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Thread: 170 amazing...better than 340?

  1. #11
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    do you have any sort of auto-eq implemented, or treble/bass adjustments?

    it's my understanding that sibilance is always reproduced. i believe there is such a thing as excessive sibilance, and even not enough sibilance. a good or bad source can also make a difference. ever talked to someone who has a very sharp S to their voice? (usually a female) but, there are females w/o a very sharp S to their voice as well. i believe the types of sibilance the 170 and 340 reproduce will be different because, they are different. i believe that with the 170 davef sat out to create a speaker that measured very well and focused on vocal clarity. you're simply hearing a very good piece of hard work that does sound different than the 340.

    i owned a different brand of speaker over a year ago. the series has metallic dome tweeters. the sibilance and listener fatigue bothered me so much over time that i turned the whole system off, missed several NCAA games, and even returned a few movies. i always thought listener fatigue was a myth, but i will say that experiencing it is quite unenjoyable. i sold the speakers. so, i guess i could say that i'm in love with my Ascends because of their balanced response and ability to reproduce a natural sound.

    now, call this coincidence while talking about audio, but i just finished my chinese food and my fortune cookie said, "Relaxing music helps to make the right decision." Wow, I'm gonna keep this one!

  2. #12
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    Aug 2003
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    That was one of my thoughts that the 340 is revealing the sibilance.

    I agree with Curtis on the quality of the Eva Cassidy stuff. I find some of it hard to listen to because of that.
    Last edited by Quinn; 03-26-2005 at 08:16 PM.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by metalaaron
    do you have any sort of auto-eq implemented, or treble/bass adjustments?

    it's my understanding that sibilance is always reproduced. i believe there is such a thing as excessive sibilance, and even not enough sibilance. a good or bad source can also make a difference. ever talked to someone who has a very sharp S to their voice? (usually a female) but, there are females w/o a very sharp S to their voice as well. i believe the types of sibilance the 170 and 340 reproduce will be different because, they are different. i believe that with the 170 davef sat out to create a speaker that measured very well and focused on vocal clarity. you're simply hearing a very good piece of hard work that does sound different than the 340.

    i owned a different brand of speaker over a year ago. the series has metallic dome tweeters. the sibilance and listener fatigue bothered me so much over time that i turned the whole system off, missed several NCAA games, and even returned a few movies. i always thought listener fatigue was a myth, but i will say that experiencing it is quite unenjoyable. i sold the speakers. so, i guess i could say that i'm in love with my Ascends because of their balanced response and ability to reproduce a natural sound.

    now, call this coincidence while talking about audio, but i just finished my chinese food and my fortune cookie said, "Relaxing music helps to make the right decision." Wow, I'm gonna keep this one!

    I do not know how to adjust the treble/bass on my onkyo 701 so I suppose sound is on direct mode?

    I just replace the 340s with the 170s, that’s it…maybe I should move the speakers farther out from the tv instead of even… nevertheless, I’ll be experimenting

    On a side note, I have the RS spl meter and test tones from my receiver to calibrate my speakers and sub. All I do is make sure all the speakers are at the same volume except my sub which is 3db hotter. Isn’t that enough?... I don’t want to be moving the sub from the left corner and equalize everything. I rented Avia from Blockbuster and it has been a month now and I still don’t know how to flatten the frequency. Is it worth doing it?


    Music also relaxes me and hopefully i find the solution for the 340s.

  4. #14
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    Apr 2004
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    rosa,

    this should help you configure your 701.

    http://63.148.251.135/redirect_servi...R701_601_E.pdf

  5. #15
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    "I don’t want to be moving the sub from the left corner and equalize everything."

    That was my thinking initially but I went ahead and did it anyway and I am very glad I did. I now can't imagine a sub without EQ.

    David

  6. #16
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    Jul 2004
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    My 340 mains have never left their stands since coming to my house, but I will swap them and the 170 surrounds and see what happens. I will echo what bikeman said about the sub. After EQ'ing mine and getting it right, I can't see going back to the way it was.
    - EVH III

  7. #17
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    Hi Rosa,

    It is certainly OK to prefer the CBM-170 over the 340 main… both speakers were designed for specific purposes and what sounds best to you is purely subjective.

    From a technical standpoint, the CMT-340 is superior… The CBM-170 uses a single high performance woofer while the 340 uses two. In any loudspeaker, distortion increases as output increases. Depending on how you look at it, the 340 has the capability to deliver either twice the output of the CBM-170 at the same distortion level, or close to half the distortion at the same output level.

