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Thread: 340s with/without subwoofer

  1. #81
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
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    Charter Oak, Iowa
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    579

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    Quote Originally Posted by craigsub
    I am fine with that. Be well.
    And it best be left with that. An agreement to disagree is as best as it's apparently going to get.

    Randy

  2. #82
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Phila.
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    228

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    This is a quote from the first night's session Craig did to clear up some of the questions NewBuyer had:

    "Tonight, as promised, we started the blind listening tests. The system being used is a McIntosh MA-6900 200 WPC Integrated Amp and a modified (UnderWood Wally) Denon 2900 Universal Player. We did make a change in music to Steely Dan's "2 Against Nature (2AN)" DVD/A and Sarah McLachlan's "Solace" CD.

    For the set up, the Rocket 550's are about one foot away from the wall, both backs and sides. The Ascend 340's are just inside the 550's. This means the 550's are 12 feet apart, and the 340's are 10 feet apart. I am 11 feet from the speakers, and each is toed in a bit.

    The STF-1 has the deepest response when corner loaded, so it is in the corner behind the speakers.

    The results:

    Speaker System "A" : Starting with Steely Dan, with the lows, it was clear this speaker had quality bass, my ears tell me "A" was good to the low 30's in bass extension. This disc has bass to the mid teens, as our B4+ has shown many times. "A" was missing that last octave completely, but what bass it did do was articulate, tuneful, and tight. The song "What a Shame about me" has some VERY powerful bass notes, and "A" was good, but again, not into the last octave.

    On Solace's "Backdoor Man", it was more of the same. It has some outstanding deep bass in the beginning (apparently, when this disc was mastered, twin Hartley 24 inch drivers were used with the monitors), this bass is combined with the kick drum... very difficult and powerful down to 22 Hz. "A" was good in the low 30 Hz and up range again.

    In the mids and highs, "A" was a LOT better than one would expect for the money. Guitar from "Solace" and Sax from "2AN" were presented with only a small amount of "nasal" quality. Sarah's voice was quite clear and seductive, and there is some upper bass playing that is almost grungelike, and this came through with a lot of punch.

    Soundstage was quite deep, and wide as the room... with a believable presentation. More on soundstaging as the tests continue.

    Dynamics were quite good, "A" could easily hit 100 dB peaks in our large room before sounding conjested. This room is 43 x 14 feet, so that is no small feat.

    Speaker "B" : Starting again in the Bass, Take everything from Speaker "A" and drop the response to the low 20's. The bass quality is as good as the "A" speakers, but the depth and power are better. While they were not B4+ in power, "B" gave the impression of being a truly full range system, lacking only the last 1/3 octave, rather than the full octave. For example, the "grungelike" bass form Solace was presented by "B" with a foundation lacking in "A". It WAS playing bass you could feel as well as hear. When you consider these systems are $1000, that is remarkable.

    Mids and highs were quite similar between the two systems. "B" was excellent on guitar, sax, drums... all of it. Compared to "A" it was a bit more open and relaxed, though not quite as focused. "B" was an imaging and soundstaging champ, They gave a lot more of a feeling of the musicians being across the room in front of you to a great degree than did "A"

    Dynamics in "B" were astounding. I listened for about 30 seconds at 105 dB from the listening position with little or no congestion at all. "B" is definitely shaping up to be a possible choice for a larger room."

    The room Craig used is 43 x 14 feet, this is far from a small room. Also you will note, the program material used has some significant bass extension. Down into the teens for the Steely disc and 22hz for the Backdoor Man track from Solace. I believe Craig also used the 1812 Overture and Roger Waters' In The Flesh, not very familiar with this 2 discs, but it seems like the music used did have some significant bass below 30 hz.

    Another quote from Craig:

    "If David Fabrikant comes back with a computer model showing audible break up from 30 Hz and up (the music sessions were specifically selected to keep the frequencies above 30 Hz - I was always running TrueRTA in "Peak Hold" mode in order to assure this, as always) at 0.2 to 5 watts, then yes, I made an error. I only ask that the 5 watt inputs be kept to short term peaks, as they were here."

    It looks like some significant bass below 30 hz was used. I don't see anywhere you stated about limiting the bass with TrueRTA, maybe you could point that out somewhere, I could be wrong. In fact, one of your stated performance criteria was bass extension. And it seems the 550's got response to the low 20's.

  3. #83
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    USA
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    5,538

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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnnyCasaba
    This is a quote from the first night's session Craig did to clear up some of the questions NewBuyer had:

    "Dynamics were quite good, "A" could easily hit 100 dB peaks in our large room before sounding conjested. This room is 43 x 14 feet, so that is no small feat."

