Sighted Test Results
Towards the
end of the day, we ran some sighted tests with the grille cloth removed. Time was limited, so we were unable to run
all the test suites unsighted. Some
short A/B comparisons were made but the general consensus was everyone wanted
to spend more time listening to each speaker to form a more concise
opinion. Thus we spent about 5-10
minutes listening to each speaker and let them stand on their own merits.
Axiom M60v2 Sighted Listener Comments
- Very deep but boomy bass, compressed sound, especially in the midrange.
- Speaker lacked definition in the midrange, bass was boomy/muddy.
- Bass didn’t sound too clean, but highs were very nice and detailed.
- Mids seemed to be missing detail.
EMP E55ti Sighted Listener Comments
- Bright natural sound, vibrant highs, great tonal separation punchy, but light on bass. Good jazz speaker.
- Good midrange but needs better highs. Excellent midbass that came alive during drum solos.
- Drums sound lifelike, clean and crisp sound
- Sounds like a live performance
- Great dynamics
JBL ES80 Sighted Listening Comments
- Fairly well balanced sound throughout tonal range. Solid bass. Good rock and roll speaker.
- Horns sounded less natural than I heard on other speakers.
- Nice mids, horns very clear, equal balanced sound from left to right.
- Very good bass with drums but sometimes sounded boomy.
Klipsch RF-62 Sighted Listening Comments
- Very weak mids and highs are very brash. This speaker is heavily bass biased.
- Excessive highs. Singer had too much lisp in her voice. Midrange was very lacking.
- Voice has harsher edge than I heard on this speaker before. The bass was clean and deep.
- Sound was great but a bit too bright.
Sighted Scorecard Test Results
Since time was limited, I only asked each listener to offer a final overall ranking for each speaker while listening to them without the grille cloth coverings. The speakers were level matched exactly how they were done in the blind testing. One of our trained listeners was unavailable for the sighted tests which would have likely boosted the EMP and JBL ratings since he scored those highest among the four speakers during the blind tests. The results were averaged are tabulated below.
Overall Ratings for Sighted Tests
In this round of testing, the EMP E55ti's appeared to come out on top while the Klipsch RF-62's and Axiom M60v2's ratings dropped most dramatically. I believe the most significant reason for preference changes in the sighted testing had to do with restoring the tonal balance of all of the speakers once the lossy grille cover was removed. Aesthetics may have also played a factor though nobody commented on the appearance of any of the speakers in the comparison since they were sitting so far away and focused more on what they were hearing while note taking.
Pinnacle BD 1000 Honorable Mention
Pinnacle BD 1000 Specifications Page
About a week prior to this faceoff,
I contacted Pinnacle
Loudspeakers as a fall back in case the
JBL's didn't come
through. The JBL products did
arrive as did the Pinnacles but on the day of our event when we were already
knee deep in our listening tests. We put them aside and pressed
on.
The Pinnacle BD 1000's retail for $1300/pair and are a 3-way 4 driver tower speaker consisting of a 1" silk dome tweeter, two 5 1/4" woofers and one 5 1/4" phase plug midrange. Their claimed frequency response is 34Hz to 20kHz +-3dB with 200Hz and 5kHz crossover points. Their rated sensitivity is 88dB @ 1 watt/meter with an nominal 8 ohm impedance. I must admit my first impression was "there is no way these little speakers could be competitive with the other four under test". At the end of the day, our listeners were itching to hear them nonetheless. We unboxed them and setup some brief sighted listening tests. Everyone, myself included, was impressed by their performance. The bass was deep and well extended, the mids were articulate and the highs were crisp and energetic. These speakers portrayed a sound that bellied their diminutive size. Although we didn't critically listen and compare these speakers to the others in this Faceoff, I believe they would have done very well. I requested that Pinnacle allow me to hold on to these samples longer so I could write up a formal review.
See also:
Recent Forum Posts:
I think its better to agree to disagree on design aspects of loudspeakers and just be done with it. Everyone has their own reasoning that may work best (in their minds) for them. 100% truth can never be realized in something as subjective and emotional as the audiophile experience.
There are MANY satisfied Axiom customers in the marketplace and it is obvious Axiom is meeting their needs. There are also many competing brands for those wanting something else. The free market rules!
Going forward, I'd like to keep a more open mind and positive attitude towards all manufacturers and let the consumers decide based on our reviews and their experiences with the products if said products are right for their needs.
Mods please note this and lets put the brakes on any future threads that turn out like this.
I am closing this thread on a high note with hopes we can continue to cover new Axiom products for the benefit of readers interested in learning more about them.
Paul_Apollonio;857427
I followed the link to the Axiom site, and would like to make an engineering sidenote. First of all by eliminating the series high-pass capacitor (at the VERY minimum) needed to protect the midrange from dangerous levels of peak LF content, this lowers the impedance of the system in a range where the output of the mids add NOTHING to the output of the Woofer; hence lowering system sensitivity. First bad. Second bad = pretending the worst of this can be found with a distortion sweep looking for 2nd and 3rd Harmonics. RUBBISH. The problem is that by eliminating the High Pass (HP) filter on the mids, the LF content will move the VC about, possibly out of the gap and thereby allow the LF to modulate (read distort) the midrange the speaker produces. With a sweeping test (one frequency at a time) there is NO WAY to see this effect, and Axiom is well aware of that. To see this effect, one must put in two frequencies simultaneously and view the output on a spectrum analyzer. (One can see distortion products as sum and difference frequencies) This is a simple process and one all audio engineers are familiar with. Sadly, not all customers are, so the charade continues.
