Same question asked, and answered, here. http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/markaudio/261851-pensils-alpair7p-chn-70-a.html#post4055909
dave
dave
Pencil 10.3 Semi finsihed-Listening impressions
I have been able to put it to some burn in today not exceeding 8'o clock position on the NAD amp
so far I am thoroughly enjoying what I could listen for the last 7 hours or so!
If I may,
1. Jazz and Instrumentals sound awesome,I was surprised hearing certain new sounds in the tracks that I have been listening for years
2.Classic Rock-Acoustic guitar and Piano sounds so much live and very very smooth
3.The bass is pretty tight,quick understated and still noticeable,pretty much the way it should be and surprises you as you dont associate such bass with such smallish drivers
4.The sax sound and double bass -IT needs to be heard and felt to be believed !
5.I did not like electric guitar sound and distortion sounds...may be it requires bit of burn in to fully express
6.The Harmonica sounds so much clean and distortion free,a first for me
7.The highs are incredible too...High hats -they sound just real.Though I dont like the hiss and whistle sounds that are noticed with all s and sh sounds...Need to equalise I guess or may the Solid State Amp,I dont know
Attached is my WIP speakers.Have not sealed the back plates yet....After burn in plan to do it next week end.
Thanks to the designers....You guys have done a great job.
I have been able to put it to some burn in today not exceeding 8'o clock position on the NAD amp
so far I am thoroughly enjoying what I could listen for the last 7 hours or so!
If I may,
1. Jazz and Instrumentals sound awesome,I was surprised hearing certain new sounds in the tracks that I have been listening for years
2.Classic Rock-Acoustic guitar and Piano sounds so much live and very very smooth
3.The bass is pretty tight,quick understated and still noticeable,pretty much the way it should be and surprises you as you dont associate such bass with such smallish drivers
4.The sax sound and double bass -IT needs to be heard and felt to be believed !
5.I did not like electric guitar sound and distortion sounds...may be it requires bit of burn in to fully express
6.The Harmonica sounds so much clean and distortion free,a first for me
7.The highs are incredible too...High hats -they sound just real.Though I dont like the hiss and whistle sounds that are noticed with all s and sh sounds...Need to equalise I guess or may the Solid State Amp,I dont know
Attached is my WIP speakers.Have not sealed the back plates yet....After burn in plan to do it next week end.
Thanks to the designers....You guys have done a great job.
Attachments
help
You're welcome !
As it is breaking in,all frequencies above 5k range seem to be gaining! I just dont like the hisses and the kinda husky voices with most rock songs .....Even the wind instruments accompany a faint hiss ....while no doubt the sound is way better than the MTM'S,I some how want to slice this hiss and throw it out of the window!
When I tried equalising in foobar ,while this seems to show improvement it also is reducing the sweetness of high hats etc...
One things I dearly wanted to achieve was to avoid this thing and I hoped an FR would eliminate /reduce the trouble... the very reason I moved to pencils from my energy MTM's...
The bass sound+ in general mid range is salivating but need some advice to reduce the treble trouble...
My room size is 16x15 .My set up is a Windows pc stripped down to barest possible services,with ASIO as the output .M audio USB PRO DAC,NAD 320 BEE amp and the audio files are Aiff's(transcoded by iTunes) and no EQ'ing on Foobar and no filter applied on NAD.
Just to be sure ,I also tried some cd's of the same tracks,but no difference to my ears.
Is EQ'ing the only solution?
PS:Further these speakers are very very sensitive to listening from different positions other than the identified sweet spot for listening
Thanks a lot!
You're welcome, glad you're enjoying them so far.
You're welcome !
As it is breaking in,all frequencies above 5k range seem to be gaining! I just dont like the hisses and the kinda husky voices with most rock songs .....Even the wind instruments accompany a faint hiss ....while no doubt the sound is way better than the MTM'S,I some how want to slice this hiss and throw it out of the window!
When I tried equalising in foobar ,while this seems to show improvement it also is reducing the sweetness of high hats etc...
One things I dearly wanted to achieve was to avoid this thing and I hoped an FR would eliminate /reduce the trouble... the very reason I moved to pencils from my energy MTM's...
The bass sound+ in general mid range is salivating but need some advice to reduce the treble trouble...
My room size is 16x15 .My set up is a Windows pc stripped down to barest possible services,with ASIO as the output .M audio USB PRO DAC,NAD 320 BEE amp and the audio files are Aiff's(transcoded by iTunes) and no EQ'ing on Foobar and no filter applied on NAD.
Just to be sure ,I also tried some cd's of the same tracks,but no difference to my ears.
Is EQ'ing the only solution?
PS:Further these speakers are very very sensitive to listening from different positions other than the identified sweet spot for listening
Thanks a lot!
Well it is over 300 hours now at less to moderate volumes...The sibilance seems to have gone worse...and there seems to be some loss in midrange as well...(all by ears only ) does this happen during break in? To be sure I changed the source comp,the amp to check and there is no difference(but for inherent differences in the amp characters)...I also measured the impedance of the speakers it read 7.8 and 8.2 ohms respectively..as you can se I have got panicky...Have I blown something? pl help.thanks
Are you listening to your speakers on-axis? Most of the Alpairs are pretty hot on top on-axis. They need to be toe'd in/out ~15* for the smoothest FR. I find that setting the speakers square with the front wall and setting the chair back the same distance that the speakers are apart works best. If at all possible, place the speakers on the longest wall of the room.
