How are the Vaders MEASURING up?
Jan 24, 2023 18:28:42 GMT
Bigman80, firebottle, and 2 more like this
Post by Arke on Jan 24, 2023 18:28:42 GMT
The ARKE Vaders (Troels Gravesen CNO4s) now have their 12" bass drivers and have been given some pretty intensive running in. They are starting to sound rather good... really, really good. So much better than I ever could've imagined. The transparency, realism and dynamics are utterly breath taking - continuous wow moment after wow moment. The bass is completely jaw dropping. I have rarely heard a bass so dynamic, fast, tight and deep - the control is incredible. I realise these words are, in many ways, meaningless as no one has a frame of reference. I am pretty confident that other people will echo these views once they hear these.
I have been doing some measurements, mainly to understand my in-room performance and also to EQ the bass on the 12" driver. Angus has kindly lent me a calibrated USB mic (I shall buy my own soon).
I have spent a few days measuring and these are some initial findings and some reasonably optimised tunings. Please bear in mind that these are not anechoic or corrected nearfield measurements. These are purely in room at my listening position. I have not finished optimising the speaker position either.
Some things are very inherent in virtually all in room measurements:
- Due to room damping the mid and high frequencies will roll off considerably. I have briefly measured the speakers close up and they do NOT roll off relatively nearfield.
- The in room bass response is pretty choppy in any room - if you don't believe me measure you own speakers in room performance (or look at Stereophile in room measurements). There is always some choppiness up to around 400Hz.
Here is the frequency response plot from my listening position with the mic at ear height, pointing straight between the speakers - it covers a bandwidth of 20-145Hz. The curve have been smoothed with a 1/6 Octave smoothing in REW.
The blue line is the Vaders without any correction on the 12" bass driver. My room is 5.5m long and the fundamental axial mode at 32Hz is VERY prominent - it is nearly 20db higher than at 100Hz! This seems massive, but it actually the realty in a lot of listening rooms. I have measured other speakers and they are all like this in my room (more to come in another post) - maybe I need another room! The speakers do not have this 32Hz peak when measured nearfield.
The green line is after I have spent some time (quite a long time!) tuning the Hypex plate amp. This is the Vaders corrected response and is now relatively flat over the correction bandwidth. It is still a work in progress, but I am really pleased so far. I plan to do a bit work on increasing gain at 20Hz. The Vaders (with correction) are currently about -3db at 20Hz, which is really, really good! I wasn't expecting to have a truly full range speaker, but the Vaders have used the force and provided.
Here is the in room frequency response from 20Hz-20000Hz. This is smoothed with psychoacoustic smoothing which is supposed to represent our actual perception of the frequency response:
Blue is the 12" driver without correction. Green is with DSP correction in the plate amp.
The 12" driver currently crosses over to the 8" driver at around 100Hz, so I can tweak the response from around 20Hz-100Hz. The slight chop around 100-400Hz is mainly speaker/room interactions, which I very little control over. When in the new music room (end of the year), I may cross the 8" and 12" drivers at around 300Hz, this will give me much more control over these variations. The gradual decline from 800Hz to 20KHz is due to room damping. All speakers tested in my room have done this and do not roll off when measured nearfield.
I have the EQ tunings stored as presets on the plate amps so can instantly change from no EQ to corrected bass whilst listening. The difference is quite astounding - the very flat response from 20-100Hz cleans up the bass massively and this has a very positive effect on all the frequencies above. The sound becomes much cleaner, more open and more transparent. Most of us are used to listening with room modes effecting our music - when they are tuned out it is really quite ear opening! The bass is so dynamic, clean, defined and deep!
Thanks for reading I shall post more measurements in due course.
I have been doing some measurements, mainly to understand my in-room performance and also to EQ the bass on the 12" driver. Angus has kindly lent me a calibrated USB mic (I shall buy my own soon).
I have spent a few days measuring and these are some initial findings and some reasonably optimised tunings. Please bear in mind that these are not anechoic or corrected nearfield measurements. These are purely in room at my listening position. I have not finished optimising the speaker position either.
Some things are very inherent in virtually all in room measurements:
- Due to room damping the mid and high frequencies will roll off considerably. I have briefly measured the speakers close up and they do NOT roll off relatively nearfield.
- The in room bass response is pretty choppy in any room - if you don't believe me measure you own speakers in room performance (or look at Stereophile in room measurements). There is always some choppiness up to around 400Hz.
Here is the frequency response plot from my listening position with the mic at ear height, pointing straight between the speakers - it covers a bandwidth of 20-145Hz. The curve have been smoothed with a 1/6 Octave smoothing in REW.
The blue line is the Vaders without any correction on the 12" bass driver. My room is 5.5m long and the fundamental axial mode at 32Hz is VERY prominent - it is nearly 20db higher than at 100Hz! This seems massive, but it actually the realty in a lot of listening rooms. I have measured other speakers and they are all like this in my room (more to come in another post) - maybe I need another room! The speakers do not have this 32Hz peak when measured nearfield.
The green line is after I have spent some time (quite a long time!) tuning the Hypex plate amp. This is the Vaders corrected response and is now relatively flat over the correction bandwidth. It is still a work in progress, but I am really pleased so far. I plan to do a bit work on increasing gain at 20Hz. The Vaders (with correction) are currently about -3db at 20Hz, which is really, really good! I wasn't expecting to have a truly full range speaker, but the Vaders have used the force and provided.
Here is the in room frequency response from 20Hz-20000Hz. This is smoothed with psychoacoustic smoothing which is supposed to represent our actual perception of the frequency response:
Blue is the 12" driver without correction. Green is with DSP correction in the plate amp.
The 12" driver currently crosses over to the 8" driver at around 100Hz, so I can tweak the response from around 20Hz-100Hz. The slight chop around 100-400Hz is mainly speaker/room interactions, which I very little control over. When in the new music room (end of the year), I may cross the 8" and 12" drivers at around 300Hz, this will give me much more control over these variations. The gradual decline from 800Hz to 20KHz is due to room damping. All speakers tested in my room have done this and do not roll off when measured nearfield.
I have the EQ tunings stored as presets on the plate amps so can instantly change from no EQ to corrected bass whilst listening. The difference is quite astounding - the very flat response from 20-100Hz cleans up the bass massively and this has a very positive effect on all the frequencies above. The sound becomes much cleaner, more open and more transparent. Most of us are used to listening with room modes effecting our music - when they are tuned out it is really quite ear opening! The bass is so dynamic, clean, defined and deep!
Thanks for reading I shall post more measurements in due course.
