And yet another industry first!
Today was an important day…
Much of my time was spent developing our production line testing procedures and standards for the new LX.
As we continue to eclipse our competitors with regards to technical advancements, R&D, and performance, our accomplishment today marks a very significant leap forward.
As many of you know, our QC procedures are second to none. Most manufacturers’ products are batch tested, meaning a few speakers from a large production line are tested. The vast majority are fully assembled and tested overseas with little oversight. Some manufacturers don’t even have their assembled speakers tested prior to packaging.
If speakers are tested, they typically use an LMS or CLIO measurement system. These measurement devices rely on gated measurements to remove the room. They are reliable and fast, but resolution is compromised due to gating. Various issues can and will slip through this type of QC testing.
Our production line test setup uses a MLSSA system with a calibrated Earthworks microphone. MLSSA is incredibly fast and offers powerful post processing mathematical functions. It does, however, rely on gating to remove the room so resolution isn’t ideal. Every single speaker we ship is fully tested using this setup prior to cleaning, packaging, and then shipping.
When I first announced our purchase of the Klippel NFS, I had mentioned recognizing the power that could come with combining NFS data with our MLSSA system.
Today is that day…
Our QC testing setup is in a dedicated off-limits area of our production line. This area is treated to reduce reflections and the environment never changes. No person (other than me) is allowed to touch the fixed microphone or move things around in this area. This way, the environment never changes, and measurements are consistent and reliable.
With our Klippel NFS, we now have the ability generate a true anechoic measurement of the highest resolution possible today. In theory, since our production line testing area does not change, by comparing an NFS generated on-axis response measurement of a speaker, with an ungated MLSSA measurement of the exact same speaker in our production line QC system, we should be able to extrapolate the exact room response of our QC setup.
Using the advanced mathematical processing capabilities of our MLSSA combined with proper stimulus configuration to closely match the NFS, we should technically be able to mathematically remove the room response from our QC tests and thus avoid having to gate the measurement. This would then provide a full range high resolution anechoic frequency response measurement of the DUT. This would allow us to catch any possible resonance or defect, while also giving the customer a frequency response printout that is accurate down to 20Hz! Presently, due to gating, our printed response measurements are accurate down to ~ 250Hz.
Today, after literally a ton of work – my theory was proven true.
Starting with the LX, customers will now receive a true full-range, high resolution, ungated anechoic on-axis frequency response measurement. This was one of my major reasons for our investment in the NFS, but I was unsure if it would even be possible or reliable. Turned out it is functioning better than I anticipated and our production line tests of LX now match our NFS measurements, from 20Hz – 20kHz.
I honestly don’t think any other company is even capable of providing a full range high resolution anechoic response measurement of each speaker a customer will be receiving. Certainly, Harman could do it, but that would require them doing their QC testing at their US facility – and that is not going to happen.
To the consumer, this engineering feat simply means even tighter quality control and a printed full-range high-res response measurement. To me though, this was a big one and something I have wanted to offer to our customers for a very long time now, but just wasn’t technically possible until now.
This new technology will eventually trickle down to our other products as well, but it will take some time.
In the meantime, LX customers are getting something truly unique with major industry advancements, and not just with the speakers themselves…
Enjoy!
Re: And yet another industry first!
That is awesome, I'm glad your theory worked out so well. I'll have to rent a moving van to bring all my speakers back to you to get them all documented! (You know I'm joking, right?)
What a treat knowing how accurate the full bandwidth measurements we will be getting with our new speakers are!
Jay
Re: And yet another industry first!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
davef
Today was an important day…Today, after literally a ton of work – my theory was proven true...
Exciting times, Dave...Congrats on the successful affirmation of all the time, hard work and cost you've passionately invested into this measurement project!! Hopefully the speaker industry takes note and follows, but doubt they'll share your ambition and drive to offer customers these full benefits!
