@sigbergaudio ... a general question for you. What makes a speaker sound so good at all (reasonable) SPLs, with top-to-bottom clarity, definition, depth, and imaging (regardless of price)?
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Sigberg Audio Saranna (fullrange, cardioid active floorstander) development thread
- Thread starter sigbergaudio
- Start date
OP
- Thread Starter
- #822
Your wording is slightly unclear, but since we're in the Saranna thread I will assume you mean the Saranna, not just any speaker, when you say "a speaker".
And even then, it's almost tempting to answer "I wish I knew".
But more seriously, it's not magic, just lots of hard work (as most other things). The first part is of course good raw material in the sense of really good drivers, including drivers that has enough capacity to provide a (more than) reasonable dynamic range. I have also gone a different route here than most hifi manufacturers with 4-way designs and dedicated midrange drivers (SBS and Manta). The Saranna is a 3-way, but it still has an unusually powerful driver for the midbass/midrange area in an attempt to compensate for it "only" being 3-way.
Further, careful crossover design and rigid cabinets that are free of disturbing resonances is also important. Put on for instance Plaintive Rumba (Lisa Ekdahl and Peter Nordahl Trio) on the Sarannas and listen to the piano from around 5 minutes into the track at a relatively loud level, and it's almost scary how large and pure those piano attacks sound, with zero cabinet resonance disturbing the original sound.
I also spend a lot of time both thinking about and experimenting with how the speakers actually interact in real life rooms of different sizes, I don't stop at a flat response in the anechoic chamber and call it a day. The cardioid dispersion is an important part here of course, but also the overall dispersion pattern and how it is tuned in the different frequency ranges.
Finally there are countless hours listening to different genres of music to ensure it works well across it all, and along the way also ironing out anything in the frequency response that makes something too forward or too dull. And one may think that this is impossible across all different genres and poor/good production. But when you hit the right balance, it's actually fascinating how well it works no matter what you put on. I think maybe this last ingredient (which takes months alone) is something not that many other manufacturers do.
I would also suggest you have a look at this interview with Stjernholm, where I talk quite a bit about what kind of sound I'm going for, and to some extent how I go about achieving it.
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On Friday, I visited my god friend Bamse, and his father Thorbjørn Sigberg. While Bamse was busy chewing a bone, I got to listen to the Sarannas in a small-ish room in the basement.
Firstly, I would say that making anything sound very big in that room is nothing short of impressive. Hands down, these speakers are great. Not 200kUSD great, but far better.
What do I mean by that?
There are so many stupidly expensive speakers on the market now, and I have heard lots of them. I get the impression that there is a list of features you simply do not get, some of them being:
- Controlled power response in the high end.
- Actual SPL capacity throughout the entire range.
- Integration between midbass and sub.
- Actual sub bass capacity.
- Depht pin pointing.
I mean, I have heard tons of crazy expensive gear, to the point where you see a huge setup and just thinks "oh, I am not sure I can stand another over priced flawed design". There are speakers out there that are good, obviously, but finding speakers that can truly defend a pricetag over 20k/pair, that is not easy. You simply can't buy yourself out of this one, for the most part. What you typically end up with is a speaker that can do some things really well, but not all, and for me that just does not solve it.
So I found myself listening critically to the Sarannas, and I tried to come up with a competitor in the market that could come close, regardless of price. The combination is simply unbeatable. It isn't even close. I can think of speakers that are good, like the Dali Kore for example. But at 3-4 times the price? Not including amps, without the option to do any EQ, without the dispersion control, with a tweeter that is not this god, without this nailed down depth perception, and knowing it would all fall apart in a small room like that... That is what I mean by there being hard to find a competitor. I heard the Dalis in a 100 square meter (~1000 square feet) room, with some 60-70k power amps, I believe. They cost the best part of 100k, at least at that point in time. They were really great, like your rarely experience. But the Sarannas can do even more. They have even more air, space, slam, contrast, precision, warmth etc. I challenged them with really edgy recordings. There are no, NO! cabinet resonances. I could not find that weak edge where things fall slightly apart.
They sound like a really far stretching midrange. No tweeter, no bass, no sub... Just a midrange that stretches both ways to infinity. The wide band depth perception is just something you don't find elsewhere. It makes me so calm and relaxed, but at the same time happy and confident.
They are so live sounding you find yourself comparing them to other instrument instead of other speakers.
Could they be improved? Yes, but that would not be cheap. And it would be a lot bigger too. The ingredients of a really great speaker is about as follows:
5% cabinet quality
10% diaphragm materials
20% driver motor design and quality
25% overall technical design
40% fine tuning
The first one, and the two last ones are so nearly perfect that it is extremely hard to improve in the Sarannas. You will typically just end up moving sideways.
