PreSonus Sceptre S6 Monitor Review

[Gatordaddy]

In a vacuum the spinorama and EIR response in looks good enough for a nearfield monitors, and their output actually looks serviceable on their sides which is desirable.
However, considering they are directly competing with Neumann and Genelec at this price with much worse dynamics, distortion, and directivity, the package is unattractive.

They do look cool. These would be impressive 20 years ago.

 

[JDS]

This is a review, detailed measurements, EQ and listening tests of PreSonus Sceptre S6 studio monitor (powered active speaker). It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $899 each.
View attachment 463136
I must say, the "duck bill" shaped waveguide on the coaxial tweeter is the first one for me. It is doubly strange since it almost completely covers the 6 inch woofer. I worry about reflections back and forth from the woofer if the crossover is high enough to allow it. The slot port is larger than usual as is the overall cabinet which feels quite substantial for a monitor with a 6 inch driver.

This is an active DSP speaker with bi-amplification.

Searching online, I see a review dating back to 2014 so the design has been around for more than a decade now. It is stocked and sold so still current.

I very much like the usability of controls in the back:
View attachment 463137
There are LEDs that light to tell you the setting. I left the all as "Linear" and adjusted the Level for minimum (it was quite sensitive). Measurement axis was center of the tweeter.

PreSonus Sceptre S6 Monitor Measurements
As usual, we start with our suite of anechoic frequency response measurements performed on Klippel NFS:
View attachment 463138
Story starts really good with deep and flat bass extension. We then have some disturbances around 1 kHz which are likely caused by cabinet. But then we see clear signs of reflection interference from 2 to almost 10 kHz, caused by that large waveguide. The wavelength has to get small enough relative to the distance of the waveguide for this to happen. It peaks around 4 kHz. This will be angle dependent as we see here:
View attachment 463139
Notice how at -30 degree, that peak becomes a dip. This is reflected in our very messy early reflections:

View attachment 463140
Resulting in the same for our predicted in-room response:
View attachment 463141
There is also some elevation in the treble which I am assuming can be partially corrected using the setting in the back.

We can see the manifestation of this issue in our directivity measurements:
View attachment 463142
View attachment 463143
Instead of the waveguide giving us controlled directivity, it gives us narrow and uneven dispersion.

Vertical response is even narrower, which again doesn't do what coaxial drivers normally deliver:
View attachment 463144

Near-field response shows port/cabinet resonances:
View attachment 463145
And same interference pattern in lower treble.

I was surprised to hear distinct low frequency distortion regardless of level. Measurements back this:
View attachment 463146
The woofer is very uncomfortable being cross so high, with very high level of distortion in multiple regions. Tweeter is kind of OK but close to end of its range, it too gets out of control with very high level of distortion.

Here is my standard distortion graphs:
View attachment 463147

View attachment 463148

CSD/waterfall as expected shows many resonances:
View attachment 463149
Here is the step response which is rather uneven:
View attachment 463150

PreSounus Sceptre S6 Listening Tests and Equalization
The first impression is the warm and solid bass response. Research shows that bass is responsible for 30% of our preference and this speaker backs that. I could not immediately detect faults until I created a couple of narrow filters to pull the peaks in the interference region:
View attachment 463151
The difference as noticeable but subtle. It simply removed some of the brightness. It is not clear that it would win in any blind test but it was my preference to have them there.

Sub-bass at low playback levels was handled well in the way the speaker simply filtered them out. We could predict this from the sharp drop off in bass frequency response.

Crank up the levels though, with just about any content and you start to hear distortion in the form of warbling and weird artifacts in lower frequencies. Keep cranking it up and it gets worse and worse -- again just like what the measurements predicted. Granted, there is decent volume there before this gets out of hand and with two speakers, you may be able to avoid most of its impact.

Noter that there is tweeter hiss that is audible starting from 1 meter/3+ feet in my space that has a bit of computer fan noise.

