Salk WoW1 Bookshelf Speaker Review

[richard12511]

I don't have a problem with finding a speaker's limit and then testing them near their limit. The WOW1 tests done here, avoided finding the limits of the WOW1 speaker and proceeded to test them beyond their limits. The reviewer made the conclusion that the speakers were "a lot more furniture than speaker" because it failed to meet an arbitrary standard. I find that unwarranted and unfair.

Maybe distortion measurements should be taken at a percentage of max output, rather than just 86db and 96db. Would have to figure that out per speaker though, probably doing something like what @hardisj is doing. Probably, too complicated. I'm just glad Amir is doing 86db and 96db measurements. He used to only do the former.

It seems that the 96db measurement is not very valuable here, as it's beyond what the speaker is capable of. Likewise, a 96db distortion measurement for something like the Danley Jericho 2 is also not that valuable, but for the opposite reason. Would have to be custom to each speaker to fix, though.

Still, it's good to know that this speaker can't handle 96db. I get that it's small and meant for near-field, but that doesn't change the fact that limited output is still an objectively negative point. There are smaller speakers measured so far that were able to handle the test.

 

[richard12511]

I remember when Salks started... I always thought they gave too much importance to the cabinet finish and exotic woods. An acquired taste for sure (one I didn’t acquire). Looks like they know how to build cabinets and to mount decent drivers on them, but obviously not how to actually design a speaker.

I wouldn't go that far, at all. I've heard some of their big floorstanders before, and they remain some of the best I've ever heard.

 

[Beave]

I remember when Salks started... I always thought they gave too much importance to the cabinet finish and exotic woods. An acquired taste for sure (one I didn’t acquire). Looks like they know how to build cabinets and to mount decent drivers on them, but obviously not how to actually design a speaker.

That's totally unfair to Salk. You're judging their entire lineup (consisting of bookshelf speakers, towers, front ported, rear ported, some transmission line, some bass reflex, with a huge variety of different woofers, mids, and tweeters) because of one flaw in one measured speaker?

Not to mention that Salk doesn't design the speakers. They use designs by others, some coming from the DIY community.

I would guess nearly every big speaker manufacturer with a lineup as diverse as Salk's lineup has at least one speaker with a significant measurable flaw (Revel maybe being the exception, but they don't have nearly the variety of speakers available).

Do you judge all other speaker manufacturers by one flaw in one speaker?

 

[Thomas savage]

All the off topic will be deleted, was asleep , now going to work .

Will do later , please don't add to it!

Edit , now deleted .. all 14 posts lol

 

[GelbeMusik]

I don't have a problem with finding a speaker's limit and then testing them near their limit. The WOW1 tests done here, avoided finding the limits of the WOW1 speaker and proceeded to test them beyond their limits. The reviewer made the conclusion that the speakers were "a lot more furniture than speaker" because it failed to meet an arbitrary standard. I find that unwarranted and unfair.

Yep, I recommended to not push such little drivers way beyond their limit. But, in this very case the WinISD simulation software predicts a limit well above 96dB (2pi) / 90dB (4pi) from 50Hz (!!) on. We have 4pi conditions here. So, at least the 86dB-measurement doesn't show that much of distortion. To the contrary. The little fellow is doing well along the specs. Predictedly the 96dB (4pi) measurement kills it. Exactly as expected.

The limit was evaluated. It is 86dB @1m @ 50Hz, for which it needs barely more than 10Watts. We're talking about the peak max level, o/k?

This translates, taking usual program material into account, to an overall maximum spl of about 90dB or so, reiterated, not 96dB.

Only that the driver is modern style. It hits its limits sharply, not gradually. Like a solid state amp. Below it should sound quite clear, above it decomposes suddenly.

What is it good for? Expect peaks to stand out by 10 .. 15dB. This would give an acceptable average level of 75dB. This is quite a bit more than the level of a standard verbal communincation, speaking with each other, say, 1..2 meters apart (~65dB). It is only half as loud as is recommended for studio mixing and the like (~85dB).

Mission accomplished? Would I pay that money for a speaker with such limitations? For sure not. One might argue, that the limitations hinder true hifi, because the enjoyment of full spectrum detailed sound simply needs spl, due to the organic nature of the human hearing. A bigger speaker wouldn't be that more expensive by its single parts. It is only so, that a bigger size can be sold for 'natural' - to the layman - reasons with a higher mark up.

The errors in frequency response, though, are inacceptable. If the measurement holds (!), this is rubbish. If so, the reflex port is the culprit. That's bad design from the very beginning.

Conclusion: measure it again conventionally, not with the NFS, ask the manufacturer for a confirmation. Ask a third party for confirmation.

 

[Zvu]

I am still surprised how well this little Seas holds its ground from 250Hz to 2500Hz (where the tweeter starts to distort).