For me, I'm passionate about my music reproduction Fidelity, trusting my Ears and Experienced references to recreate that Live-You-Are-There "3D" In-The-House immersive realism! Over the past 10 years, your Ascend products (Sierra NrT, 2, EX) have steadily advanced these personal listening goals with great satisfaction! Currently, my Sierra-2EX, my system components, my room setup with my Genre of music I love to listen to and use as references, remains jaw-dropping fidelity!!
I've no doubt the new LX and Towers would offer fantastic 2-channel reproduction realism, not necessarily what I've achieved now, but maybe just...different. Guess I'll never know till I'm able/willing to listen to them in My System!! :cool:
Ted
Re: And yet another industry first!
It's great (and rare) to have a manufacturer who's so passionate about creating high fidelity, high value products.
I wish I could listen to the new LX and compare it both subjectively and objectively to my Towers with dome tweeters - that would be a lot of fun, and informative.
Re: And yet another industry first!
If the speaker in this picture were a Sierra LX with an attached full-range high-resolution response measurement ... then there would be at least one pedigree in the picture :D
Re: And yet another industry first!
That's great!
One of the deciding factors in our buying the Sierra speakers was that our beloved dog was named Sierra. She was a mixed breed dog as well - we had her for virtually her entire life.
Re: And yet another industry first!
So, for those of us expecting LXs soon, even if we didn't spend the $250 for the Klippel measurements, we're still going to get something new? Nice!
I guess we've always gotten FR graphs with each Sierra speaker, right? I'm a little fuzzy on that since I have such a weird mix of purchases—full speakers, upgrades, and empty cabinets. I don't even remember exactly what came with what.
So, my new LXs will come with a pair of high-res on-axis FR graphs accurate down to 20Hz—Dave, that's super cool. Man, the hits just keep on coming.
Will this be paper-only or digital? Word on the street is that supply chain problems have made it to paper now, so I'd just as soon save you the trouble of printing something out...
Re: And yet another industry first!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SunByrne
So, for those of us expecting LXs soon, even if we didn't spend the $250 for the Klippel measurements, we're still going to get something new? Nice!
I guess we've always gotten FR graphs with each Sierra speaker, right? I'm a little fuzzy on that since I have such a weird mix of purchases—full speakers, upgrades, and empty cabinets. I don't even remember exactly what came with what.
So, my new LXs will come with a pair of high-res on-axis FR graphs accurate down to 20Hz—Dave, that's super cool. Man, the hits just keep on coming.
Will this be paper-only or digital? Word on the street is that supply chain problems have made it to paper now, so I'd just as soon save you the trouble of printing something out...
we include our production line on-axis frequency response measurement for every Sierra series speaker we ship. However, these are quasi-anechoic gated measurements (gated and only accurate down to about 250Hz)
Now, starting with the LX, as described in this thread, we are including a full range anechoic on-axis measurement that is accurate down to 20Hz. This is printed but we do store the data so it wouldn't be difficult to provide a text file of the response if someone wanted the data to plug into an EQ. It is a bit time consuming on our end to provide this, so we would have to charge a small fee for it, likely $20-$25 or so - but yes, can easily provide this.
Re: And yet another industry first!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
davef
we include our production line on-axis frequency response measurement for every Sierra series speaker we ship. However, these are quasi-anechoic gated measurements (gated and only accurate down to about 250Hz)
Got it. Like I said, since my currently three sets of Sierras are a mix of originals and upgrades, I couldn't remember what was what.
Quote:
Now, starting with the LX, as described in this thread, we are including a full range anechoic on-axis measurement that is accurate down to 20Hz. This is printed but we do store the data so it wouldn't be difficult to provide a text file of the response if someone wanted the data to plug into an EQ. It is a bit time consuming on our end to provide this, so we would have to charge a small fee for it, likely $20-$25 or so - but yes, can easily provide this.
That would be great! Sign me up for that with my LXs—I haven't gotten a shipping notice yet so hopefully there's still time.
