's intended to work on low medium/ medium range.

It's indeed a misinterpretation of cardioïd patterns to think it can properly correct bass room modes.
This confusion was partly reinforced by the marketing communication of Kii Audio, not enough precise in theiritstechnical explanation.
In the Kii Audio speakers, the bass correction is processed thru the rear drivers and the cardioïd correction by the side mid bass woofers.

In Geithain, D&D and now Palmer, it's done in a passive way thru the side slots. I hope it's working fine in this Palmer affordable monitor.

Why not? That's the main place I really want them to work. If not it seems like a bit of a gimmick.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Cardioid matters from 800 hz on down. Look at a few horizontal contours of speakers and you'll see that 800 hz is where their dispersion starts to widen out noticeably. And that 200-800 hz region contains a lot of music fundamentals, including vocals, so anything with will make a speaker's radiation pattern in that region more like what's happening at 800 hz and above should greatly add to the verisimilitude of what's being reproduced. Below 200 hz the Schroeder frequency is kicking in and the room is playing the bass frequencies loaded into it by the speaker whether that speaker is cardioid or not. Something like Dirac's Art which makes the speaker systems actively compensate for all the room reflections below 200 hz may be the better tool for dealing with that. So a combinations of cardioid from 200-800 hz, and Dirac Art from 20-200 hz may be just the ticket.

Used in conjuction with Dirac Art, the Palmer could be all the cardioid we need.

 

[Torin Krell]

I like it too, but it's not orange, it's tangerine

Tangerine has had cachet in audio before:

 

[SUNS]

They look like a KEF LS60 but in a compact studio format , with cardioid .

Would be interesting to see the measurements when they arrive.

Is the intended typical use case nearfield monitoring ? All things weighted it seems not to be geared towards incredibly spl at a distance
But as any good speakers it can be made to work at slightly farther distances at home I suppose ?
Are listening distance in the specs ?

I guess as near fields coaxials should be 1.1 to 1.4m if mixing mostly around 70 or 75db SPL.. they peak at 80 or 85db.. so

 

[90sNintendoKid]

Cardioid matters from 800 hz on down. Look at a few horizontal contours of speakers and you'll see that 800 hz is where their dispersion starts to widen out noticeably. And that 200-800 hz region contains a lot of music fundamentals, including vocals, so anything with will make a speaker's radiation pattern in that region more like what's happening at 800 hz and above should greatly add to the verisimilitude of what's being reproduced. Below 200 hz the Schroeder frequency is kicking in and the room is playing the bass frequencies loaded into it by the speaker whether that speaker is cardioid or not. Something like Dirac's Art which makes the speaker systems actively compensate for all the room reflections below 200 hz may be the better tool for dealing with that. So a combinations of cardioid from 200-800 hz, and Dirac Art from 20-200 hz may be just the ticket.

Used in conjuction with Dirac Art, the Palmer could be all the cardioid we need.

I couldn't agree more. This is my exact use case, if the Klippel measurements are good, I am going to buy a pair and use them with ART.

 

[Matt_Holland]

Are listening distance in the specs ?

No, but peak SPL is 116dB (distortion?) and dispersion 60 degrees so they should be fine in a variety of setups.

 

[artemtch63]

No, but peak SPL is 116dB (distortion?) and dispersion 60 degrees so they should be fine in a variety of setups.

I wonder how loud could be speakers with 116db peak SPL. For example a Genelec 8340 has 118db peak SPL and it doesn’t look very powerful.

UPD 8340 have 118db peak SPL per pair

 

[Grotti]

I wonder how loud could be speakers with 116db peak SPL. For example a Genelec 8340 has 118db peak SPL and it doesn’t look very powerful.

Wait for the measurements.....

 

[Paul7777x]

I doubt anyone using them for home hifi is going to have any lack of volume issues. Especially paired with subs and DSP.

 

[amirm]

I doubt anyone using them for home hifi is going to have any lack of volume issues. Especially paired with subs and DSP.

You can't know that until we measure and see how much distortion it generates.

 

[MrBlueSky4470]

For reasonable volumes (75 to 80 dB) I'm pretty sure they are, if you don't use them at 3 meters distance.

My main concern about those speakers was actually my better half. But I've asked nicely and got green light for trying them.
I'll wait for some reviews though.

 

[Paul7777x]

You can't know that until we measure and see how much distortion it generates.

True enough. But I’ll be astonished if they don’t satisfy all but the permanent party volume crowd. Of which I am certainly not one.

 

[UffdiePalme]

Good Morning everyone,

I see you had a nice weekend with a lot of discussions about the color orange .
It reminds me a little of the meeting I had with Thomann last week, when we joked that the white speaker probably has more highs.
After that meeting I can also confirm, as it was asked: Thomann will be live with the white and black models this week.

