Sony SS-CS5 3-way Speaker Review

[andreasmaaan]

To be fair with the target audience for these likely dominated by young folks, I bet quite a few of them can actually hear that high. If you ever want to hear what is missing when frequencies up there are not present (10k+) just eq them down /out. The music is very bland. Despite not a lot of content up there it is important.

The crossover point is 17-18kHz.

Most adults are unable to hear that high in frequency, and those who can, can only do so at very high SPLs.

Even children with normal hearing exhibit a sharp decline in sensitivity beyond 15kHz, corresponding to the last auditory channel in the cochlea.

Additionally, virtually all lossily compressed material contains no content above 17kHz (indeed because it is psychoacoustically so unimportant).

 

[pavuol]

This approach looks similar to speakers shipped with Panasonic "HiRes" micro systems. Seems like no longer distributed in US/UK, still available in my area (models SC-PMX80 / -82/90/92/100/152).
While lower models claim up to 50kHz sound "only", top models reach astonishing 100kHz, impressive, isn't it?
I'm curious what exact frequency range this supertweeter reproduces..

Specs further list:

• speaker: ● 3 way 3 speaker system (bass ref type) / ● Woofer: 14 cm cone type / ● Tweeter: 1.9 cm dome shape / ● Super tweeter: 1.2 cm piezo type / ● Impedance: 3 Ω / ● Reproduction frequency band: 41 Hz to 100 kHz (-16 dB) / 45 Hz to 90 kHz (-10 dB) / ● Output sound pressure level: 82 dB / W (1 m)
• ● Amp practical maximum output: 120 W (60 W + 60 W)

I'm curious what exact frequency range this supertweeter reproduces..

 

[ROOSKIE]

The crossover point is 17-18kHz.

Most adults are unable to hear that high in frequency, and those who can, can only do so at very high SPLs.

Even children with normal hearing exhibit a sharp decline in sensitivity beyond 15kHz, corresponding to the last auditory channel in the cochlea.

Additionally, virtually all lossily compressed material contains no content above 17kHz (indeed because it is psychoacoustically so unimportant).

True but it doesn't start at 17k. That is the 3 or 6 db down point but anyway I can hear to 16k no problem at 43. 4-5 years ago I could hear 18k no problem so who knows.
Anyway, that tweeter is there to sell extra speakers regardless. Just like clarity caps, brushed aluminum accents, beryllium tweets and the like. In the end these companies need to profit and that means sales to the average Joe.

 

[pavuol]

Btw. looking for Panasonic specs I accidentaly found this - "TOWNSHEND AUDIO’S MAXIMUM SUPER TWEETERS".
For anyone willing to upgrade his/her "poor 2-way system"

 

[andreasmaaan]

True but it doesn't start at 17k.

Have a look at the vertical polar response. The presence of off-axis nulls at 17-18kHz implies that this is the crossover frequency between tweeter and super tweeter:

 

[amirm]

As I noted in the review, I covered the super tweeter with my hand and it definitely reduces the high frequency spectrum. So it must play fairly low for me to be able to hear it. It may also be playing very hot which would go with the increased energy above 10 kHz.

 

[andreasmaaan]

As I noted in the review, I covered the super tweeter with my hand and it definitely reduces the high frequency spectrum. So it must play fairly low for me to be able to hear it. It may also be playing very hot which would go with the increased energy above 10 kHz.

It's very surprising then that we don't see off-axis nulls lower in frequency where the crossover apparently is. Could it be that the Klippel system was not able to accurately capture the sound field in this region?

EDIT: the spray of off-axis cancellations around 17-18kHz (see my arrow below) also looks like the tell-tale sign of a crossover IMHO:

 

[JohnBooty]

I still think the bright sound may be to make them sound better on a shelf in the middle of a huge wide open bestbuy. I've run those back to back with the Pioneer SP-BS22 in the store and the Pioneer sounded bland by comparison. Now, in a regular room I can see where the Sony could be too much and the Pioneer might be just right.

This kind of matches with my experience. Spent a couple sessions listening to them in my friend's place. Casual listening, off-axis on a couch. Open floor plan apartment, so it was a somewhat large room.When crossed over to a couple of modest $130 Dayton subs, I thought they sounded great for the price and didn't feel they were doing anything glaringly wrong. Without the subs I thought they still sounded decent. Bass was... well, much better than expected for something this price and size. It did not sound as distorted as the bass on BS22's when you crank them up. But it certainly would not win any awards.

