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The Official $2,500 Speaker Evaluation / Home Audition Event

260K views 1K replies 328 participants last post by  needspeed52 
#1 ·
This is...

The Official $2,500 Speaker Evaluation / Home Audition Event



Introduction

On November 1st and 2nd we will come together for another speaker evaluation in my home in Luverne, AL. Attending the event and participating in the evaluation and auditions, in addition to myself (Sonnie), is Wayne Myers (AudiocRaver), Joe Alexander (ALMFamily) and Leonard Caillouet (lcaillo), all members of the HTS staff. All of the speakers are here and being broke-in as recommended.

This is not a shootout, but instead it is an evaluation and home audition of six speakers. You might even consider this a combined review of six different speakers, although not by one individual, instead by three or four individuals in a very controlled and organized evaluation. This evaluation is not conducted to determine the best speaker, as there are too many variables from home to home for us to tell you which speakers are the best for you. Therefore, ranking them may encourage you to buy speakers that may not accurately suggest which speakers will be right for you. Your room size, acoustics, speaker location, amplifier type, amplifier power, other electronics, and your very own ears, will all play a significant part in how a speaker will sound to you. What we will do is carefully measure and listen to these speakers, then provide you with the objective and subjective results. This will be influenced by the equipment on hand and the dedicated home theater/listening room... which is fairly well treated acoustically, and is setup to allow flexible placement of the speakers. In this evaluation, we hope to be able to tell you what speaker locations sound best for this room, including close to the front wall and out into the room. Unfortunately, we cannot completely mimic your room, so there is no way we can guarantee you that the speakers will sound the same in your room. As always, we encourage you to evaluate speakers in your own home to be absolutely certain you get what is best suited for you. Hopefully this can be a guide that in some way will aid you in the differences we hear, but ultimately your ears are what is most important in determining what speakers are right for you.

This event will include speakers from two of our sponsors, SVSound and Underwood HiFi (Emerald Physics). There are four other speakers that were voted on in our $2,500 Speaker Evaluation Event - Nominated Speakers Voting Poll. Pricing for these speakers is for the pair. We do realize that these speakers may not necessarily cost exactly $2,500/pair. We get that number from the fact that the average of all 20 speakers that were nominated is right at $2,500. However, all of the speakers in this evaluation can be purchased for $2,500/pair or less (add $350 to the Emerald Physic speakers if you get the DSP). That may not always be the case in future rounds. Actually most of these are closer to the $2,000 range than $2,500. We are basically covering speakers that range from $2,000 to $3,000... capping the max MSRP at $3,000. I suspect in the next round we will be closer to the $3,000 range on most of those.


The Speakers


Associated Equipment
  • OPPO BDP-105 Universal Player - We will again be using the 105 as the source for the evaluation. There have been some questions about recorded CDR's being used because they are a copy of a copy (extracting from original disc to computer and then burning to a disc). Personally I cannot tell a difference one way or another from the original and a burned copy. As a matter of fact, I know of a double blind listening test where a gentleman was unable to tell the difference from an original CD and a burnt copy of a computer copy, although he insisted he could tell a difference beforehand. However, to eliminate any questions, we will use either dBpoweramp or Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the tracks from the original CDs to a USB thumb drive and use it in the 105 for our evaluation music. We will use the XLR balanced outputs on the 105. Be sure to check out our review of the OPPO BDP-105 by Luther Ward. We appreciate OPPO being a sponsor here at HTS.


