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The REAL Problem of March Audio's Sointuva WG (Review, Measurements and Reinforcements with Klippel device)

Micahk

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I’m a little confused on what the major issue was found to be? Was it lack of absorption material or the enclosure leakage?
 

GNK

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A little bit off topic, but do you have a database/site of your other reviews @Nuyes ? Do you produce Spinorama/CEA2034 datasets?


You can find his reviews with this link(Find author "Nuyes")
You may need google translation since his reviews are written in korean.
 
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Nuyes

Nuyes

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I’m a little confused on what the major issue was found to be? Was it lack of absorption material or the enclosure leakage?
The exact cause was unknown.
All I could do was repeat as many different comparative measurements as possible.
As a result, various leaks were visually confirmed and resolved, and no problems were found in the passive radiator.

Adding an inner sound absorbing material was one of the things I could do, and it happened that it improved the symptoms.

And by adjusting the degree, I found the best setting possible (the goal is to allow the harmonic distortion of the problem band to increase proportionally with the output), and apply this to sample B as it is, and then sample B All I have to do is re-test to make sure it is not broken.

Aside from that, of course, both speakers had significant binding force leaks, so this is also one of the crux of the issue I raised.
 

beagleman

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Sample B also had the binding post exposed.
Alan claims this was a QC mistake, but if so, did he 'mistake' the QC of two speakers in a row?

But if I understand correctly, Sample B did not have the distortion issue?

Meaning the binding post "sealing issue", may have been, or not have been the issue all along?
 

samysound

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I’m a little confused on what the major issue was found to be? Was it lack of absorption material or the enclosure leakage?
Enclosure leakage mainly through the binding post appears to be the main issue.

Secondary thing was a resonance that was a lot worse in one speaker of the pair but fine in the second speaker. According to manufacturer this was inherent in the woofer frame and an email was shared from purifi to acknowledge this. Speaker Manufacturer claims they have proprietary way to mitigate this which seems to involve very specific mounting bolt torques. Here is where things get convoluted though. The speaker manufacturer claims the bolt torques were changed by the 3rd party tester prior to testing. Third party tester claims they tested the speaker as is without altering anything and only began to modify the speaker after the poor test results were discovered

Question: has it been confirmed that the original owner of the speaker did not tighten the speaker mounting bolts in an effort to fix the speaker which was presumably noisy from the air leak???
 
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thin bLue

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Alan keeps asserting that the problem is due to the OP tinkering with the speaker, but from the original post and all later posts it looks the OP only began disassembling the speaker after
I'm sorry.
I think I shoud not comment who is right and wrong at this moment(it's only for me), I want you to understand that I am in a complicated position.

You can judge by yourself with infos on this threads

My interest is improve them together and find a way for all of us, not judge. So I decided to inform them each other for make some kind of cooperation.(at least that was my expectations)

Anyways, It seems My job as messenger is done here.

I'll provide more resources for another reviews at near future. at that time I think I can talk about this more freely.
 
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Nuyes

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Enclosure leakage mainly through the binding post appears to be the main issue.

Secondary thing was a resonance that was a lot worse in one speaker of the pair but fine in the second speaker. According to manufacturer this was inherent in the woofer frame and an email was shared from purifi to acknowledge this. Speaker Manufacturer claims they have proprietary way to mitigate this which seems to involve very specific mounting bolt torques. Here is where things get convoluted though. The speaker manufacturer claims the bolt torques were hanged by the 3rd party tester prior to testing. Third party tester claims they tested the speaker as is without altering anything and only began to modify the speaker after the poor test results were discovered

Question: has it been confirmed that the original owner of the speaker did not tighten the speaker mounting bolts in an effort to fix the speaker which was presumably noisy from the air leak???
Of course.
The speaker owner sent me Sample A in complete 'unopened' condition from the moment I bought the speaker from March audio.

And I measured the speaker after waiting for several days in an environment of 25 degrees Celsius at room temperature and about 50% relative humidity.

(I'm a string player before a speaker lover, so I'm overly obsessed with room temperature/humidity control. And this helps with my speaker measurements.)
 
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Nuyes

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But if I understand correctly, Sample B did not have the distortion issue?

Meaning the binding post "sealing issue", may have been, or not have been the issue all along?
Sample B had no distortion problems.

Had Alan responded positively to the A/B tests 'we' tested, I wouldn't have spent more than a month on a single speaker product, and the speaker owner wouldn't have to damage the product by an anonymous reviewer. it would have been

I don't think the owner would have had any more options.

I am not the one who tried to speak directly to Alan, this was done through the owner and other prospective Sointuva WG buyers.

And I respect the judgment of the owner.