Bob
Bob
To tame the top end you can try a impedance compensation in form of a resistor and capacitor (RC network), the network does not change frequency response but most ears can hear a difference in middle to high frequency. Attach a schematic and values to be used based on A10.3M datasheet and the driver in free air. Because our box change the actual value to be used regarding the capacitor value i would guess try values from 1,4uF and down to 1uF. To get the right component values combine multiple ones in series or parallel or both series/parallel. Under listening trials if using low volume you can use small cheap components as example 0,25watt resistors and 16volts capacitors, but remember if you like the network to buy higher wattage and voltage components for the final network and higher system volume. The network should be placed in the speaker end of the speaker cable, and from own experience i seen amps that when turned on with speaker connected don't like a sudden change in impedance when live adding the network then they begin to oscillate, to get around this live connect only the network when power amp is turned off or disconnected the speaker. I see you have computer as player so if you like you can download REW and use it's build in feature to measure speakers AC impedance and plot the correction this RC network will give.
To see what happens attach a picture with 3 times impedance plots, one is my A10.2M driver in sealed box, one is a RC network alone, and one is A10.2M in sealed box with a resonance compensation (RCL network) and a inductance compensation (RC network), all the measurements are taken thru 4 meter cat5 solid core as speaker cable. The plot is done with a special soundcard and program that package is called DATS but you can do the same with our own soundcard and the free REW program.
As Bob Brines write they are pretty hot on axis, personally i never listen there. About EQ'ing if you have a microphone to measure speakers can be a help, it's not that you need to amend all peaks and dips from measurements but makes a good guide where to experiment with boosts and cuts, and more flexible EQ plugins for foobar than the standard one is available as downloads.
Attachments
BRYTT and Bob,You folks are unbelievably helpful.Thanks will keep you updated.In the meantime I found a small improvement by modifying my chain.I discovered there was double preamping,first from the DAC and then again in the NAD amp.So now I bypassed the pre-amp stage by connecting the DAC output to the power amp.The 'Body' of the sound has improved marginally .Yes I always listen on axis.and it is very very Hot ! Will keep you updated over the coming week-end.Thanks again
Subbu
PS:Bob, a small question,you mention keep the speaker square to the front wall and at the same time suggest a ~15* toe in/out.I dont seem to get it.Forgive me for the stupid question
Exactly. To my ears, most Alpairs are hot on top on-axis. Again, to my ears, the best FR balance is obtained 10*-15* off axis. In my room, the best sound stage, particularly imaging, is obtained with toe-out rather than toe-in, and that also makes for a wider sweet spot. But I don't have side walls to contend with. The speakers are 8' apart on a 25' wall. Early reflections off of the side walls is not an issue. So, it depends....
Bob
Another extremely happy pensils 10.3M user here.
All I can give back is a small tip. I had them completely sealed when I decided to replace stuffing which is not easy with bracing inside. I cut stuffing in strips and pulled it in all 4 chambers with rope. To get rope thro chambers in the back I tightened it to small weight. it worked surprisingly smoothly.
All I can give back is a small tip. I had them completely sealed when I decided to replace stuffing which is not easy with bracing inside. I cut stuffing in strips and pulled it in all 4 chambers with rope. To get rope thro chambers in the back I tightened it to small weight. it worked surprisingly smoothly.
Friends,While I could not go ahead with BYRTT'S suggestions yet,the following action I took
1.Changed the cables to pure copper 14 SWG of good quality and bi-wired both speakers with 18 SWG copper wires.To my ears this made a significant difference.Now the Sss ,sssh sounds have more 'body',less amplitude and hence sounds more musical!
2.Installed ElectriQ VST on Foobar and have a EQ curve that is like +1 db from 50HZ to 1KHZ and a 'smiley from 1.5 khz uptill 7khz with the lowest trough at -5 DB and kept it upward from 10 KHZ
3.Also introduced 'Spike Cups' under the spikes(old pennies of Al,Copper)that also seems to have helped making it sound warmer.
4.Obviously toed out to 15deg
Sounds much better with reasonably tamed sibilance-currently 17 days of listening according to foobar....and I am getting there to achieve the sound I want....Thanks folks,will update more after Byrtt's advice is implemented.
So now,I am an 'audiophile' to hear the difference a cable can make!(in a lighter vein)
Subbu
The culprit the Source !!! Windows unreliable
Well my quest continued for the 'sound' I heard on day 1....and could never get it....never suspected the source ...had an RPi lying around powered it up(with am audio USB pro as DAC) and installed the latest volumio -tested with a USB drive with wav files....man....this was way way better than what I could ever achieve in Windows....in windows have tried several pc's...one with Vista,Windows 7 and one with latest 8.1 and painstakingly followed the absolute fidelity advice on disabling the useless services...still I dont know,something that does not meet the eye...suddenly it will start sounding 'thin' for no reason..now with Rpi it is very consistent and superb.So I am going down this path...ditch the pc and buid a RPI server,need to buy a better power supply,powered USB hub,and a dedicated router for Lan connection(No USB dongle works for wifi in RPI)..yes I now thrilled with the SQ on pencil 10.3 ...thanks everyone...will update further
Well my quest continued for the 'sound' I heard on day 1....and could never get it....never suspected the source ...had an RPi lying around powered it up(with am audio USB pro as DAC) and installed the latest volumio -tested with a USB drive with wav files....man....this was way way better than what I could ever achieve in Windows....in windows have tried several pc's...one with Vista,Windows 7 and one with latest 8.1 and painstakingly followed the absolute fidelity advice on disabling the useless services...still I dont know,something that does not meet the eye...suddenly it will start sounding 'thin' for no reason..now with Rpi it is very consistent and superb.So I am going down this path...ditch the pc and buid a RPI server,need to buy a better power supply,powered USB hub,and a dedicated router for Lan connection(No USB dongle works for wifi in RPI)..yes I now thrilled with the SQ on pencil 10.3 ...thanks everyone...will update further
