Vapor Audio Cirrus? - Page 3

Hey Mike, congrats on that Ducati! Maybe I'll bring my 446 rwhp, 2350 lb, 1995 RX-7 down and we'll do a few laps around Road Atlanta together

I used to make ill informed statements myself like others here. I understand it's just youth, no biggie. With time those guys will learn, and I'm a patient guy. My door in St Louis is always open if anybody wants a listen, and a mind blowing experience!

The better conclusion to your statement would be "...hence giving such good bass performance within the woofer's usable range". A 7-inch woofer with a 5mm xmax still is limited in it's bass extention. A well built cabinet can assist in giving a driver it's best bass performance, but we are still dealing with sheer math. Unless you increase that xmax (thereby losing efficiency) and increase the wattage of the amp, you won't get much usable bass below 45Hz or so at BEST. To get down to 30Hz, you have to start increasing xmax , lowering efficiency then requiring more amplifier power to get that bass loud enough without distortion. I researched the hell out of drivers for my DIY designed car stereo.

My 8-inch midbasses in my doors have an 7.6mm xmax and 87db efficiency. They are dedicated only for midbass and have a terrible response in the midrange frequencies due to the forced focus on improving the driver's deep bass response. They are STILL only usable down to 45Hz or so in a system designed for up to 110db SPL in the midbass frequencies @ a mere 1-meter in a car application.

So, when you tell me your speaker's woofer has fantastic bass response in a normal room yet being designed with a focus on midrange accuracy and having at most a 5mm xmax, I am VERY skeptical of it having any real usable bass below 45Hz, usable meaning, 95db average SPL. The math for driver performance given it's likely design makes it a poor candiate for any serious bass output, regardless of the cabinet design (assuming you shot for a FLAT response in the bass range and didn't engineer a bloated one-note bass frequency from the cabinet design @ say 40Hz like so many people do to make smaller drivers sound like they have surprisingly loud bass).


Ah. what is the crossover frequency? The midbass in my car is the JL Audio ZR800 model. You can look it's specs up online. It's been designed to sacrifice all accurate midrange above 400Hz (unless you use special digital EQs to flatten it's response out) in order to stretch it's low bass response. I'm using a 4-way active speaker design. Your speaker is 2-way. A properly designed 2-way speaker's focus for the woofer should be on midrange, not bass. In proper 2-way designs, bass is always going to be a shortcoming, as it's not the most critical range. I don't have this problem due to lowpassing the 8-inch midbass @ 300Hz @ 18db/octave.

Your 2-way speaker no doubt has amazing midrange quality at moderate volume levels, but it would be quite something if a 2-way driver could pump out a loud/tight "thump" at 50Hz (100db or so) without distorting the vocals or bottoming out. I would put my bet on it not being able to pull that off. I cannot tell you how many "high end" bookshelf speakers I've tried out in high end shops with a dynamic drum track and a nice deep "kick" where when I cranked that volume knob, the speaker clearly chuffed and puffed while hitting it's xmax and not even coming close to putting up the proper bass SPL level I expected. I'm skeptical, that's all, based on years of listening to different speakers.

My car design obviously has acoustic challenges to overcome through tuning. Your speaker's challenge is that it's forced to make a choice based on limited capability of a 2-way design to be high output in all frequency ranges. It's just the reality. A sub is absolutely necessary to get realistic bass response that most listeners will expect.

This has been my exact experience also, in 10 years of high end audio. Not just with monitors but with almost all floorstanders as well. Not just with dinky amps but with big front end amplification such as Bryston.

Audiophile speakers are great with jazz and small ensemble, but break down with distortion at the slightest type of bass or musical congestion.
Im telling you the Cirrus is not like that and it has deep and punchy bass, better than my previous floorstanders with 9" side firing woofers. As well as the great cabinet the Cirrus has large sized foil inductors, duelund resistors and high end capacitors which are not even found on speakers many times it's price.

The person who put me onto Vapor Sound was a Heavy Metal freak and former dealer who had been in the hobby since the 80's. He was so pumped about finally finding a speaker that could punch out decent bass without compression breakdown.

Sent a PM the other day; did you get it?

I talked to Turbo at the RMAF and he told me about the comparison between the SoundScape 10s and his Cirrus speakers. I think his test was unfair. The SoundScapes are an open baffle speaker and he didn't even use them in the open baffle mode. Also the speakers are apples to oranges. The Cirrus is designed to be a musical speaker and the SoundScape is designed to be a transparent speaker.

The Cirrus is a very fine speaker. I would rather not compare the two.

Bob

PS I have SoundScape 10s

Bob, your exact words to me at RMAF were in regards to the Cirrus "It's more detailed" and "It's more musical". So without knowing it, you confirmed exactly what I intended with the Cirrus - for it to combine resolution and musicality.

And why would that not be a fair comparision when the owner of those Soundscape 10's said that he didn't like the way they sounded when running open baffle? It was HIS decision to fill the rear chamber with stuffing, because in his words with a full open back the soundstage is just too diffuse without ability to have focused, pinpoint imaging when the recording calls for it.

