Adventures in Treble (?) Sensitivity -- or my Harbeths Conundrum

@k4rstar Any direction on mono core speaker cables / interconnects for the uninitiated?

 

if you want to try some ready-made ones that are reasonably priced:
http://www.sparkler-audio.com/portfolio/S20x_en.html

if you want to make your own for cheap but time consuming:
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/cable-building.86/page-52#post-411926

 

Closer Ogy initial reactions:
So these speakers, with a little EQ at some of the peaks in my measurements, don't set off my treble sensitivity. Depth, imaging, layering, soundstage some of the best I've ever heard. Slam! So much slam and dynamics. Involving and lots of immediacy and fast transients. Clarity and detail without any sense of graininess or hash. Runs great on my Aegir.

The problem with them is the timbre. I've been trying to figure out the right adjective to describe it. Hollow? Thin? Nasally? Someone online referred to a completely different single-driver speaker as sounding like someone is singing through a pinched nose, and that seems right. It's especially notable coming from the P3ESR, which just have some of the best timbre I've ever heard. These speakers don't produce anything like the eerie realness of the P3ESR.

I've been trying to fix it with EQ, which helps but the problem is still there. Do all wideband speakers sound this way? Do you think burn-in will help? This is really annoying, because except for this timbre issue these speakers are amazing and wonderful. Like the layering and soundstage and imaging are breathtaking.

 

Okay using EQ from both REW and just fiddling around, and I've got it sounding a lot better. It's still definitely not at Harbeth levels of good, but it doesn't sound obviously wrong to me anymore. (Electric guitar solos still sound a little boxy is the thing I notice most.) The question is whether I can live with this. Might need a few more days at least of listening. The Ogys have a 14 day trial, so I have some time to make up my mind but not THAT much time.

There's a dealer not far from me that has the Q Acoustic Concept 30, I'm going to try and make it over there this week to give that a listen.

I wish I knew whether the Omega Compact Alnico monitor fixes the timbre problems of the Ogy, and fear I might have to order it to find out. (At least they have a good return policy as well.)

EDIT: I also lowered the speakers so they're closer to my ear-level, which I think helps

EDIT EDIT: I think long listening might actually be setting off my headache sensitivity actually f f f f f f

 

Suggest to take some time with these and come to a final determination and report back. Of course not all widebanders sound the same - that’s like asking if all multi-driver speakers sound similar - they don’t. Driver material, cone shape, whizzer cones (or not), motor structure/design, cabinet design, etc, etc, all have an impact on the response/performance. All widebanders are different.

IMO, EQ should be there to tweak response and possibly address room/location bass nodes/issues, but more than that you are just trying to fix a broken design which almost never works out (and can cause other issues with phase, etc)

 

Thanks for this. Basically what I'm doing is taking the basic EQ profile offered by REW (which is similar to what any room correction software might do) and tweaking that a bit based on what I hear. I will give it a little more time; I think part of my reaction to the timbre was based on coming off the Harbeth which has timbre that's so absurdly good.

I don't know how issues with phase would manifest, how I might know I have them.

 

Some of the negative descriptors you use for these track with there being a spike in 1k-2k, and the FR being off in that range can certainly sound like screwy treble, even if that's really upper mids. It's not even always a spike, sometimes a dip there also causes people issues (and of course, a dip may indicate something else going on).

There's all sorts of reasons this might make sense that I'm probably not the best person to explain. My point is just that to the extent FR is even the right thing to look at, sometimes what comes off as a treble issue can be caused by something a bit lower.

 

I'd add, too, that based on your positive response to single driver wide-band speakers, it could be that you're sensitive to phase response issues. It might be worth your time to try some low phase (EDIT, I meant low order) x-over speakers. I can't say I have any idea how Harbeth chooses to cross over their drivers and it is likely different with every design of their's, but it might be worth investigating!

 

This is fascinating. How do I know a speaker is low phase x-over? You mean crossing over at a lower frequency? I think the P3ESR is crossed over at 1k but I could be wrong.

 

I assume he means low order crossover slopes, like 1st or 2nd order filters. I’m not really familiar with sensitivity to this being a thing, however since you’re still having issues with the single drive speaker, I wouldn’t assume that’s the case, but anything’s possible. Likelyhood is more obviously contained in the frequency response or the CSD (stored energy/ringing). I still think Q Acoustics or Dynaudio would be a good fit, and just EQ down the bass a bit to match the location you need to place them. Dynaudio do tend to use low-order filters as well (1st or 2nd order) Another possible option in a small speaker is the Dali Menuet although I don’t know how readily available they are.

 

@Eric Rosenfield , widebanders come in all shapes and sizes. The measurement of your speaker pretty much matches the FR of the EMS LB5. Not all WBs are going to be this bad. But then none are going to have a linear FR like that of most of the current day multi-way speakers.

http://www.emspeaker.com/fiche_LB5.pdf

People seek out WBs for very specific reasons (single driver coherence, x-over-less design, raw tone, high efficiency, flea-watt friendly, extremely revealing nature etc.) but they sacrifice a few aspects in the process. A good SET amp driving a good WB (with decent FR) can produce a sense of realism, immediacy, inner detail, depth, layering and tangibility that most mainstream multi-driver speaker + high watt amp combos can't match. But then when the frequency response of the WB starts to skew further and further away from normal and you have more severe driver break-ups in the upper registers, a lot of their benefits start to go out the window.

 

Thanks for this. Are there particular WB speakers that you like?

 

So I went to the dealer and listened to the Q Acoustics Concept 30, and after about 40 min of listening I put down a deposit.