Conclusions
When I look at a speaker, I always imagine what path a light source would take if it were coming from the drivers. Here, it is easy to imagine that it would start to bounce from the waveguide and go back and forth. At the right frequency, you get constructive addition or subtraction, causing the waviness we see in the response. This could have been partially mitigated by crossing the woofer lower. This would have also lowered the distortion coming out of that 6 inch driver. Then again, I am not sure what the large waveguide is doing for us. Yes, it allows the company to advertise "CoActual" response and that has marketing value. But objectively it didn't deliver on any promise from such an architecture.

Overall, there are some good ideas here. The subjective performance is actually better than what the measurements show -- if you keep levels reasonable. Alas, at $900 there is now stiff competition from much better executed designs.

Putting it all together, I can't recommend the PreSonus Sceptre S6 monitor.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Both Genelec and Neumann offer powered monitors at roughly equivalent price points with much better performance. What's the point of these?

 

[Curvature]

Speaker companies have a strange sense of cutting edge design.

 

[IamJF]

I tested the 8" version years ago if it would fit for my living room cinema project. Price wise they are pretty good for what they promise.
1st - way too much noise. If you want to hear details - you need a silent chain (and room!)
Sound was OK but also less "stable" over angle and in the room as I like it.

Sent it back, built something myself. Sounds good now

 

[yo!]

I assume it's less of a Doppler effect in case of the Presonus. There are simply lots of interference effects caused by edges, a rough speaker front and a too small waveguide.
(vs. the good working Genelec coax waveguide solution)

 

[Robbo99999]

Too expensive, poor directivity & associated frequency response issues, and distortion = not very good vote!

 

[anphex]

Can't believe this is priced at the same range as a Genelec 8040B...

 

[Torin Krell]

Speaker companies have a strange sense of cutting edge design.

View attachment 463188

The Urei 800 series (an update of the venerable Altec 604) was apparently a significant influence for the creation of the Septre series. The designer of the Urei 800 series of monitors was Bill Putnam and his son is the owner of Universal Audio. Fulcrum Acoustics was originally hired by Universal Audio around 2008 to build a modern update to the Urei 813. It seems however that Universal Audio canceled the project as economically unviable at the time. Fulcrum eventually applied their DSP technology to efforts by PreSonus to create a modern interpretation of the Urei 813 / 811. To overcome the limitations of the dated Urei design, Fulcrum, headed by engineer Dave Gunness, designed sophisticated DSP (designated as Fulcrum Acoustics TQ™ (Temporal Equalization™). This DSP is apparently designed to work in the frequency and time domain as a sophisticated transfer function within a monitor to compensate and maximize its performance in several areas including compensation for driver inconsistencies, frequency response inaccuracies, inter-driver phase issues, and reflection issues. The need for sophisticated hardware iterations and extremely tight driver and crossover tolerances was apparently significantly reduced by employing Fulcrum Acoustics TQ™, saving on design and manufacturing costs. However it seems that just like using room compensation software without room treatment first, if the software is asked to compensate for too much it falls short - which is likely what we are seeing in the compromised performance of the Septre S6 in this review. Currently owning a variety of coaxial speakers myself (from vintage 1958 Tannoys to modern Genelecs) I thank Amir for this enlightening review!

 

[Curvature]

The Urei 800 series (an update of the venerable Altec 604) was apparently a significant influence for the creation of the Septre series. The designer of the Urei 800 series of monitors was Bill Putnam and his son is the owner of Universal Audio. Fulcrum Acoustics was originally hired by Universal Audio around 2008 to build a modern update to the Urei 813. It seems however that Universal Audio canceled the project as economically unviable at the time. Fulcrum eventually applied their DSP technology to efforts by PreSonus to create a modern interpretation of the Urei 813 / 811. To overcome the limitations of the dated Urei design, Fulcrum, headed by engineer Dave Gunness, designed sophisticated DSP (designated as Fulcrum Acoustics TQ™ (Temporal Equalization™). This DSP is apparently designed to work in the frequency and time domain as a sophisticated transfer function within a monitor to compensate and maximize its performance in several areas including compensation for driver inconsistencies, frequency response inaccuracies, inter-driver phase issues, and reflection issues. The need for sophisticated hardware iterations and extremely tight driver and crossover tolerances was apparently significantly reduced by employing Fulcrum Acoustics TQ™, saving on design and manufacturing costs. However it seems that just like using room compensation software without room treatment first, if the software is asked to compensate for too much it falls short - which is likely what we are seeing in the compromised performance of the Septre S6 in this review. Currently owning a variety of coaxial speakers myself (from vintage 1958 Tannoys to modern Genelecs) I thank Amir for this enlightening review!