Yes, I probably did say It's more detailed. I was speaking about the open baffle mode of the SoundScapes. Open baffles add ambiance that reduces detail a little bit.

I also probably said It's more musical too and maybe that the Cirrus was a warmer speaker. In my post above I said that it was designed to be a musical speaker. That is exactly what you told me you designed it for.

The open baffle mode of the SoundScapes does take more effort to sound its best than speakers without a rear wave pattern. It took me a couple of months to get the best out of my SoundScapes. I am sorry the owner wasn't able to get his SoundScapes to fly in the open baffle mode.

I did tell you at the RMAF that by running the SoundScapes in the closed back mode that you were only running them at half throttle.

Bob

I never said it was designed to be a musical speaker. My goal is as much resolution as possible without ever losing the romance of music.

I've built plenty of open baffles over the years, I know well what the approach brings to the final sound. Maybe for your taste running them with the chamber stuffed is "half throttle", but the owner of those SS 10's disagrees ... and he has a very good ear, and a finely tuned system/room. He has since sold his Soundscapes btw. I don't doubt at all though that you enjoy them more with the chamber un-stuffed, we all have different taste.

I do personally need the ability to have pin-point imaging in my speakers when called for by the recording. I have a few different open baffle experiements I'm working with, but to date haven't found a configuration that is able to do both big and diffuse ... and pinpoint.

In the previous post you said:


Isn't that what you say you never said!?

I do have my chamber stuffed to the max. There is still a lot of sound that comes out the back. I do lose the pinpoint imaging that you want though. It still images very well. It images like live music. That pinpoint imaging you are talking about is artificial. You can easily put the back on the SoundScapes to get as pinpoint an image as you want though. It is magnetically attached.

Bob

TurboFC3S, I have been reading a great deal of posts researching my next speaker purchase. Of these when Jim Salk, Denis Murphy, Dave Fabrikant and others personally respond on this and other forums it is always with extreme patience and class. While you may build a fine loudspeaker and may not care what I think, my speaker is better than your speaker reply, in my opinion is highly disrespectful.

Maybe we're just not communicating here. Your words are that I said I designed it to be a musical speaker ... that's not at all the case. I consider a musical speaker to be something like a Harbeth. I designed it just like I said, to be as resolving as possible without losing sight of musicality. That's a lot different than saying it's meant to be a musical speaker.

There are plenty of detailed speakers out there. There are plenty of musical speakers out there. But very few that are incredibly resolving AND musical. And like I said, your comments at RMAF are exactly what I hope people think when they listen.


Then you had your chamber same as the owner did when I did the A/B comparison. He had the rear cover off, but the chamber fully stuffed.

I happen to think the image done by open baffle speakers is artificial, not the other way around. OB's make everything big, and often bigger than they should be. Of course that's just my opinion, but I've built some fantastic OB speakers that are tons of fun to listen. I personally want the ability to throw and huge stage, AND do pinpoint when the recording calls for it.

That's not my intent ... I don't think I've once said my speakers are better than the Soundscapes, which we're talking about right now. In fact I specifically didn't want to post my opinions of the comparision because of my obvious bias, and I still haven't posted them. I'm just talking with Bob who I met in person at RMAF, who owns Soundscapes, and who heard my Cirrus.

I may have read more into your posts than was written and been overly critical but that's just the way it came across to me. Much success with your designs.

Well I sincerly have nothing but respect for Jim and Dennis, and everything they build. Their success is what allows others like myself to enter the market without having to convince people of why they should consider my speakers. If I wasn't in the business, and somebody came to me asking for purchase advice, Salk would be my first choice.

I just happen to be in the business, and build my speakers in ways that I think differentiates us nicely. Not in a way where one is better, just different ... and up to the customer to decide which is better for them.

Turbo is being too kind. Apparently those in the room, including some industry names, preferred the Cirrus over the Soundcape 10, which cost $11,999.

I think this is what got fsimms going, basically thinking it must not have been a fair comparison. It certainly could be personal preference over box vs open baffle. I think it could also be the difference of a multi driver speaker vs coherence of a good 2-way.

Were these speakers tested by trained listeners in a blind test? What type of methods were used to eliminate any subjective bias for the listeners? Were all speakers tested firing from the same location in the same size room to the same seated position? I'm curious how these opinions were reached.

Seriously?

I think thats a valid question.

Thats a bit of a goading question Timothy91, it's obvious this was not a DBT shootout, and Turbo never claimed it was or that his speaker was better. My comments come from what others have said on other forums. How many listeners are 'trained' in DBT testing anyway. Subjective expectation bias would point to the larger and 3x more expensive speaker being preferred.

I presume the Soundscape 10 speakers were positioned optimally because they were used in the room for the shows days as the main systems speaker?