As far as sounding bright compared to the BS22's, yes but I also feel the BS22's sound dark compared to just about anything. They are pretty amenable to EQ though.

I had it toed in some when I first started listening. And then had to point it out straight toward the end.

As to measurements, as I mentioned, the energy above 11 kHz or so is underreported.

Here's where I take a little bit of an issue with how speakers are evaluated at ASR.

What we have here is a cheap speaker that's janky on-axis, but pretty tolerable horizontally off-axis.

(Edit: by "tolerable" I mean that it measures respectably off-axis, and in the predicted in-room response graph)

It seems extremely clear that, like most mainstream speakers, that this was probably a design goal. After all, most people do most of their listening off axis.

And I think it's a pretty reasonable design goal. Some niche audiophile speakers are designed to be listened to in a very specific sweet spot -- always hilarious to see a "toboggan seating" arrangement in a listening room at an audio show -- but many speakers are pragmatically designed for off-axis listening.

So should we really be trashing these speakers so harshly?

 

[Pepperjack]

This kind of matches with my experience. Spent a couple sessions listening to them in my friend's place. Casual listening, off-axis on a couch. Open floor plan apartment, so it was a somewhat large room.When crossed over to a couple of modest $130 Dayton subs, I thought they sounded great for the price and didn't feel they were doing anything glaringly wrong. Without the subs I thought they still sounded decent. Bass was... well, much better than expected for something this price and size. It did not sound as distorted as the bass on BS22's when you crank them up. But it certainly would not win any awards.

As far as sounding bright compared to the BS22's, yes but I also feel the BS22's sound dark compared to just about anything. They are pretty amenable to EQ though.

Here's where I take a little bit of an issue with how speakers are evaluated at ASR.

What we have here is a cheap speaker that's janky on-axis, but pretty tolerable horizontally off-axis.

It seems extremely clear that, like most mainstream speakers, that this was probably a design goal. After all, most people do most of their listening off axis.

And I think it's a pretty reasonable design goal. Some audiophile speakers are designed to be listened to in a very specific sweet spot -- always hilarious to see a "toboggan seating" arrangement in a listening room at an audio show -- but many speakers are pragmatically designed for off-axis listening.

So should we really be trashing these speakers so harshly?

Isn’t that what the scoring system is for? Despite all the criticism, I am sure anyone looking for cheap speakers that has a subwoofer will see 7.2 and, if the price is right, he quite happy with that no? Interestingly this sweet spot issue is looking like a real issue between a couple speakers I have right now...it’s pretty hard to say one is better than the other.

 

[Francis Vaughan]

So should we really be trashing these speakers so harshly?

In a word: yes.
The reason being that for no extra cost they could have been much better. The marketdroids got to the specification and perverted what could have been a really good speaker or the money into something that misses. That should only be rewarded by a good bucketing.

The super tweeter is just useless vanity bling. The design of the tweeter baffle could have, for no additional cost, been an optimised waveguide, and placed closer to the woofer. Deleting the supertweeter could have freed up 50 cents in the BOM that could have been invented in maybe an inductor in the crossover. And so on.

The design cost of these speakers is likely dominated by the plastic mouldings. A teardown would be illuminating. It is possible the entire woofer basket is integral in the moulding. Hilarious decoration like the hex-head bolts are almost certainly part of the moulding. They will have taken the toolmaker effort and pain to do. All effort that would be better spend in design. Something like this is manufactured in six figure quantities. There is opportunity to throw a lot of science at the design in manner that does not change the cost or price, but yields far more satisfactory result.

 

[amirm]

Here's where I take a little bit of an issue with how speakers are evaluated at ASR.

What we have here is a cheap speaker that's janky on-axis, but pretty tolerable horizontally off-axis.

In both scenarios I was testing off-axis. It was a matter of angle in the two scenarios.

Here's where I take a little bit of an issue with how speakers are evaluated at ASR.

What we have here is a cheap speaker that's janky on-axis, but pretty tolerable horizontally off-axis.

It seems extremely clear that, like most mainstream speakers, that this was probably a design goal. After all, most people do most of their listening off axis.

I don't buy that off-axis is the design goal or it would say that some place. If you look in the manual, it actually says the opposite:

This is the standard SMPTE surround configuration with speakers directly pointed at the listener (red arrows mine). So on-axis is the intended listening curve.

