Sigberg Audio SBS.1 Active speakers: Full measurements (Spinorama)

[sigbergaudio]

Disclaimer#1: Klippel measurements from us (the manufacturer), not independent measurements.

Disclaimer#2: Cleared with moderators that it would be okay to post this thread for specific discussion around the measurements and technical aspect of the speakers. For discussions related more specifically to the company/products/purchasing/how they look/basically anything not related to the measurements or technical design, please post in the SBS.1 development thread in the Desperate dealers forum.

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Many have asked if we would send our speakers to Amir or Erin for measurements. I've not done that, but I've finally taken a full set of measurements in the anechoic chamber of Seas, documented with their Klippel software. This has then been published to www.spinorama.org (Big thanks to @pierre for his great work on this site).

Full measurements available here: https://www.spinorama.org/speakers/Sigberg Audio SBS.1/Sigberg Audio/index_vendor-v2.html

For those focused on the preference score, please note that this score doesn't really make sense for these speakers, since the score rely heavily on bass / bass extension, and these speakers are explicitly designed to be paired with subwoofers. For an indication one may look at the "w/sub" preference score (7.4), but the base score is not valid. What is more interesting is the detailed graphs.

These are small, well behaved 2.5-way active speakers with one coax driver and one dedicated midbass driver. It is part of a 3.5-way speaker system where the bass below 100hz is handled by one or preferrably two subwoofers. The integration with our subwoofers is seamless both with regards to frequency response and phase. Note that the measurements are of the speakers only, which is why the roll-off are so early in the low-end.

They are designed for little to no toe-in, so actual listening angle is 10-15 degrees (not on-axis).

A couple of graphs (rest available on spinorama.org):

Full measurements available here: https://www.spinorama.org/speakers/Sigberg Audio SBS.1/Sigberg Audio/index_vendor-v2.html

I hope some interesting discussions can come out of these measurements, and in the same way as I've been as open and transparent as possible in our development threads, I will try to answer any questions connected to the measurements and technical/functional design to the best of my ability.

A similar thread for the Manta cardioid speakers is available here.

 

[ryanosaur]

Very cool to see, Thorbjorn. Thank you for sharing!

 

[Kervel]

Thanks for uploading and congrats on the measurements! The last picture, with the horizontal contours, looks perfectly symmetrical. Did you measure just one side and impose symmetry?

 

[sigbergaudio]

Thanks for uploading and congrats on the measurements! The last picture, with the horizontal contours, looks perfectly symmetrical. Did you measure just one side and impose symmetry?

Yes, that is correct. But the speaker is perfectly symmetrical in the horizontal plane as well, so anything beyond minor differences if we actually did do the full measurement would have been due to the anechoic chamber or inaccurate measurements rather than the speaker. But yes.

 

[sweetchaos]

It’s great to see manufacturers that are transparent with their measurements.

 

[Kervel]

Cool, all clear. On spinorama.org, something particular is happening with the vertical contours, where <1khz the center of the deepest red part occurs at about -30 degrees; while the range >3khz is perfectly centered around 0 degrees. Seem like an issue with post-processing of measurements rather than the speaker itself

 

[sigbergaudio]

Cool, all clear. On spinorama.org, something particular is happening with the vertical contours, where <1khz the center of the deepest red part occurs at about -30 degrees; while the range >3khz is perfectly centered around 0 degrees. Seem like an issue with post-processing of measurements rather than the speaker itself

Haven't looked at what you are talking about, but @pierre mentioned he had made some changes so there may be some javascript glitches at the moment, my understanding is that he plans to test and fix tonight.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Cool, all clear. On spinorama.org, something particular is happening with the vertical contours, where <1khz the center of the deepest red part occurs at about -30 degrees; while the range >3khz is perfectly centered around 0 degrees. Seem like an issue with post-processing of measurements rather than the speaker itself

I think I see what you are talking about. Audioholics actually had a similar vertical polar plot:

The vertical off-axis response (beyond around 20deg) is actually quite different up vs down on this speaker, as it due to the coax is quite uniform in one direction, but not the other.

 

[Kervel]

Thanks for confirming, much appreciated!

 

[sigbergaudio]

Interesting to see the measurements of the revised March Audio Sointuva AWG (https://www.spinorama.org/speakers/March Audio Sointuva AWG/March Audio/index_vendor.html), landing on the #2 place on Spinorama for tonality/preference score. Congratulations to March Audio on such a great set of measurements!

What I of course find interesting is how close the measurements are to the SBS.1 in terms of tonality, which leads me to believe Alan has a similar goal for in-room sound. Objectively they should then of course both be great sounding speakers.

(dotted line is SBS.1 in the comparison graphs below)