My HD measurements might be a little misleading though. I made those measurements at 12cm from baffle (about 15cm from driver cones) and adjusted the level so it played at 88db. The sound level is actually close to what I would use in near field though which is around 78db at 1m. So the distortion is similar to what I would hear in use, but I think the level is much lower than what is standard for HD measurements.
But I know that both the satori and rs28f are very low distortion. like here
http://medleysmusings.com/mw13p-4/
www.audioexcite.com Dayton Audio RS28F-4
What would be the correct SPL so that my HD could be compared to others?
I always see 2.83v/1m but not sure how to do that. Is that measuring the voltage output at the speaker terminals during a white noise test tone?
Or would setting the spl at 1meter to something like 80db, 85db, 88db, 90db be an ok standard?
I have some room reflections and modes so measurements at 1m look much worse.
But I know that both the satori and rs28f are very low distortion. like here
http://medleysmusings.com/mw13p-4/
www.audioexcite.com Dayton Audio RS28F-4
What would be the correct SPL so that my HD could be compared to others?
I always see 2.83v/1m but not sure how to do that. Is that measuring the voltage output at the speaker terminals during a white noise test tone?
Or would setting the spl at 1meter to something like 80db, 85db, 88db, 90db be an ok standard?
I have some room reflections and modes so measurements at 1m look much worse.
I think a figure of 90dB at 1m is what is used to force the drivers to work a bit harder than average. I have heard that 89dB is about the same volume as specified for a typical DJ dance floor. Loud enough that you have to really raise your voice to talk to one another. Most speakers will be hitting several percent distortion somewhere below 100Hz at this point. Good PA speakers with 99 dB sensitivity will probably have no problem though at 90dB 
Still the levels you have for what you use them for at 78dB are very clean.
Still the levels you have for what you use them for at 78dB are very clean.
That is actually a decent sound level and a good performing unit. The Satori is supposed to be one of the lowest distortion motors out there, so not surprising that it looks so clean.
According to Medleymusings, they are measuring -50dB HD at 90dB. A very good number.
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OK here is a quick measurement at 88db at 1meter. Put up some fiberglass room treatment panels right next to the speaker to minimize reflections but the room is definitely starting to effect the frequency response now.
compared to my normal listening level of 82db at 1meter.
You can easily see the satori 1.2khz distortion peak once I go up to 88db. But wow the overall distortion figured hardly changed. Still basically -55db 2nd, -63db 3rd, -65db 4th 5th 6th.
Biggest differences is the satori 1.2khz peak coming through more and some more distortion coming in below 80hz (box?)
But I did design these speakers for near-field critical listening use, so the 82db level is closer to how I will be using them.
compared to my normal listening level of 82db at 1meter.
You can easily see the satori 1.2khz distortion peak once I go up to 88db. But wow the overall distortion figured hardly changed. Still basically -55db 2nd, -63db 3rd, -65db 4th 5th 6th.
Biggest differences is the satori 1.2khz peak coming through more and some more distortion coming in below 80hz (box?)
But I did design these speakers for near-field critical listening use, so the 82db level is closer to how I will be using them.
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Oops just realized that the medleysmusings satori is the mw13p not my mw16p. Zaph and audioexcite measured the mw16 and maybe markK but his site is down.
www.audioexcite.com SB Acoustics “Satori” MW16P-4
I think all these measurements are consistent though. Very happy with the satori!
www.audioexcite.com SB Acoustics “Satori” MW16P-4
I think all these measurements are consistent though. Very happy with the satori!
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was in akihabara at koizumi-musen speaker shop to pick up some connectors and wire, and was talking with one of the guys I know there. He was showing me pictures of some speakers he built for a club in the area using fostex fe83en to add some clarity to the mids/highs in the club. He built them with 4x fe83en per speaker in an open-baffle t-configuration to give mid/high dispersion. He really likes the fe83en and prefers them to the ff85wk, so I had to take a listen
I liked it a lot. Very delicate and detail yet smooth and very pleasant to listen to direct. It even had more bass than I expected. Sounds very natural out of the box. I tested in the store with Anoushaka Shankar/Nora-Jones song "Traces Of You" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEJSWIftX98
So on a whim I decided to pick up a pair of fe83en.