@pierre has already uploaded many Fulcrum Acoustics speaker measurements. Very interesting.

A collection of loudspeakers measurements

www.spinorama.org

 

[dfuller]

Speaker companies have a strange sense of cutting edge design.

View attachment 463188

I've seen a bunch like this. Now-defunct Equator Audio had a bunch like this, like the Q10 seen here:

These did indeed use horn loaded CDs mounted coaxially inside of woofers. Not a choice I'm entirely sure of, but hey.

 

[Torin Krell]

Yes the Equator Q series (2008) was also an attempt by Equator lead by Ted Keffalo to make a modern Urei 800 series speaker by using DSP. Later in 2012 they introduced the rather small coaxial Equator Audio D5 (using in some ways simpler but similar DSP tech) to address the lower end of the monitor market. Incidentally the significant DSP used in the Sceptre S6 (and their 12 year old design) is why their latency is a bit longer (at 4 milliseconds) than most DSP powered monitors today

 

[Curvature]

Interesting how tightly related these brands are.

 

[dfuller]

Yes the Equator Q series (2008) was also an attempt by Equator lead by Ted Keffalo to make a modern Urei 800 series speaker by using DSP. Later in 2012 they introduced the rather small coaxial Equator Audio D5 (using in some ways simpler but similar DSP tech) to address the lower end of the monitor market. Incidentally the significant DSP used in the Sceptre S6 (and their 12 year old design) is why their latency is a bit longer (at 4 milliseconds) than most DSP powered monitors today

Was Keffalo involved with the Presonus Sceptres?

Also the D5s were the first monitors I ever owned. Not... Great, lol.

 

[kemmler3D]

For the money this would be a total no go for me, but I'm not surprised to see that Amir thought it sounded ok. I think this is the kind of measurement that looks a bit worse than it sounds. If these speakers were $100 each they might be pretty worth it.

 

[Svensson]

I wonder if marketing considered naming it the PreSonus Platypus?
Cheekiness aside, evolution requires bold moves. This one doesn't withstand the measurements test, but it seems to be selling and isn't completely terrible, unlike power conditioners. Maybe perfectly fine for designer looks without sounding great.

 

[Torin Krell]

Was Keffalo involved with the Presonus Sceptres?

Also the D5s were the first monitors I ever owned. Not... Great, lol.

Was Keffalo involved with the Presonus Sceptres?

Also the D5s were the first monitors I ever owned. Not... Great, lol.

It seems more likely (although I can find no evidence - perhaps someone else here knows) that Dave Gunness and also possibly his company Fulcrum supplied DSP tech or was directly involved in the design of Keffalo's Sceptre coaxials. Fulcrum's inception was in the same year as the introduction of the Equator Q series.

 

[Palmer]

The Urei 800 series (an update of the venerable Altec 604) was apparently a significant influence for the creation of the Septre series. The designer of the Urei 800 series of monitors was Bill Putnam and his son is the owner of Universal Audio. Fulcrum Acoustics was originally hired by Universal Audio around 2008 to build a modern update to the Urei 813. It seems however that Universal Audio canceled the project as economically unviable at the time. Fulcrum eventually applied their DSP technology to efforts by PreSonus to create a modern interpretation of the Urei 813 / 811. To overcome the limitations of the dated Urei design, Fulcrum, headed by engineer Dave Gunness, designed sophisticated DSP (designated as Fulcrum Acoustics TQ™ (Temporal Equalization™). This DSP is apparently designed to work in the frequency and time domain as a sophisticated transfer function within a monitor to compensate and maximize its performance in several areas including compensation for driver inconsistencies, frequency response inaccuracies, inter-driver phase issues, and reflection issues. The need for sophisticated hardware iterations and extremely tight driver and crossover tolerances was apparently significantly reduced by employing Fulcrum Acoustics TQ™, saving on design and manufacturing costs. However it seems that just like using room compensation software without room treatment first, if the software is asked to compensate for too much it falls short - which is likely what we are seeing in the compromised performance of the Septre S6 in this review. Currently owning a variety of coaxial speakers myself (from vintage 1958 Tannoys to modern Genelecs) I thank Amir for this enlightening review!

I've had to rely on the UREI 813s a lot when working in Studios throughout LA back in the day, and I always did rather well with these. Wouldn't mind having a pair today, but one would need to have a bigger house, and possible revert to being single.

 

[Hart]

Both Genelec and Neumann offer powered monitors at roughly equivalent price points with much better performance. What's the point of these?

And that is the beauty of being an audiophile today, you can purchase something based on real science and testing, not some review from Stereophile that has the tested product in ads in that very issue.

 

[Torin Krell]

I've had to rely on the UREI 813s a lot when working in Studios throughout LA back in the day, and I always did rather well with these. Wouldn't mind having a pair today, but one would need to have a bigger house, and possible revert to being single.

Perhaps you could consider it’s smaller brother the Urei 811.

 

[Maiky76]

This is a review, detailed measurements, EQ and listening tests of PreSonus Sceptre S6 studio monitor (powered active speaker). It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $899 each.
View attachment 463136
I must say, the "duck bill" shaped waveguide on the coaxial tweeter is the first one for me. It is doubly strange since it almost completely covers the 6 inch woofer. I worry about reflections back and forth from the woofer if the crossover is high enough to allow it. The slot port is larger than usual as is the overall cabinet which feels quite substantial for a monitor with a 6 inch driver.

This is an active DSP speaker with bi-amplification.

Searching online, I see a review dating back to 2014 so the design has been around for more than a decade now. It is stocked and sold so still current.

I very much like the usability of controls in the back:
View attachment 463137
There are LEDs that light to tell you the setting. I left the all as "Linear" and adjusted the Level for minimum (it was quite sensitive). Measurement axis was center of the tweeter.

PreSonus Sceptre S6 Monitor Measurements
As usual, we start with our suite of anechoic frequency response measurements performed on Klippel NFS:
View attachment 463138
Story starts really good with deep and flat bass extension. We then have some disturbances around 1 kHz which are likely caused by cabinet. But then we see clear signs of reflection interference from 2 to almost 10 kHz, caused by that large waveguide. The wavelength has to get small enough relative to the distance of the waveguide for this to happen. It peaks around 4 kHz. This will be angle dependent as we see here:
View attachment 463139
Notice how at -30 degree, that peak becomes a dip. This is reflected in our very messy early reflections:

View attachment 463140
Resulting in the same for our predicted in-room response:
View attachment 463141
There is also some elevation in the treble which I am assuming can be partially corrected using the setting in the back.

We can see the manifestation of this issue in our directivity measurements:
View attachment 463142
View attachment 463143
Instead of the waveguide giving us controlled directivity, it gives us narrow and uneven dispersion.

Vertical response is even narrower, which again doesn't do what coaxial drivers normally deliver:
View attachment 463144

Near-field response shows port/cabinet resonances:
View attachment 463145
And same interference pattern in lower treble.

I was surprised to hear distinct low frequency distortion regardless of level. Measurements back this:
View attachment 463146
The woofer is very uncomfortable being cross so high, with very high level of distortion in multiple regions. Tweeter is kind of OK but close to end of its range, it too gets out of control with very high level of distortion.

Here is my standard distortion graphs:
View attachment 463147

View attachment 463148

CSD/waterfall as expected shows many resonances:
View attachment 463149
Here is the step response which is rather uneven:
View attachment 463150

PreSounus Sceptre S6 Listening Tests and Equalization
The first impression is the warm and solid bass response. Research shows that bass is responsible for 30% of our preference and this speaker backs that. I could not immediately detect faults until I created a couple of narrow filters to pull the peaks in the interference region:
View attachment 463151
The difference as noticeable but subtle. It simply removed some of the brightness. It is not clear that it would win in any blind test but it was my preference to have them there.