  • Anthem Integrated 225 Amp (i225) - At 225 WPC (8Ω) and 310 WPC (4Ω), this integrated amp from Anthem should provide plenty of power to drive any of the speakers we are evaluating. It boast a 105dB signal to noise ratio and is built with high quality, close-tolerance parts. The main power supply includes an advanced generation toroidal transformer, which contributes to its low-noise floor. The conservatively rated massive transformer is designed with high rail voltage, fed by two oversized low-ESL, low-ESR Nichicon filter capacitors that employ a total capacitance of 30,000 microfarads. The preamp audio circuits are fed by two precision voltage regulators, thanks to the ±15 V rails in the main power supply. The input and voltage amplifier stages are a differential design, although the output power stage has a fully symmetrical complementary Class AB design with three pairs of high-quality bipolar output devices per channel. The amps design significantly reduces distortion and ensure extreme linearity. This is one solid built amp that is no doubt one of the best in its class and price range. We will be using the XLR balanced inputs on the 225. We sincerely appreciate Anthem lending us this unit for use in the evaluation.



    Specifications

  • Onkyo PR-SC5509 - We will use the heavy duty 5509 as our preamp processor during our home theater speaker system review and our $20,000 speaker system review (see last part of this post for more info on those). It may also serve some duties as a preamp in the two-channel speaker evaluation. Of course the Onkyo does not really need any introduction. It is well known and owned by several members in our forum. It is a beast of a processor and very well regarded as one of the top preamp processors available. You can learn more about it by clicking on the link above or visiting our Onkyo PR-SC5508 - PR-SC5509 SSP / Integra DHC-80.2 - DHC-80.3 SSP thread. Be on the lookout for upcoming reviews on the Onkyo TX-NR929 9.2-Channel Network A/V Receiver and the TX-NR626 7.2-Channel Network A/V Receiver, as well as a couple of their soundbars. We appreciate Onkyo being a sponsor here at HTS.


  • RAM Electronics Custom Speaker Cables - "Ram-Flex Custom Series" 11 AWG Canare 4S11 speaker cable sleeved with ViaBlue braid and terminated with gold plated locking banana plugs. These are also good looking high quality speaker cables that will not break the bank. We all fell in love with these speaker cables... they performed flawlessly and in no way hindered or colored the sound. These locking banana plugs are awesome! I have already ordered several of these since our last event. We appreciate RAM being a sponsor here at HTS.


  • RAM Electronics Custom XLR Cables - RAM "Custom Series" XLR Balanced Cables includes the Mogami 2534 with Neglex Quad Cable and Neutrik Connectors wrapped with the ViaBlue braided sleeve... as well as CBI Ultimate ML with Belden Wire and Neutrik "X" Connectors. RAM will custom build just about any cable you can think of... just tell them what you want and they will fix you up. Their service is awesome, as is the quality of their cables. These are good looking, good quality cables that are very reasonably priced. RAM does not play around... you order up what you want and in a few days it is on your doorstep. Compare RAM to places like Blue Jeans Cable and you will see the savings, using the same quality wire and connectors.



The Listening Room

As with the previous event, we will use Cedar Creek Cinema, our dedicated home theater/listening room that is a converted two car garage. The interior dimensions are 19.5' wide x 23.5' deep x 8.5' high. There is a 6" high x 4' deep stage across the front of the room, and a 12" riser in the back that is used partially as a ported enclosure for the rear subs. The room is excellent for our purposes with ample acoustical treatment on side walls and ceiling, large corner bass traps in front from floor to ceiling, a centered Primary Listening Position (PLP), lots of space to work with, and well-controlled early reflections and ambiance.



As shown below, the RT60 reverb time for the room is very well-controlled, 0.2 seconds overall, and below 0.3 seconds clear down almost to 100 Hz. This is a nice level of control with enough ambient liveliness to aid soundstage and image development. There has also been some additional acoustic treatment from GIK Acoustics that has been added to the side walls and back wall since the last event.




After Hours Fun... with a Few Surprises!

As a bonus to our members and readers, we will also be reviewing a $20,000 two-channel system. This review will be published later in our Reviews forum, but we will introduce you to the company and the products during the event. This system is truly to die for... just plain awesome and worth every penny of its price.

