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Soundkraft Enigma BT Speaker Review

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 16 8.5%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 65 34.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 97 51.6%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 10 5.3%

  • Total voters
    188

Ilkless

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Strong subjective impression shows how much good response in the midrange/low treble up to 1.5kHz matters, how inconsequential a rougher treble can be, and how routinely even expensive speakers mess it up with bad baffle step compensation, port resonances etc.

My father wants some nice lifestyle speakers for his new place. This was on my radar but I thought it was going to be some underengineered boutique mess so I'm pleasantly surprised. and these guys are local to me as well.
 

wwenze

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Something good coming out from Singapore? That's new.

szH1Zqy.png

2FR3UfF.png


Well now they can say they have a good review that isn't so... you know...
 

Ilkless

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Something good coming out from Singapore? That's new.

szH1Zqy.png

2FR3UfF.png


Well now they can say they have a good review that isn't so... you know...

They have been advertising a ton on social media so it's good to see that it fills a niche pretty well. A Kali LP-6v2 is around this price locally but its nowhere near as compact or pretty.
 

Maiky76

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This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Soundkraft Enigma Bluetooth powered DSP speaker. It was sent to me by the company and costs about US $365 (?) a pair.
View attachment 217611
It comes in real textured wood finishes which warms my heart as a woodworker. I wish the bass was less industrial though to go with the natural feel of the rest.
View attachment 217612
A beefy 6 amp/24 volt EPSON (printer) power supply. 50 watts of amplification is provided per channel.

Above is the master speaker. A set of speaker wires connects the slave. I got a choice of whether I wanted the master on the right or left and the Bluetooth name of the speaker!

The front-facing driver is from SB Acoustics and is put to use as a full range driver. The rear tweeter made by German company VISATON is for "ambiance." A down firing port finishes the back.

I like that there is a wired Aux in, allowing high fidelity playback on the desktop.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

Likewise listening tests comply with the latest research into proper evaluation of speakers calling for mono, instead of stereo listening:

The grill is not removable so speaker was tested as you see.

Soundkraft Enigma Measurements
The design of the Engima brings challenges to both our (my) measurement system and overall philosophy of objective speaker analysis due to inclusion of rear firing tweeter. This creates a very complex soundfield as soon as that driver takes over, quickly diminishing accuracy of Klippel NFS using the usual 1000 point measurement. Accuracy sank to 2% by 4 kHz or so and sank fast above that. Fortunately on-axis is not impacted as the rear driver makes no contribution there:

View attachment 217613

Being a lifestyle speaker, it needs to have a grill which causes the reflections/jaggedness that we see above a few Kilohertz. Below that, it is reasonable with very nice bass extension for such a small box. We are talking flat response down to 70 Hz! This is aided by the DSP. F10 where response drops by 10 dB extends to almost 45 Hz which is very nice especially in this category speaker. Remember, this is a speaker roughly the size of European football.

Listening window (dashed green) looks better than on-axis which is nice. Also nice is the far-field response:
View attachment 217614

And as a result predicted in-room response, again far field:
View attachment 217615

Distortion is kept under control other at 86 dBSPL. I set the max at 90 as otherwise there was too much distortion:
View attachment 217616

View attachment 217617

To investigate the peaking of distortion, I thought I show the distortion of the main full range driver (which I am calling "woofer") here:
View attachment 217618

It seems like a mix of resonances and some cone breakup. Harmonics land in less audible part of the hearing band so subjective outcome may not be so bad.

Here is the composite response. Again, remember the "woofer" is full range front driver:
View attachment 217619

Port resonances are strong but fortunately the port is rear facing so less audible than if it were firing forward. We can see the rear tweeter pushing the high frequency response way up but that would be attenuated based on how far it is from rear wall.

Beamwidth paints a rather sad picture as first due to natural beaming of the full range driver:
View attachment 217620

But if we watch the contoured colors of the same we see the rear tweeter coming to rescue somewhat:

View attachment 217621

Ditto for vertical dispersion:
View attachment 217622

Finally here is our waterfall:

View attachment 217623


Soundkraft Enigma Listening Tests
First impression with Enigma placed on my desk elevated 6 inches was quite positive! There is impressive and warm bass. The single speaker could play very loud before gently compressing and creating light static. The effect of rear tweeter was obvious as it lengthened high frequency note decays. It was a bit bright so it was a toss up as to whether you want to block it or leave it as is. It did provide the function I mentioned in measurements: as you rotated to the right of the speaker, the tonality would shift some but still quite acceptable as the acoustic center would rotate between the back and front.

