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Semi-useful measurements: Dali Spektor 2 vs Wharfedale Diamond 220

Mishaiger

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Hello, i recently bought Dali Spektor 2 but after a few tests and thorough listening i decided to sell them back and return to my old Wharfedale Diamond 220, and here is why.

Firstly, all my measurements are not very accurate, but its just fine for comparison, i suppose.

I have, some might say, very treated room:
room.png

Almost all these rectangles are 15cm rockwool 50kg/m3 i made myself.
Therefore, i have quite low reverberation times: RT60 graph showing about 80ms from 200 to 10000 hz.
I measure everything with UMIK-1.

So here is frequency response at my LP:
FR.png

This is all without eq, as you can see, they are practically the same, except for Dali have some more bass.

My main reason to buy new speakers was audible cabinet resonances. Here is vector average of microphone being as close as possible to drivers:
wha decay.png

Resonance is about 320hz.
I could not measure the port, because its firing downward and is behind wooden part of the speaker, so maybe its even more worse than shown in this graph.
Of course, this is not audible, nor measurable, in room with common reverberation times (about 300-600ms).

Ok, so next is Dali drivers and port up-close:
PWT.png

Although woofer and tweeter are probably not correctly measured, look at the port, it passes through additional sounds at 410 and 1540hz.

All this combined results in rather nasty decay graph:
Dali decay.png

Dali have even more resonances than Wharfedale.

But thats up-close, nobody listens up-close, so here is decay graphs at my LP:
DvsD.png

While Dali is little better at LP, despite having worse graph up-close, i decided that this improvement is not worth it.


And a little extra of my thoughts about Spektor 2 vs Diamond 220.

I liked Spektor 2 more than Diamond 220. They sound almost the same, but with distinctive differences in upper frequency range.
They have almost identical FR so it is probably not the case of these differences.

Upper range in Dali was somewhat more detailed and light, despite having the same FR.
And both speakers have soft dome tweeters. So my guess is this resonances waterfalls:
DvsD W.png

Look at how this resonances is reduced at Dali. From about 600 to 20000 hz.
I think this is what gives Dali speaker this qualities, but i may be wrong. Maybe it has something to do with this reduces mass of tweeter Dali been promoting for this speakers.


So in conclusion i would like to say that if i had no speakers, i would buy Dali Spektor 2 compared to Wharfedale Diamond 220, if anyone is interested.
 

thewas

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Nice measurements and post. :cool:
They sound almost the same, but with distinctive differences in upper frequency range. They have almost identical FR so it is probably not the case of these differences.
Total FR at the listening position isn't enough to fully describe the tonal and spacial character of the loudspeaker as for example you can achieve a very similar one with a more treble boosted loudspeaker that has more directivity at the upper octaves vs. a less treble heady one with wider directivity, you need better anechoic/windowed measurements of all horizontal and vertical angles to analyse that.
 
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Mishaiger

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Yeah, unfortunately i dont have equipment that can produce spinorama measurements. Your statement sounds logical to me. But i only wanted to share my findings about this two speakers in rooms such as mine.
 

thewas

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If wanted you could still for example make some windowed nearfield measurements at 0,5m-1m distance for some horizontal and vertical angles, often 0°, 30° & 60° horizontally and +15°, -15° vertically can already reveal many of the differences in direct sound and radiation behaviour (above 300-500 Hz due to usually short windowing). :)
 

raindance

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Not sure why you're reducing RT60 with treatment. It's not a useful measurement in small rooms.
 

MLaranjeiras

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Dali Spektor 2 is a good speaker for casual listening on a small room. A fresh air for me. Very happy with them. I put them on a bookshelf on a little office/bedroom together with a SANSUI A-α7 amplifier, a 2011 Mac Mini with Tidal and a Topping E50 DAC. Speakers cables are RCA generic 14AWG OFC. A Wireworld Eclipse 7 RCA from the DAC to the Sansui and an Oyaide Class S USB from the Mac Mini to the DAC. Inexpensive set with a really enjoyable sound for my ears.
 

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