Sigberg Audio SBS.1 Active speakers development thread

[sigbergaudio]

Happy and humble to announce that the SBS.1 speakers were awarded the Audioholics Product of the year in the Active speakers category!

2022 Audioholics Product of the Year Award Winners!

Here are our 2022 Product of the Year Award winners based on audio products we reviewed that really stood out among their peers in loudspeakers, subwoofers, AV receivers, wireless headphones and more.

www.audioholics.com

 

[sigbergaudio]

Will Brink is going to review the SBS.1 speakers and Inkognito subwoofers soon, and as an introduction he did an interview of me on his channel yesterday. It turned out to be an interesting discussion about active speakers in general, about class D amps, DSP, room correction, subwoofers, some audiophile myths as well as of course the SBS.1 speakers specifically.

 

[sigbergaudio]

A nice example of how minimalist a setup can get when you go active. Here's the Sigberg Audio SBS.1 active speakers in satin black, and the tiny Antimode X2 (preamp and room correction) being fed with a digital (optical) signal directly from the TV. A Sigberg Audio 10D dual 10" subwoofer is hidden off to the side.

 

[Norcal]

A nice example of how minimalist a setup can get when you go active. Here's the Sigberg Audio SBS.1 active speakers in satin black, and the tiny Antimode X2 (preamp and room correction) being fed with a digital (optical) signal directly from the TV. A Sigberg Audio 10D dual 10" subwoofer is hidden off to the side.

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a little OT, but how do you like the Antimode X2?

 

[sigbergaudio]

a little OT, but how do you like the Antimode X2?

We're the Norwegian distributor for Antimode / DSPeaker, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I'm very happy with it. The automatic calibration is good and the ability to adjust subwoofer gain + bass/treble tilt features is enough to set a good target curve if need be. I've got it connected directly to the TV via optical input and there's no latency/lip sync issues (I know someone asked about that somewhere). The sound quality is also good, especially given the price. I'm sure it won't break any SINAD records, but at ~700USD/EUR and with a powerful room calibration algorithm as well as extreme ease of use, I don't think there's any real competition out there.

I've written a short article about my initial impressions here, which also explains briefly about the feature set: https://www.sigbergaudio.no/blogs/news/antimode-x2-configuration-and-listening-impressions


EDIT:
Here's the bass response (no smoothing) with one Sigberg Audio 10D sub + X2 in that room:
(The dip between 50-60hz is due to the fact that I'm currently running only one subwoofer in this setup, so that can't be fixed by DSP)

 

[dogmamann]

Can this do hi resolution audio, at what sample rate is the internal DSP running ?

 

[sigbergaudio]

Can this do hi resolution audio, at what sample rate is the internal DSP running ?

To avoid derailing this thread completely, please ask in this thread, and I will try to reply to your questions:

Room EQ and subwoofer management hardware: Anti-Mode X2 by DSPEAKER

Hi, The Finnish company DSPEAKER has released a new product with the Anti Mode X2. How does the product ensure the alignment of the subwoofer(s) and the main speakers? Or is it just setting up EQ to get rid of the modes? Also, the X2 is only equipped with RCA output. Is it possible to use an...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[abdo123]

A nice example of how minimalist a setup can get when you go active.

I don't think so, you need an extra power cable for each speaker. That's still a pretty setup tho.

 

[sigbergaudio]

I don't think so, you need an extra power cable for each speaker. That's still a pretty setup tho.

You can get loudspeaker stands that hide the cables. But sure, opinions will vary.

 

[sigbergaudio]

In connection with sound pressure testing of the upcoming Manta, I also did testing of the SBS.1. This due to the fact that current max spl spec (110dB@1m) for the SBS.1 is based on sine sweep compression tests from the development. Based on simulations and theoretic maximum pressure I knew this was too low, but I haven't gotten around to doing it more thoroughly until now.

A new test with CTA-2034 pink noise (which obviously have considerably more energy than a sweep) gave a way higher result, which also makes sense since we've measured 110dB at the listening position with zero audible compression in several different rooms.

The amp limiter stopped the fun at 116,7dB. So I'll set the new official Maximum SPL @1m to 116dB per speaker.

Foot note: The Manta topped out at 122dB@1m.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Based on experience from the development of the Sigberg Audio Manta, the tuning of the SBS.1 was revised as well. So SBS.1 being sold going forward will feature a revised tuning based on only low Q filters (0.7 or below) to reduce/elminate theoretically audible ringing from the filters. I won't swear people could pick out the difference in a blind test, but subjective listening indicate that the sound is even more .. open and light and even more forgiving without loss of detail or openness.

So when measuring the Manta I also brought SBS.1 with revised tuning to document the new response. Interestingly there wasn't really any loss of precision or smoothness in the response either despite this new approach (low Q filters means the filters are very broad, so I'm unable to clean up in small deviations in the response, should those exist). Another testament to how competent and tidy these drivers are even without correction.

Here's the revised curve at ~listening axis (this is 10 degrees off-axis):

 

[kma100]

@sigbergaudio - I was curious on how you get a smooth crossover between the speakers and sub. That's always been a challenge for me. Is this through the Antimode, or something inherent to your specific speaker/sub setup given that the speakers are active.

You may have posted this somewhere else, so feel free to point me in that direction.

Thanks!

