"Music stranglers" in reference to NVA

[Marco]

I've just seen this post on PFM on a thread about NVA amplifiers from a chap called 'adieadie':

Richard is a bit sensitive about speaker pairing (and errr, most other things ) but says that a simple design of speaker, without notch filters or complex crossovers are crucial to not "strangle" the music.

He liked the look of the merlin's, and I think he also liked the look of the druid speakers along with Royd, Audio Note and said that Dynaudio are a safe'ish bet - all of which appear to use simple designs and quality parts.

He doesnt recommend ATC, Spendor, Harbeth, B&W... These are MUSIC STRANGLERS

LOL. What utter tosh!

I use Spendor SP100s and the last thing you could call them is "music stranglers". Any ATCs and Harbeths I've heard certainly do not come into this category either.

Apparently 'adieadie' is getting this nonsense from Richard. Care to comment, Richard?

Marco.

[jandl100]

Well, as an NVA owner (A80 monoblocks) and having tried a lot of the NVA kit (thanks Richard!) ... I guess I do maybe have a feel for where Richard's coming from with these alleged comments.

I guess Marco's a bit sensitive as he loves his Spendors, which is fine of course ..... but ..... well, a lot of the speakers cited in "Richard's Book Of Strangled Speakers" are in the classic BBC Monitor tradition. A neutral tonal response is 1st and foremost in the design criteria.* Which is fine, as all things are a compromise and you just have to pick your own personal list of priorities. But to achieve that flat frequency response, you do need a fancy cross-over and that can have a detrimental effect on the openness and transparency of things. I'd say that it does impede the release of the music and slow things down. Is that "strangling"? - well, in Richard's vocabulary, maybe.

But come on, folks - let's not get trapped in the cage of our own subjective preferences, and at least recognise that there is more than one way of designing a speaker - and that many (all?) of these ways have their own merits and de-merits.

As a wicked generalisation, my own view (based on a fairly extensive history of speaker ownership) is that the price paid for a realistic frequency response is a dilution of speed and transparency.

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I can imagine this thread degenerating into a slanging match - and that would be a shame as there are interesting points to be made here.

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* I've measured a pair of Rogers Export Monitors at home - and was truly flabbergasted to see a ruler flat frequency response. You really don't see that in other approaches to speaker design.

[Marco]

Hi Jerry,

I guess Marco's a bit sensitive as he loves his Spendors, which is fine of course

No, not at all; I'm not 'precious' about my hi-fi.

I just think that "Music stranglers" is a somewhat inappropriate (and IMO inaccurate) description of Spendor speakers given what I'm used to hearing.

I'm quite sure if you listened to my SP100s that's the last thing you'd say about them. I think anyone who's heard my system (such as Steve) would agree. They're incredibly open and detailed sounding, and communicate whatever music is played through them in all its glory. They're very 'neutral', yes, but 'strangling' the music - definitely not!

If the criticism had been that they're lacking in character, ruthlessly revealing, or even ugly (!) I would have accepted it because it's fair comment

Perhaps Richard has never heard a pair of SP100s? They have a very different balance to any other Spendor loudspeakers, and they most definitely don't sound like BC1s! Or the SP1/2s you had for sale recently

Or perhaps NVA amplifiers require a speaker with a certain type of sonic signature in order to produce their designed sound?

If you've got a copy of this month's Hi-fi+ then check out the review of the SP100R by Chris Thomas; he's got a very good handle on how they sound.

Marco.

P.S This thread will definitely NOT turn into a ‘slagging’ match. I simply seek clarification from Richard on his comments and a degree of factual accuracy.

[jcbrum]

Er, aren't sp100's big ? and old ? and legacy kit ? and in museums ?

and if they do strangle, then disconnect the xovers and feed 'em active xover-tri amp. £2k should fix it.

[jcbrum]

I forgot the

[Marco]

LOL. No, they're current stock top-of-the range monitors:

http://www.spendoraudio.com/

Click on 'Classic 'R' Series' for the SP100.

Marco.

P.S They're rather lovely in Rosewood, too! Oh, and Ashley rates them highly, if that makes a difference

[jcbrum]

Oh yeah, they look alright, if you feel you need a 12" willy, er, I mean driver.

I've not got much confidence in 3-way passive xovers, so I'd use electronic and six monobloks.

I'm doing that to a pair of spkrs at the moment.

I think Ash should make some like that but he says no-one in the UK buys large spkrs new.

[jcbrum]

oops, forgot the again

[Ashley James]

I have heard those SP100's numerous times and driven with a variety of amplifiers, though never ones that I'd choose. The worst was a £30K Audionote Ongaku in Paris when they did sound utterly foul, however given any reasonable front end I'd say they are one of the best speakers made and I really like them.

All the measurements we've made of music (an £80 Maplin scope would do) shows a requirement for peaks of 300 - 400 Watts just to listen at normal levels although the continuous requirement is only fraction of a Watt, so I think Richard's Amps aren't powerful enough for modern recordings and this is why he's criticising an extremely good speaker. Modern drive units have more dynamic range than older ones and tend to reveal more obviously underpowered Amps - Instead of booming and spitting, they just spit.

Somewhere else I've commented on the problems of crossovers in three-way speakers so anyone interested can search it out.

One point I would make is this practice (mostly of old) of using the crossover to correct anomalies in the amplitude response of the drive units. It's not good and no longer necessary, most drive units sold now measure well, their usual problem being not enough bandwidth. We take the view that the drive voltages (the music) must be delivered to the drive units phase and amplitude perfect and that unless the drive units are good enough for you to do this, you shouldn't use them. You can't spoil the signal to improve the drive unit, that's what they did years ago because they didn't realise that most people find phase errors more unpleasant than amplitude irregularities, which they probably wouldn't even hear.

[Steve Toy]

Good post Ashley (at bloody last). I think Marco was thinking of going active with them by buying another 4 ECS monoblocks and an active crossover. At 200 Watts and a 1500 VA transformer per box they would have done the job. However, subjectivity took over and a more musical sound (including better dynamics) was derived from a 30 wpc Chinese valve amplifier costing buttons.