Even if the Midrange driver is made INCREDIBLY stiff, and placed in a very very small sealed enclosure minimizing excursion and hence this distortion, subjecting the midrange VC to the heat caused by the LF content is NEVER better than saving the price of the series capacitor. Unless, I guess, it is your money, and you don't really care about stressing an amp or drive unit you get paid to replace.
There is such a thing as recommended practice and procedures, and the practice of eliminating the high pass filter, even if only a single series capacitor from the midrange driver is not a good idea by any stretch of imagination. In fact, it is a sign the designer is clueless or could care less about the result.
As for the listening tests, there are never any shortage of people willing to claim a given distortion is inaudible. Of course, if you limit the input power to very low levels, you won't hear this problem. You won't hear many speaker distortions as most only show up on high drive levels.
Certain physical principles apply to design, and it does not matter the brand or the politics involved. Allowing the large peak amplitudes of low frequency content to get to a midrange speakers voice coil is a terribly bad idea period.
This is not a new concept. (At least to competent engineers who are not counting nickles and pennies). - Paul Apollonio
Axiom did this with the M80v1 as well with not so successful results.
Emonatics - Emotiva Fans Site [emonatics.com]
gene;856611
{Heavily edited by me}
Nobody really wants unfavorable comments written about their products and proud owners of said products don't want to see negative comments either.
The bottom line is Axiom has always had a problem with our critical review process. They don't like negative comments about products. They don't like face offs. They seemingly don't like measurements or blind tests done outside their facilities. They have told me this many times in the past in person and via email. They instead prefer consumers to accept their science and testing as gospel that spending more money than what they sell their speakers for is simply purchasing cosmetic upgrades.
I've spent 12+ years comparing speakers (sighted and blind) from virtually every manufacturer and my experiences don't always match what Axiom preaches.
In my experience Axiom is NOT up to the level of legitimately well engineered cost no object speakers however.
While there are some outlandish speaker designs out there, there are also some incredible sounding products that happen to cost a lot too.
Performance is all over the map but it doesn't necessarily stop progressing at a magic price point.
I'd honestly like to stop the bantering back and forth on this topic. It's been beaten to death and nobody gains from it.
I won't be commenting any further about Axiom on the forums. I've said everything that needed to be said.
I followed the link to the Axiom site, and would like to make an engineering sidenote. First of all by eliminating the series high-pass capacitor (at the VERY minimum) needed to protect the midrange from dangerous levels of peak LF content, this lowers the impedance of the system in a range where the output of the mids add NOTHING to the output of the Woofer; hence lowering system sensitivity. First bad. Second bad = pretending the worst of this can be found with a distortion sweep looking for 2nd and 3rd Harmonics. RUBBISH. The problem is that by eliminating the High Pass (HP) filter on the mids, the LF content will move the VC about, possibly out of the gap and thereby allow the LF to modulate (read distort) the midrange the speaker produces. With a sweeping test (one frequency at a time) there is NO WAY to see this effect, and Axiom is well aware of that. To see this effect, one must put in two frequencies simultaneously and view the output on a spectrum analyzer. (One can see distortion products as sum and difference frequencies) This is a simple process and one all audio engineers are familiar with. Sadly, not all customers are, so the charade continues.
Even if the Midrange driver is made INCREDIBLY stiff, and placed in a very very small sealed enclosure minimizing excursion and hence this distortion, subjecting the midrange VC to the heat caused by the LF content is NEVER better than saving the price of the series capacitor. Unless, I guess, it is your money, and you don't really care about stressing an amp or drive unit you get paid to replace.
There is such a thing as recommended practice and procedures, and the practice of eliminating the high pass filter, even if only a single series capacitor from the midrange driver is not a good idea by any stretch of imagination. In fact, it is a sign the designer is clueless or could care less about the result.
As for the listening tests, there are never any shortage of people willing to claim a given distortion is inaudible. Of course, if you limit the input power to very low levels, you won't hear this problem. You won't hear many speaker distortions as most only show up on high drive levels.
Certain physical principles apply to design, and it does not matter the brand or the politics involved. Allowing the large peak amplitudes of low frequency content to get to a midrange speakers voice coil is a terribly bad idea period.
This is not a new concept. (At least to competent engineers who are not counting nickles and pennies). - Paul Apollonio
agarwalro;857098
Perhaps I was a little curt in my last post. I sensed something that was valuable and worth saving and perhaps overreacted. Moving on...
$5 says Jim Salk can match the finish on any of those Lansche veneers .
My remark was not really about Gene but the credibility of the AH reviews and their process
Now we move on!!!!!!!!
Some remarks been said that the Lansche 5.1 is the best dynamic speaker some people heard.... (Obviously they didn't listen to the upscale models from same producer) well they better be considering the price tag.... but still.... need to make sure I deliver my lotto this week
