Re: Which center? Luna, S2, or Horizon?
OK, time to wade in on two different topics, ASR and the Duos.
First, on ASR
I have confidence that ASR's measurements are correct; I'm sure he knows how to operate his Klippel and the other equipment he uses to measure things besides speakers. If all he did were take measurements and publish them, that would be fine.
But that's not all he does. He adds interpretation to the raw data, and subjective reviews. He does both of these things very badly. On the first point, nobody who takes their own data seriously should ever say anything like "where do you draw the regression line?" A regression line shouldn't be drawn by anything other than THE EQUATION FOR A REGRESSION LINE, which is well-understood math. This kind of thing is nonsense and nobody who claims to be in interested in the science should put up with it. If I did this kind of thing with my own research, reviewers would (rightly) crucify my papers. It's bush-league garbage. Toole, for instance, would never say anything like this.
As for his subjective reviews, I don't know how anyone takes those seriously. He writes like he thinks his own opinion is a gift from the gods, and it's just so off-putting. They are also so obviously Harman-biased that they are basically worthless, as every objective sin for any Harman product is subjectively forgivable but for many a Harman competitor every wiggle in any graph is the death knell. He needs to do his subjective review before he collects the data in order to not be biased by the results and his own interpretation of those results. This is basic behavioral science methodology and he's just so damn cavalier about ignoring it. He apparently thinks that because he includes the "I work for Harman" disclaimer that people will give him a pass on this or something. I mean, I guess it is actually working for him but I can't read it or take it seriously.
Now, having said that, the objective measurements on the Duo are... not very pretty, are they?
Luna Duos
I just got a set of these (LCR) and have had them for a little over a month. As Dave well knows, I'm a long-time very happy Ascend customer. I usually post my reviews/impressions pretty soon after I get anything new from Ascend, and I have not done so for the Duos. (If Dave hadn't been so busy, it wouldn't surprise me if he has been wondering when I'd post about them.) I haven't because [1] I've been crazy busy myself, and [2] my impression of them is somewhat mixed, and I've not been sure what to say about them.
It was interesting to see the measurements, as they kind of support some of my experiences with the Duos.
First, the Duos do indeed have tremendous wide dispersion—it's fantastic. The sweet spot is generously wide, such that two people can be sitting on the couch in my living room and both get decent imaging out of the deal. Just not at all true with my previous speakers, which were not bad speakers at all (older PSBs). Real rooms often make ideal placement impossible, and anything that gives you leverage on this problem is not to be underestimated.
Second, vertical directivity is indeed pretty tight. The good news is I'm pretty much always on the couch when I listen and I was careful with mounting height so this is not a problem, per se, but it's pretty obvious when you stand up that something is missing. I expected this and it's no big deal.
Third, there's something not quite right about the mids. Maybe that's too harsh. What I mean is that it's not as good as I expected from Ascend. When I first set them up and ran Audyssey, it said the LRs could handle being crossed over at 60Hz and the center could cross over at 40Hz. While that's impressive, I know Audyssey is sometimes overgenerous about that and I set the center to 60Hz as well. And they overall sounded mostly OK, certainly for normal HT use, but for music, well, there's something kind of choppy going on in the midrange. Not bad—nothing like what ASR describes subjectively—but something just not quite smooth in the Ascend way I'm used to. Noticed it mostly in female vocals, which sound a little... I guess the best word is uneven. I actually considered sending them back, but there are other practical reasons for the choice, and given those constraints I have few other viable options anyway. (PSB PWM1s are pretty much the only reasonable alternative at a similar price point and then there will be timbre-match issues with the surrounds. Too much hassle.)
But after listening to some music (the Duos are used mostly for HT anyway) I had the bright idea to change the crossover to 80Hz. They sound much better. They still don't sound as good as my 2EXs—not a giant criticism, I've never heard anything two-way that sounded appreciably better—or even base S2s, but it evened things out to where I'm much happier with them. I'll admit I'm suspicious that this is just in my head, since my understanding is that a lot of the issue with port noise for front-ported speakers isn't really from air moving through because of low frequencies, but reflections of midrange from inside the speaker, and setting the crossover higher shouldn't really change that. Sure seems like it does, though.
It's funny because I've never heard a speaker with a front slot-style port that I've really liked. I figured when Dave went there after all these years of not using them, well, he'd finally cracked it. Maybe still a little work to be done. (Since I'm crossing over at 80Hz, maybe some kind of port plug?)
So, for primarily HT use (with sub) at my seating distance (about nine feet), I'm fine with them. I'm not overwhelmed like I usually am with Ascend, but given my constraints, they get the job done and it's a marked improvement over what I had before.
Anyway, I'm glad to see Dave's response to all this is "we need to look into this and possibly fix something," but that's what I'd expect from Dave.
Luna Duo V2 LR, Titan Horizon V2, and Rythmik L22 & L12 in HT, Sierra-LXs in study, S-2EXs and Duo V2 C in bedroom, S-1 NrTs in dining room, S-1s at work, HTM-200s in kitchen. Brother owns CMT-340s and dad has a pair of CBM-170s.
Originally Posted by MDinno
. I own some expensive machines and the key to making them worthwhile it keeping them busy ime.