Palmer Orbit 11 Monitor Review

[montyliam]

What about dual subs with the Orbits?

I have only got a single sub atm. Dual subs to function as stands for the Genelecs is now the plan.

 

[CB89]

- The Genelec's sound slightly brighter

Even brighter? I find the Orbit slightly brighter than neutral, at least compared to the KH120a.
Probably due to:

The rest sounds promising for the Genelec. Maybe you'd be better off with subwoofers. That's what I would choose in your place, or rather, it would generally be a good idea with compact speakers.

 

[montyliam]

You're Comparing to Genelec 8350? I would expect an 8" driver in bass reflex enclosure should be quite close in output to the dual 8" of the Orbits. And the Genelec driver is probably higher quality to start with. Nevertheless, it's a 2-way system which will suffer IMD once playing high bass levels.

What do you mean by "bass integration".

The difference is at higher levels. The dual bass drivers of the Palmer, coupled with the dedicated mid-range produce lower audible IMD levels compared to the Genelec at higher levels.

Bass integration was in reference to the Genelec's + subwoofers vs the Palmers with the subwoofers built in. It was almost impossible in my room to get satisfying performance with a single subwoofer, in this regard, the bass drivers either side vs just one location proves more effective for my room.

 

[montyliam]

how about imaging and sound stage?

The Genelec's project a larger image. The soundstage is larger with the Genelec's vs closer with the Palmers. I felt the Palmer did not have much soundstage width but produced a more focused center image.

 

[montyliam]

@montyliam did you ever try moving the Orbits directly to the rear wall? The cardioid is only effective above 250-300Hz. At 50cm distance you will get rear wall recflection with inverse phase at about 140/280/560Hz. The deepest suckout in your plot is probably caused by rear wall reflection. When you move the speakers right to the wall the reflections with inverse phase move up in frequency and the cardioid dispersion should reduce reflections. At least worth a try I would think.

View attachment 519535

Both speakers are as close to the rear wall as space allows. I think the messy 1-200hz range is a combination of the rear wall distance from the listener and the rear wall from the speakers.

 

[montyliam]

My plan with dual subwoofers and the Genelec's.

 

[illusonic]

Both speakers are as close to the rear wall as space allows. I think the messy 1-200hz range is a combination of the rear wall distance from the listener and the rear wall from the speakers.

Ok, I see. Just to be clear, what I mean is basically the speaker almost touching the wall. This still leaves about 30cm speaker depth as effective distance.

 

[Mort]

I’ve had a little more time to listen back and forth between the Palmers and Genelecs. It’s a difficult one because both have positives and negatives:
- The Genelec's sound cleaner overall. Most music seems to have more clarity, I can hear into the mix rather than listening to it.
- The midrange on the Genelec's is noticeably cleaner.
- The Genelec's sound slightly brighter
- The Palmers have much better bass integration, and have a better 1-200hz in-room response due to the cardioid ports.
- The Genelec's get much louder without distortion.
- The cabient of the Palmers is completely dead thanks to the dual opposed woofers.

I am now strongly considering the investment on dual subs for the Genelec's vs the all-in-one Palmer solution.

Which Genelecs? SAM I assume?

 

[montyliam]

Which Genelecs? SAM I assume?

8350a.

 

[illusonic]

The Genelec's project a larger image. The soundstage is larger with the Genelec's vs closer with the Palmers. I felt the Palmer did not have much soundstage width but produced a more focused center image.

I want to bring sound image width up again. This is not a feature of the speakers alone but also depends on the speaker angle relative to the listening position and the side walls.

The only way a single loudspeakers can make a broadband signal appear to come from a direction that differs from the loudspeaker is through reflections. The brain of the listener interpolates the perceived position between the incoming sound directions according to their relative level (think L/R panning by level as an example for the same effect).

For example, your left speaker sends a direct signal to your listening position and a signal towards the left wall that is reflected to your listening position. The reflection comes in from an angle that is further to the left than the speaker position. Depending on the ratio of reflected to direct sound level, perceived image location is established by your brain and may be further left than your speaker position.

The difference between the sound image width of the Genelec and the Palmer speaker is caused by their horizontal radiation patterns. Especially for voice frequencies in the 250-500Hzs range, the dispersion angle of the Orbits is much more restraint than of the Genelec. This causes lower side-wall reflection level for the Orbits. As a result the sound image cannot extend the speaker positions.

If you turn the Orbits away from your listening position, the direct sound level decreases and the reflected sound level increases. This helps to restore sound image width. Above is the theory, practically it worked for me in my living room. I did not like the narrow image that was caused by cardioid dispersion characteristics of the speakers. So I tried different angle of the speakers (speaker point straight in my case). You may also try if you don't like the narrower but more precise sound image..

 

[Mort]

8350a.

Oh the big boys. Nice.

Genelec GLM is fantastic with a sub and monitor, you will not be disappointed.

 

[Audionaut]

I did not like the narrow image that was caused by cardioid dispersion characteristics of the speakers

It’s important that you, as an owner and someone who’s actually at the same time a big fan of the Orbit, say that. It’s great that there’s now a wider range of speakers with a cardioid pattern, but it’s not a feature that everyone needs or that’s equally suitable for everyone. It depends - like so often.

