**The Official Arx owner's thread (A1, A1b, A2, A2b, A3, A5, etc.)** - Page 6

Sounds good. Once you've been able to get them fully broken in make sure you come back and post your opinion.

Will do that. How do they sound before they are broken in? Should I expect them to sound "bad" at first?

I don't know that "bad" is the correct word, just a bit tight.

One of the things I found the most enjoyable about the Arx speakers was how open and airy they are, with a tremendous amount of detail with the nuances. At first they seemed somewhat compressed, and on the bland side. As time went on they started to open up the presentation, with the subtleties coming more to life.

The Arx line of speakers seems to be relatively "under the radar" on the internet (and even on this forum) compared to say Ascend speakers or Aperion speakers. Anyone know why that is the case? I am curious...

Very little if any marketing and they haven't been around for along time like Ascend and Aperion. Although Jon Lane has done many other designs and has been around awhile designing all kinds of other speakers. Acculine was the older entry line he made, decided to revise it entirely and came up with Arx line..

Theres also alot of people out there that does not feel comfortable buying from a company that doesn't plaster ads all over the internet or that buys good reviews/awards for its products. Thats not a jab at Aperion or Ascend but there are some out there that produce sub par products and just market the hell out of them and people buys into it.

ProfD, so far the project is aimed to explore an unconventional ratio of component cost and effectiveness to typical retail price structures. It's been called a guerrilla alternative in that it is centered on that principle and on word of mouth, almost nothing more.

As the line gets more models under its belt this will change to some degree, but in any case the project will still seek that principle rather than support for conventional business targets. In audio what sells is momentum. Momentum is based on perception and perception is always being crafted, typically at a cost. As this project expands I suspect it will do so for other reasons, which is why we see it as somewhat experimental.

Jon, any updates to the Dana line on the horizon? I am plotting a 3.0 speaker purchase soon and am trying to decide whether I want to go with three Arx A2bs or step up to Dana 640s and a 630 center. This would be for my home theater, but I care far more about audio quality for music than I do for movies, which has me leaning Dana. I have been enjoying the Swan M200mkIII for several years now, so I am definitely interested in sticking with your products.

Nothing on the horizon but we are planning moves for Dana later this year. If you like what you see now, I don't see better value in the future.

Ok so my Arx A1b's are on the way, to arrive via FedEx late next week. (Hopefully sooner.)
I currently have a Polk RM6750 5 surround speakers.
If I put the Arx A1b pair with the Polk center, will they "sound strange" together? I guess that I am going to find out...

They're here!!!

Great!

Looking forward to reading your impressions on them.

Make sure you break them in before you post your impressions. They really loosen up after 10-20 hours.

My first impressions. These speakers are a major upgrade from my Polk RM6750 fronts.

I am enjoying the A1b's so far. Rich, deep, full sound. Good bass too.

But from the number of posts in this thread, it seems not as many people have this line of speakers on AVS.

Question: can I use one A1b as a permanent center channel? Does the tweeter have to be vertical? Or can it live permanently in the horizontal state?

I don't see why you can't use this as a center permanently. I believe Jon has stated that the tweeter should be rotated to vertical. Hope this helps, Bradley

Yes you can use it as a permanent center. Its really kind of a A2 center minus a woofer. You'll get a nice seamless soundstage using the three identical speakers.

How do you rotate the tweeter? Leaving the center vertical would not pass the WAF test.

Remove the large outside screws on the four corners. Use a knife or something small that you can safely pry up with to pop the tweeter out of place. and then just turn it, pop it back into place and screw back down.

You can find all the details in the ARX Users Guide downloadable from the ARX website http://www.theaudioinsider.com/images/arx_manual.pdf. Here is an excerpt.

1. Remove the grille and lay the speaker on its back on a carpeted surface
2. Using a common screwdriver, remove the four screws that hold the tweeter plate to
the enclosure and set them aside. IMPORTANT: Remove only the four outermost
screws at the extreme outside corners of the tweeter faceplate. Do not remove the
four screws at the corners of the copper-colored diaphragm's window nearer the
center of the tweeter – those four screws attach the tweeter to its faceplate.
3. Gently lift the tweeter an inch free of the front face of the speaker and rotate it 90
degrees either clockwise or counterclockwise
4. Place the tweeter back into the enclosure, taking care to ensure that the sealing
gasket is in place and aligned
5. Replace the four mounting screws and tighten them gently, using a back and forth
pattern to snug them all up uniformly. Take care to not overtighten, bend the
faceplate, or tighten unevenly.

Hi all.

Just had my first two A1b's show up today. Three more should be arriving tomorrow. Speakers should not be able to sound this good for this price.

Here's my first measurement from my listening position. This should be a good baseline for experimenting with placement, although I'm really limited in my tiny apartment.

Anything below 200 Hz is very room and placement dependent, but the bass on that graph is unreal. I don't see how that much bass is possible. TAI's F3 specs are 52 Hz, The graph from 200-10K is amazingly flat. Since this is your first post, you're going to have to establish a track record. Have you posted on other forums?

For the record, I have both A1bs and A5s and I think they are tremendous values. I love the sound. I just can't see how that bass line is possible.

Sorry, I forgot to include that the bass is provided by an SB13-Ultra crossed over at 80Hz. It would really help if I include some details, right? Here's the chain for the sweep: EMM-6 to a behringer zenyx302usb to my PC running hdmi out of nvidia 560(sli'd) to a denon 4311. I did one quick audyssey run on the A1b's and that graph is with dynamic Eq on, so the bass has a house curve. I did that kind of late yesterday, so I didn't want to do a bunch of sweeps and piss off the neighbors.

Again, sorry about my confusion. I forgot that was my first post here at AVS.

Its a good graph as far as entire system goes. But you really want to disable everything except the A1bs mains, and same with a subwoofer measurement disable all others except the one speaker you want to focus on.

Heres the graphs of the A1b from Jon Lane

Ok, here's one without the sub or audyssey. Again it's taken from my listening position.



Here's another measurement, this time I moved the mic forward about a foot. I think I have a little null around 180Hz right at my listening position.

Wow, I wish my room could do that, Hyrlyfrm. Very nice.

My apartment is so small my setup could almost be considered nearfield, almost. My speakers and sub are only 8 feet in front of me, with 6 ft of space in between the speakers.

Could anyone tell me if there is any kind of standard concerning graph smoothing? Mic placement within a 2ft cube produces a surprisingly different result each time, so I consider the smoothing to be a reasonable average. What degree of averaging everyone considers reasonable is what I would like to know.

Those graphs look nice, but any way you could not use smoothing (or use something like 1/8) and go from 200-250hz and up on a 1db or 5db vertical scale?

Here is one of the graphs with 1/48th smoothing. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to be able to make some more measurements with the changes you requested. Unless I can figure out how to change the range and scale on a completed measurement. Can that be done in REW?