I thought I analyze the effects of some of the resonances using EQ:
View attachment 217624

Applying these two took away a bit of brightness although it did push back the spatial qualities a hair. Still, I liked it with these than not. The third filter was what was indicated by the predicted-in-room response. I did not like the effect so left it out.

All in all, the sound was quite enjoyable and truly hifi. This was in sharp contrast to bluetooth speakers that sound toylike most of the time. Subjective performance is well above casual look at the objective results.

Conclusions
I went into listening tests having seen the measurements thinking there would be some audible issues. Reality was that this was not the case. The measurements here are complex in their application to subjective response due to much less common use of rear firing tweeter. And lack of accuracy in our high frequency measurements. Even with no EQ, the Enigma is a pleasant speaker to listen to. It brings not only innovation in its organic look and feel, but also with "good bones" underneath to produce good "hi-fi" sound.

I am going to recommend the Soundkraft Enigma speaker. I think you will be hard pressed to find any lifestyle speaker to match its performance.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Hi,

Here is my take on the EQ.
Please report your findings, positive or negative!

The following EQs are “anechoic” EQs to get the speaker right before room integration. If you able to implement these EQs you must add EQ at LF for room integration, that is usually not optional… see hints there: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...helf-speaker-review.11144/page-26#post-800725

The raw data with corrected ER and PIR:

Score no EQ: 3.1
With Sub: 5.5

Spinorama with no EQ:

SoundKraft Enigma No EQ Spinorama.png



Directivity:

Better stay at tweeter height


SoundKraft Enigma 2D surface Directivity Contour Only Data.png



EQ design:

I have generated one EQ. The APO config file is attached.
  • The EQs are designed in the context of regular stereo use i.e. domestic environment, no warranty is provided for a near field use in a studio environment although the LW might be better suited for this purpose.

Score EQ Amirm: 3.2
with sub: 5.6

Score EQ Score: 4.6
with sub: 6.8

Code:
SoundKraft Enigma APO EQ Score 96000Hz
July112022-105943

Preamp: -1.8 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 50.23,    0.00,    1.34
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 93.44,    -3.01,    1.03
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 720.71,    -1.64,    0.99
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1657.76,    -2.11,    2.22
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 2335.57,    -2.54,    4.57
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 3840.53,    -4.93,    2.47
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 4645.50,    3.33,    6.22
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 6784.38,    -2.76,    6.83
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 12115.14,    -2.30,    5.07
SoundKraft Enigma EQ Design.png



Spinorama EQ Amirm
SoundKraft Enigma EQ Amirm Spinorama.png


Spinorama EQ Score
SoundKraft Enigma EQ Score Spinorama.png


Zoom PIR-LW-ON
SoundKraft Enigma Zoom.png


Regression - Tonal
SoundKraft Enigma Regression.png


Radar no EQ vs EQ score
Nice improvements
SoundKraft Enigma Radar.png


The rest of the plots is attached.
 

Attachments

  • SoundKraft Enigma No EQ Spinorama.png
    SoundKraft Enigma No EQ Spinorama.png
    205 KB · Views: 55
  • SoundKraft Enigma 3D surface Horizontal Directivity Data.png
    SoundKraft Enigma 3D surface Horizontal Directivity Data.png
    435.8 KB · Views: 50
  • SoundKraft Enigma 3D surface Vertical Directivity Data.png
    SoundKraft Enigma 3D surface Vertical Directivity Data.png
    439.6 KB · Views: 56
  • SoundKraft Enigma 2D surface Directivity Contour Data.png
    SoundKraft Enigma 2D surface Directivity Contour Data.png
    366 KB · Views: 51
  • SoundKraft Enigma APO EQ Score 96000Hz.txt
    484 bytes · Views: 43

Cars-N-Cans

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The config they have is cheaper compared to the coax. But, for these looks, I would bet a raise in price wouldn’t deter too many customers. Though maybe they want the rear-firing tweeter for the effect on soundstage.

The rear with the tweeter also looks poor (worse than what Amir got, maybe depends on wood):
rs=w:1164,h:582,cg:true
I would assume its all done via CNC but I was wondering the same thing: Are the profiles in the critical areas controlled? I would assume maybe they do some of the rough cuts by hand, and then hand it off to the machines for finishing. But the one in the thumbnail for the YT video that has the natural bark finish literally looks like a tree log that suddenly ate a car door skin with a speaker in it. Very odd looking with the hand-wrapped vinyl around the speaker bezel. I would assume there is some variability, but with the grill diffraction and the driver beaming maybe its a non-point in the end.

