Small Speaker Shootout 2007

[Godzilla]

Small Speaker Shootout Part 2

I stumbled across this small speaker comparison from 2007 the other day and read with interest about the Unity Audio speaker using what looks like a Fostex 127e in a simple ported box. If you scroll down to 'SHOOTOUT #4' you will see the speaker lost badly in comparison to the other. The comments were so unflattering it called into question why i prefer 'full range drivers' at all. Just curious, do you think full range drivers are an acquired taste?

[Henkjan]

no, this is just a bad implementation.. my guess is that it lacked a BSC

and there must have been something else wrong as well given the comment "not much imaging or soundstage"....

[chrisb]

Originally Posted by Henkjan

no, this is just a bad implementation.. my guess is that it lacked a BSC

and there must have been something else wrong as well given the comment "not much imaging or soundstage"....

I couldn't agree more - from my own experience with at least a dozen or more designs with the FE127E over the past 7-8yrs, you've got to work pretty hard at getting it to not deliver on imaging/soundstage and for that matter reasonable lower midrange and upper midbass.

hell, maybe they were internally wired out of phase (never happen, you say? )

[TerryO]

Originally Posted by chrisb

I couldn't agree more - from my own experience with at least a dozen or more designs with the FE127E over the past 7-8yrs, you've got to work pretty hard at getting it to not deliver on imaging/soundstage and for that matter reasonable lower midrange and upper midbass.

hell, maybe they were internally wired out of phase (never happen, you say? )

True.

Out of Phase? You mean like someone "really famous" did a few years back in a Voice Coil review of a kit speaker? He didn't even have the decency to make a full retraction and amended test results. Because of this, I refuse to ever build an MTM speaker.

Best Regards,
TerryO

[danerius]

Originally Posted by TerryO

True.

Out of Phase? You mean like someone "really famous" did a few years back in a Voice Coil review of a kit speaker? He didn't even have the decency to make a full retraction and amended test results. Because of this, I refuse to ever build an MTM speaker.

Best Regards,
TerryO

lol* Back in the days when most people bought two channel systems and size meant status. It happened on more than many occasions that they wired the speakers out of phase. Imagine the faces thay made when they suddenly got bass out of there systems as I rewired them.

No BSC on the speakers in the shoot out. Check the bottom of this page for comment and measurement: Stereomojo Small Speaker Shootout 2007 Measurements

Regards /Bo

[chris661]

Shame that the drivers are getting bad press. Sounds like they did listen with them out of phase. Doing so is usually audible, so having not noticed (and corrected) that loses them some credibility IMO.

Chris

[Henkjan]

[Uncle Meat]

Hmm,
good example to show that BSC is a MUST and a notch filter makes sense...
I found there is a different approach to FRs in the US and Europe...
US: preferred nothing, Europe: some gurus ( e.g. B.T.) put 5 filters in a row....

I think something inbetween these two extremes can yield the optimum..

Joe

[planet10]

Originally Posted by Uncle Meat

... and a notch filter makes sense...

Instead of bandaiding the peaky bits with a notch, i tackle the issue where it occurs on the cone.

I've added Ritchie's measure posted above to my comparison collection (the new purple curve)

dave

[markaudio]

Hi Guys,
When I got the pair of 127's Dave sent me, they measured better than the "speaker Shoot out guys". I used an fully calibrated lab set-up in an anechoic chamber. From what I've read, their measurements are "in room" so their results shouldn't automatically be considered as reliable.

We took the pair of 127's into our factory's test listening room. They sounded very sweet when compared to 2 big brands (sorry I'm can't say who they are) of bookshelf systems using 4" and 5.25" woofs, 3/4" and 1" tweets. The 127's were far superior in terms accuracy of music reproduction provided we kept them inside their low power handling limit. The 2 way's tweets were emitting allot of micro-resonance distortion even though the responses were near flat on LMS anechoic.

I think the Shoot Out Guys didn't do enough to get the best from the 127's so in that respect, it was something of an unfair skewed contest. I wasn't around in 2007, times have moved on with more full-rangers on the market from of variety of makers. Running a Shoot Out like their's today would I'm sure would give different results.

I've just returned from 2 audio shows in Tokyo. It was interesting to see new full-rangers eating into the smaller 2-way market. Yup, times are changing over here in parts of Asia.

Cheers

Mark.