 

[GelbeMusik]

... could have freed up 50 cents in the BOM that could have been invented in maybe an inductor in the crossover. And so on.
The design cost of these speakers is likely dominated by ... There is opportunity to throw a lot of science at the design ...

You might understand that these caveats apply to too many as to make a point against these speakers in particular. Of course these little plastic cans are not supposed to convey a concert hall experience. Since bass is absent for the sake of good neighborhood the mids and hights have to carry the rhythm: "zing tsckakka zing". Any other, than a clear lead voice on top is irrelevant to the targeted audience, I assume. Mom likes to be entertained when cleaning the house. At evening the telly gets in charge anyway.

 

[JohnBooty]

Since bass is absent for the sake of good neighborhood the mids and hights have to carry the rhythm: "zing tsckakka zing". Any other, than a clear lead voice on top is irrelevant to the targeted audience, I assume. Mom likes to be entertained when cleaning the house. At evening the telly gets in charge anyway.

Most popular music, even "bass-heavy" stuff like hiphop, focuses a lot of that bass in the 60-120hz range. It is designed to sound good on speakers even less bass-capable than these modest bookshelf speakers: laptop speakers, even smaller phone speakers, tiny portable speakers, the stock car radio in a 2003 Camry, whatever.

The super tweeter is just useless vanity bling. The design of the tweeter baffle could have, for no additional cost, been an optimised waveguide, and placed closer to the woofer. Deleting the supertweeter could have freed up 50 cents in the BOM that could have been invented in maybe an inductor in the crossover. And so on.

Agree wholeheartedly with you there.

It is possible the entire woofer basket is integral in the moulding. Hilarious decoration like the hex-head bolts are almost certainly part of the moulding.

I've looked at dozens of cheap bookshelf speaker teardowns and done a few myself and never seen anything like that. I am certain it's not the case here. I haven't seen a teardown of these Sonys, but the bass was decent compared to other cheap speakers in this price range that have normal cheap stamped-metal woofers. While obviously not great I would call the bass superior to other commercial bookshelf speakers I've heard in this price range.

The only truly fraudulent example I've seen was this hilarious Logitech computer speaker with a completely fake tweeter, but computer speakers are kind of a different market. I'm sure you could find a lot of similar hilarious fakery when it comes to computer speakers and boom boxes.

This is the standard SMPTE surround configuration with speakers directly pointed at the listener (red arrows mine). So on-axis is the intended listening curve.

As you said, it's a standard diagram. Seems to me like kind of a standard boilerplate diagram that gets put into just about every speaker and receiver manual, not something tailored for these speakers specifically. When it comes to revealing the engineering team's actual intentions, I would trust your measurements more than this diagram.

(Edit: To be clear, I don't think these speakers are spectacular, but I do have a special interest in decently-performing, entry-level gear because I think it's vitally important to the future of this hobby. The Pioneer BS22s were my "gateway drug" almost a decade ago, and I think these Sonys are a minor improvement on those.)

 

[tomtoo]

"...Notice how the tweeter response at 20 kHz is so spread out with dips and peaks..."

Yeap that's a absolutly no go for a speaker in this price range!


To be serious i would care a sh** what's there directional behavior at 20khz. Even if there where a high q 15db peak or dip at 20khz i would not care. Even the speaker would cost 10 times more i would not care. Thats some kind of a measurement fetish.

Edit: added high q

 

[richard12511]

This is the weirdest review yet, for me. Even weirder that I'm the only one so far that seems to think that.

Objectively speaking, these are maybe the best or second best speakers measured to date, in terms of value, and yet, they weren't recommended because they didn't do well in the subjective listen. Could this have something to do with the F208 being the last review? Maybe @amirm is comparing them (subconsciously) to those?

Or...maybe they really do sound even more terrible than your average pair of $70 speakers? As someone who's very science minded, that's just a really hard conclusion for me to accept.

Like, I honestly don't know how to process this one. Looking at the spinorama, these are absolutely exceptional loudspeakers. Remember, we're comparing these to typical $78 loudspeakers, and not $6k Genelecs. Even before seeing the preference score, I knew these were truly outstanding. And yet, @amirm says that they are overpriced at $78 because they sounded terrible? Does the spinorama mean nothing? Yes, there are real issues shown in some of the other graphs, but remember, 1. we're comparing these to other $70-$80 speakers, and 2. Toole has said that the spinorama is all that's needed to predict user preference. All of these other graphs are nice to have, but spinorama should be all that's needed.