Sub-bass at low playback levels was handled well in the way the speaker simply filtered them out. We could predict this from the sharp drop off in bass frequency response.

Crank up the levels though, with just about any content and you start to hear distortion in the form of warbling and weird artifacts in lower frequencies. Keep cranking it up and it gets worse and worse -- again just like what the measurements predicted. Granted, there is decent volume there before this gets out of hand and with two speakers, you may be able to avoid most of its impact.

Noter that there is tweeter hiss that is audible starting from 1 meter/3+ feet in my space that has a bit of computer fan noise.

Conclusions
When I look at a speaker, I always imagine what path a light source would take if it were coming from the drivers. Here, it is easy to imagine that it would start to bounce from the waveguide and go back and forth. At the right frequency, you get constructive addition or subtraction, causing the waviness we see in the response. This could have been partially mitigated by crossing the woofer lower. This would have also lowered the distortion coming out of that 6 inch driver. Then again, I am not sure what the large waveguide is doing for us. Yes, it allows the company to advertise "CoActual" response and that has marketing value. But objectively it didn't deliver on any promise from such an architecture.

Overall, there are some good ideas here. The subjective performance is actually better than what the measurements show -- if you keep levels reasonable. Alas, at $900 there is now stiff competition from much better executed designs.

Putting it all together, I can't recommend the PreSonus Sceptre S6 monitor.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Here is my take on the EQ.
Please report your findings, positive or negative!

For the score rational your journey starts here
Explanation for the sub score
The following EQs are “anechoic” EQs to get the speaker right before room integration.
If you able to implement these EQs you must add EQ at LF for room integration, that is usually not optional… see hints there.

The raw data with corrected ER and PIR:

Score no EQ: 3.7
With Sub: 5.9

Spinorama with no EQ:

• LOTS of resonances/interferences/diffraction with the Waveguide
• Directivity could be better
• Not sure if it justifies its engineering because of the two previous points
• Price against seriously competent designs by the usual suspects e.g. Genelec and Neumann or...
• Kali for half the price (!) with also a coax driver.

Directivity:
Better stay at tweeter height
Horizontally, better toe-in the speakers by 10/15deg and have the axis crossing in front of the listening location, might help dosing the upper range.

EQ design:
I have generated two EQs. The APO config files are attached.

• The first one, labelled, LW is targeted at making the LW flat
• The second, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable.
• The EQs are designed in the context of regular stereo use i.e. domestic environment, no warranty is provided for a near field use in a studio environment although the LW might be better suited for this purpose.

Score EQ LW: 5.1
with sub: 7.3

Score EQ Score: 5.6
with sub: 7.8

PreSonus Sceptre S6 APO EQ LW 96000Hz
July152025-154336

Preamp: -1.20 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 116.8 Hz Gain -1.60 dB Q 1.06
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 551.6 Hz Gain 1.83 dB Q 5.44
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 687.3 Hz Gain -2.00 dB Q 2.11
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 2969.9 Hz Gain 1.87 dB Q 0.73
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 2776.1 Hz Gain -5.14 dB Q 3.82
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 3420.0 Hz Gain 1.62 dB Q 1.75
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 4288.7 Hz Gain -4.41 dB Q 5.99
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 7997.6 Hz Gain -2.77 dB Q 1.69

PreSonus Sceptre S6 APO EQ Score 96000Hz
July152025-154336

Preamp: -1.50 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 131.1 Hz Gain -1.11 dB Q 0.93
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 535.7 Hz Gain 2.05 dB Q 4.59
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 661.9 Hz Gain -1.98 dB Q 2.75
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 3009.8 Hz Gain 2.89 dB Q 0.76
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 2809.2 Hz Gain -5.20 dB Q 3.03
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 3613.1 Hz Gain 2.36 dB Q 2.63
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 4253.6 Hz Gain -4.60 dB Q 5.99
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 8376.1 Hz Gain -3.72 dB Q 0.78

Spinorama EQ LW

Spinorama EQ Score

Zoom PIR-LW-ON

Regression - Tonal

Radar no EQ vs EQ score
Some improvements?