It qualifies as state of the art midrange for sure.

 

[Frank Dernie]

SEAS magnesium Excel is honestly incomprehensible to me. None of the drivers are as usable as the Prestige drivers, due to the awful break-up. It needs supremely low XOs at LR4+ and even a notch, while nonlinear distortion is at that price class average at best with ok-to-good excursion. Ascend speccing a Curv woven polyprop cone on an Excel motor is something SEAS should have come up with themselves a long time ago. And a massive phase plug (reducing radiating surface) on a 12cm driver strikes as a form-above-function choice.

With Revelators, C-Quenze, Satori and now Purifi in that price class (all more usable FR-wise, with at least competitive distortion, build quality and reputation) - the Excel is a dinosaur.

I think drivers which can be pistonic for their full band pass are probably too difficult to use in a two way and there are several drivers about with their breakup sufficiently well damped to be not too far from accurate, as you say.
IME 3 ways or more is needed for really good performance.

 

[Ilkless]

I think drivers which can be pistonic for their full band pass are probably too difficult to use in a two way and there are several drivers about with their breakup sufficiently well damped to be not too far from accurate, as you say.
IME 3 ways or more is needed for really good performance.

I agree. I think a well-damped soft cone with a controlled breakup makes for much easier crossover design. Less spent on crossover parts, less parts to throw off QC. It makes a lot of sense commercially while not really affecting performance of the overall system (in terms of acoustic radiation). However, to SEAS' credit, they had experimented with metal cone profiles to push break-up to exceptionally high frequencies for the driver diameter that would have made a 2-way much more feasible. This tech went into the Prestige L18, but failed to trickle upward to their Excel line. I find that a really odd decision. Perhaps the magnesium they used couldn't be machined into such a cone profile.

 

[MZKM]

When I saw the first frequency response graph I was thinking the same thing. Of course, later when I read Amir's conclusion and saw this:

"As luck would have it, I started listening with one of my headphone test tracks which is bass heavy. The response here was the worst I have heard from any speaker. Bass was muted, muffled and overall fidelity just wrong. Fortunately as the playlist progressed and I listened to typical "audiophile" tracks with light string instruments and vocals, the performance was better. But have any bass come into the picture and fidelity sinks and sinks low."

I began to wonder what was going on.

Looking at the Salk web page specs, this is a tiny speaker. Yeah, Salk says you can put it on stands and use them in the intermediate field, but the Salks remind me more of nicely built desktop monitors or nearfield studio monitors, like you'd put on the far edge of a mixing board. It would have never occurred to me to expect 90db at one meter continuously from these speakers, no less 96db. I never listen that loudly in the nearfield; more like 75db average and louder peaks for movies and some classical music. This was one of the reasons why I didn't expect a great review for the AudioEngines 5+, but got a passable one away, because they don't strike me as going loud all that well either.

I understand, Amir, that you want to make all of the measurements you do comparable to one another. But somehow using the same criteria for measuring a tiny speaker like this Salk using similar criteria as you would a 3-way design with 8" woofers might not be the most useful approach for consumers of your reviews. Perhaps you should consider classifications based on the most likely use model. To be more specific, perhaps consider a nearfield classification, and adjust the measured loudness levels accordingly. Just a thought.

All of this thinking out loud aside, I still keep coming back to the quote from Amir above. This speaker didn't sound very good in a simple listening test.

This thing is ~$1400 shipped (for base black/white finish). That’s a lot of money for heavy limitations. The Genelec recently reviewed is the same price and mostly used in the near/mid field, with higher limits for SPL compression/distortion. The one really good thing about this speaker is the vertical performance in the +/-10° is very similar to the on-axis, whereas the Genelec is not (is this a consequence of the waveguide used?), so you do have a wider vertical sweetspot, which is good for near-field usage.

 

[ctrl]

However, to SEAS' credit, they had experimented with metal cone profiles to push break-up to exceptionally high frequencies for the driver diameter that would have made a 2-way much more feasible. This tech went into the Prestige L18, but failed to trickle upward to their Excel line. I find that a really odd decision. Perhaps the magnesium they used couldn't be machined into such a cone profile.

Seas will have its reasons why the path like the L18 was not (yet?) followed in the Excel series.
The L18 may have a particularly stiff driver cone, but we don't know what disadvantages this has. For example, the L18 probably has to struggle with resonance around 700Hz (red circle in the diagram) and has no impedance control.

The Excel W18EX003 introduced in 2019 shows an earlier break-up (blue line in the diagram). But between 700-1000Hz no resonance. At 1500Hz it shows a small irregularity (red circle) which disappears under the angular frequency response.
It has very good impedance control through a copper cap over the magnetic core or through short circuit rings (or both). Which is a good condition for low distortion at high frequencies. But this can also have consequences, like a wider magnetic gap ...