- Dispersion control above the Scröder frequency. This helps to reduce short delay room effects, and it increases depth.
- Crossover that is in phase above 500Hz. This is crucial for depth perception.
- Driver placement that gives a great synergy with the room in the range they are working.
- Excess capacity at all frequencies. While tweeters are exposed to less power, they see a higher crest factor, and they need to reproduce that accurately as well.
- Absence of cabinet resonances.
There are more factors, obviously, but these ones are among those who typically makes it easy to tell good expensive speakers apart from bad ones.
Firstly, I would say that making anything sound very big in that room is nothing short of impressive. Hands down, these speakers are great. Not 200kUSD great, but far better.
What do I mean by that?
There are so many stupidly expensive speakers on the market now, and I have heard lots of them. I get the impression that there is a list of features you simply do not get, some of them being:
- Controlled power response in the high end.
- Actual SPL capacity throughout the entire range.
- Integration between midbass and sub.
- Actual sub bass capacity.
- Depht pin pointing.
I mean, I have heard tons of crazy expensive gear, to the point where you see a huge setup and just thinks "oh, I am not sure I can stand another over priced flawed design". There are speakers out there that are good, obviously, but finding speakers that can truly defend a pricetag over 20k/pair, that is not easy. You simply can't buy yourself out of this one, for the most part. What you typically end up with is a speaker that can do some things really well, but not all, and for me that just does not solve it.
So I found myself listening critically to the Sarannas, and I tried to come up with a competitor in the market that could come close, regardless of price. The combination is simply unbeatable. It isn't even close. I can think of speakers that are good, like the Dali Kore for example. But at 3-4 times the price? Not including amps, without the option to do any EQ, without the dispersion control, with a tweeter that is not this god, without this nailed down depth perception, and knowing it would all fall apart in a small room like that... That is what I mean by there being hard to find a competitor. I heard the Dalis in a 100 square meter (~1000 square feet) room, with some 60-70k power amps, I believe. They cost the best part of 100k, at least at that point in time. They were really great, like your rarely experience. But the Sarannas can do even more. They have even more air, space, slam, contrast, precision, warmth etc. I challenged them with really edgy recordings. There are no, NO! cabinet resonances. I could not find that weak edge where things fall slightly apart.
They sound like a really far stretching midrange. No tweeter, no bass, no sub... Just a midrange that stretches both ways to infinity. The wide band depth perception is just something you don't find elsewhere. It makes me so calm and relaxed, but at the same time happy and confident.
They are so live sounding you find yourself comparing them to other instrument instead of other speakers.
Could they be improved? Yes, but that would not be cheap. And it would be a lot bigger too. The ingredients of a really great speaker is about as follows:
5% cabinet quality
10% diaphragm materials
20% driver motor design and quality
25% overall technical design
40% fine tuning
The first one, and the two last ones are so nearly perfect that it is extremely hard to improve in the Sarannas. You will typically just end up moving sideways.
- Dispersion control above the Scröder frequency. This helps to reduce short delay room effects, and it increases depth.
- Crossover that is in phase above 500Hz. This is crucial for depth perception.
- Driver placement that gives a great synergy with the room in the range they are working.
- Excess capacity at all frequencies. While tweeters are exposed to less power, they see a higher crest factor, and they need to reproduce that accurately as well.
- Absence of cabinet resonances.
There are more factors, obviously, but these ones are among those who typically makes it easy to tell good expensive speakers apart from bad ones.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #824
And if anyone wonders who Bamse is, it's this guy:
He is a mix of Rottweiler, Bordeaux, Doberman and Dogo Canario, and is always ready to present you with a Darwin award if you think it's a good idea to break in and steal some speakers.
In other news, he also loves to cuddle.
@Snickers-is Thank you for that cascade of compliments, not sure what to say. I suspect I need you to confirm that you weren't paid to post that message.
He is a mix of Rottweiler, Bordeaux, Doberman and Dogo Canario, and is always ready to present you with a Darwin award if you think it's a good idea to break in and steal some speakers.
In other news, he also loves to cuddle.@Snickers-is Thank you for that cascade of compliments, not sure what to say. I suspect I need you to confirm that you weren't paid to post that message.
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I was not paid. I didn't even get served food or drinks (it was a relatively short visit, and I made it clear I was going home to make dinner). But the company was enjoyable as always.
I did have a bit of influence on the two first speakers, but hardly any on these. I am very impressed by the work behind these, and how the result turned out. They are also quite striking to look at.
I did have a bit of influence on the two first speakers, but hardly any on these. I am very impressed by the work behind these, and how the result turned out. They are also quite striking to look at.