 

[sigbergaudio]

@sigbergaudio - I was curious on how you get a smooth crossover between the speakers and sub. That's always been a challenge for me. Is this through the Antimode, or something inherent to your specific speaker/sub setup given that the speakers are active.

You may have posted this somewhere else, so feel free to point me in that direction.

Thanks!

Well, our speakers and subs are designed to match each other, so there's a specific setting on our subwoofers that configures the crossover to perfectly match our speakers. In addition both our speakers and subs are sealed designs, so you don't have the potentially added issue with phase due to ports on the subwoofer and/or speaker. So in essence the speakers have built-in high-pass filters, instead of fighting against the subwoofer as is normally the case.


If you put SBS + one of our subs in an anechoic setting (so anechoic chamber or outdoors), the crossover between them is as flawless as if it had been an internal crossover between two drivers in a speaker (as shared earlier in the thread as well):

 

[sigbergaudio]

I should probably make more of a point out of the fact that our speaker aren't so much active speakers as they're a 4-way, full range speaker system.

Some think "hm, speakers that need to be paired with subs, that's impractical" while at the same time they typically have subwoofers in their system, struggling to pair them with speakers that were not designed to play with subwoofers..

 

[kma100]

Thank you. Very helpful. I have an Antimode that subjectively, seems to work well!

 

[dogmamann]

I should probably make more of a point out of the fact that our speaker aren't so much active speakers as they're a 4-way, full range speaker system.

Some think "hm, speakers that need to be paired with subs, that's impractical" while at the same time they typically have subwoofers in their system, struggling to pair them with speakers that were not designed to play with subwoofers..

how can a speaker not be designed to be playing with subwoofer?

 

[sigbergaudio]

how can a speaker not be designed to be playing with subwoofer?

That is our point as well. Why don't they?

Slightly more seriously: Feel free to mention one, and explain what they have done designwise to optimize it for a system with subwoofers.

 

[sigbergaudio]

@dogmamann Let me quote our homepage to explain what we do differently, so perhaps it becomes clearer what I mean:

"When we know that our speakers will be used with subwoofers, we can do a number of things differently than other speaker manufacturers. To dramatic effect. Our speakers do not have bass drivers. Instead they have dedicated drivers specifically designed to handle midbass. Almost no speakers do this, because they're typically 2-way or 3-way speakers, and there's simply no room in the design for a dedicated midbass driver. Our systems are 4-way by design, the subwoofer making up the 4th channel.

(..)

The midbass drivers in our speakers cover roughly 90-600hz, which one typically refers to as upper bass and lower midrange. Almost all speakers have a driver sharing this area either with the bass or with the midrange.

This frequency range happens to contain something quite important: A large part of both male and female voices. As if that wasn't enough, there's an incredible amount of drive, punch and attack in this frequency range. The fundamental of a lot of percussion and rhythm instruments live here.

A second point is that bass is extremely demanding to reproduce. When our speakers are never asked to that, the added capacity and dynamic range is significant. We're not only cutting away the bass, we're using different drivers (less mass, different suspension, higher sensitivity), specifically designed for midbass duty and with extreme dynamic capacity"


A final, more practical aspect, is that the enclosures can be made smaller when you don't need volume to allow the drivers to play deep bass.

 

[sigbergaudio]

A question from a potential customer made me realize the ease of setup and configuration with our systems may not be self evident. If you are looking for a 2.2 (speakers plus dual subwoofers) system, you can basically use anything with a volume control and XLR out: A DAC with volume control, a preamp, or even an all-in-one DAC/Streamer. Connect the speakers via XLR, and then run XLR on to the left/right subwoofers via the XLR Through connections.

With this setup you will have perfectly configured crossover (both highpass and lowpass) out of the box, even though your preamp/dac/streamer does not support this, as it is already preconfigured in the speakers and subwoofers. So this takes away all the hassle of integrating a subwoofer in a stereo system (which typically does not support active crossovers).

If you have only one subwoofer (or wish to do dual mono) you need the same as above but something with two preouts (it's pretty common that both XLR and RCA out is supported). Then you can run XLR to the speakers and RCA to the sub(s). Crossover will still be handled by the speakers and subs despite beeing fed with a full range signal from the source.

 

[Snickers-is]

how can a speaker not be designed to be playing with subwoofer?

As a driver designer I always focus on what T/S parameters are necessary for the intended application and what other properties would be ideal.

If Sigberg asked me to design a driver, for example a woofer for the SBS.1, I would focus on three things that would differ significantly from what I would do if I were to make it for a full range speaker:

1: I would give it T/S parameters that forms a natural rolloff from where the speaker is intended to be crossed over. That would win me a good 5-8dB of efficiency compared to a full range alternative.

2: I would limit the excursion a bit. This reduces the mass of the coil. This would allow me to further reduce the volume of the coil within the gap without loosing force factor. This decreases the electromagnetic field from the coil, decreasing the impulse load on the magnetic circuit thus reducing the distortion.

3: This significantly lighter coil would allow me to move a larger part of the moving mass to the diaphragm. With reduced mechanical load due to lighter coil and suspension, the diaphragm will behave better and have a wider pass band with low distortion. The need for high loss in the diaphragm and/or suspension, I could focus on optimizing the diaphragm for this specific task. Shape, thickness and coating are important keywords in this matter.