And don't get me started on Aluminium! Every time we shoot a video, I have to remind myself how to pronounce it...

Also: We're starting to ship out Orbit 11 in Europe this week. The US will follow a little later (expected March). For you guys and the test of Amir, we're trying to send out a pair on a faster way.

Regarding the discussion about how many reviews and tests are necessary, I personally think it's good to have lots of tests and opinions. One part is the measurement itself. The other part is the interpretation and alignment with personal taste. As we all know, taste plays a big role (I'm looking at you, orange lovers ).
So, there will be more reviews only shortly. (Maybe a studio-focused one will be up today)

I've worked through all the pages and hope I didn't lose some questions. But, here are my replies:

If I read correctly, some AES3 input gear will work with a SPDIF signal. I'm hoping that the Palmer guy will answer on whether the Orbit will.

Orbit 11 will handle your SPDIF signal as well. Only issue could be too little output from your SPDIF Source.

View attachment 510989
What is this for?

Yes, that is the service port I've mentioned before.

Because many of you were asking for more measurements of Harmonic Distortion at higher SPL I upload one for 94dB SPL and one for 104dB SPL (no smoothing applied):

What is the ideal listening distance for the Orbit 11? Is it a near field monitor or would a listening distance of 2 to 3m work for these?

I was just about to ask the same. Would they work well for distances less than 1 meter?

Orbit 11 is designed to be a near-field studio monitor. This is usually the best way to use it. It should work well at distances under 1 metre. Regarding more mid-field applications: You could use it for those as well, as the level and dispersion should be suitable.

You said before that, and I quote:
"More information, the cardioid is passive, and it goes down to 250 Hz."
So it ranges from 250 Hz to something like 500 Hz?

We achieve directivity down to 250 Hz with the cardioid front baffle. However, it is not important how high this goes, because at higher frequencies, the sound becomes more directional anyway. You can see that quite good in the isobaric diagrams.

Again: Thanks for all the discussions. It's great to see the hard work that went into developing this product being recognised, and it was worth all the years of effort.

 

[Liftro]

Good Morning everyone,

I see you had a nice weekend with a lot of discussions about the color orange .
It reminds me a little of the meeting I had with Thomann last week, when we joked that the white speaker probably has more highs.
After that meeting I can also confirm, as it was asked: Thomann will be live with the white and black models this week.

And don't get me started on Aluminium! Every time we shoot a video, I have to remind myself how to pronounce it...

Also: We're starting to ship out Orbit 11 in Europe this week. The US will follow a little later (expected March). For you guys and the test of Amir, we're trying to send out a pair on a faster way.

Regarding the discussion about how many reviews and tests are necessary, I personally think it's good to have lots of tests and opinions. One part is the measurement itself. The other part is the interpretation and alignment with personal taste. As we all know, taste plays a big role (I'm looking at you, orange lovers ).
So, there will be more reviews only shortly. (Maybe a studio-focused one will be up today)

I've worked through all the pages and hope I didn't lose some questions. But, here are my replies:

Orbit 11 will handle your SPDIF signal as well. Only issue could be too little output from your SPDIF Source.

Yes, that is the service port I've mentioned before.

Because many of you were asking for more measurements of Harmonic Distortion at higher SPL I upload one for 94dB SPL and one for 104dB SPL (no smoothing applied):
View attachment 511405
View attachment 511406




Orbit 11 is designed to be a near-field studio monitor. This is usually the best way to use it. It should work well at distances under 1 metre. Regarding more mid-field applications: You could use it for those as well, as the level and dispersion should be suitable.


We achieve directivity down to 250 Hz with the cardioid front baffle. However, it is not important how high this goes, because at higher frequencies, the sound becomes more directional anyway. You can see that quite good in the isobaric diagrams.
View attachment 511408View attachment 511409

Again: Thanks for all the discussions. It's great to see the hard work that went into developing this product being recognised, and it was worth all the years of effort.

You've really managed to combine all the features I've always wanted in a speaker. Congratulations on that. Perhaps I do miss having DSP with room correction, but I suppose you can't have everything in one at this price. I can always add the room correction system separately.

 

[Mnyb]

Thanks for providing guidance regarding use case .

Home speakers manufacturers rarely do , they want to sell any speaker to all rooms and setups

If don’t got this completely wrong Neumann for example have wider dispersion for the close ups models than for midfield or far field ?
And tonal balance can also depend a bit on distance. So there are things monitor mfg tune for different use cases .
Besides the obvious high spl and very large room …

So there really is a ”design distance ” for any speaker but in case of home speakers mfg are deliberately vague to not lose sales .

These are not hard rules , you can bend them a bit but it’s very helpful to know the intentions with the design and what limitations and issues you may have implementing a product in an atypical setup .