Never had the good fortune to listen to Mantas or Sarannas but have to say, from my own modest experience with resistive cardioid midrange and relatively high dynamic range drivers as described elsewhere, that despite admittedly low expectations, I still have to get used to the awesome mid-high clarity and crazy spatial precision this recipe provides. If my clumsy attempt yields such results, I dare not even think of the developments by @sigbergaudio - which, unlike mine, are the fruit of long-term, competent work 
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Hey ... I appreciate the detailed analytical steps you take to make a really good speaker. It's definitely a labor of love, involving lots of effort. And yes, when I referred to 'speaker' earlier, I was primarily thinking of Sirannas and Manta. So, let me get this straight...the main advantage of the cardioid design is to eliminate sounds from side and rear reflections, essentially forcing the listener to receive main sound waves only? Like listening in an anechoic chamber?Your wording is slightly unclear, but since we're in the Saranna thread I will assume you mean the Saranna, not just any speaker, when you say "a speaker".
And even then, it's almost tempting to answer "I wish I knew".
But more seriously, it's not magic, just lots of hard work (as most other things). The first part is of course good raw material in the sense of really good drivers, including drivers that has enough capacity to provide a (more than) reasonable dynamic range. I have also gone a different route here than most hifi manufacturers with 4-way designs and dedicated midrange drivers (SBS and Manta). The Saranna is a 3-way, but it still has an unusually powerful driver for the midbass/midrange area in an attempt to compensate for it "only" being 3-way.
Further, careful crossover design and rigid cabinets that are free of disturbing resonances is also important. Put on for instance Plaintive Rumba (Lisa Ekdahl and Peter Nordahl Trio) on the Sarannas and listen to the piano from around 5 minutes into the track at a relatively loud level, and it's almost scary how large and pure those piano attacks sound, with zero cabinet resonance disturbing the original sound.
I also spend a lot of time both thinking about and experimenting with how the speakers actually interact in real life rooms of different sizes, I don't stop at a flat response in the anechoic chamber and call it a day. The cardioid dispersion is an important part here of course, but also the overall dispersion pattern and how it is tuned in the different frequency ranges.
Finally there are countless hours listening to different genres of music to ensure it works well across it all, and along the way also ironing out anything in the frequency response that makes something too forward or too dull. And one may think that this is impossible across all different genres and poor/good production. But when you hit the right balance, it's actually fascinating how well it works no matter what you put on. I think maybe this last ingredient (which takes months alone) is something not that many other manufacturers do.
I would also suggest you have a look at this interview with Stjernholm, where I talk quite a bit about what kind of sound I'm going for, and to some extent how I go about achieving it.
I am baffled how one can listen to a song or instrument, and if they perceive something is amiss, they say, "Yup, I need to adjust such and such component for a bit, and all should be well". Where does it end, and how do you know which 'knob' to tune? I guess some of this skill and knowledge might be proprietary (one' secret sauce).
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OP
- Thread Starter
- #828
It will reduce, not eliminate side and rear reflections, and direct more of the energy towards the listener. It it still far from listening to an anechoic chamber. But you will to a greater extent listen to what is actually on the record, with less coloring from your room.
The advantage is a cleaner representation of whatever is on that record, including improved soundstage and sense of space / immersion.
You combine ears, measurements and experience. At some point you get to where whatever you put on, it just works, and sound right.
Excellent analysis. Thank you!!!
OP
- Thread Starter
- #830
Saranna set up at in an old Swedish house today, the rack in the middle is a bit funny too, he had a full traditional setup with dual mono amplifiers and preamp and CD player and various stuff. Now it's just a streamer and the Sarannas, and much better sound. Pretty normal living room, sounded very good! And yes, he will invest in some longer cables.
It measured pretty darn good too, mostly within +/-3dB (in-room!) with a textbook slope, no dips in the typical 100-300hz area, and no roll-off before 20hz. A bit uneven below 100hz, but it sounded more even than it looks. Note that this is with zero EQ. We adjusted a bit below 100hz including reducing the 95hz peak a little bit.
Pretty normal living room, sounded very good! And yes, he will invest in some longer cables. It measured pretty darn good too, mostly within +/-3dB (in-room!) with a textbook slope, no dips in the typical 100-300hz area, and no roll-off before 20hz. A bit uneven below 100hz, but it sounded more even than it looks. Note that this is with zero EQ. We adjusted a bit below 100hz including reducing the 95hz peak a little bit.
Nice setup for sure!
1. Any reason you didn't provide a wireless option for your active speakers? That would get rid of cable messes for wireless users.
2. You might want to consider adding a phase adjustment option in your DSP for your woofers, similar to what subwoofers do. That would help tame bass dips a lot, then EQ what's left. If the left channel is set at 0 phase, but you adjust the right channel's phase until the bass dips are minimized. I do this for my dual subs, and it works great. Otherwise, you then force this function to be in the streamer or pre/pro to time-align the bass drivers.