Been listening to them in my small EVA foam sealed box. Very easy to use EVA to cut an insert and press-fit into the old FF105wk hole. EVA is a compressible foam so it works great in a press-fit manner. No finishing yet. But I have to admit that at this point I think I MUCH prefer the fe83en to the ff105wk (even after eq).
Here is the frequency response difference between the fe83en and ff105wk in the same box at the same measurement distance.
I even did a quick test of augmenting the fe83en with my yamaha sw10 subwoofer and it worked REALLY well!
There is no eq here, no crossover. Just using the natural fall off of the fe83en and the settings on the SW10.
I can totally see a sub-satellite system with fe83en being completely useable at a high level (without needing eq).
The fe83en are brand new so no break in and there is the breakup mode around 2k. I suspect this will smooth over once the drivers break in some more. Very happy impulse buy.
Let's see how the 10f/8424 compares -- if it ever arrives (I am still waiting for europe-audio to ship my 10f/8424, they don't return my emails, so I am starting to get worried they might have taken my money and I will not get the speakers.)
I might have to pick up an fe103 (maybe an ff85) at some point and get the family.
I liked it a lot. Very delicate and detail yet smooth and very pleasant to listen to direct. It even had more bass than I expected. Sounds very natural out of the box. I tested in the store with Anoushaka Shankar/Nora-Jones song "Traces Of You" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEJSWIftX98
So on a whim I decided to pick up a pair of fe83en.
Been listening to them in my small EVA foam sealed box. Very easy to use EVA to cut an insert and press-fit into the old FF105wk hole. EVA is a compressible foam so it works great in a press-fit manner. No finishing yet. But I have to admit that at this point I think I MUCH prefer the fe83en to the ff105wk (even after eq).
Here is the frequency response difference between the fe83en and ff105wk in the same box at the same measurement distance.
I even did a quick test of augmenting the fe83en with my yamaha sw10 subwoofer and it worked REALLY well!
There is no eq here, no crossover. Just using the natural fall off of the fe83en and the settings on the SW10.
I can totally see a sub-satellite system with fe83en being completely useable at a high level (without needing eq).
The fe83en are brand new so no break in and there is the breakup mode around 2k. I suspect this will smooth over once the drivers break in some more. Very happy impulse buy.
Let's see how the 10f/8424 compares -- if it ever arrives (I am still waiting for europe-audio to ship my 10f/8424, they don't return my emails, so I am starting to get worried they might have taken my money and I will not get the speakers.
)I might have to pick up an fe103 (maybe an ff85) at some point and get the family.
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Congratulation new impulse buy FR and thanks sharing data : )
Regarding you get worried for 10F/8424 order at europe-audio i can share my experience shopping there. Have ordered three times there for TC9FD drivers some damping material and flow resistors, each time took weeks before they ship and one time i mailed for a status it took much more than a week to get a answer. It looks if product is marked with green color we as customers is used to they have it in stock, but at europe-audio it seems the stock is at another location and will take some relative long time before goodies physical can ship from europe-audio. Hope you soon get a answer and pakage will ship even its holiday season here in EU. My pair of 10F i got from Scan-Speak webshop by hitting "Where to buy" then at the bottom there's a webshop, should you decide cancel first order.
Regarding you get worried for 10F/8424 order at europe-audio i can share my experience shopping there. Have ordered three times there for TC9FD drivers some damping material and flow resistors, each time took weeks before they ship and one time i mailed for a status it took much more than a week to get a answer. It looks if product is marked with green color we as customers is used to they have it in stock, but at europe-audio it seems the stock is at another location and will take some relative long time before goodies physical can ship from europe-audio. Hope you soon get a answer and pakage will ship even its holiday season here in EU. My pair of 10F i got from Scan-Speak webshop by hitting "Where to buy" then at the bottom there's a webshop, should you decide cancel first order.
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Very good looking curves there. The 83 has been poopooed a bit since the change from E to EN, because of the apparent bassdropoff. Seems it's not as bad as it appears and with helper woofers it could be better than most.
Incidentally how much is the Fe83 in Japan? And what is a t-configuration open baffle?
Incidentally how much is the Fe83 in Japan? And what is a t-configuration open baffle?