Edit: From the video they have it looks like they are hand-turned on a lathe. Hmmm... I like the sustainability aspect of it, but I wonder if they have any controls for the finished profiles? Or are they just hand-cut and its the luck of the draw?
 
Last edited:

Cars-N-Cans

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View attachment 217653

It's comin' right at you!
ikr? Seems like a thing now for speakers to look like fungating growths or assorted and sometimes provocative anatomical parts rather than home appliances like they used to. Not really my thing. I think I prefer the usual MDF box with drivers stuck in the front. I mean yeah there are justifiable reasons from an acoustic design standpoint. But still...
 

SDC

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Love the looks. Hanging them for use as height speaker would be nice...
 

Bruce Morgen

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The Original Revel’s also featured a rear firing tweeter (as did Eosone speakers and I believe the current PS Audio speakers)

So did the E-V Interface A from back in the 1970s.
 

TimVG

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Accuracy sank to 2% by 4 kHz or so and sank fast above that.

Hi Amir

Do you mean an error rate of 2% by any chance? Overall accuracy of 2% seems extremely low.
 

PeteL

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The big question is. What will happen when he runs out of his stock of seventies wood lamps he got from this estate liquidation?
 
OP
amirm

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Hi Amir

Do you mean an error rate of 2% by any chance? Overall accuracy of 2% seems extremely low.
Hi Tim. I am not sure of your distinction. The Klippel NFS deviation from actual response is what I stated. If you have 10% error in 86 dB response, then you could be off by 8.6 dB so quite large. Standard target is 1% which would be less than 1 dB.
 

KxDx

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The Original Revel’s also featured a rear firing tweeter (as did Eosone speakers and I believe the current PS Audio speakers)
I have a pair of Eosone RSF-600's and they have the most amazing soundstage I've ever heard in my home.

I've owned a few bipolar speakers, but the dipole Eosone is a totally different beast and I doubt I will ever sell them.
 

TimVG

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Hi Tim. I am not sure of your distinction. The Klippel NFS deviation from actual response is what I stated. If you have 10% error in 86 dB response, then you could be off by 8.6 dB so quite large. Standard target is 1% which would be less than 1 dB.

So, just to verify - at 4kHz the deviation is 2% and moves up from that point forward (due to the complexity of the sound field introduces by the rear tweeter).
Perhaps it's the language barrier but the initial thought going through my mind after reading "Accuracy sank to 2%" was that there was an error rate of 98% - which seems almost impossible :)
 

xaviescacs

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Klippel reports a relative error of 20 µPa/V. From there, the overall error depends on the thing to be measured and the number of points taken. The final value surely accounts for the statistical error, the standard error of the estimator, so an overall error 1% or 2% is not that bad. This can be lowered using more points, but not very much I guess. It's true however that one could potentially say that this test with an error of 2% instead of the usual 1% is less valid that the others, and not exactly comparable, so one could say that it's the error which should be the same in every speaker test to make them comparable, and it's the experiment that should be adapted to achieve this error every time. If the error depends on the frequency, a curve of the error vs frequency for each measurement could be a good thing too. Of course none is a big deal for the purpose of this measurements and because what matters most is not the value at every point, but the overall shape, so to speak. The regression that @Maiky76 and other's publish. @Maiky76, why don't you attach the error of the regression? The error of the Harmann score would also help to assess it's validity, so in this case the error would be greater due to the greater error of the original measurements. If the score is calculated without considering this error then something is lost in the process and result can be potentially misdealing. If error in the measurements is more or less constant it's not a big deal but...

I'm speaking generally without specific knowledge on this kind of measurements.
 

LiviuTM

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I was really surprised when I looked up the price given the looks and performance, I was expecting it to be $1000 or more. Didn’t look up parts cost, but the woofer is SB Acoustics, so given that it’s also powered, I can’t imagine the profit margin is large.

Price is each. Pair is ~$600 (not sure on shipping). Singapore only.

EDIT: It’s on Etsy?:
Yes, it appears on Etsy as in stock, shipping to Romania (EU) at 363 Euros for the stereo pair, with "Local taxes included (where applicable)". If this is for real, I think it's good value.
 

balletboy

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To hell with the measurements, the enclosure is made of mangowood in Indonesia, which is a waste product that otherwise would be left to rot and produce lots of methane. So it basically has $0 material cost, very low production cost (you can but a complete set of dining table and chairs in Indonesia for the price of this unit) and does its 0.1% to save the planet.

So a true ecospeaker and if it sounds good, so much the better! Crowdfunded by a clever chap from Singapore.
 
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