But that's not all... we plan to enjoy a little late night fun at Cedar Creek Cinema, and this event is sure to spark some excitement with a special guest, who will also be providing a truly unique 5.0 home theater speaker system (costing well over $10,000) for us to review. This will be the first review of this product. Our plans will be to watch a movie each night of the evaluation, hopefully Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Then on Sunday evening and Monday, we plan to do more testing and evaluation for a complete review of this speaker system, which will also be posted later in our Reviews forum. I don't think you will want to miss this review. We will announce the manufacturer, the owner and the product a little closer to the event.

We believe you will truly appreciate these extra reviews we have in store for you. Personally, I think they are pretty significant... huge in fact!

I don't know about everyone else, but I am EXCITED!!!

BTW... :shhh: Remember... it's a secret! :whistling:


Results

As you can see below, we have reserved several posts for the results, which will be posted as soon as possible after the event. We will post some of the known information about the speakers between now and the event. You will want to subscribe to the thread. After the results are posted, we will post in the thread that the results are complete and the reserved posts have been updated.

The REW measurement .mdat files will be uploaded to each speaker thread and available for download.

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#232 ·
I agree, I really think that the HTS is a huge cut above the rest. Staff as well as many forum members go well above and beyond to give us the very best content and reviews of everything home theater related. I cant wait to see what speakers are chosen for this round. Wish I could be there.
 
#234 ·
I would love to be able to attend this event. Really want to hear, and see what a professional set sounds like. For me, it would be really interesting to read the reviews on the Martin Logan ELS and SVS speakers. I currently own the Preface for the L/R, Encore for center and the Motion 4 for the sounds but like most people here I want to go bigger/better!
 
#236 ·
I would love to be there however the reality is, for me and I'd suspect many others out there, having the disposable income to afford two speakers for @$2,500 isn't realistic. If you can afford to spend that for two speakers then you have the income to continue and get a 5.1 or 7.1 (or even 9.2/11.2) set-up with that line of speakers. I wish I had that kind of income!

No doubt all of these speakers are going to sound fantastic! My BIC Acoustech 9.2 set-up will probably be jealous of this 2.0 set up!
 
#237 ·
Sounds like another great roundup of some reasonably priced speakers. I'm really anxious to see how the Paradigms stack up against some of the others in the group. I owned a pair of v3 Studio 60's for about a year before trading them in for a pair of Studio 100's. I wish I could've kept the 60's for my surround channels and added the 100's, as the 60's are still one of my favorites. The upgrade bug bit, and I was unable to afford to keep them.
 
#238 ·
Not exactly relevant to this thread but the little Studio 20's are a nice voice match to the 100's and will go down plenty low to cross to a sub for surround duties.

Bryan
 
#239 ·
Thanks to Sonnie and staff for taking the time and effort to measure this quality list of speakers.

Evaluation’s like this get my attention due to this not being a shootout for best speaker but a personal evaluation of each speakers strengths and weaknesses and the reader can decide what is important to them. The effort and detail is greatly appreaciated
 
#240 ·
This will be a very intereting eval that I wish I could also attend. I have always wanted to side by side compare the same priced ML to Maggy. I can see that there may be a base extension problem with the Maggies as they are the only ones in the shootout but we will see. When I heard the Maggies they were connected to a REL sub. I have never seen the CS2P before its an interesting design, I wonder if they plan to ever make a center channel. My room is smaller (14x17), however the placement info supplied by the shootout I think will be invaluable as a starting point at least.
 
#241 ·
An EVALUATION vs a shootout is a brilliant idea. We all know that everyone has different tastes as well as different levels of listening skills, so this is a great way to get a broad sampling of opinions on the same sets of speakers. It's especially helpful for me because I have abysmal listening skills. LOL To me, it's very similar to wine tasting. I know there are people out there that can specifically and accurately point out all the little nuances and tonal differences between vintages and all that, but that ability boarders on magic to me, because I don't have the slightest idea on how to even begin to do that. It's the same with speakers. I stand next to people in a sound studio, or demo room and hear them saying things like, "Oh man! Listen to low end!" or "Wow! I'm surprised the highs flatten out like that." and don't have the SLIGHTEST idea of what the they're even talking about. LOL

