AVI vs...? bake off anyone?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

The bass is never like that with a Cube in anywhere I have ever heard them, duff tweeter or not. The only way the bass can be muddy and lumpy is if the speaker is asking to be moved further away from the wall. It has to be understood that it is semi omni so you have to tune it to the room, a process that I have explained here many many times. It is not a plonk and play speaker, it has to work with the room. I gather from his posts that darius followed this process, so it is a failure.

[_D_S_J_R_]

The Doc-rod speakers I have on loan had one tweeter disconnected on receipt. No mud or stodge there, just a lack of hf which my gummy ear made worse. Now sorted and imaging beautifully and my ear is recovering to slowly match the other one.

I have heard the effect described above though

[antonio66]

I don't believe Cube's want to be up against the wall, my 3's are approx 6" away with nearly 45 degree toe in. The 2's I listened to yesterday were a little further out with less toe in but that was in a larger room than I have. Neither of these speakers make the bass sound almost random, quite the opposite, tight and tuneful.

[jammy395]

The bass is never like that with a Cube in anywhere I have ever heard them, duff tweeter or not. The only way the bass can be muddy and lumpy is if the speaker is asking to be moved further away from the wall. It has to be understood that it is semi omni so you have to tune it to the room, a process that I have explained here many many times. It is not a plonk and play speaker, it has to work with the room. I gather from his posts that darius followed this process, so it is a failure.

What is..You mean a possible 1 off unit failure, or a positional failure, or.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Failure of bake-off / loan / review / opinion. You said on another thread you wanted a bad review to add credibility to all the good ones, so we have it. If he writes it as a review I will put it in the review thread.

[darius-lpv]

ok. I think I need to send the speaker again back to you Richard so you can fix it and I need working one to fully assess them..

ps. " The only way the bass can be muddy and lumpy is if the speaker is asking to be moved further away from the wall. It has to be understood that it is semi omni so you have to tune it to the room" is it not like that with every other speaker? you have to tune it/ position in a given room?
' tune it' could also means you end up with speakers in the middle of the room or somewhere where as a result you end up living on your own.
what's so unique in the design that on NVA website " integrate with the room acoustic instead of fighting it" appears?
I think ' integrate' with the room suggest easy/ not fussy placement?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I have explained it many times darius, it is in the archive. It is very different to normal point and squirt speakers, and how you position them, but we have many users here who have been through the process so they can give their opinions / experience of it for you.

The process is summed up in one phrase "the speaker works with the room it doesn't fight it" the differences between bi-polar (electrostatics and open baffle), omni, semi omni, and point and squirt are very apparent with experience.

Anyway pack the duff speaker up and I will get it collected Monday.

[_D_S_J_R_]

HI all.. I've set up everything as per Richard instructions and bass performance is poor... uncontrolled, slow and all over the place, almost random. I was curious to hear Cube 2 bass performance myself especially after reading this statement: " Designed as a semi omni to integrate with the room acoustic instead of fighting it the way normal speakers do." Some of the finnest active speakers I've heard can be placed right against the wall and never have any excess of bass and bass is tunefull and tight at the same time, this is not the case with CUBE, they behave more like typical passives that needs to be move away from back wall in order to avoid bass boom etc. Can someone explain then how I should read this: " integrate with the room acoustic instead of fighting it" ?
I can't comment on soudstage, vocals etc as the tweeter is dead..

May I chip in a little please? I swear I'm not arguing with your comments above, but the bass-mid driver in Cubes is directly coupled to the amp in the same way as any active speaker, with nothing in between save a length of speaker cable which adds practically nothing untoward in domestic lengths. The donor drivers are incredibly taut in their suspensions, and remind me more of the 6" ATC bass-mid drivers in all honesty, which were also used in tightly sealed boxes and behaved similarly. Just being able to place a speaker tight to a back wall is no indication of quality to me, it just means they have no bass and need the back wall to re-inforce it - I cite Kans as a classic and often rather nasty exponent of this technique - and Kans, despite screeching the midrange out, can't do the easy-clarity the Doc-mod drivers are able to do so well - in my opinion obviously.

[darius-lpv]

Of course, speaker distance from back wall is not an indicator of bad or good design, however atc sealed cabinet or avi front ported (dm10) or back ported (dm5) or dynaudios active monitors (these have eq switches at the back) or all studio monitors for that matter I've tried in my room allows close to back wall placement and excellent bass reproduction without destroying midrange. There's also bass cancellation phenomena when moving speakers away from back wall..

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

It is all explained in Roy Allisons AES papers on the subject, but they are very technical and you have to buy copies. It is due to room boundary effects. Forward drivers or point and squirt as DSJR calls it ignore the acoustic or the room boundaries as they are designed with anechoic chambers. A semi omni with an upward driver uses the room boundaries and has to be tuned to them and are designed for use in an acoustic and using it.