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Editor's Introduction: Stereophile's "Recommended Components" feature is, as I am sure you will have guessed, produced by a committee. The reviews are studied, the reviewers polled to verify the continued validity, the merits and demerits of specific pieces of equipment are discussed or, rather, argued over at length by JGH, JA, and LA, and out of the whole business emerges the "truth." But, as with the findings of any committee, what is presented as a consensus will have significant undertows and countercurrents of opinion; if these are very strong, a "Minority Report" is often also…
That said, however, I would like to express my growing personal distaste for small monitor speakers and for the dishonesty with which they are advertised and reviewed. I can see a limited need for such units in the field and in very unusual listening conditions. I do not, however, see a need for such speakers in most listening rooms. I see no valid design reason for producing them, and feel they deserve far more criticism than they now get.
Let me begin by summarizing my reasoning in nontechnical terms:
• Whether a speaker is large or small, unless designed to be used adjacent to…
The Fletcher-Munson curves show that both low frequencies and overall listening levels must be relatively loud to hear natural bass; anyone who has conducted practical speaker tests becomes aware of the fact that the ear is very sensitive to changes of even a few dB at low frequencies.
This means that when a speaker is placed in a home listening room, and you are discussing bass below about 150Hz, the "rolloff" point should be measured at an spl of at least 95dB, and at 100dB for a really good high-end system (footnote 2). The tendency to measure bass response at lower signal levels is…
No One Stole The Bass
By Martin Colloms
By Martin Colloms
Martin Colloms responds to Tony Cordesman's recent dismissal of small loudspeakers, from Stereophile Vol.10 No.5, August 1987
I must take issue with AHC and the results he presented in "Who Stole the Bass?" in Stereophile Vol.10 No.3. While accepting that his outright condemnation of small monitors was presented as a minority report and that the article essentially concerned personal taste, it was nevertheless backed up by a technical argument in support of his opinion. Moreover, he misuses anechoic data from my own reviews to aid his…
Letters in response appeared in Vol.10 Nos.5 & 8, August & November 1987
Who stole the bass?
Editor:
In response to AHC's ridiculous comment regarding small monitor speakers in Vol.10 No.3: "virtually all of today's small monitor speakers are reasonably incapable of high-fidelity reproduction, and have no place in a decent audio system," I say that AHC is measurably incapable of listening to and reviewing high-fidelity reproduction and has no place writing for a decent audio magazine. I therefore suggest that Mr. Cordesman stick to reviewing for Audio magazine, where…
"Gotta get my hands on these!"
Before the 1999 CES, I had never heard of the Soliloquy 5.3, but "this slim, 38"-high obelisk was among the most open- and transparent-sounding speakers at the Show," as I said in my April '99 Show Report. As I slogged from room to room, never able to spend enough time with things (and people) that entertain and inform, and rarely able to avoid exhibits of even minimal interest, it was absolutely wonderful to stumble on something both novel and satisfying.
Skimming Soliloquy's website, I learned that Dennis Had of Cary Audio Design put about four…
Over the course of the next few weeks I moved the 5.3s closer together, then farther apart, all the while experimenting with their distance from the listening seat. I tried to reduce the bass bark by stuffing their rear ports with polyester batting. Nah—that only muffled the bass. Besides, the Soliloquies demonstrated their disdain by blowing the batting out with an emphatic PFOOOT! Finally, thinking that the drivers might be wired out of phase, I removed the jumpers from the binding posts and biwired the 5.3s for easy phase reversal. Which only made things worse.
Not knowing how to live…
The use of small drivers in a small enclosure means that the Soliloquy is limited in how much air it can move. It couldn't blow me away with huge symphonic and choral monsters, as can the Stratus Gold-i. In fact, my Paradigm Reference Esprit/BP, with a pair of 165mm drivers but with a 60% larger enclosure, is more capable of shaking the timbers than is the 5.3. But when listening to Mahler, as is my habit, I found the Soliloquy ever-so-nearly excellent. It handled everything in Symphony 4 (Salonen/LAPO, Sony Classical SK 48380) with aplomb, and did just fine with Symphony 3 (Horenstein/LSO,…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-way, magnetically shielded, floorstanding dynamic loudspeaker. Drive-units: one 1.125" coated, silk-dome tweeter, two 5.25" poly-fiber-cone bass-midrange units. Crossover: 18dB/octave at 2.4kHz. Frequency range: 35Hz-20kHz. Impedance: 8 ohms nominal. Sensitivity: 90dB/W/m. Recommended amplification: 8-300W.
Dimensions: 38" H by 7.5" W by 11" D. Weight: 80 lbs each.
Finishes: Curly maple, cherry, rosewood.
Serial numbers of units reviewed: S530030LR/RR.
Price: $1895/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 25.
Manufacturer: Soliloquy…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Heybrook TT2 turntable, Rega RB300 tonearm, Koetsu Black/Gold cartridge.
Digital sources: Burmester 970/969 CD transport/DAC, California Audio Labs CL-20 DVD/CD player, Mark Levinson No.360 DAC, Theta Miles CD player.
Preamplifiers: Klyne 6L3.3P, Z-Systems rdp-1.
Power amplifiers: McCormack DNA-1 (with Rev.A mod), Sonic Frontiers Power-2.
Loudspeakers: Coincident Super Conquest Series II, Paradigm Reference Esprit/BP, PSB Stratus Gold-i.
Cables: Cardas Cross and Golden Cross interconnects, Straight Wire Maestro II speaker…