ME? All I hear is a Frank Sinatra song, or whatever happens to be playing. Yeah different speakers can sound a little different - but for me, I just don't hear a difference between a $20 no name wall speaker and a $400 Bose wall speaker(of the same shape and size) to justify the price difference. THIS I believe is rock solid evidence of my OVERWHELMING level of ignorance in this area, and why an EVALUATION vs a shootout is infinitely more helpful to guys like me. Telling me X is better than Y, is of no use - if I don't agree. But telling me WHY X sounds better to you than Y does - now THAT is helpful.

Thanks for helping me learn!
 
#251 ·
An EVALUATION vs a shootout is a brilliant idea. We all know that everyone has different tastes as well as different levels of listening skills, so this is a great way to get a broad sampling of opinions on the same sets of speakers.
Agreed, although I have to admit that the $1K event's goal of recommending a pair of speakers for Sonnie to purchase did keep us focused. For the $2.5K event, we have no such goal (although Sonnie deciding he has just GOT to have one of those pairs of speakers for his own is not out of the question, right Sonnie?)

So maybe we will need to approach the evaluations in terms of suitability for some purpose. Or maybe each of us will select his own favorite and justify that choice. Or we may end up with two or three tiers that they fall into. Or just keep it simple and evaluate each on its own merits. That is something we need to decide on. Thoughts, anyone?
 
#242 ·
Between the earlier $1K price range and now the $2k budget I'd venture a guess that you have a large majority of us HTS "lurkers" covered - thanks for doing this and looking forward to the results.

For speaker comparisons, I think the choice of 2-channel over a 5/6/7.1 setup is actually quite brillant, less (speakers) is more (emphasis on the speakers themselves). And drawing from a panel of listeners just helps to raise confidence in the overall opinions expressed even more.

BTW, if at all possible, in addition to any "Good Demo Music" choices you receive, would it be possible to also incorporate the music selections used during the $1K eval? I know they're different animals, but it's still might help to fix an addition variable between the $1K & 2K evals.

Thanks.
 
#254 ·
BTW, if at all possible, in addition to any "Good Demo Music" choices you receive, would it be possible to also incorporate the music selections used during the $1K eval? I know they're different animals, but it's still might help to fix an addition variable between the $1K & 2K evals.

Thanks.
Very good point. Yes, most of that music will be represented, although there will be some changes. Each evaluator gets to pick 3 favorite tracks. Mine will be the same as before. Then we are compiling what can best be described as a "medley" track which will include key segments - 10 to 20 seconds each - from many of those tracks used for the $1K event, plus other segments of tracks we feel will be particularly revealing in some way.
 
#244 · (Edited)
It is events like this that make HOME THEATRE SHACK who they are, for too long now many people such as myself have taken the word of other "corporate" magazines as gospel. Events like this where real people will evaluate the contenders for what they are and not the company that has produced them is what makes HTS special. Personally i had wanted the Tannoy speakers to be in the line up,however i am quite interested as to how the svs speakers will fair against the competition as these would be a nice match for my svs subwoofers. Over here in the uk it is hard to demo svs products as dealers are few and far between so a well evaluated opinion would be fantastic.Keep up the good work guys!
 
#246 ·
As a long time Maggie owner, and a fanboy, I will be interested to find out how the new Maggies match up. For music, I have not had a speaker in my room that out performed the 3.6s. There used to be more get togethers in the Atlanta area, but not so much anymore. It was always interesting to go to another HT and see and hear others set ups. And also to compare gear in a decent listening environment.

Look forward to results.
 
#248 ·
Well I wanted to check out this thread, but I didn't expect there would be 250+ posts in 2 1/2 days! I sorted through most of them. It's great to see so much interest and participate.