    The room Craig used is 43 x 14 feet, this is far from a small room. Also you will note, the program material used has some significant bass extension. Down into the teens for the Steely disc and 22hz for the Backdoor Man track from Solace. I believe Craig also used the 1812 Overture and Roger Waters' In The Flesh, not very familiar with this 2 discs, but it seems like the music used did have some significant bass below 30 hz.
    Johnny, thanks so much for posting this.... I knew I remembered things a bit differently than what was being posted here. I was never able to find Craig's original review, thus the errors I made regarding room size. 43 x 14 is a very large room, assuming 9 foot ceilings; we are approaching 6000 cubic feet.

    And I quote
    "A" could easily hit 100 dB peaks in our large room before sounding conjested. This room is 43 x 14 feet, so that is no small feat."
    Sounding congested? In other words, reaching the maximum output capability of the speaker…. 100dB peaks at about 3 1/2 meters in that size room will require a bit over 28 volts to reach that level. The CMT-340 has a DC resistance of approx 6 ohms… using Ohm’s Law, 28 volts = 130 watts.

    130 watts at even 40Hz (being run full range) and the woofers excursion far exceeds their maximum capability. I just ran a driver excursion simulation using 28 volts input and it is UGLY… From 55Hz and up, peak to peak excursion is within the woofers limits (6mm).. Here is the fun part, at 40Hz at this power level driver excursion reaches 12mm peak to peak (excursion rating of a good 12” subwoofer)… at 30Hz peak to peak excursion is 28mm, that is over an inch of excursion. No 6.5” woofer in existence that I know of can handle this type of excursion demand…

    In other words, the voice coil was completely out of the gap, and at that very instant, not capable of reproducing ANY frequencies. This perfectly coincides with what Craig heard, congestion.... And, isn't this exactly what I posted in that same review thread? Must I now really post a driver excursion simulation?

    This is why it is really not fair to compare a smaller speaker with a high tuning point to a larger speaker with a low tuning point (full range speaker) at even moderate volume levels, unless the smaller speaker has the bass rolled off. In trying to reproduce the deeper bass signals that the larger speaker can play with ease, the smaller speaker is struggling severely and in doing so, other frequencies are being compromised. And to make matters worse, when combining the smaller speaker with a sub and running the speakers full range, the mechanical distress caused by reaching woofer excursion limits, which is most definitly audible, can be masked (not heard) because of the output of the subwoofer. The speaker might be trying to tell you in its own way, turn that volume down!!, but you can't hear it because the output of the subwoofer is overpowering it.... This is why I do not use a subwoofer in my system, remember I said I need to hear all of the good as well as the bad?

    Here is some useful information while I am at it…. To maintain optimal performance when running the CMT-340 full range, I would recommend not to exceed 6 volts. 6 volts input = 6 watts. 6 watts at a distance of 1 meter = is about 100dB. Sound decreases at a rate of 6dB per meter.

    As I posted in the beginning of this thread, if the speakers were high-passed and the low bass frequencies filtered out, performance would have been greatly improved.

    I made a significant error in trying to recall the review from memory; I got the room size wrong by about 2500 cubic feet. Craig also made an error stating peak wattage of 5 watts. 100dB peaks at a distance of 11 feet = approx 130 watts, in reality since the speaker hit its maximum output capability while the "other" speaker hit 105dB peaks, the maximum output capability of the amp was reached (200 watts).. Although, as I am sure Craig would agree, McIntosh amps are conservatively rated.

    I now remember why I was impressed that the CMT-340 even survived....

    We all made some errors in this thread and things got ugly fast.

    To Newbuyer…. As sensible Sensibull posted, there was quite a bit going on that has not been mentioned in this thread… Let us just say that Craig and I had some history before this review, and that a few things were revealed after the review that caused Craig’s credibility to be questioned. Please do not read any deeper into this. Without question, Craig and I have a few issues that perhaps a few sessions with a good marriage counselor could clear up I offer a quality product and try to remain behind the scenes and respect everyone.

    Keep in mind, that this is the Ascend forum… I could have closed or deleted this thread at anytime (as many people suggested)… Instead I left it open, subjecting both myself and my company to damage simply as respect to Craig, to let him speak his mind publicly.

    I am, however, going to close this thread… In the 1000 or so threads on this board, this is my very first thread closure…. There is simply no reason at all to continue with this… ALL of this bickering back and forth took place already, and that thread was closed. The questions both you and mv1612 asked have been answered, Craig responded to my error in his room size, and the details of the original review were revealed.
    Last edited by davef; 06-12-2005 at 12:34 PM.
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    Good Sound To You!

    David Fabrikant
    www.ascendacoustics.com

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