For comparison, according to Olive's score, these $78 loudspeakers (with subs) measure better than the JBL 305p($220/pair atm), the JBL 705p($2,000/pair), and the JBL HDI-3600($3,800/pair).

@amirm , I understand they have flaws, and I understand that you didn't like them in a big room run full range...but again, these are $78. In my mind, saying that a spinorama that looks this good is overpriced at $78 is akin to saying that the spinorama is basically worthless, and I know you don't think that, at all. Where is the error in my thinking? The fact that everyone else(including people who know way, way more than I do) seems to be agreeing with you makes me think that I'm definitely in the wrong, here.

 

[tomtoo]

This is the weirdest review yet, for me. Even weirder that I'm the only one so far that seems to think that.

Objectively speaking, these are maybe the best or second best speakers measured to date, in terms of value, and yet, they weren't recommended because they didn't do well in the subjective listen. Could this have something to do with the F208 being the last review? Maybe @amirm is comparing them (subconsciously) to those?

Or...maybe they really do sound even more terrible than your average pair of $70 speakers? As someone who's very science minded, that's just a really hard conclusion for me to accept.

Like, I honestly don't know how to process this one. Looking at the spinorama, these are absolutely exceptional loudspeakers. Remember, we're comparing these to typical $78 loudspeakers, and not $6k Genelecs. Even before seeing the preference score, I knew these were truly outstanding. And yet, @amirm says that they are overpriced at $78 because they sounded terrible? Does the spinorama mean nothing? Yes, there are real issues shown in some of the other graphs, but remember, 1. we're comparing these to other $70-$80 speakers, and 2. Toole has said that the spinorama is all that's needed to predict user preference. All of these other graphs are nice to have, but spinorama should be all that's needed.

For comparison, according to Olive's score, these $78 loudspeakers (with subs) measure better than the JBL 305p($220/pair atm), the JBL 705p($2,000/pair), and the JBL HDI-3600($3,800/pair).

@amirm , I understand they have flaws, and I understand that you didn't like them in a big room run full range...but again, these are $78. In my mind, saying that a spinorama that looks this good is overpriced at $78 is akin to saying that the spinorama is basically worthless, and I know you don't think that, at all. Where is the error in my thinking? The fact that everyone else(including people who know way, way more than I do) seems to be agreeing with you makes me think that I'm definitely in the wrong, here.

I think it's influenced by @armirs preferences..I think he likes a deep round bottom and gentle highs. This speaker is just the opposite.

 

[richard12511]

I think it's influenced by @armirs preferences..I think he likes a deep round bottom and gentle highs. This speaker is just the opposite.

Yes, but how many $78/pair speakers can deliver a deep round bottom in a large room?

 

[Dimifoot]

@amirm you are wasting your time measuring toys.

 

[Francis Vaughan]

Referring to integrated basket in plastic casting.

I've looked at dozens of cheap bookshelf speaker teardowns and done a few myself and never seen anything like that.

I have, but only in cheap speakers. I was more impressed with the ingenuity and possibilities presented with such a design. I don't think there is anything bad in and of itself in a plastic basket. Thermal considerations are possibly the main problem, but we are hardly talking a high power speaker here. When a designer is value engineering something as low priced and mass produced as this, all sorts of possibilities exist. Of cousre there are a whole extra raft of considerations. Such a design might require glass reinforced plastic, which ups the production cost and reduces mould lifetime. So there is no clear answer. But Sony have the corporate horsepower to do something like this in a manner few others do. Little Harman is a minnow in comparison, and only being bought by Samsung gets them into a family where significant resources might be available. Sony are a remarkable company, and are of a mind to reclaim the crown they allowed to slip. (Ironically arguably being lost to Samsung.)

There speakers are probably a product of the cheap and nasty division of Sony. It seems most Japanese companies have such a division. Which is a great pity. One can smell that if they kept the martedroids in their cage, kept the stupid chome bling off the design, and spent the effort on engineering, it could have been a miraculous speaker. But they didn't and it isn't.

 

[maty]

https://forum.hifiguides.com/t/sony-ss-cs5-bookshelf-speakers-a-look-inside/5083

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