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Arx Upgraditis
Oulaw has a new 10 inch subwoofer
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Outlaw 10" sealed sub
It is kind of an odd product for them. 10" sealed sub at the same price as a 12" rythmik sealed servo sub Doesn't seem like a good fit to me. :thinking:
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Arx Upgraditis
First off, thanks for Buford and Jon for the early sneak peak at the upcoming A5. As if the A3 wasn't a monster already, the A5 looks like it just puts it to shame :o .
I'm officially a homeowner now and I'll be moving into my first house sometime in the Fall (once i finish renovations). I plan on having a general HT area in my Living Room, which is open to the kitchen / dining rooms. The Living Room area is 17 x 12. The connected Dining/Kitchen area is roughly 20x10, but that isnt too important. Viewing distance will be about 10 feet from where couches will be in the LR I am guessing.
I've been thinking about how I want to set this up....kinda have a dilemma. I'm a long time Acculine/Arx fan and have quite a collection here... currently I have (2) Arx A2s, and (4) Acculine A2s. grrrr Mismatched black boxes!
I could:
1) Buy another Arx A2 for - Fronts + Center. Buy a pair of Arx A1 for the rears and wallmount them or try Accus
2) Keep what I have. Use Arx A2 for Fronts and use Acculine A2s for Center/Rears.
3) Splurge on a pair of A3s... use existing A2s for Center/Rear Center, use existing Acculine A2s for RL/RR
4) Splurge more on a pair of A5s... use existing A2s for Center/Rear Center, use existing Acculine A2s for RL/RR
5) ????
I am a little concerned about voicing if i go mismatched route. The Acculine is the cousin of BGC's Z-5 and uses the Neo3 tweeter. Personally, I still like them though bass is certainly lacking compared to the XBL drivers, and the Neo3 is a bit more direct/brighter than the new tweeter found in the Arx.
Since my LR is only 17x12, i'm almost wondering if the A3 / A5 will be completely overkill. I'm not filling a gigantic room at all. Ahh dilemmas... Also worried about the Rear Porting being close to walls and having to wallmount these guys. Any suggestions? Any news on what the Arx A6 may be?
Thanks,
MikeComment
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The A5 truly is the A3's BIG brother. It improves on every aspect of the A3's performance. AND it plays louder. Gotta go to work, but more info to come in the A5 thread. I promise. :)
The A5 is the most refined tower pair I have ever heard near its price point (TBA). Ever. It doesn't just play louder....it plays better.Comment
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Also, I'm using an A2 for the center channel above my 55" panel (using a centerstage bracket) along with the A5's. VERY happy with the sound.
Naturally, I'm biased, but I think that if you save/splurge on the A5's, you will NOT be disappointed. There is news in the coming week or two on the A5's initial pricing. I'm not at liberty to say any more at this point in time...but Jon has seriously out done himself with the A5.
I'll compare it to the EMP E55Ti towers (which have a nicer finish and are larger). The bass rolloff curve of the A5's is similar to the V2 tuning of the EMP's.....but the A5 uses the XBL2 motors so distortion is noticeably lower and it is just punchier in the bass region. Midrange clarity and treble clarity (as well as smoothness)....there's no comparison: the A5's smoke the EMPs. It's not even close. And that's saying something because the EMP's are great boxes.
But it's not really fair to compare the two...the A5's cram a LOT more technology, refinement, and quality with regard to the drivers, cabinet sturdiness, and crossover network quality/design than the EMP's You trade the great finish on the EMP's for, literally, hundreds of hours of Jon and I testing the A5's out. The A5's crossover network is genius. I'll let Jon comment more on that, but it is what sets the A5 apart. They compare VERY favorably to B&W's 600 series large tower. And by 'compare VERY favorably', I mean that the A5's sound more articulate AND more organic than the B&W's. Oh, and they also play louder as well.
As long as you can live with the quality-yet-plain finish...you'll not regret waiting for the A5's.Comment
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I definitely wouldn't mind splurging, but at the same time I am wondering if its 'too much' speaker for a small-medium sized room (17 x 12). Thats the only reason I would be leaning towards getting another A2 for a completely matched 3x A2 for Front+Center. Can you also comment on the use of port plugging / recommendations on distances from wall boundaries of the A5? Right now I've been using my A2s on my Computer with the ports plugged since they were right up against the wall.
