Vanatoo Transparent Zero Speaker Review

[napilopez]

Agreed. We're used to having a standard of excellence in engineering on this site, and results will always be proof of that. In this case, I don't see the value, at any cost, when the 305's are still as cheap as they are, and outclass these by a mile. Hiss and all...

I've heard neither the 305p nor the vanatoos so I have no stake in this, but I just can't see that the 305 is substantially better.

Preference score aside, It has more resonances, the resonances are significantly more pronounced, it has a broader treble tilt, it has more hiss, and the lower mids are scooped down by like 3db:

That's like 7 resonances that I can eyeball!

By contrast the vanatoos problems are much easier to fix, and the only one that is truly essential to address is the treble bump.

 

[dinglehoser]

I have a pair of these and the objective results confirm my subjective experience. They sound much better with that 5k hump dialed back (-4dB in my example, for a reasonably flat response), but even corrected, there's a kind of mid-range graininess I haven't been able to diagnose. Possible that's the resonances and elevated distortion at play.

 

[Kaiju]

Thank you @amirm for taking request, Thank you once again for your contribution to the community.

 

[Sancus]

Agreed. We're used to having a standard of excellence in engineering on this site, and results will always be proof of that. In this case, I don't see the value, at any cost, when the 305's are still as cheap as they are, and outclass these by a mile. Hiss and all...

The 305 is neither much better nor cheaper when you consider it has no DAC. This does.

But most importantly this speaker is MUCH smaller. Its main purpose is to fit on desktops that don't have room for big studio monitors.

Oh, it may also be important to some that the T0 have very little hiss, on par with or perhaps a little more than the Neumann KH-80, which basically means you have to put your ear within a couple inches of the tweeter to hear anything. This is important for desktop monitors.

 

[BYRTT]

The preference score says otherwise (with a sub).....

.....The drop in bass between 200Hz-600Hz ain’t great, neither is the obviously increasing treble response, nor all the resonances.

ASR anechoic analyze for 305P was a 4,49 score and T0 was a 3,9, if you have the time and find it interesting you could add below attached filters and publish their new score and maybe the curves too.

 

[Xyrium]

Some very good points about the 305's, and given the score reflects those consideration, I suppose the two products are graded with relative consistency.

 

[MZKM]

ASR anechoic analyze for 305P was a 4,49 score and T0 was a 3,9, if you have the time and find it interesting you could add below attached filters and publish their new score and maybe the curves too.
View attachment 66428
View attachment 66429

Vanatoo

EQ SCORE: 6.1
EQ SCORE w/ sub: 8.76

Keep in mind this is simulated, boosting that ~13500Hz dip likely won't work well in reality.

Still working on the JBL.

 

[BYRTT]

Some very good points about the 305's, and given the score reflects those consideration, I suppose the two products are graded with relative consistency.

If you mean the 7 resonances that @napilopez can eyeball then reconsider and read for design flaws into directivity index curve where 305P run over T0, but also honestly had to admit in 305P was one of the first acoustic reviews so mayby they not 100% compareable in think Amir has adjusted and learned a bit on operate protocol for Klippel scanner down the road and would need a rescan of 305P to be sure if directivity index is still the same relative smooth curve as below .

 

[MZKM]

ASR anechoic analyze for 305P was a 4,49 score and T0 was a 3,9, if you have the time and find it interesting you could add below attached filters and publish their new score and maybe the curves too.
View attachment 66428
View attachment 66429

JBL
EQ SCORE: 5.0
EQ SCORE w/sub: 7.0

 

[MZKM]

If you mean the 7 resonances that @napilopez can eyeball then reconsider and read for design flaws into directivity index curve where 305P run over T0, but also honestly had to admit in 305P was one of the first acoustic reviews so mayby they not 100% compareable in think Amir has adjusted and learned a bit on operate protocol for Klippel scanner down the road and would need a rescan of 305P to be sure if directivity index is still the same relative smooth curve as below .
View attachment 66438

I just redid the 305P's measurements using the most current version (ER fix and all that). Score went up 0.1, score ignoring bass went up 0.2:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Cnsa9qL0PP1dhbXFBEff-AFWiMbFeYAHjElra/pubhtml

Old one for comparison:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...xbfHvhjjboxL1GaNC2zofKpdgPNqahuo9wy1L/pubhtml

 

[BYRTT]

Vanatoo

EQ SCORE: 6.1
EQ SCORE w/ sub: 8.76

Keep in mind this is simulated, boosting that ~13500Hz dip likely won't work well in reality.