Manufacturers like SBAcoustics** certainly have the break-up problem better under control with their metallized chassis.

UPDATE: ** But also not with all models.

 

[Adam Bernau]

Don´t shoot the messenger, but i think that the main issue really is, thas the SEAS Excel W12CY-001 used as "midwoofer" is in this construction just suffering midrange driver, it has 3mm linear excursion, which forces the driver to bottom out at (in my book very poor) 83 dB at 50 Hz. I think that this is really and simply bad choice of unsuitable and imho overpriced driver for this construction, and stating "amazing, surprisingly deep bass" in the advertisements is pure joke, no excuses.

 

[blueone]

This thing is ~$1400 shipped (for base black/white finish). That’s a lot of money for heavy limitations. The Genelec recently reviewed is the same price and mostly used in the near/mid field, with higher limits for SPL compression/distortion. The one really good thing about this speaker is the vertical performance in the +/-10° is very similar to the on-axis, whereas the Genelec is not (is this a consequence of the waveguide used?), so you do have a wider vertical sweetspot, which is good for near-field usage.

I was thinking the same thing... that for $1400 I'd rather have the Genelecs. My main point was just that I think different testing criteria should be used for near field monitors.

 

[Sonny1]

I was thinking the same thing... that for $1400 I'd rather have the Genelecs. My main point was just that I think different testing criteria should be used for near field monitors.

From a performance standpoint, the Genelecs are a much better choice and they are active. I think it’s an apples to oranges comparison because the buyers are different. Genelec is a studio speaker and is utilitarian in appearance. The Salk speakers are built like fine furniture, and are much more attractive (I know this is a highly subjective assessment). Most wives would probably prefer the Salks, although if they are like my wife, they would prefer no box speakers to either.

I’m curious to learn what happened with these. I’ve heard other Salk speakers at shows and at people’s homes and they sounded exceptionally good. The Raal tweeter is very good sounding, IMO, probably better sounding to my ears than any other tweeter, at least in my personal experience. I’ve never heard the speakers in this review and would not consider them because of the SPL limitations. The negative review was a bit surprising and I look forward to Salks response. He’s a good guy and I don’t think he would ever intentionally mislead anyone.

 

[Billy Budapest]

I don’t get it—the speaker measures poorly, as if there are fundamental problems with its design, and it certainly isn’t cheap, yet a bunch of people are stating “I’m going to buy it anyway.” Why flush money down the drain like that?

 

[richard12511]

I don’t get it—the speaker measures poorly, as if there are fundamental problems with its design, and it certainly isn’t cheap, yet a bunch of people are stating “I’m going to buy it anyway.” Why flush money down the drain like that?

How many people have actually said that?

 

[Billy Budapest]

How many people have actually said that?

I believe two in this thread. So, OK, not a “bunch.”

 

[Worth Davis]

They are pretty? Genelec is not pretty? Too bad about the performance measurements, they definitely dont measure what they are claimed too.

 

[EchoChamber]

Not to mention that Salk doesn't design the speakers. They use designs by others, some coming from the DIY community.

That validates my point that they are cabinet makers and not speaker designers. I wouldn’t call designs coming from the DIY community something we should look at outside of a curious exploration. It’s likely developed without proper measurement gear and methodology, like a hobby, for fun. With plenty of assumptions and little validation. Nothing compared to what Genelec, JBL, Kef, and other serious speaker manufacturers with real design and engineering teams would produce.

 

[Ericglo]

That validates my point that they are cabinet makers and not speaker designers. I wouldn’t call designs conning from the DIY community something we should look at outside of a curious exploration. It’s likely developed without proper measurement gear and methodology, like a hobby, for fun. With plenty of assumptions and little validation. Nothing compared to what Genelec, JBL, Kef, and other serious speaker manufacturers with real design and engineering teams would produce.

SERIOUSLY????

I have seen a lot of very good DIY designs that can compete with plenty of mainstream manufacturers. I have mentioned before that Dennis Murphy's design of the Dayton TMWW over at HTguide was better than my PSB Stratus Golds in a shootout. The owner and builder of the Daytons agreed as well (I realize he was biased).

 

[EchoChamber]

SERIOUSLY????

I have seen a lot of very good DIY designs that can compete with plenty of mainstream manufacturers. I have mentioned before that Dennis Murphy's design of the Dayton TMWW over at HTguide was better than my PSB Stratus Golds in a shootout. The owner and builder of the Daytons agreed as well (I realize he was biased).

Well... My real life experience has been the opposite (I’m a DIY guy as well, at least I was). Often DYI audio gear have issues because the designs are not fully mature and the technology not well understood. It takes time, knowledge, perseverance and a lot of thinking, validation, re designing, and professional experience to get it right and well balanced. It’s a process that’s hard to achieve at a hobby, DYI, level.