I actually like the functional appearance of the Arx/Acculines. Its not gaudy looking and doesn't make the speaker the main attraction of a room. I just put in a beautiful Mahogany floor, so its perfectly fine if my guests aren't too distracted with the look of speakers lolComment
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The A5's have the same tunable port plugs as with the rest of the ARX line.
I can't emphasize enough that the A5's do not just play louder, they bring substantial amounts of additional resolution. In fact, I would articulate that the additional resolution (especially in the midrange and the treble) is the biggest additional attribute.
I would relate the difference between the A3 and A5 to going from 720p to 1080p. Both are HD standards, but the clarity of 1080p is head and shoulders above 720p.
My listening room is a black hole for bass, so I'm running the A5's rear inner-corner (I use a moderate amount of toe-in) about 4.5" from my back wall (it's a hollow interior wall). The A5 does respond to changes in proximity to a rear wall. There is no midbass hump, though. So when you sink closer to a wall, you're not looking at the crappy 'bass bloom' of cheaper speakers....there is relatively even (depending on your room) bass reinforcement all the way down to the port tuning frequency.
You can't go wrong with the A2's (I love mine at center), but it's not fair to compare them to the resolution and musicality of the A5. The A5's character is so much more articulate and refined that it COULD have been turned into another line (with requisite cabinet finish upgrades, etc.). The difference is that pronounced. Instead, Jon decided to use it to top the ARX line with a decided angle toward true sonic value. NO disrespect to the A2's intended. ;)Comment
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Did I mention that the soundstage is ENORMOUS. Tall and wide.Comment
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You're welcome, and it's been a fun project.Originally posted by Miwo
Congratulations, Mike!Originally posted by Miwo
Suggestions:Originally posted by Miwo
1) 3x Arx A2 in the front stage gives an enormous soundfield up there, plus perfect matching, and minimal added investment. The old Acculine A2 would be quite good used with boundary reinforcement, and four of them will also match each other perfectly, with the seven speaker's close enough in high frequency profiles to bring the entire system into what I think will be an impressive focus. That's a lot of sound.
2) I'd really recommend that third Arx A2 for center...
3) This is another good plan, and saves you having to balance the front A2's on stands, plus gives you somewhat better focus. The A3 images a little more precisely, whereas the A2 in vertical pairs images larger.
4) Assuming the room can take the A5 - assuming you can place them strategically and not get the room interacting too much - this is naturally your best system.Comment
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again, thanks for the additional input!
After evaluating my options, I don't think there is going to be a one simple solution. Its becoming more and more apparent that I am going to have to fight with room acoustics more than anything in my new house. My mahogany looks great, but makes rooms have a lot of reverberation/echo. I havn't even hooked up any speakers, but I have a huge feeling that this will be my greatest challenge. Sure, Auddesey EQ and calibration may help, but its definitely going to take a lot of experimenting
I think what I will do is start off with another Arx A2 for a matched front soundstage, while using the older Acculines A2 in the rear. That will give me a good starting point on how to deal with room acoustics and placement options. Its also the cheapest option to begin with. Depending on how that works out, I could upgrade to a pair of A5s in the front, then move the Arx A2s to the back. From the imaging and soundstage you guys are describing, it sounds like I might be able to just get away with using a pair of A5s in the front in Phantom/No Center channel mode in a Home Theater. What do you think?Comment
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Miwo, I have repeatedly watched entire movies in straight stereo downmix on the A5's and forgotten that DTS is being downmixed with no center. They throw and incredibly cohesive center image and, IMHO, you could do this quite easily.
Now, if you're a big music listener, this would be a great trade-off. If you're not a huge music listener, you'd be very pleased with A2's across the front.
The A2's oriented vertically would probably be best at minimizing room reflection of high frequencies as the the tweeter tends to be 'steered' over a more narrow vertical dispersion pattern when you use a M-T-M design. That means less floor bounce (and ceiling bounce, if that's an issue as well). My listening room is carpeted, with a soft cloth-covered sectional couch for seating in the listening area, so you're fighting stuff that I don't have to deal with.
The A5's don't have any issues with floor bounce from what I've heard in my listening room. The tweeter and mid seem to orient pretty high with regard to the floor (they seem to be perfect until your ear gets about 6" below the centerline of the midrange...basically even with the dustcover on the top midwoofer...then the highs and mids start to gently roll off)....but ceiling reflections could be another issue entirely for you. I have vaulted ceilings, so it's a non-issue for me.
Do you have any pictures of your listening room (or a diagram)?Comment
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Mike, best of luck and outcomes in toning down the room. Surely there are big gains to be had in treating nearly all interiors. That said, I'd suggest using only minimal electronic EQ, as there is an important fundamental at play here, and it relates to the substantial difference between first arrival and reflected energy.Originally posted by Miwo
I've told a story a few times of how the most shockingly, bewilderingly realistic two-channel presentation I've ever heard, dating back to the late eighties, was in a large, squarish residential room, all plaster over lath, and with a wooden floor to boot. There were virtually no room treatments, unless a big area rug can be considered any kind of serious treatment. Granted, the speakers were close to the corners - which because they were big Altec studio monitors/theater monitors was about the only place they could be - and the combination of the walls and this multiway horn speaker's natural directivity probably took the room somewhat out of the equation. Yet in such an acoustically-hostile environment and owing to the very advanced front-end setup and radical modifications (a complete redesign, actually) to the speakers - which together was easily the purest rig I've ever had the pleasure of hearing - the sound was literally shockingly, transcendently real.
My point is that that all-important "first arrival" from a great system driving great speakers is just as or more important than what the room does to color that first pristine waveform. Rooms really matter, but the emphasis these days on relatively expensive speakers, cheap electronics, and highly treated rooms, is, in my view, getting important priorities backwards. In fact, it's anathema to nearly the entire two-channel community, where the emphasis is on front ends and electronics and then on speakers and rooms.
If you read Buford's posts carefully you'll find, as I recall, that he strongly favors a certain mid-powered audiophile amplifier because it renders such a more convincing soundfield. This is but one clue to what we hear when we listen, as someone on the net once said, "dynamically" rather than statically.
I propose that the listener who hears space, timing, tone color, and physical presence - guys like apparently Buford and EinsteinJB (who just reviewed my Swan D2.1se+ Custom and the new Dana 640i at AVS) and myself tend to really localize the sounds of the recording, and the closer the gear is to the recording and the recording to the performance - in extreme cases, when say, $30,000 in record playback gear becomes critical for a surprisingly large number of audiophiles - the more important it is.
Bringing this back to speakers (all this is a little weird coming from a speaker company, I know) if you get the front end right, and if the speakers have a level of output that faithfully captures that musical energy and presence, then the room recedes into the mental background. We hear through to the source, and we automatically reject a surprisingly high portion of what is admittedly bad room interactions, because they happen well after the "original" message is conveyed to the ear and brain.
Probably there are studies out there that demonstrate and confirm this, just as probably there are plenty of folks determined to use $1k speakers on $199 receivers in "perfect" rooms. Your mileage may vary, etc., etc., but I think guys like Buford and Jeff/einsteinjb, both recording engineers or formerly so, would tend to confirm this theory.
With this in mind I think that using electronic EQ to wisely set the main speaker-to-sub mesh is smart, but I don't recommend a ton of room EQ under nearly all circumstances. The speaker/system's amplitude response is tied to all of its other responses, including phase and time - read: transient behavior. Altering that system's farfield response 'after the fact" and especially at one point in space, which is that point we measure responses at in each respective room, means we've altered the speaker and system's other responses and that in turn means that we've unsettled those responses everywhere else in the room.
Hence, electronically adjusting the basics at the main-to-woofer speaker's crossover point is wise, and in fact the industry has paid far too little attention to this proper mesh for a long time. But substantial electronic room correction is in my view questionable.
How much of this actually applies to your system and room is unknown and so please forgive me dumping this in the middle of your comment, but it is I think a discipline we at TAI would recommend others take a peek at and reconsider some of what might have been their direction.
Get the system right, then get the room right.
I like this a lot: It does good things like give you a completely matched front stage for peanuts, plus it gives the Acculines a reasonable place to do their best work, which is in the boundary-assist mode close to the walls. From there you should have a leisurely and predictable path to get to a clear level beyond, which is the A5, at such time as they launch.Originally posted by Miwo
Which reminds me; I need to devise a way to get a early adopter group together for this model. I was thinking that if we could get maybe a couple dozen guys onboard for the first container of A5s that we could throw in a free set of A1 for each of them or thereabouts. Any suggestions?Comment
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Miwo, see the A5 thread for some nice pix of the ARX midwoofer (found in all ARX models). I think you'll be impressed.Comment
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