3. Wish the measurements went below 20Hz. The lowest note on an organ is 16Hz, I believe, maybe even lower for some esoteric ones. We need to hear (feel?) those low bass notes in our bones.
What a strange-sounding language, to us Americans.
1. Any reason you didn't provide a wireless option for your active speakers? That would get rid of cable messes for wireless users.
2. You might want to consider adding a phase adjustment option in your DSP for your woofers, similar to what subwoofers do. That would help tame bass dips a lot, then EQ what's left. If the left channel is set at 0 phase, but you adjust the right channel's phase until the bass dips are minimized. I do this for my dual subs, and it works great. Otherwise, you then force this function to be in the streamer or pre/pro to time-align the bass drivers.
3. Wish the measurements went below 20Hz. The lowest note on an organ is 16Hz, I believe, maybe even lower for some esoteric ones. We need to hear (feel?) those low bass notes in our bones
.What a strange-sounding language, to us Americans.
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OP
- Thread Starter
- #833
I'm not in a position to develop a plate amplifier from scratch yet, and have thus prioritized sound quality over convenience. I also think stuffing too much functionality (wireless, streaming, etc) into the speakers is a bad idea from a longevity perspective. It's better to have that in a separate product like a streamer that can be replaced more often than the speakers.
There's a 9-band PEQ built in to each speaker that will allow you to adjust the bass (and the rest of the spectrum if you should choose to do so). And much more precise than a phase control.
3. Wish the measurements went below 20Hz. The lowest note on an organ is 16Hz, I believe, maybe even lower for some esoteric ones. We need to hear (feel?) those low bass notes in our bones
I think you will find very few floorstanders extending meaningfully below 20hz, if you need that you should go for the Manta. But as you see in the response 20hz is higher in energy than the entire rest of the spectrum, so there are of course still significant energy at 16hz as well, it doesn't drop like a wall below 20hz. Beyond that, since you already have dual subwoofers you could of course keep those with the Sarannas.
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I'm curious, why do you list the Saranna as not suitable for 'studio'.
And how would you describe the directivity?
You may have answered this elsewhere but how does it compare with a genelec 8361a/w371a?
Very nice product, would love to see it get reviewed.
And how would you describe the directivity?
You may have answered this elsewhere but how does it compare with a genelec 8361a/w371a?
Very nice product, would love to see it get reviewed.
The wireless option is offered by quite a few subwoofer vendors here, coz, as you know, sub cables can be rather long. My thinking was that the phase option would reduce the gain or attenuation needed to be done by the EQ, especially if you have deep bass nulls. By using both phase and EQ, the former reduces that null to some appreciable degree, and then the EQ would take over for the final adjustment.
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Trevligt! I'll never understand those big bulky racks in the middle so it's nice to see its being (almost) eliminated here.Saranna set up at in an old Swedish house today, the rack in the middle is a bit funny too, he had a full traditional setup with dual mono amplifiers and preamp and CD player and various stuff. Now it's just a streamer and the Sarannas, and much better sound.
View attachment 496163
It measured pretty darn good too, mostly within +/-3dB (in-room!) with a textbook slope, no dips in the typical 100-300hz area, and no roll-off before 20hz. A bit uneven below 100hz, but it sounded more even than it looks. Note that this is with zero EQ. We adjusted a bit below 100hz including reducing the 95hz peak a little bit.
View attachment 496165
OP
- Thread Starter
- #837
Mostly due to the form factor, very few studios employ floorstanding speakers. So I'm sure it would work well in a studio as well, but that was not the target audience I had in mind when I designed it. I explain in some detail here the thinking behind the Saranna:
The horizontal directivity is available:
On what parameters? 8361a/w371a is a system with subwoofers, so it would make more sense to compare to the Manta system(?). With regards to bass extension, the Saranna will extend deeper than the 8361a, but likely not deeper than the w371a. Which is "better" is something I try to avoid discussing with regards to other brands.
Do you mean here on ASR, or elsewhere? It has been reviewed many places already (let me know if you want links), and four other reviews are in progress as we speak.
Audionaut
Major Contributor
Yes, a completely pointless endeavor. Above a certain quality level, there is no such thing as objectively better or worse; there are only the requirements for use that one system can optimally fulfill and another cannot.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #839
All our speakers are obviously objectively better than almost anything else, but I can't just say that out loud. It's against Janteloven (The Law of Jante) which all Scandinavians abide by.
Det ser mycket trevligt ut! I suppose the owner will not use that rack furniture at all after getting longer cables, and then place the streamer on the side somewhere.
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