search
According to the conventional wisdom, companies selling consumer products fall into two categories: those whose sales are "marketing-led" and those whose sales are "product-led." Marketing-led companies tend to sell mature products into a mature market where there are no real differences between competing products—soap powder, mass-market beer, or cigarettes, for example—whereas product-led companies tend to sell new technologies, such as personal computers and high-end hi-fi components. In the audio separates market, conventional wisdom would have a hard time categorizing any individual…
Sidebar 1: Review System
The pair of speaker was positioned for the best sound (with only one pair of loudspeakers in the listening room at a time). 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. Amplification consisted of a Mark Levinson No.25/No.26 preamplifier combination driving a pair of Mark Levinson No.20.5 monoblocks via 15' lengths of AudioQuest LiveWire Lapis balanced interconnect. Speaker cable was 5'…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
Regarding measurements, I use a mixture of nearfield, in-room, and quasi-anechoic FFT techniques (using the MLSSA system from DRA Labs) to investigate objective factors that might explain the sound heard. (Stereophile's measuring microphone is a calibrated B&K 4006.) The speakers' impedance phase and magnitude were measured using Stereophile's Audio Precision System One.
Looking first at the speaker's impedance (fig.1, note that the phase angle is incorrectly inverted), the sealed-box woofer tuning is revealed by the peak around 75Hz. As the impedance…
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Description: Two-way, stand-, wall-, or bookshelf-mounted sealed-box loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" dome tweeter, 4.5" long-throw, pulp-cone woofer with butyl surround (6.5" specified in literature due to inclusion of mounting plate in this measurement). Crossover frequency: 1.8kHz. Crossover slopes: second-order high- and low-pass. Frequency response: not specified. Sensitivity: 83dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Amplifier requirements: 15–100W.
Dimensions: 10.88" H by 7.1" W by 5.5" D. Weight: 8 lbs each.
Finishes available: gray Nextel, solid oak, or…
I believe Ken Kantor said it first: a couple of years ago, in his September 1990 interview with Robert Harley (Vol.13 No.9), he remarked that "there's no reason why a two-way 6" loudspeaker can't be the equal of almost the best speaker out there from a certain frequency point upward, with the possible exception of dynamic range." When I read those words, they rang true. If you put to one side the need to reproduce low bass frequencies and can accept less-than-live playback levels, a small speaker can be as good as the best, and allow its owner to enjoy the benefits of its size—visual appeal,…
The speaker also lacked definition in the lower midrange, which was generally rather warm-sounding once the speaker had broken in. This was somewhat recording-specific; I noticed it only when playing John Gorka's Jack's Crows (High Street 72902 10309-2). Gorka has both a delightful way with lyrics—"There are girls from New Jersey / Who have that great big hair (foonote 2) / They're found in shopping malls / I will take you there."—and a rich baritone voice that reminds me of the late, great Stan Rogers. Some notes acquired a slight lower-midrange cloud that obscured the voice's distinctive…
Sidebar 1: Reference system
I used four amplifiers with these speakers: the $995 Acurus DA1, Audio Research's Classic 60 stereo amp and Classic 120 monoblocks, and a pair of Mark Levinson No.20.6 monoblocks. Preamp was either the Melos headphone amp or the McCormack Line Drive Deluxe, each coupled with the McCormack Phono Drive. Front-end components consisted of a fully loaded Linn Lingo LP player, a ReVox PR99 open-reel recorder, VTL Reference and PS Audio UltraLink DACs driven by Meridian 602 and Wadia WT-3200 CD transports (connected with Mod Squad Wonderlink or AudioQuest Digital/…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
The Celestion 100's plot of impedance amplitude and phase (fig.1) reveals a relatively easy speaker for an amplifier to drive, with a minimum value of 6.3 ohms around 150Hz. The sealed box is tuned to 60Hz, the frequency of the amplitude peak in the bass, while a slight wrinkle in the trace at 400Hz implies a cabinet or drive-unit resonance at this frequency.
Fig.1 Celestion 100, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed). (2 ohms/vertical div.)
Looking at the individual quasi-anechoic responses of the drive-units (fig.2) reveals the…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Two-way, sealed-box, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1.25" (32mm) aluminum-dome tweeter, 6.5" (165mm) polyolefin-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: 2.2kHz. Crossover slopes: 3rd-order Butterworth, 18dB/octave, high- and low-pass. Frequency response: not specified. Low-frequency extension: –3dB at 65.6Hz, –6dB at 53Hz (both free-space measurements). Sensitivity: 84dB/W/m (2.83V, free space). Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Amplifier requirements: up to 120W program.
Dimensions: 16.7" (425mm) H by 8.3" W (210mm) by 10.1" (256mm) D. Internal…
The Dalhquist DQ-10 loudspeaker has not as yet been formally submitted for review. (The designer tells us he is still working on the low end.) We auditioned a pair at the one local dealer we could find who had the DQ-10s on demo, and were immensely impressed. Obviously, Jon Dahlquist is on to something that other speaker designers have been overlooking, for, despite the multiplicity of driver speakers in the system, the DQ-10 sounds like one big speaker. There is no awareness of crossovers or separate drivers (except at the low end, about which more subsequently), and the overall sound has a…