I will say the Cirrus is easy to position, but it needs space out from the rear wall. The RAAL does not seem to beam an image to a small sweet spot, and the Salk also uses this tweeter. Turbo is this a general RAAL characteristic or crossover feature unique to your design?

Sounds like this happened at a show. If you haven't been to one, these are not generally set up for DBT's, nor do I see anyone claiming that they were done. The opinions appear to be subjective (nothing wrong with that).

Manufacturers rarely perform DBT's against the competition. In general, those types of comparisons are usually, and should be done by 3rd parties to avoid any perception of bias or improper testing. If anyone is interested enough, they could purchase both speakers and perform the DBT, but at the end of the day, speakers, unlike electronics, do have "personality" so "better" is very much going to be based on the preferences of the specific listener.

Kind of a slap in the face to those who were in the room. I did not see any of them in a suit or wearing a badge however. How do you get qualified to be a trained listener? I am sure my wife would foot the bill on this adventure.

Actually, it appears that it was done in someones house in St Louis or around the area. A little get together if you will. I heard both were amazing.

Actually one of the few companies that openly/transparently show you their speaker testing and evaluation process is Harman/Infinity. During the development of CMMD in the late 1990's, Infinity setup a state of the art speaker evaluation method to eliminate subjective opinion and focus on obtaining the lowest distortion sound.

Part of that testing process involves evaluating people for their natural ability to hear speaker distortion. Infinity then developed a software program to help the naturally gifted listeners to improve their abilities at identifying distortion in double blind testing.

Now, I'm not saying they had a perfect evaluation method (it's missing emphasis on comparisons for imaging & dynamics which can still be poor on a low distortion speaker system) but it's the best method any company has shown to the public. I'm sure each speaker producer have their own subjective blind testing methods. In my own evaluation of Infinity's older CMMD speakers, I've thought the imaging wasn't the best I had heard, but it's definitely a clean sounding speaker. The recently discontinued flat-voice coil speakers Harman designed weren't the most dynamic speakers but actually had good imaging and low distortion. In today's flat screen TV world, Harman might want to redesign the "look" of the speaker and give it a new name and try again.

In recent years Infinity have engineered a reduced quality to their speakers that I have personally criticized. About 7-8 years ago you could truly get quality speakers at low prices. Now, so many companies have "cheaped out" their design that Harman has also lowered it's quality at the low price points. 7-8 years ago, Infinity CMMD Alpha & Beta tower speakers were as good as Harman's top of the line "Revel" brand of today, costing many thousands of dollars. This shows you that today's speaker market at the low cost points it's hard to find a high quality sound.

Here is a great article on understanding how Harman (or any legit company) properly tests a speaker to eliminate subjective bias:

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/0...udspeaker.html

You don't have to build a setup as elaborate as Harman/Infinity has to do a proper blind evaluation. That article & video link explains it decently.

I want to stress that in music-based audio production, there have been very poor controls and standards for that industry. If every music studio used speakers that were of similar design, dynamic capability and the console itself had a reference level average (much like we have in movie production thanks to Lucasfilm) then highly developed speakers like Infniity put out a decade ago would be amazing. However, due to the wide range of recording techniques, awful mastering and inconsistency from music studios, speaker buying for "music" is a pretty subjective practice and I can't object to it. People should buy the speakers that they think "sound best" until an industry standard is set for music. It certainly doesn't hurt to build speakers that are tested head to head against competition using ideally recorded material and consistent evaluation methods.

Really? Did they do the DBT thing? Were men in suits and badges at the listening session? I think reviewers would have a different opinion on the Revel Ultima II compared to the CMMD. Revel/Harman did not cheap out on this design. I have a very good feeling you have never heard these Revel Ultima's.

The same technology that developed the old Alpha & Beta model speakers still are used in Revel's speakers today. While I'm sure there are minor tweaks in the crossovers, there are Revel models that look very similar to the old Alpha & Beta series. Im saying that the Alpha/Beta series from 7-8 years ago were an amazing value giving people a serious audiophile grade speaker system at a very small comparitive cost. Revel is simply taking the same technology and pricing the speakers made from it correctly today. To anyone who has followed the changes to Infinity speakers in the last 8 years can see the quality in the lower cost range is substantially reduced.

I meant no disrespect on Revel speakers. They are a very good product and developed with much of the best speaker science in the business. I was COMPLIMENTING your speaker of choice.

Well I am glad you feel this way and need to know that one Vapor Audio Cirrus owner had sold his Revel Ultima Salon's in favor of the Cirrus. Anyone that owns the Cirrus has pretty much stated amazing results and feels this speaker plays well above it's price range. According to these owners the Cirrus is one of the best deals in Audio at the moment. Once you hear one of these ID brands you will then understand.

If they do not have their badge on you can tell someone is a trained expert in DBT just by the way they look. They are usually bearded, wear a cardigan, shorts and sandals with socks pulled up knee high.

I swear I have seen this guy in San Fransico on more than one occasion.

The socks have to be black BTW.

No tan, definitely tan.