I've been looking forward to this evaluation since the $1000 event impressions were posted. You guys are taking on a lot of stuff for this one. It's a lot of work and fun, so I'm not sure whether to be jealous or sympathetic. Okay, I'm jealous!

I hope that you will feel comfortable making comments about how these speakers compare to the Arx A5 that Sonnie obviously has hanging around in his room. Seems like it will be competitive in some or many cases and/or specific areas of sound reproduction with the speakers in this competition.

I look forward to the impressions and thank Sonnie and the staff participants for providing an evaluation and comparison that simply cannot be found anywhere else in the press. It's a boon for us enthusiasts and for manufacturers with quality, competitive products.
 
#250 ·
Just scanning recent questions, mostly already answered by Sonnie, and have a few thoughts to add concerning the upcoming event...

Room Treatment: Sonnie's room was already a very nice room before the August $1K Speaker Eval event, with full carpeting, bass traps, properly spaced panels on side walls and elsewhere - a good balance of absorption where needed with enough liveness for the room to not sound sterile as a listening room. A few more absorptive panels were strategically added before we started. And as we analyzed REW impulse diagrams while finishing up, we were able to determine a few more reflection paths that needed attention, including spots on side walls that were not a problem for his cinema setup but which were early reflection points for the two-channel setup, and several longer paths with big reflections all involving the rear wall. It is my understanding that Sonnie intends to have additional treatments om place to resolve those issues before the upcoming evaluations.

Seating Reflections: The impulse diagrams showed early reflections in the one-to-three second region that could only be coming from seating surfaces around the main listening position. We hope to spend some time experimenting with treatments that will help with those reflections, and will report on what we come up with.

Adjusting Speakers for Individual Listeners: Height relative to the listener is probably the main variable to consider, but is difficult to do much about with most tower speakers. Luckily, the range of heights of the evaluators is not too broad, and we are all fairly tall, Joe (ALMFamily) the tallest at about 6' 4". We do a lot of moving around at the LP during setup to make sure the sweet spot is centered at a comfortable happy medium sitting position for all involved. If a speaker design does not accommodate that height, then it has a problem and that will count against it - none of us are giants. Of course many potential listeners are going to be a little shorter than that, but seated ear height tends not to vary more than a few inches for most.

All that said, soundstage in particular can be fairly sensitive to relative ear height, and it is a variable worth keeping in mind. But adjusting the speakers for each listener, if even possible, would take too long - again, if a speaker in this price range is THAT hard to get positioned, it is a usability problem.

Comparing to the ARX A5s: Absolutely! The home spot for the A5s is clearly marked, and we will start with them as a reference point, and perhaps finish up with a final comparison as well.

Using SACD or Surround Mixes: Surround mixes tend to dilute the role of the front left & right mains. The quality surround mixes that I am familiar with actually diminish the role of soundstage somewhat as the center channel is relied upon more than phantom imaging - the result being that the soundstage is usually small with little depth. It is a different way of mixing, and while surround mixes can be a lot of fun, they usually are not revealing about speakers in a way that stereo mixes are. SACD or hi-res mixes would be good to include at some point, but we will need to figure out how to manage them gracefully. As Sonnie responded earlier, we are trying to keep the test tracks as easy to work with as possible at this point, using media and playback hardware that is know to be as near error-free as possible.

Evaluating Amps &/or Cables: It would be a lot of fun to get into, and I hope we do at some point, but it opens up many entirely new cans of worms complexity- and time-wise. We have talked about it, but are not near ready to jump into it. We would need additional equipment and would need to work it into our processes.

And, believe me, there is no such thing as a "quick" version of anything in these evaluations. We are painstaking about every step, taking measurements (dimensions and REW plots), carefully taking notes, making sure anything we do is recorded and can be repeated. And the time does fly. One little hitch and suddenly we are behind schedule an hour or two. In August, we had to forgo Sonnie BBQing for us - and that was no small sacrifice - to get done in the time we had.

Evaluator Background Info: Good idea. Maybe we can work that into the final writeup or perhaps into a separate bio section somewhere.