 

[illusonic]

It’s important that you, as an owner and someone who’s actually at the same time a big fan of the Orbit, say that. It’s great that there’s now a wider range of speakers with a cardioid pattern, but it’s not a feature that everyone needs or that’s equally suitable for everyone. It depends - like so often.

Generally I agree with your statement. And we all know that many speakers sound great without cardioid dispersion. Plus there are various degrees of dispersion control and cardioid only cares about a relatively small frequency range anyways.

I was nevertheless quite curious how such speakers sound in my home. The low price of the Orbits and also the limited availability made me make an impulse buy. So far I'm quite happy with my purchase as I see it as the best deal that I got in audio equipment to date.

In my case, as I wrote above, image width was restored by toeing the speakers out relative to the toe-in I use with my other speakers. My sofa is right in the middle of the room with the speakers on one wall. While both, my existing speakers without any dispersion control and the Orbits image nicely from the sofa position, the Orbits maintain better image focus behind the sofa, for example sitting at the dining table in that area. So I see an advantage in the dispersion control that the Orbits deliver. But I cannot say how much is due to the cardioid and how much due to the wavegide that the midrange and baffle impose on the tweeter.

And one more open question is what happens with Dirac on the Orbits. My other speakers run with Dirac Live compensation that also acts in the time domain. With Dirac the sound image of these speakers got more precise but also smaller. And I did not like that either, but accepted it due to tonality improvements. Now I'm asking myself if Orbits + DIrac would still be acceptable to me.

Anyways, the Orbits will not stay in the living room. But cardioid dispersion will most likely be included in my next speakers. As these will be diy, an active cardioid would make sense that can be de-/activated according to taste or occasion. I once listened to Lexicon SL1 speakers. They included an app that allowed to steer the beam of the speakers to various positions and to adjust the beam width. It was quite intresting to hear how image size and focus changed with beam width. Larger sound image of wider beam width came with less defined image.

 

[Sokel]

Since room correction like dirac can quite easily correct for this I would not give too much of a thought for „time domain“. It is mostly a marketing term that implies attributes like „attack“ and „better impulses“ which are misleading and dont have much to do woth phase linearity or a perfect impulse response.

Time-domain nonsense coming from the usual suspects has nothing to do with legit engineers like Dunlavy.
Dirac deals with the room and (should) have nothing to do with speaker correction (let alone building) , specially above the transition zone.

 

[tonyrob]

I’ve had a little more time to listen back and forth between the Palmers and Genelecs. It’s a difficult one because both have positives and negatives:
- The Genelec's sound cleaner overall. Most music seems to have more clarity, I can hear into the mix rather than listening to it.
- The midrange on the Genelec's is noticeably cleaner.
- The Genelec's sound slightly brighter
- The Palmers have much better bass integration, and have a better 1-200hz in-room response due to the cardioid ports.
- The Genelec's get much louder without distortion.
- The cabient of the Palmers is completely dead thanks to the dual opposed woofers.

I am now strongly considering the investment on dual subs for the Genelec's vs the all-in-one Palmer solution.

Palmers midrange is not as clean as Geneles or less details , the dip at 1k~2kHz could be the reason. You may try to correct this with EQ.

 

[illusonic]

I would try the spinorama EQ:

Measurements for speaker Palmer Orbit 11

www.spinorama.org

 

[Ktacos]

Bit too much distortion in the low end for me, but great to see such a feature rich speaker at such a price point.

 

[Froghawk]

Serious question about the SPL: why, exactly, would anyone want nearfield monitors to get to 85+db? That will damage your hearing within hours. Above 70 is already in the danger zone!

As far as the midfield question goes - isn't cardioid really just for nearfield? Why would you buy a cardioid speaker for midfield? Maybe I'm missing something here...

So, as far as the budget range - does it seem worth it to sell Kali IN-8s and go up a tier to this?

 

[Steakhouse]

Dirac deals with the room and (should) have nothing to do with speaker correction (let alone building) , specially above the transition zone.

That is true for frequency response. For impulse response you can as well correct for cross over phase nonlinearities via room correction.

 

[TK_IIVI]

Serious question about the SPL: why, exactly, would anyone want nearfield monitors to get to 85+db? That will damage your hearing within hours.

Some of us mix engineers work with sound-to-picture and need the headroom for loud short-term sections and peaks. Might be a 2-3 second section, or 30 seconds. Regardless, the speaker needs to be able to reproduce sufficient loudness above average level to accommodate for that.

Dolby spec at listening position on a mix stage (theater) is 86dB, but with 20 dB headroom. If you are using these as nearfields and for streaming and television and in a smaller room you still want good headroom. Loudness standard for broadcast is -23 or -24 LUFS, so still giving us over 20dB headroom within the mix itself. So if your normal mix level is at 70dB (since you mentioned it) for example you still want to be able to hit that plus the headroom, which in case of the latter type of content brings you to 94dB.

Makes sense?