As a result, sample A had excellent performance, and when sample B was also set to the same state as A, no abnormality was observed in performance.

The reason we had no choice but to modify the existing Sample B, which had no problem in performance, is that if we change the structure of the speaker, it will change in some way.

We were obligated to bring both samples to the same condition.
 

Toni Mas

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If one decides to buy expensive speakers made from SOTA drivers and expect really low measurable distortion in both speakers of pair, i'd not call his disappointment "over emphasing minor issues".
The "disappointment" is more likely to be produced by this kind of reviews rather than the listening experience in itself: "stupid me, these speakers suck indeed!"

Another question might be defective manufacturing, which audible or not audible ( in this case probably not...), is simply unacceptable and at any price point.
 
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jae

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Is it not necessary to remove/untorque the drivers to get access to the area to properly secure the posts? If Alan admits the posts were a problem and were his fault, and even offered a discount because it was cheaper for both him and the customer/OP to fix it on their own, surely he would have known that the precise torque values that are supposedly deliberately set (and are inherent to the integrity of the speaker's performance) would have been disrupted regardless? In that case he should he not at least provided these values to the OP/owner as part of the self-repair "deal", or offered to fix it himself if that information is IP he wanted to keep under wraps? Without bringing up the other little problems, it seems as though Alan is blaming customer/OP for creating a secondary problem after essentially getting his authority/blessing to fix the first one.
 

Postlan

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We'll know the truth to see the future production of Sointuva.
If they will be exactly the same as before, or if Alan will make any change based on OP's findings.

Finger crossed.
 

beren777

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Sample B had no distortion problems.

Alternate explanation:

The screws in Sample A were not properly torqued at time of test.. This could have happened during manufacture, shipping, while in the possession of the user, etc.

Was existing torque tested on sample A prior to disassembly of A and compared to B?

Did March Audio provide specific torque settings for the screws?

From Nuyes previous statements, it sounds like some of the screws were loose:

"...the degrees of tightness of all the bolts were varying. Some bolts were well tightened, but some were loose enough to be tightened with my fingers."

Sample A may have been out of spec at the time of test.
 

samysound

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Is it not necessary to remove/untorque the drivers to get access to the area to properly secure the posts? If Alan admits the posts were a problem and were his fault, and even offered a discount because it was cheaper for both him and the customer/OP to fix it on their own, surely he would have known that the precise torque values that are supposedly deliberately set (and are inherent to the integrity of the speaker's performance) would have been disrupted regardless? In that case he should he not at least provided these values to the OP/owner as part of the self-repair "deal", or offered to fix it himself if that information is IP he wanted to keep under wraps? Without bringing up the other little problems, it seems as though Alan is blaming customer/OP for creating a secondary problem after essentially getting his authority/blessing to fix the first one.
I am guessing you could do the repair by removing the passive radiator on the back and not touch the woofer
 

beren777

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Nobody can open the Sointuva to check, it will ruin the secret sauce. They have to believe it is fixed.

Push in on the woofer while nothing is connected to the speaker. If the passive radiator pushes out, you probably have a good seal including the binding posts.
 

digicidal

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The "disappointment" is more likely to be produced by this kind of reviews rather than the listening experience in itself: "stupid me, these speakers suck indeed!"

Another question might be defective manufacturing, which audible or not audible ( in this case probably not...), is simply unacceptable and at any price point.
Well, disappointment is, by definition, highly subjective so I'd say you're both totally correct and very wrong at the same time. Some of us are "disappointed" when joined wood veneers don't have perfect grain alignment or a new TV arrives with fingerprints all over the screen... while others find beauty in the "uniqueness" of a lopsided vase that can't even hold water.

If I received a speaker that had distortion clearly audible in a YT video (the binding posts issue in this case) I would definitely be disappointed - even if it was practically inaudible at the listening position. The real question, which unfortunately may not ever be conclusively proven in this case, is whether this represents an extremely rare anomaly in production and QC or not. The secondary is that (apparently at least) if you do have one of the simple issues... fixing it yourself now causes a number of other issues which (again apparently) were never a problem until you did so? :confused:
 

SDC

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Push in on the woofer while nothing is connected to the speaker. If the passive radiator pushes out, you probably have a good seal including the binding posts.

That's no fix. Cause binding post was just a QC error. In his opinion.

edit
ps: Also said SBA tweeters are working fine. Then there is no place for leaks so, this whole review is based on broken pair of speaker. Wow
 
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SDC

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What do you mean "the secret sauce"? If you're talking about bolt torque, manufactures should publish the recommended torque like all the car manufactures do.
But he didn't. The end. And the cabling stuff you'll ruin it if you pull the unit.
 
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