I also never really hear much "nice words" about the fe83en, seems to have been over-looked by people. I think it might require a fair amount of break-in though. Even within the first couple hours it seems to have gotten a little smoother. Even without a sub, it produces nice clean mid-bass. For example that track "Traces of You" sounds 100% normal on the fe83en since the piece is only female vocals, sitar, guitar, and small tabla percussion. Even "club" music sounds surprisingly ok on them since enough of the mid-bass is reproduced to hear what the bass is doing and to hear the kicks. Of course this is a relative ok (near field, low volume, small driver speaker expectations). Also the roll off below 150hz is very gentle, and the difference to the ff105 is not that much (maybe an extra -5db from 60hz to 100hz)
I picked them up for 3800yen each which converts to about $30 with today's exchange rate. And this was from an actually shop where I walked in, talked to sales people, got advice, listened to drivers before deciding to buy. We are lucky here in Tokyo. The only bad thing is that ScanSpeak and Seas drivers are expensive. They charge 15,000yen ($120) for a 10f/4424 in this shop.
Regarding the t-configuration, I really don't know what to call this, but it is similar to how the speakers at club ageha in Tokyo are configured. Like these pictures of the ageha speakers with 3 drivers in a row in the middle and then a 4th driver above/below the center driver. The ageha speakers are much bigger though and use large 8",10" or 12" drivers across the middle and a horn-loaded tweeter at the top of the T (I think). My friends speaker was just 4x fe83 in a curved front baffle without wings or box. But the concept is similar: several of these speakers positioned through the club (hanging from the ceiling) to direct/disperse the mids/highs with powerful subs to fill in the lows. The club he made the fe83en T-speaker for is much smaller than ageha (which is a warehouse sized venue). Next time I visit the shop I will try to get the name of the club he made the speaker for and try to get some pictures later.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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thanks for the info about europe-audio. I am glad to hear they are normally slow (and it is holiday time) and that they will eventually ship the drivers. I will be patient, maybe give them 1 more week and see if my status changes or if they reply to my emails.
Jeshi,
You had some good luck there - that driver looks quite nice. Reasonably priced too at $40 in the U.S. This might be a good candidate for the Blind listening tests. Not having that 7kHz peak seems to be a great improvement over the FF105WK. Thanks for sharing - and EVA looks once again to be very adaptable and high performing.
You had some good luck there - that driver looks quite nice. Reasonably priced too at $40 in the U.S. This might be a good candidate for the Blind listening tests. Not having that 7kHz peak seems to be a great improvement over the FF105WK. Thanks for sharing - and EVA looks once again to be very adaptable and high performing.
was looking into a possible eq on the fe83en, but I really think I will leave it alone for now. Outside of the narrow q5 glitches at 2khz and 2.4khz it is pretty flat with just a slightly elevated (+2db) treble from 1khz up. I will give it a chance to break-in maybe a week or two to see if the breakup around 2khz mellows out. I tried the eq and actually it sounded more natural without the eq. Taking out the 2khz peak had almost no audible effect, and rising the 2.4hz dip actually sounded very unnatural.
But the natural roll off of the fe83en is a perfect match to 165hz 12db/octave which is why the matching with the sub was so good without any need for a crossover correction on the fe83en
But the natural roll off of the fe83en is a perfect match to 165hz 12db/octave which is why the matching with the sub was so good without any need for a crossover correction on the fe83en
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There is a reason that you need to high pass the full-range driver. Even though the natural acoustic roll-off of the FE83 matches your target, the poor little guy is still trying to produce the low frequency signal it is receiving. That leads to over-excursion and IM distortion in the upper bass and midrange. If you really want your XO at 165HZ, you should put a passive or active 12dB XO at 165Hz and accept the resultant 24dB acoustic XO, or move the XO up to 300Hz or so and get 12dB/oct for a while and then an ultimate 24dB/oct.
As usual, a passive XO at these low frequencies require huge and expensive parts. A passive line-level XO is inexpensive, while a DSP XO will most likely be cheaper that passive parts.
Bob
As usual, a passive XO at these low frequencies require huge and expensive parts. A passive line-level XO is inexpensive, while a DSP XO will most likely be cheaper that passive parts.
Bob
I was listening to my satori/rs28f today in my living room setting (about 2-2.5m listening distance) and the low bass was missing. When I walked up close (1m near-field like normal) the bass was restored but as I walked around the room I noticed many peaks and nulls. So I realized that some sort of phase destruction was happening much more than my normal room nulls. I suspected that I was not damping the rear wave bass energy enough. The speaker was just an empty box with just the EVA foam walls performing sound absorption. This empty EVA box did work surprisingly well, and EVA is a good sound absorber, but since I want this speaker to be as high performing as possible, I decided to be less purist about my approach.
