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Your PIR response suggests they could sound a little bright in some setups. Any thoughts on this from your experiences so far?
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Palmer ORBIT 11 Cardioid Coaxial 3-way studio monitor (MSRP 799€/899$)
- Thread starter kharan
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Your PIR response suggests they could sound a little bright in some setups. Any thoughts on this from your experiences so far?
Markie Warkie
Member
Hey im considering buying 3 of these for an LCR in a home theater (OFC crossed over to subs) at a 3.5m Listening distance do you think they would suffice ?
That would square with one engineer's subjective review finding them a little upper mid forward.
Can you share the link?
kemmler3D
Master Contributor
Awesome work on the review, very helpful and as others have said, this seems like as much as one can do without a klippel. And nice job getting the scoop on independent robust measurements of this one. 
To my eye I don't think this speaker is "perfect" - (but damn if they didn't get close with their first monitor)... the constant directivity isn't truly constant (although I've yet to see a graph of "CD" that I couldn't nitpick) and I would also expect it to sound a tad recessed in the lower mids or forward in the lower treble, depending on how you want to say it. That said, I was kind of expecting there to be more of a catch to this deal. The distortion looks quite impressive given the size and the overall frequency response is hard to criticize beyond it not having much of a slope down.
Since you can easily EQ in a downward tilt if you want it without fighting any of the (barely extant) directivity error, I don't see that as a reason to think twice...
My wife is going to be pissed, but I really can't help but think of getting a pair now... the "but these ones are white and look nicer" angle has worked before. We'll see...
To my eye I don't think this speaker is "perfect" - (but damn if they didn't get close with their first monitor)... the constant directivity isn't truly constant (although I've yet to see a graph of "CD" that I couldn't nitpick) and I would also expect it to sound a tad recessed in the lower mids or forward in the lower treble, depending on how you want to say it. That said, I was kind of expecting there to be more of a catch to this deal. The distortion looks quite impressive given the size and the overall frequency response is hard to criticize beyond it not having much of a slope down.
Since you can easily EQ in a downward tilt if you want it without fighting any of the (barely extant) directivity error, I don't see that as a reason to think twice...
My wife is going to be pissed, but I really can't help but think of getting a pair now... the "but these ones are white and look nicer" angle has worked before. We'll see...
kemmler3D
Master Contributor
This is really apples and oranges, I would guess Harman is probably the largest audio division in the world and it's probably not close.
The audio companies I've personally interacted with (that didn't own factories) tended to be pretty small shops. AFAIK more than 100 people puts you in a fairly high tier for audio, especially hi-fi or studio stuff.
How many people work at Genelec (linkedin says 213) or Mackie (linkedin says 187)? I think those are more informative comparisons.
The retailer is prolighting.de, seems to be reputable but I have no personal experience with them.
Audionaut
Major Contributor
These are not apples and oranges, but different company sizes in similar business areas.
It is simply not reasonable to compare Palmer, with its approximately 10 employees, with large corporations such as Harman, Sony, or Yamaha.
I know many small audio companies with very good reputations. One of them, not yet tested on ASR, is in my immediate vicinity.
SPL – Sound Performance Lab
We create hardware tools for music production. Sound Performance – Made in Germany.
spl.audio
Pearljam5000
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Are there any downsides to cardiod?
Thanks! Seems they already sold their inventory.
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The difficulty in spelling it?
Pearljam5000
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Oink-Oinko
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Low end distortion
Durian is my favorite fruit. What can I say...
I would also argue that mixes have gotten much worse on average in recent decades due to plummeting budgets for the pro productions leading to loads of shortcuts that won't stand the test of time and an increase in DIY productions...
Anyway, great to see these measurements, and thanks for sharing. How is the depth and width of the soundstage?
I would also argue that mixes have gotten much worse on average in recent decades due to plummeting budgets for the pro productions leading to loads of shortcuts that won't stand the test of time and an increase in DIY productions...
Anyway, great to see these measurements, and thanks for sharing. How is the depth and width of the soundstage?
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I hesitate even bringing personal opinion into this.. but, short answer, I listened to them indoor in a small room and outdoor, and no, no particular sonic character stood out to me in either scenario.
Correct - the Orbit wasn't able to produce SPLs high enough below a 1% THD limit in the lower bass region that would allow the SNR to be good enough. I was able to perform a 3% THD measurement in the bass region, which then however began matching the 1% curve in the mid and high frequency region due to the Orbit's limiter protection circuits kicking it, so I only performed it up to ~600 Hz.
This is the 1% curve from the video again, and the 3% one in green:
While we're at it, something that slipped my mind including in the video - compression behavior. This is compression at 96 dB, vs. a reference level of 76 dB SPL, with the ~2 second duration sine sweep used for the rest of the measurements:
And a measurement that I performed late last night for the S/PDIF to AES issue; I cite:
This is the difference in frequency response from analog (normal behavior, used for the measurements in the video) to AES via my S/PDIF interface:
I tried a different cable (normal XLR cable with 0,5m length) too, I tried at different volumes, I tried switching the input setting from both AES channels summed to only left or right; all didn't make a difference. No big deal for me personally, but nevertheless something to document. Oh, and the interface used is a DSD TECH SH-AU01A, which works fine for me on other devices with AES input.
Mirror sound source of the surface adds 6 dB SPL with GPM vs. a free air measurement, double the distance reduces 6 dB - hence, GPM 2m equals 4pi 1m.
This has been empirically demonstrated all the way back to 1980, via Mark Gander's original work on the ground plane measurement technique, which I referenced in the video description and was hoping would be read if something was unclear.
Someone conveniently uploaded the PDF here on ASR -> GROUND PLANE ACOUSTIC MEASUREMENT OF LOUDSPEAKER SYSTEM - Gander, AES, 1980. Figure 5 displays the measurement of a speaker suspended in air (essentially 4pi) at 1m distance, figure 8 displays the ground plane measurement at 2m distance; the curves essentially match.
This has been empirically demonstrated all the way back to 1980, via Mark Gander's original work on the ground plane measurement technique, which I referenced in the video description and was hoping would be read if something was unclear.
Someone conveniently uploaded the PDF here on ASR -> GROUND PLANE ACOUSTIC MEASUREMENT OF LOUDSPEAKER SYSTEM - Gander, AES, 1980. Figure 5 displays the measurement of a speaker suspended in air (essentially 4pi) at 1m distance, figure 8 displays the ground plane measurement at 2m distance; the curves essentially match.
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