The Concept 30 do not have the eerie realism of the P3ESRs. They do not have the insane soundstage and dynamics of the Closer Ogy. But they still sound really good, detailed, controlled, the right amount of warm. (The bass was a bit bloated, but I chalk that up to me unplugging the ports and them having the speakers basically right up against the wall. They also didn't have much in the way of sound proofing, but neither do I at this point so that was a bit of a real world test.) The thing that really sold me on them, though was the fact that I listened for 40 minutes without any EQ to speak of and nothing irritated me at all. (This was on the Cyrus OneCast DAC/amp/streamer, which is actually a neat little AIO that's compact but still manages to be class A/B and put out 100W/channel.) Like most speakers I at least feel like I need to adjust something in the treble a bit. Not these. Nothing. Just sounded good. And then I tried some Focal speakers in the same shop and winced at the stabbiness, so it wasn't something magical about the shop itself. Granted some irritation might show up after long listening like it did with the Ogys (though even that's not that bad with EQ). But I feel like I may have a winner here.

Actually my biggest complaint complaint about the Q Acoustics speaker is that it's only available in gloss black, grey, or white. I'd much prefer a wood trim (or even veneer), or if it had to be a solid color some more interesting color (like the blue the Kef LS50s come in) or at least matte. (I also don't really like the giant "Q" on the bottom of each speaker from an aesthetic standpoint, but that's really minor.) Anyway, I can live with the gloss black ones.

So they're not exceptional speakers that make my jaw drop or seem like they do magic tricks. But they're really good speakers that are comfortable to listen to without EQ and have a tonality that aligns with my preferences. And I think that'll be enough.

Might the Omega Compact Alnicos be better? Maybe Thomas and Stereo's yet unreleased transmission-line Voyager speaker? Maybe. But I think I'm at a point now where I just want to sit back and enjoy some music instead of constantly trying the next thing and trying to find "the One" that'll check every box and be the best speaker I ever heard at a price I can afford.

One thing about buying from a dealer rather than a online direct store is that they don't offer returns, so if it sounds like crap in your actual home you're out of luck. (Also I have to pick up the speakers at the dealer rather than having them delivered to me, which is inconvenient since I don't own a car, but whatever.) And further they won't have the speakers for a week, while Amazon could get them here in two days. Which all makes it clear why Amazon keeps winning. Still, I want to support the dealer that let me demo the speakers. (And he did give me a break on the price, especially since I'm paying cash.)

The specs say they recommend at least 25W into 6 ohms, which the Aegir can deliver, just. We'll see how it actually does with them, or if I need to buy a second Aegir or something.

So the Closer Ogys are going back. Everything I said about their astonishing dynamics, slam, soundstage, and layering is true and it's breathtaking. But I can't deal with the wonky timbre and tonality, even with EQ things just don't sound like they should. (And that's besides the fact that it seems to make me a little twitchy after long listening.)

 

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but this is just kinda shitty dealer behavior, discount or not. I get it if it's demo/used gear, but for new in box gear no returns is pretty skeevy.

 

Is there a difference between a "widebander" and a "fullrange single driver" speaker?

I have a thing for crossover-less speakers....

 

@Eric Rosenfield , I am glad you went with the Q Acoustics. Some of my friends also quite liked the Concept 50 for almost similar reasons. Widebanders can be a bit tricky, almost as trying to build a chain around a HD800.

I have only heard 2 WBs so far, my Lii F15 and a vintage WB (don’t remember the model name). Both showed me the potential of what WBs can do in terms of raw transparency, revealing nature, certain types of realisms, inner detail etc. But both had some non-linearities from upper-mids onwards that the tonal accuracy was not always right. What’s interesting is, despite lacking this tonal accuracy, I still found them to be more real sounding than most speaker systems I have heard. For reference, the Graham LS6 is one of the more tonally correct modern speakers I have heard with very good tonal realism and good enough transparency and resolution. Yet, to my ears, it didn’t quite have the realism that my F15 had. To me, aspects such as, inner detail, un-truncated decay, depth to a note, un-truncated dynamic range of a note, 3D-ness of the singer/instrument image, palpability of the note contribute to my perception of realism. The F15 was better in these aspects than the LS6 and so overall I found the F15 to be more real and convincing sounding.

@artur9 , both refer to the same type of drivers and can be used interchangeably for the most part. One could argue that the term wide-banders makes more sense to refer to woofer-mid widebanders and mid-treble widebanders and the term fullranger could be used to refer to drivers that cover all 3 freq ranges. But we are getting into semantics and I would argue that fullrangers don't really nail all 3 freq ranges. Not talking about the extension from bass to treble. But rather, 'even if it is doing only 100hz to 12kHz, is it doing that correctly without much issues?'.

 

Yeah. (Though I admit now I'm looking up how much the Concept 300 costs on Hifishark and then being like "get a grip on yourself, man!")

Yeah, in terms of decay, texture (which I think is like what you're calling "inner detail"), transient response, and "3Dness" are all things the Ogy was aces at. The Harbeth seems a bit closed-in and sluggish by comparison.

Still, I think the Concept 30s will be a good middle road for me.

 

Huh, this is the second dealer I went to who had this sort of policy so I assumed it was standard. I guess not! It does seem weird to me. The first dealer was like "well, I can't order it and then have you return it", implying he couldn't return it either...

 

You maybe could have asked to borrow the demo unit, with a deposit and/or proof of ID provided of course. I did this with my local dealer a couple times.

But barring that, yeah if it’s not a regular stocked item and they need to order it, I can see why they wouldn’t want to accept a return. IMO you should never buy a speaker (without a return policy) before hearing it in your own home, but understand sometimes that’s not possible/practical.

 

That's a great strategy!

Still boggles my brain a bit that dealers can't return speakers when Amazon sure can. Makes me wonder what's actually happening when you return a speaker to Amazon...