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The 45° corner mounting of the ribbon will also ensure a freedom from the "stereo hot seat" syndrome: a listener off to one side of the central seat will be more on the ribbon axis of the more distant speaker, thus receiving a stronger HF signal from it which will go some way toward compensating for the earlier arrival time of the sound from the nearer speaker. It also means that the speaker can be placed closer to a side wall than a speaker with the treble driver conventionally mounted on the front baffle, image-confusing HF reflections from the side wall being more suppressed with the…
The soundstaging was good, if not holographic, while instrumental and vocal images having any treble energy were thrust forward. The transition region between the woofer and ribbon was beautifully managed, however, there not being even a hint of discontinuity in the midrange. Low frequencies were powerful, with excellent extension noticeable on organ pedals, but overall I thought the 3000's bass register sounded a little disconnected from the rest of the range. This surprised me, as the SL600 and SL700 excel in the "tunefulness" of what bass they do have, by which I mean the way the low…
Levels of coloration in the low treble and midrange were low. My piano recording on the Stereophile Test CD reveals midrange problems on conventional two-way moving-coil speakers by some notes jumping out of the soundstage. The Celestion 3000 was remarkably clean in this respect, the Steinway tonality emerging unscathed. The flute and piano tracks on the Stereophile Test CD also reproduced as being extremely true to the sound of the original instruments, a slight accentuation of flute breath noise notwithstanding.
At higher frequencies there was some liveliness apparent in the low treble…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-way, sealed-box, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 21" by 0.5" aluminum-ribbon tweeter, 8" (200mm) polyolefin-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: 900Hz. Crossover slopes: 3rd-order, 18dB/octave, high- and low-pass. Frequency response: not specified. Low-frequency extension: –3dB at 66Hz, –6dB at 49Hz (both free-space measurements). Sensitivity: 86dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Amplifier requirements: up to 100W program.
Dimensions: 25.6" (650mm) H by 13" W (330mm) by 11.8" (300mm) D. Internal volumes: 28 liters (woofer enclosure…
Sidebar 2: Reference system
Source components consisted of a Revox A77 to play my own and others' 15ips master tapes, a Linn Sondek/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on a Sound Organisation table to play LPs, and Kinergetics KCD-40 and Meridian 206 CD players. (The latter also drove the $12,000 Stax DAC-X1t tube processor for some of the auditioning, used direct into the Classic 60.) Amplification consisted of either a Mark Levinson No.25/26 preamplifier combination driving a pair of Mark Levinson No.20.5 monoblocks via 15' lengths of AudioQuest LiveWire Lapis balanced interconnect, or an Audio…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I use a mixture of nearfield, in-room, and quasi-anechoic FFT techniques (using the DRA Labs MLSSA—pronounced "Melissa"—system from DRA Labs) to investigate objective factors that might explain the sound heard. (Stereophile's measuring microphone is a calibrated DPA 4006.) The 3000's impedance phase and amplitude were measured using Stereophile's Audio Precision System One. Looking at fig.1, it can be seen that the speaker is definitely best rated as a 4 ohm load, the value dropping below 6 ohms above 1kHz and reaching a minimum of 3.25 ohms just below 5kHz. The…
In some ways, building an inexpensive yet musical two-way loudspeaker is a greater design challenge than creating a cost-no-object reference product. Although the latter is a much more complex endeavor, the venerable two-way box seems to bring out the creativity and resources of the designer. Rather than throw money at the product in the form of more expensive drivers, enclosures, or components, the designer of a low-cost two-way is forced to go back to the basics, rethink closely-held tenets, and rely on ingenuity and sheer talent to squeeze the most music from a given cost. Consequently,…
The PC80's tonal balance was fairly smooth through most of the midrange, but there was some coloration apparent in the bass as well as in the upper-midrange/treble region. Starting with the bass, it achieved remarkable extension for a cabinet of this size but tended to be underdamped and somewhat ill-defined. Bass lines were a little sluggish, creating a "rolling" sensation rather than a taut, crisp feeling. LF pitch resolution and articulation suffered, making it difficult to follow intricate bass lines. This was especially true in music in which the bass player tends to be melodic and…
Sidebar 1: Robert Harley's Review System
The Phase Technology PC80s replaced the Hales System Two Signatures in my reference system, and were auditioned on the excellent Celestion 24" spiked and lead-shot–filled stands. Each pair was driven by the VTL 225W Deluxe monoblocks, Krell KSA-250, and Threshold S/550e (the last two reviewed elsewhere in this issue) via 10" runs of AudioQuest Green Hyperlitz. The analog front end consisted of a Well-Tempered turntable, just refitted with a Lary Pederson–modified Well-Tempered Arm (footnote 1), and a Sumiko Boron cartridge. The moving-coil's low…
Sidebar 2: Mk.1 Measurements
Starting with the Listening Environment Diagnostic Recording (LEDR) on the Chesky Sampler and Test CD (JD37), the PC80s produced a good sense of the image moving up above the loudspeaker. The "over" test was better, with a clearly defined arc between and above the loudspeakers. The "lateral" test was excellent: the image was solid and moved contiguously between the PC80s. Next, I drove one loudspeaker with a variable-frequency sinewave oscillator, listened for any audible problems, and felt the cabinet for any sign of resonance modes. Not surprising in light…