Thomann/Swissonic A306 - Review & Measurements by Erin

[Yanec]

Hey everyone. I suspect I have snatched up the last of the "current" stock of the A306, however that does mean that the ones that were available were some B-stock examples. According to Thomann, the equipment should be 100% working and might show traces of use, however I have noticed some buzzing from the woofer of the one unit (especially at lower volumes). I suspect this is voice coil rub, as it all but disappears when pressing on the surround at about 6 o'clock. From this I have 2 questions:

1. Are there any "soft" meathods of addressing the VC rub, such as test tones, burning-in, manipulating the cone etc. which do not involve opening the speaker (or dust cap)?
2. What would be the best way to test whether there are no other severely detrimental effects on the frequency responce of the units? I have a USB mic (but no SPL-meter), could I perform a measurement which would confirm that the speakers are within acceptable limits other that the abovementioned?
3. Given the issue, should I rather exchange these units for A305's or A308's (or otherwise)?

Thanks for any input!

Edit: I have tested by swapping the inputs and the issue remains on the same woofer, and with different sources/amps. I have also rotated the unit 180 degrees to no avail.

I would send the unit back to Thomann to fix the issue. And would negotiate the shipping on them as it was misleadingly sold as 100% working.

 

[Yanec]

A little bit of vinyl goes a long way in terms of integrating the A306 design into a living room instead of a studio.

 

[staticV3]

A little bit of vinyl goes a long way in terms of integrating the A306 design into a living room instead of a studio.
View attachment 341612

This stuff might work well for blacking out the logo:
https://youtube.com/watch/kzLh06fzMN0

 

[Yanec]

This stuff might work well for blacking out the logo:
https://youtube.com/watch/kzLh06fzMN0

I don't mind the logo, but consider covering the led as it is distracting, especially when watching in the dark.

This stuff would probably be noticeable as it has different color, reflectivity and surface smoothness compared to the polymer used for the front of the speaker. I often used similar methods when restoring old photo lenses and had a plethora of issues until figuring out how to do such patches or better how to avoid doing them.

 

[ZolaIII]

Below the tuning frequency of the port, cone and port are out of phase. It's like putting two subwoofers next to each other and inverting the phase on one: the main tone gets cancelled and all you hear is a lovely cacophony of port noise and other distortion - which is kind of neat to test different port designs, but people already figured out how to design ports decades ago.
View attachment 340327

You could delete the port entirely and extend the lower frequency response with a lowshelf filter, but honestly, just get a woofer.

What's the phase/impedance cross and what is woofer Fs? Asking as you are probably one of cuple of people who know this (as a designer of those) and in the purpose of cutting the port cuff out when crossing with more serious subwoofer to see how much they really can give no sweat and improving distortion.
If A308 can pass 80 Hz limit (woofer response alone and close to a peek so that it can hold it and be stressed out) as ideal crossover with similar FR that would make them a great choice for budget 2.1 systems which would gladly pass reference white noise calibration point on to mid field and probably even up to a far field (al do not really ment for that).

 

[Fastnet]

Interesting real budget option, for those that bought them, how's it going?

@Weeb Labs have you kept yours? Would you still recommend the A306? or have you moved on to something else? Cheers

 

[Yanec]

Interesting real budget option, for those that bought them, how's it going?

@Weeb Labs have you kept yours? Would you still recommend the A306? or have you moved on to something else? Cheers

Even didn't have to change their oil and tyres so far!

Did several blind abx with much more expensive speakers (~15x) which are also very linear in their FR. All friends who participated were amazed by their blind preference being the A306. As a clarification, to my ears tge twi sets were extremely close, confirming their "correct" and linear sound.

But I don't like to provide such kind of potentially controversial feedback so I will skip the details.

The point is that they sound really, really good, no way worse than that set of a very hyped speakers, plus they give the feeling of a very "big" sound without taking half of a room.

 

[Fastnet]

Thanks, @Yanec. Have you done any measurements that you can share? Room size?

 

[Yanec]

Thanks, @Yanec. Have you done any measurements that you can share?

I am on a trip and the only measurement I have is a photo of the latest version of Dirac Live measurements screen. Sorry for the low quality.

(Based on 17 point measurements done by MiniDSP SHD using a calibrated UMIK-1 with its own calibration profile installed. Measurements were repeated multiple times using between 9 and 17 varying points all as per instructions all looked almost identical.)

In gray is the response corrected to my preference curve, the dotted yellow is my personal preference curve. The important is in pink: the uncorrected response in a real world room. Let's zoom in to some details, going left to right:

The overall measurement window matching the Dirac requirements in my case is 21hz - 21khz (bound by the vertical yellow curtains), with the sub crossed at 80hz. There is a SVS sub resulting in the bass bump below 80hz - I like my bass slamming as you can see by my preference curve's bass shelf.

- The 40-110hz hump is due to the placement of the speakers and the sub 15 cm against a wall, as seen above on my photo of the speaker. I didn't use the A306 built-in preset to correct for placing close to the wall because Erin advised me to leave it this way and better let Dirac take care of that.

- Around 3 db deviation at 200-300 hz, again due to the room, really low, gradual and wide enough not to be audible even uncorrected.

- Very linear mids, subjectively they are very coherent with truly impressive tembre nuances. And they feel fast and revealing but without any edginess.

- The highs are very extended and very linear, all the way.


Short version: Overall crazy flat and linear for real world, at any price range.

My personal take is that this is an amazing uncorrected room response and can easily be used without room calibration in my case. Listening confirms that.

And subjectively they sound wide, very fast, precise and detailed. Most importantly with an "authority" that is absolutely unexpected given their medium size. I don't hear any uneven parts of the FR and the "placement/separation" and "large stage" are top notch.

 

[Fastnet]

Many thanks for this @Yanec, after your reply I went to Thomann to buy a pair but they have stopped selling them: "the Swissonic A306 is no longer available".

 

[Yanec]

Many thanks for this @Yanec, after your reply I went to Thomann to buy a pair but they have stopped selling them: "the Swissonic A306 is no longer available".

You should have read the thread man!
Yes, they don't have them anymore.

But you have many options, a very similar one is JBL 306P MkII. Like really, really similar in all terms: Sound, Size, Price, also active.

 

[Weeb Labs]

Many thanks for this @Yanec, after your reply I went to Thomann to buy a pair but they have stopped selling them: "the Swissonic A306 is no longer available".

The most similar alternative is the KALI LP-6 V2.

 

[Yanec]

The most similar alternative is the KALI LP-6 V2.

Yep, also a very similar one.
There are alternatives, which is good!