More Pictures, Maybe a Video or Two? We talked about it while preparing for the $1K event, but got overwhelmed and it just did not happen. There was even a thought of streaming a live webcam view of the room over a JustinTV channel. Lighting is subdued and might not be suitable for that. A few short videos via smartphone might be manageable, and more still pics. No promises - the audio comes first.
 
#252 ·
Well to be honest I've never had the chance to hear any of these speakers myself. Last time I did any comparison was between Bose, and Cerwin Vega side by side, needless to say the Cerwin Vega won hands down for my style of listening. Loud, clear and powerful lower end. I have a room full of them now and I am happy with there performance! I would love to hear some of those bad boys & compare them with what I have.. May the best speaker win!! :T
 
#255 ·
Hey all, I am looking forward to the results of this evaluation. It looks like you have a great selection of speakers included in the list.

I would also like to see a future comparison/evaluation of some popular DIY speakers with similar manufactured speakers. For DIY, I would like to see the GR Research N3 compared to store bought speakers.
 
#260 ·
Not sure they will actually be from the evaluation group. :innocent:


With all the emphasis on this being a comparative evaluation as opposed to a competition, here is my criteria for declaring an ultimate winner:
If more than half of your review panel chooses to invest their personal hard earned cash to purchase the same model after the evaluation is complete. Wouldn't that be definitive?
I would say that would be pretty definitive, although we all picked the A5's last time and I was the only one that purchased a pair. :huh:
 
#259 ·
With all the emphasis on this being a comparative evaluation as opposed to a competition, here is my criteria for declaring an ultimate winner:
If more than half of your review panel chooses to invest their personal hard earned cash to purchase the same model after the evaluation is complete. Wouldn't that be definitive?
 
#274 ·
That would be pretty conclusive! It will be interesting to see how the evaluation results end up affecting our personal equipment "investments" over the coming months.

I would say that would be pretty definitive, although we all picked the A5's last time and I was the only one that purchased a pair. :huh:
So far.....

I am surprised with Klipsch stand on not being involved in this audition. It makes me not so interested towards recommending them in the future. What are they hiding?
The Klipsch in the $1K event were strong contenders. Remember that the models we favored were separated by little more than hair's widths of differences in the big scheme of things. I personally have nothing but good to say about them from the $1K evaluation experience.

Not that I am aware of, as I don't really see any benefit with it, although I remember Wayne saying he would have a mono track on stand by.
There will be at least a portion of a track in the "medley" in mono, and perhaps a whole track. Since the $1K event, I have found a mono track to be useful during setup to help find speaker locations with the tightest imaging - ideally it should image tight in the center. So a centered mono track at the beginning of our track sequence for setup purposes, followed by a left-only and then a right-only version might prove useful, and easy to come up with by mixing a stereo track with strong L/R correlation to mono. If we find them not to be, we can just skip them.

This sounds like a hoot!! Sure wish I could be a fly on the wall listening. I'm sure you guys will all have a great time. Must say I haven't really listened to any other speakers since I got my Dynaudio towers about 10 years ago. I know mine like lots of power -- Parasound 2003A (300 wpc)-- and I'm really interested to see how all the testers report on their observations. For music, I really like female vocals and instrumentals on my Dynaudios.
The Dynaudios are one of my main speakers of interest in this group. They will get LOTS of scrutiny from my perspective.

Any chance you guys might need a photographer to document the event? I'm just kidding of course, but know I'll be dreaming of listening to this system in person. :daydream:
Have fun! :wave:
Sorry, although we are a handsome lot, we are trying to keep the focus:bigsmile: on the speakers.
 
#261 ·
The only one "yet!" They are still a solid contendor for my planned upcoming purchace. I am very much looking forward to hearing how they preform plugged & closer to the wall.

It may be that I have to try & put together a shoot out in my room...if I can get a little help from some friends that is :whistling:.
 
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