 

[eastman]

Good Morning everyone,

I see you had a nice weekend with a lot of discussions about the color orange .
It reminds me a little of the meeting I had with Thomann last week, when we joked that the white speaker probably has more highs.
After that meeting I can also confirm, as it was asked: Thomann will be live with the white and black models this week.

And don't get me started on Aluminium! Every time we shoot a video, I have to remind myself how to pronounce it...

Also: We're starting to ship out Orbit 11 in Europe this week. The US will follow a little later (expected March). For you guys and the test of Amir, we're trying to send out a pair on a faster way.

Regarding the discussion about how many reviews and tests are necessary, I personally think it's good to have lots of tests and opinions. One part is the measurement itself. The other part is the interpretation and alignment with personal taste. As we all know, taste plays a big role (I'm looking at you, orange lovers ).
So, there will be more reviews only shortly. (Maybe a studio-focused one will be up today)

I've worked through all the pages and hope I didn't lose some questions. But, here are my replies:

Orbit 11 will handle your SPDIF signal as well. Only issue could be too little output from your SPDIF Source.

Yes, that is the service port I've mentioned before.

Because many of you were asking for more measurements of Harmonic Distortion at higher SPL I upload one for 94dB SPL and one for 104dB SPL (no smoothing applied):
View attachment 511405
View attachment 511406




Orbit 11 is designed to be a near-field studio monitor. This is usually the best way to use it. It should work well at distances under 1 metre. Regarding more mid-field applications: You could use it for those as well, as the level and dispersion should be suitable.


We achieve directivity down to 250 Hz with the cardioid front baffle. However, it is not important how high this goes, because at higher frequencies, the sound becomes more directional anyway. You can see that quite good in the isobaric diagrams.
View attachment 511408View attachment 511409

Again: Thanks for all the discussions. It's great to see the hard work that went into developing this product being recognised, and it was worth all the years of effort.

Thank you for sharing those detail measurements. Great distortion performance! Is there also absolute distortion graph(non-relative) with fundamental and 4,5th HD to see the compression effect and higher order distortion?

 

[Mnyb]

You've really managed to combine all the features I've always wanted in a speaker. Congratulations on that. Perhaps I do miss having DSP with room correction, but I suppose you can't have everything in one at this price. I can always add the room correction system separately.

As it is a pro speaker it really only has “ speaker functions “ your supposed to provide the rest in your studio .

Which is a good thing, streaming aps can have to longevity of a head of lettuce, and to much stuff can become a software maintenance hell for a small company. Software is always more expensive than any hardware mfg ever realise even when they try .

 

[Arindal]

Cardioid matters from 800 hz on down. Look at a few horizontal contours of speakers and you'll see that 800 hz is where their dispersion starts to widen out noticeably.

The so-called baffle step actually depends on driver size, waveguide and baffle geometry in this frequency region (amongst other things). While 800Hz might be a typical frequency for a 6.5" or 5.25" equipped speaker, it is not a general rule.

And that 200-800 hz region contains a lot of music fundamentals, including vocals, so anything with will make a speaker's radiation pattern in that region more like what's happening at 800 hz and above should greatly add to the verisimilitude of what's being reproduced.

I agree, but below something like 300 or 400Hz, our ears are decreasingly capable of distinguishing direct from indirect sound, so directivity becomes of lesser importance here.

measurements of Harmonic Distortion at higher SPL I upload one for 94dB SPL and one for 104dB SPL

While the increase in cone excursion is seemingly apparent towards lower frequencies of the driver in question, the overall level of THD is extraordinary low for a cardioid. Well done!

 

[thewas]

I agree, but below something like 300 or 400Hz, our ears are decreasingly capable of distinguishing direct from indirect sound, so directivity becomes of lesser importance here.

I agree and that's why I find this concept a great compromise for the size and price and I otherwise really also like loudspeakers with wide baffles which manage similar from their baffle width.

 

[Downsideup]

In my personal opinion, people who place speakers close to the wall might find it a bit difficult to press the power button. Do you have any plans to develop speaker control software like

Good Morning everyone,

I see you had a nice weekend with a lot of discussions about the color orange .
It reminds me a little of the meeting I had with Thomann last week, when we joked that the white speaker probably has more highs.
After that meeting I can also confirm, as it was asked: Thomann will be live with the white and black models this week.

And don't get me started on Aluminium! Every time we shoot a video, I have to remind myself how to pronounce it...

Well you wrote Alumin-i-um, not Alumi-num so like me, it seems it is stuck in your head! I guess the Euro typing and pronunciation will never leave us!

Thanks for the measurements. Any news on the latency saved by going AES?
Best of luck with the launch!