So I decided to stuff the box with 32k density fiberglass panels (left over from my room treatment project). I stuffed the box wall to wall and 100mm deep (300mm x 200mm x 100mm deep "cube" into the box). WOW this really improved the bass response of the speaker!! It is so much tighter and cleaner sounding now and the extension feels so much better and can really pressurize the room now. It may have also improved the midrange clarity, but it was already quite amazing before. This has now taken the sound of the speaker much closer to the level of high-end studio monitors I have listened to.
I haven't done a scientific with/without measurement, mostly since fiberglass panels are so nasty to work with. But here is a latest measurement of the speaker. Other changes I have recently done includes adding a second set of front panel mounting bolts (now 6 total) for my removable front baffle, a modified LR2 crossover, removed the >10k treble lift, less eq-ing, and modified linkwitz transform to be less extreme. Basically going to a more gentle DSP profile. Also this measurement is at 90db at 0.5meters (which works out to 86db at 1m, but I measured at 0.5m).
And here is the new HD measurement at 96db at 0.5m
And here is the new measurement at 88db at 1m
Compare to my previous measurement at 1m 88db.
I think the extra mounting bolts and stuffing really helped, but the measurements don't look as good. Also I still have something going on in the 70hz-100hz range which I suspect is still a box leak or driver mounting issue. But this problem seems to only show up in the 7th-10th harmonics, so I think I will continue to include all harmonics. I hope my next front baffle will improve this. If I ever settle on a baffle and glue it, I am sure it will help the distortion figures even more.
Sorry for my inconsistency in my measurements. I think I will standardize on 0.5m 90db and 0.5m 96db from now on (with maybe an occasional 0.2m nearfield). These two levels seem to capture both a normal listening level and a more extreme level.
So I decided to stuff the box with 32k density fiberglass panels (left over from my room treatment project). I stuffed the box wall to wall and 100mm deep (300mm x 200mm x 100mm deep "cube" into the box). WOW this really improved the bass response of the speaker!! It is so much tighter and cleaner sounding now and the extension feels so much better and can really pressurize the room now. It may have also improved the midrange clarity, but it was already quite amazing before. This has now taken the sound of the speaker much closer to the level of high-end studio monitors I have listened to.
I haven't done a scientific with/without measurement, mostly since fiberglass panels are so nasty to work with. But here is a latest measurement of the speaker. Other changes I have recently done includes adding a second set of front panel mounting bolts (now 6 total) for my removable front baffle, a modified LR2 crossover, removed the >10k treble lift, less eq-ing, and modified linkwitz transform to be less extreme. Basically going to a more gentle DSP profile. Also this measurement is at 90db at 0.5meters (which works out to 86db at 1m, but I measured at 0.5m).
And here is the new HD measurement at 96db at 0.5m
And here is the new measurement at 88db at 1m
Compare to my previous measurement at 1m 88db.
I think the extra mounting bolts and stuffing really helped, but the measurements don't look as good. Also I still have something going on in the 70hz-100hz range which I suspect is still a box leak or driver mounting issue. But this problem seems to only show up in the 7th-10th harmonics, so I think I will continue to include all harmonics. I hope my next front baffle will improve this. If I ever settle on a baffle and glue it, I am sure it will help the distortion figures even more.
Sorry for my inconsistency in my measurements. I think I will standardize on 0.5m 90db and 0.5m 96db from now on (with maybe an occasional 0.2m nearfield). These two levels seem to capture both a normal listening level and a more extreme level.
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Ah figured out the problem with the distortion 70-100hz. This was a rattle from a speaker binding post which was not tightened down so it was a little loose. I may have to thread-lock the posts since I use banana plugs and not bare wires.
new measurement at 90db at 0.5m
new measurement at 90db at 0.5m
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That looks really good. Amazing what some fiberglass will do
Yeah I always thought that the fiberglass would only help with mids and highs (which the EVA already does quite well), but maybe this higher density 32k can absorb bass too. But like you said, maybe it did make the box look bigger too.
WOW these are sounding amazing now. I was having my doubts if the sealed LT with the satori was going to be enough before, but now with the fiberglass there is no doubt in my mind that the Satori in a sealed box can really put out some tight, clean, deep bass (even with only a gentle +5db LT).
And I still have a new baffle and some neoprene to try
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