Still working on the JBL.

JBL
EQ SCORE: 5.0
EQ SCORE w/sub: 7.0

Thousand thanks all the work, myself thought JBL would score highest so think it looks like score system don't like the bit steeper direcectivity curve below 2kHz and kind of constant directivity up above.

 

[MZKM]

Thousand thanks all the work, myself thought JBL would score highest so think it looks like score system don't like the bit steeper direcectivity curve below 2kHz and kind of constant directivity up above.

Due to the inherent nature of the formula favoring steeper slopes, I've been also calculating a % score, where the best possible scores for each variable will give a 100%, with the weighting based off the % given in Olive's paper; I have not yet checked if the rankin order is kept identical or not compared to the scores.
If it is, then I will calculate another % where instead of the NBD & Smoothness on the PIR, I will normalize the PIR to it's own slope, run NBD, and weight it the combined % weighting, but the only way to check if this is mostly valid in terms of ranking is to find speakers that measure very similarly except for the slope of the PIR, which of course is a bit of a challenge to narrow down the options that meet this criteria and yet have enough samples to be somewhat valid.

 

[dinglehoser]

Surveying the various measurements (around the web, and my own), it seems that there might be two flavors in the wild - one with the 5k hump, and another without. The bimodal distribution seems pretty stark to me - enough for me to suspect some sort of endemic hardware manufacturing or sourcing error involving the tweeter, a running spec switch, or a DSP programming error. To my recollection, my off-the cuff REW measurements look nothing like @SIY 's or noaudiophile's; they look practically identical to Amir's.

 

[HooStat]

Surveying the various measurements (around the web, and my own), it seems that there might be two flavors in the wild - one with the 5k hump, and another without. The bimodal distribution seems pretty stark to me - enough for me to suspect some sort of endemic hardware manufacturing or sourcing error involving the tweeter, a running spec switch, or a DSP programming error. To my recollection, my off-the cuff REW measurements look nothing like @SIY 's or noaudiophile's; they look practically identical to Amir's.

They introduced a software update for their other model. Maybe they did something similar for this one. See http://noaudiophile.com/Vanatoo_Transparent_One_Encore/

 

[Racheski]

The Buchardt is a passive speaker and (currently) $2000 USD.

I am interested if the other speaker in your pair is similarly hot on-axis, unless they only sent you 1.

I also wonder how driving it with a digital input could improve distortion or even the FR.

This speaker has a lot of controls:
View attachment 66355
As you can see, you can switch which is the speaker with the power cord, a simple feature that can be very useful in some circumstances.

Most impotently, they actually have a true subwoofer crossover, which I am not aware of any similarly priced competitor offering, there is a desk/room mode as well and I beilieve these use different crossover frequencies as well.

Not sure if you meant this, but you cannot literally plug in the power cord into the other speaker. You can change whether the speaker with the power cord is on the R vs L.

 

[MZKM]

Not sure if you meant this, but you cannot literally plug in the power cord into the other speaker. You can change whether the speaker with the power cord is on the R vs L.

I didn’t mean that, I meant you can switch which side is the active speaker.

 

[Ron Texas]

I find the EQ scores to be very interesting.

 

[txbdan]

I recently demoed the T0s for a couple weeks on my desk. I found them to sound much better in Flat mode, with the compressors disabled, and with them on stands with fronts vertical like normal bookshelf speakers.

Ultimately, i did characterize them as a bit on the bright/thin side and opted to return them in exchange for a separate amp/passive setup. They are extremely compelling though for their size/form factor and the fact they have a built in DAC and amps. For "computer speakers", they're a great choice, imo

 

[QMuse]

JBL
EQ SCORE: 5.0
EQ SCORE w/sub: 7.0

Are you sure this is correct? In both cases LW was flattened out and DI curves look pretty similar so I was expecting closer scores..

 

[MZKM]

Are you sure this is correct? In both cases LW was flattened out and DI curves look pretty similar so I was expecting closer scores..

EQ JBL:

EQ Vanatoo: