**The Official Seaton Sound Speaker Thread** - Page 5

thanks Mark. i was guessing it was somewhere between 150-250hz

so with dual 12s handling 50-200hz i bet they have some nice mid-bass punch and they're sealed so they probably match up with a Submersive (or 2 or 4) quite nicely with 5 (or 7) Catalysts all the way around

After what seems like aeons my Catalysts finally arrived !!

I must say, these speakers way a ton! And they're huge... !

Been listening most of the day to some of my vast (700+) blu-ray collection. Mostly live music sofar, also a bit of opera thrown in for good measure (really taxing stuff for any audio setup). The coming days I have planned for movie watching and listening to cd's.

Loved listening to 'Panther' (Legends of Jazz), Robbie Williams live at the Albert, Tiësto, Legends live at Montreux, 'Feeling good' by Bublé (Hit Man), among others.

Man, it is easy to play at levels where you feel like you're in the hall there with thousands others listening to Tiësto's 'Elements of Live'...

Playing Robbie Williams I discovered my surrounds played too loud, meaning I had reduced the LCR settings too much (-10dB in stead of about -9dB), coming from RS850's. The 5.1 audio Toolkit was a quick way to solve that.

Will need more time for a more global impression, and to find some sturdy speaker stands. But for now I can say that I am quite impressed!

Congrats! Where are the pics?

By the way, are you using subwoofer(s)? If so, which?

+1

:d

No pics for the time being. Maybe after I'm finished with the room..

My subs are 2 SubMersives, which arrived in januari. Pre-amp is a TAG av32dp, which next year might be "upgraded" to an Anthem D2 or similar. I really miss having auto-setup on my pre-amp!

Just noticed that the Catalysts are definitely NOT magnetically shielded, on an old computer monitor standing close by. Won't be an issue for 99% of the customers today I'm sure. Oh well, just move it a bit I guess..

Great to hear the Catalysts arrived safely (full hardboard on all 4 sides of the pallet - just in case), and even better that you are already enjoying them. The levels will certainly sneak up on you as there really isn't any indication from the speakers that you are pushing them.

Enjoy and feel free to play around with the settings and integration of the Catalysts with the SubMersives. You have plenty of performance to work with there.

Hi Mark,
what are your thoughts on flush mounting (soffit mounting) the Catalysts (and Sparks)? What are the particular facets of the sound that would either improve or get worse?

If I had free reign in terms of placement, what would you recommend in terms of A) free-standing placement, and B) flush mounting?

thanks

Hi Mark, thanks for all your efforts in shipping these 'adult sized' babies savely across the ocean!

Despite a slight flu coinciding with a totally unexpected 4 day early (!) 418 lbs delivery, the past few days have been absolutely wonderful.

Had to still get high quality XLR cables for them and rearrange a good part of the room before I could place, connect and calibrate these 3 heavy weights.

Yesterday morning I finished all that and have been listening to the Catalysts since.

I had a whole bunch of recordings that I knew were either hard to reproduce 'right' or sounded bad on my ninja RS850's.

Not all were (now) flawless. The biggest revelation for me, besides a growing admiration for your design, is that many recordings are to some extend flawed.

For example: Oleta Adams - Rhythm of Live, from one of the '2 meter sessions' albums contains lots of hard sibilance like sounds. It still is far from perfect on the Catalysts, but now I feel I'm hearing precisely what is on the disc.

My confidence about a truthful audio reproduction through the Catalysts is quite high already, but in no way am I finished checking out recordings to find limitations.

I haven't been able to play extremely loud for too long yet, which I hope to remedy the coming days.

Ettepet

Glad to hear you received your catalysts safely.
Did they come by surface (sea) or by air.
Roughly what was the cost?

Craig.

Thanks.

Shipping (air freight) was slightly above $800, although with the extra protection Mark added at the last moment it might have risen some.

Very nice indeed! What did you have before?

6x RS850 (2x ninja), 1x RSC200 and 2x RSS300. Sofar the RS850's are doing quite well as surrounds. My room is getting somewhat crowded with all these speakers + subwoofers...

850's as surround.
Nice.

Pics?

Mike

That's not bad, I thought it might be a bit more by air freight.
I will be ordering 3 catalysts pretty soon when the sale of my other speakers hopefully goes through. I'm hoping the shipping is no more than that to Australia but hey if you want them bad enough you have to pay whatever. (within reason). Not aware of any down here yet so maybe I will be the first to have a full Seaton system in Australia.

Flush baffle mounting is the ideal, although it's not yet become very popular beyond consultants/designers. The primary trade offs relate to the flush mounting offering the opportunity for much smoother frequency response and intelligibility, where pulling speakers a few feet out into the room makes it easier to achieve the spaciousness and subjective depth for direct 2ch playback.

For a dedicated home theater, the only benefit to not mounting speakers flush in a baffle is greater freedom in placement.

Mark, does putting catalysts behind false wall fall into the category of neither of the above?

More toward out in the room, but correct, it's a point in between. Obviously flush mounting requires much more planning and build out.

Don't misunderstand. As many have demonstrated, the Catalysts and many speakers can sound quite good placed behind a false wall, especially with thick treatments on the front wall and some form of EQ (Audyssey or similar or manual EQ). The question was what was best/better, not what can you get good sound from.

If have been keeping up on the Seaton Sound products ever since Ettepet started raving about them ;-) I'll catch up with him in the near future to demo his Catalyst setup.

The Sparks also look interesting to complete the surround setup. Only 11" is too deep when you want to want to build a speaker into a column or wall-mount it. Not forgetting the XLR and power connectors.

Any plans for a surround speaker which is less deep format-wise? Or can you advise on another brand which can keep up with the Catalyst as fronts?

Hi Robbo,

I have a shallower alternate to a Spark in the plans, but I currently don't have a time line for that yet given all of what needs to currently get done with TerraformXLs and the like. I do agree and consider such a speaker with a gross depth of ~8" appealing.

wow!! That would be very cool!

Hi All,

After living with the sparks for a month and having opportunity to compare them to the following speakers in my living room Its time for some detailed impressions....

My listening room is here.... Its just a normal living room. It has some treatments but still has to much re-verb. We have tri traps in the corners and 4" panels in front of the tri-traps for bass absorption.


View from the Rear:


View from the Left Side:



Speakers Compared

Mirage M3si $3500/pair in 1992 when new.
AV123 X-SLS Encore
AV123 Rocket 450
AV123 Strata Mini
Seaton Sound Sparks

NOTE: The above links don't work on AVS because the keyword A V 1 2 3 seems to be banned The links do work on the same post I made in the Seaton Sound forum here!.

Associated Equipment:

APC Power Conditioner
Onkyo 876 Receiver (all comparison were done with Audessy off)
AppleTV
Xbox running XBMC
PS3
DirecTV HR-20 DVR
Behringer 1124DSP
Wii
Roku Streamer
Popcorn Hour PCH A-110
Variety of center channels (Mirage M-Csi, AV123 X-Voce, Spark, Onyx Ref 100)
12 gauge OFC speaker wire with banana plugs on both ends...
Panasonic
Panasonic TH-PZ5-80u Plasma TV
Acoustic Treatments from ATS Acoustics and GIK Acoustics.

Background Info
All speakers were compared sighted in the same room. Each speaker was placed and calibrated for its optimal performance. Example. The mirage like to be farther apart than the mini's who like to be closer together. I did my best to optimize each speakers placement and performance in this space.
The sparks were setup by Mark Seaton.

All speakers were compared using an 80hz crossover and a Seaton Sound Submersive subwoofer with a behringer BFD eq. Placement and EQ of the sub was performed by Mark Seaton.

Source material was of a variety of types, and was listened to at a variety of levels over the course of the last month. The primary focus of this review is 2 channel performance but some comparisons were done using HT material....

Home Theater Impressions

Lets get the HT info out of the way up front. As most who have heard the sparks or catalysts can attest to, The sparks/catalysts excel at home theater. I have never heard any other speaker that can provide the clarity and dynamics of the sparks while remaining refined, except for Seaton Sound catalysts which take it up yet another notch. I am not sure the sparks or catalysts have any competition for HT use at anywhere near their price point. I certainly haven't heard anything or can think of anything that can compare... Again I don't think I am providing any new info here....


So now that I have made my opinion on HT usage clear lets explore the question that everyone wants to know.... How do they perform as a 2.1 Stereo speaker used for music. A lot of users are considering these for HT usage but also listen to music a lot (like me) and want to know how they stack up in that realm....


Dynamics:

No real surprises here... The sensitivity of the sparks combined with the 275W of ICE power make them a tremendously potent package. The can easily play at ear splitting levels.... (My room started overloading at 103db-105db at my listening position 8 feet back from the speakers.) They are also equally as happy with classical music humming along quietly and then exploding with loud crescendos. None of the other speakers I compared them can come close to the sparks ability to play loud or handle loud transients... The Rockets are probably second but a far distant second. The mirages and minis can soak up some power but they are just not efficient enough to produce the peak SPL's of the sparks. The X-SLS would come in last in the this test IMO..... Again, no surprise here and explains why they excel at home theater so much..... They certainly meet there design goals... I can easily see Sparks energizing very large rooms or outdoor areas with little trouble.... They certainly did at my house.

Another side benefit of this is not having to worry about melting voice coils... I was working outside a few weeks ago and turned the sparks toward the back screen door. Turned up the volume to +6db and left it that way for hours.... No problems.... Any of the other speakers would have suffered a voice coil meltdown at those kinds of levels.

I can also say I found myself listening to movies and to music at higher levels with the sparks than the others... The effortless nature of the presentation at higher volumes just makes me want to turn it up.

Tonal Balance:

This is where things start to get interesting. Lets work from the top down....

Treble: The sparks are quite a bit more forward in the treble than any of the other speakers I had on hand. They are far brighter than the X-SLS's or the mini's (the most laid back of the bunch) and even more than the Rockets and Mirages.... Certainly not my first choice for music but I did not find them fatiguing... If anything this forwardness added to their revealing nature, they really reminded me of watt/puppy 5's in this respect. To me this is a minus, to others it might be a plus. It all depends on what you like.... Most of this forwardness in the treble was corrected by the audessy curve with audesy enabled.... Despite the compression driver not being known for their refinement the sparks held their own here.... Not quite as fluid or subtle as the VIFA tweeter in the Rockets or the planar tweeter in the mini's but again never tiring like some other speakers I have heard (Klipsch, Infinity, B&W,Wilson's)....

Midrange To me one of the most important characteristics of a speaker. The sparks here were surprisingly refined. easily beating the X-SLS's and even the rockets... In most cases though at moderate levels I preferred the mirages here despite 15 years old. But the true star is this area are the mini's.... They are silky smooth, luscious and warm.... They are like sweet honey.... Think magnepan and martin logan all the way.... I did not expect that a 8" driver would do as well as the spark did though. Especially when coupled with the mid bass. I have generally found that 2-way designs start distorting the midrange when the bass content rises. I did not hear any trace of that in the sparks. Their midrange presentation is definitely hi-fi but not quite as refined as my mirages and or the mini's but managed to outclass the less expensive speakers in this comparison. I will also note I did not hear any of the lower midrange thickness in male vocals that some noticed in male vocals in the catalysts at Peter's GTG. It was not an issue.

Bass: All speakers were crossed over at 80hz so I am talking about the midbass... The midbass on the sparks in one of their strengths they can provide midbass on par with the M3's from a quality perspective and can outpace them in quantity. The mini's fall in somewhere behind those 2 and the rockets and x-series bring up the rear. The X-series tend to be a little fat here (which i dint mind) where as the attack and decay of bass notes on the sparks and mirages is exceptional. I'm not sure if they are in same league an LS-6 or a catalyst but incredibly impressive for a speaker of its size... The sheer volume of midbass these little guys can produce is impressive. Integration with the subwoofer was flawless mark dialed everything in sweetly and I could never isolate the sub and here anything weird going on here. I just got an abundance of tight clean bass. Nothing bloated. Nothing hanging... Attack and Decay were exceptional. The Mirages again also excelled in this area... The atom midbass driver in the minis performace well at reasonable levels but crossover on it is not steep enough to filter out enough low bass content at high levels....

Off axis both horizontally and vertically the sparks remain very listenable. They seems to have a very wide dispersion pattern very much the opposite of the mini's and their planar Miran and tweeters....

Imaging: To me this is probably the most critical aspect of a 2 channel speaker. I like speakers that offer big spaces, yet provide specificity in the image.... I like speakers that can just disappear..... The sparks do an admirable job here... They present a nice 3-d sound stage with good image specificity. They are on par or better than the X-SLS's. They easily beat the rockets IMO. They provide a very up close and personal view. Think front row at the concert hall.... The rockets and mini's have more of a mid hall presentation..... The mirages are front row+... As well as the sparks did they were outclassed by the mirages and the mini's..... The mirages throw the biggest most spacious image of the bunch. They can flat out disappear and have the best 3-d depth of any of the speakers here.... This is easily heard on any of the "Jazz at the Pawnshop" discs. They lack a little of the image specificity of the mini's but they make up for it in spades with their sonic holography. The minis's also can just disappear and they provide the best image specificity by far but they can't produce an image as deep or as a wide mirages but this detail is down right spooky on tracks like the ballad of bill hubbard from Roger Water's "Amused to Death" Album. All the speakers here can reproduce the q-sound tricks but mini's even out pace the Mirages because of how specifically you can locate all the crazy surround effects. I can't tell you how many people just don't believe that is a 2 channel track. It sounds like 7.1! really!

The mirages here have the biggest sweet spot followed by the mini's and then the others... I found the sweet spot on the sparks to be a little narrow.... comparable to the rockets and X-SLS's..... Dunno if the fact that they were setup so wide and toe'd in quite a but had something to do with it. Not something that I find terribly important but notable none the less.....

Aesthetics:

All the other speakers here are either wood veneered and/or piano lacquer. This is certainly a personal preference but the matte black nature of the sparks lend themselves more to dark theater's than prominent display in the listening rooms. I have seen Seaton Sound's new veneered submersives in person and can say they look great and imagine we will see the catalysts and the sparks get the same treatment in the not too distant future.

Summary: The sparks are a world class speaker in most regards. They are absolute stars at home theater. They can play quietly and loudly and reproduce the most demanding transients. They offer a lot of detail (forward treble), a good midrange and excellent midbass. Their imaging is far more refined than i expected.. If I were searching for my perfect speaker for a pure two channel setup would I choose the sparks? No, the Stata mini's are just too darn good in that regard. On the other hand the Mini's and Mirages don't hold a candle to the sparks for home theater. The forward presentation coupled with surround sound added spaciousness and intelligibility to the dialog in a very positive way.
As a crossover product I think Seaton Sound has a real winner here... From a value perspective they are an excellent value considering what you are getting. forget about matching with the right amp and worrying about the integration. Simply plug em in and your done.... The sparks provide a nice dose of high end sound. They are far more refined than I expected given their design goals... I think that many people could easily live with these in a as dedicated monitors for music with no regrets. They do the music crossover better than any of the music speakers I have heard trying to do Home Theater.
They offer a lot of performance in both realms. Clearly they are biased towards home theater but their performance against 2 channel monsters like the Mini's make them a real contender for anyone considering them for an all in one solution. Highly recommended and a great value....

Please feel free to ask any questions.....

Have a great weekend.... I am going home to watch a movie tonight on the Sparks and then off Yoshi's tomorrow night to see Chuck Mangione....

Awesome review, Sean. Thanks!

Have you ever heard the Catalysts, even if for a brief period of time? How would you compare the Catalysts to the Sparks in general terms? e.g. more/less forward treble, midrange, etc?

Also, what do you mean when you say the Sparks "overload" the room at 103+ dB? That doesn't mean that things started to sound bad because of (perhaps) distortion or harsh treble, does it?

OK, sounds good.

Looking from a Custom Installers perspective a depth of 4" would give you a lot more flexibility. Height is usually not a problem. For example look at Genelec AOW312B or Triad in-wall surrounds.

Wow! Very cool review. Sparks have my attention for sure. For those that have heard these...how might a L C R Spark set up compare to our current which is Rocket 850's and the BIGFOOT? I am powering the Rockets with the Earthquake Cinenova Grande 5.

Dave

Sean, you're saying that the Sparks are "bright" sounding but you're basing your comparison on mostly A V123 products which are well known to be "laid back" sounding (I've always thought that they sound muddy).

As far as soundfield goes, just in playing with their positioning, the Sparks seem to have a presence every bit as good as large floorstanding speakers with good off-axis response (though more horizontally than vertically).

I would describe the Sparks in many ways but never "bright." "Revealing," "True to source material," "transparent," "dynamic," etc....

EDIT: I wroe this Saturday night but somehow the post click did not go through.....



I have heard the catalysts twice at Peter house both 2.1 and 7.1. They are extremely similar in sound. There is not as much difference as you might imagine or the price might reflect.

What I meant about overloading the room at some point there is not enouh abosrption in my room and when you turn it up more and its mud... The spark had another 8b+ left in it but cant use it...

Thats how powerful these little guys are... you expect the catalysts to belt out some serious sound. The sparks deliver big volume sound in a small package.

Mark told me the sparks were special and he is right..... Th catalysts just take it even farther.
My room here could no take any more SPL. I'm sure there are other befits of the 3 way design but sparks are uber loud....

Off to Yoshis to See chuck mangione!

Sean

I never said they were bright. I said they were brighter than the X-SLS's and forward in the treble which they are IMO comapred to the speakers I compared them to including the mirage which is not known as a laid back speaker... There is no right or wrong answer here just different preferences...

On the imaging they are good but not as good as the mini's or the mirages. They lack the width and depth of image of the mini's and mirages. They certainly are not a transparent as the mirages or minis which IMO are not as transparent as a good pair of electrostats... In terms of setup Mark himself set them up.... I tweaked em some more afterward but always ended up back where Mark had placed them.... Curious, what speakers are you comparing em too?

Revealing, yes, a little too revealing for my tastes.... again reminds of Watt/Puppies. I would assume most would take that as a compliment. They are certainly popular and widely heralded and cost 5x the price.

Accurate... Thats a tough word to throw around. Consider the following...

I had a chance to hear the Vandersteen 5's at a local dealer last fall. Richard Vandersteen was in town for the event. Vandersteens are as you say well known for being laid back. Someone asked Richard about this and his reply was the following. We design our speakers to be as neutral as possible. We often run blind A/B comparison in our studio of Live performers and then recorded playback of the same performers. On more than one occassion we have received comments from the listening panel that it sounds like the tweeter was broken and the recording lacked detail. The recording they were referring too was in fact the live performance and not the recorded playback!

something to ponder...

Sean

I do not really like such comparisons but ........ anyone care to contrast Paradigm Studio 100's v3 to the Sparks?

Second question. How much clearance is necessary from the back of the Sparks to the wall?

I am interested in getting a matched set across the front. I really like the Paradigm sound but they will not sell a set of three fronts, you have to buy their center channel. If I went with the Sparks I could sell my Anthem P5 amp and probably pay for almost two of the three fronts.

Since my screen is a 130x55 SMX AT screen so not paying for a finish is very appealing.

Can't compare to the paradisgms as I have not heard any lately....

Physically the sparks could get 3"s from the wall limited by the XLR connection from the rear. If there is such a thing as a right angle XLR you could get them even closer... Obviously there are issues when one puts a speaker really closeto a room boundary that need to be dealt with but thats not really anything specific to the sparks.

Sean