Sidebar 2: Measurements I hadn't intended to do any measurements. But I couldn't resist it. That ol' left-brain insisted on having its way (footnote 1). So I put on Denon's XL7007A test LP, cued up the 3kHz track, plugged in the frequency meter—3000Hz, right on the button at 33.3rpm; 4049.5Hz at 45rpm. (These were the mean values; as with every other turntable I've measured with a digital meter, the indicated value bobbled a little.)
To look at the speed stability in more detail, I captured a 1kHz tone (actually 1003Hz on the Denon LP) with DRA Labs' MLSSA system (footnote 2) set…
There's this really awful joke:
After another long day in the city, recording jingles and soundtracks, a viola player is driving his car back home from the train station when he sees that his street has been blocked off by police cars, their lights flashing. He pulls over, gets out of his car, and walks to the top of his street.
To his horror, he sees fire personnel and EMTs going in and out of his house. The police have already put up barriers of yellow "Crime Scene" tape. He gets the attention of the two policemen who are keeping the gawkers at bay by blurting out, "I live there…
You might recall that ditty from childhood about the little engine that could (I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...). It's an apt metaphor for high-end audio. In traversing the aural sepulchers of last winter's Consumer Electronics Show and the summer's HI-FI Show, I routinely encountered one divine sound system after another. Yet while I never tire of transcendent sonics, eventually I become inured to the procession of celestial, cost-no-object speakers. It's like having a white-light experience, then returning to the gritty reality of life on earth, where for most of us cost is…
The RM22si presents a small, elegant footprint, and is intended to combine the spatial coherence and room-friendly coupling of a two-way minimonitor with the bass extension of a larger box. The cabinet itself is constructed of ?" MDF and is 36" high, with the two drivers occupying the top third of the enclosure. (The pair I auditioned featured a deeply faceted, dark rosewood veneer in a high-gloss finish.) The speaker is only 8.5" wide and 10.5" deep; its rear back quarter functions as the bass port, a cavity going up about 2' into the cabinet. There's a rectangular hole at the base of the…
As a result, the RM22si excelled at reproducing complex dynamics while articulating the smallest details with pinpoint resolution. In the Allegro molto of Beethoven's A-flat Piano Sonata, Op.110 (MusicMasters 67183-2), despite the crushing fury with which pianist Charles Rosen essays the composer's dynamic extremes, I never lost the distinctions between each note within a chord. Fundamentals and overtones remained distinct, yet I could discern their organic connection—I heard the totality of complex new harmonics and overtones, not the blurred products of cone break-ups, resonances,…
Well, for more complex dynamics, I never got the feeling that this speaker was plodding along behind the beat—its rhythm and pacing were always dead on. And, in the absence of midrange colorations, the bass sometimes felt deeper than it actually sounded. Again, it's a tried and truism that it's not how deep you make a speaker that counts—it's the manner in which you convey depth while maintaining tonal balance. The RM22si's bass was always taut, timely, and focused, without any overhang or blurring—I could invariably pick the bassist out of a crowd—while cymbals clearly delineated tempo…
Sidebar 1: Specifications Description: Two-way floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) silk-dome tweeter and 6.5" aluminum-cone woofer with phase plug in computer-optimized vented enclosure. Crossover: Patented Infinite Slope® (>120dB/octave) at 2kHz. Frequency response: 38Hz-20kHz, ±2dB. Sensitivity: 86dB/1W/1m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms (7 ohms minimum).
Dimensions: 38" H by 8.5" W by 10.5" D. Weight: 47 lbs. each (sand-fillable Silent Box enclosure).
Finishes available: rosewood, oak, black, cherry, maple.
Serial numbers of units reviewed: 22-0030, 22-0031.
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Sidebar 2: Setup & System My sources for evaluating the Joseph were a Dual CN5000 belt-drive turntable with an Ortofon XM5 high-output moving-coil cartridge, and a California Audio Labs CL-15 CD player (which offers more slam, resolution, transparency, sonic depth, and detail than the comparably priced Icon Mk.II that it replaced in my system), in tandem with Synergistic Research's Resolution Reference II interconnects and Designer's Reference Power Cord. These were constants throughout.
I upgraded the power supply of my entire system by replacing my geeky hardware-store…
Sidebar 3: Measurements The neat floorstanding Joseph is not very sensitive, my B-weighted figure of 84.5dB/2.83V/m being below average. However, its impedance curve (fig.1) reveals it to be a generally kind amplifier load, its lowest value being a still reasonable 6.6 ohms in the lower mids. And though the electrical phase angle was quite capacitive in the upper bass, the magnitude was highish in the same region, which will ameliorate the current demands on the amplifier. The saddle between the twin bass peaks indicates that the port is tuned to a low 35Hz, implying good extension for a…
Whether or not this on-axis behavior results in coloration will also depend on the speaker's off-axis behavior. Fig.5 shows the changes in the RM22si's response as the measuring microphone moves in 5 degree steps to the speaker's side. You can see that, in the frequency region where the on-axis response is a little peaky, there is actually a lack of off-axis energy. In a typical room, this will compensate to some extent, meaning that the perceived tonal balance may well be neutral. The lateral dispersion is otherwise well controlled, though the tweeter does get quite directional above 10kHz…