    The tweeter used in the CMT-340 is also technically superior, having lower distortion, a lower resonance frequency and extended high frequency response.

    We actually post a very revealing graph on our website called the cumulative spectral decay. This is seldom understood, but still a highly important measurement. This is a measurement of a fast impulse consisting of thousands of frequencies ranging from 400Hz to 20Khz. What the graph reveals is what “noise” is left over once the initial impulse stops (in milliseconds). Notice on the 340 graph that there is very little (if any) artifacts left over after 1.92 ms past 2kHz (this is really amazing actually). On the CBM-170, there are artifacts between 2kHz and 5kHz almost reaching 3.5ms (about half that of the 340, which is still, quite good). Also you might notice more artifacts in the high frequency region as well..


    CMT-340 cumulative spectral decay


    CBM-170 cumulative spectral decay

    From a purely objective perspective, the 340 is a more transparent, more revealing speaker and I believe this is what you might be hearing… Sibilance is almost never produced by a loudspeaker (certainly not from a high performance product like the 340); instead the sibilance you are hearing is being reproduced more clearly from the 340 than the 170…

    Sibilance can be a real pain to track down, but with some patience and logical troubleshooting procedures… the source can be found and resolved...

    First off, we will need to know if you are hearing this on all sources or just some.

    1. When listening to TV? Are you using cable or satellite?
    2. Are you hearing sibilance when playing high quality CDs or just certain recordings?
    3. Are you hearing it when playing DVDs?

    These are the first steps needed to start the troubleshooting process and with your cooperation, we can resolve this. Since we will need to go back and forth on this, it is best if we handled this through email…

    Substituting the 170 for the 340 so you no longer hear the sibilance is just masking it… it is still there, just not being reproduced as audibly.

    Hope this helps!
    Last edited by davef; 03-29-2005 at 04:28 AM.
    .
    .
    .
    Good Sound To You!

    David Fabrikant
    www.ascendacoustics.com

  8. #18
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    Apr 2004
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    ...i was waiting on dave to reply. this makes sense. while familiar with the first three graphs, a cumulative spectral decay graph has never really been translated. i certainly enjoy the data and descriptions here. this is great.

  9. #19
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    Wow!!

    How many companies give you that kind of information?

    Thanks Dave!!!
    -curtis

  10. #20
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    Aug 2003
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    Quote Originally Posted by davef
    Hi Rosa,

    It is certainly OK to prefer the CBM-170 over the 340 main… both speakers were designed for specific purposes and what sounds best to you is purely subjective.

    From a technical standpoint, the CMT-340 is superior… The CBM-170 uses a single high performance woofer while the 340 uses two. In any loudspeaker, distortion increases as output increases. Depending on how you look at it, the 340 has the capability to deliver either twice the output of the CBM-170 at the same distortion level, or close to half the distortion at the same output level.

    The tweeter used in the CMT-340 is also technically superior, having lower distortion, a lower resonance frequency and extended high frequency response.

    We actually post a very revealing graph on our website called the cumulative spectral decay. This is seldom understood, but still a highly important measurement. This is a measurement of a fast impulse consisting of thousands of frequencies ranging from 400Hz to 20Khz. What the graph reveals is what “noise” is left over once the initial impulse stops (in milliseconds). Notice on the 340 graph that there is very little (if any) artifacts left over after 1.92 ms past 2kHz (this is really amazing actually). On the CBM-170, there are artifacts between 2kHz and 5kHz almost reaching 3.5ms (about half that of the 340, which is still, quite good). Also you might notice more artifacts in the high frequency region as well..


    CMT-340 cumulative spectral decay


    CBM-170 cumulative spectral decay

    From a purely objective perspective, the 340 is a more transparent, more revealing speaker and I believe this is what you might be hearing… Sibilance is almost never produced by a loudspeaker (certainly not from a high performance product like the 340); instead the sibilance you are hearing is being reproduced more clearly from the 340 than the 170…

    Sibilance can be a real pain to track down, but with some patience and logical troubleshooting procedures… the source can be found and resolved...

    First off, we will need to know if you are hearing this on all sources or just some.

    1. When listening to TV? Are you using cable or satellite?
    2. Are you hearing sibilance when playing high quality CDs or just certain recordings?
    3. Are you hearing it when playing DVDs?

    These are the first steps needed to start the troubleshooting process and with your cooperation, we can resolve this. Since we will need to go back and forth on this, it is best if we handled this through email…

    Substituting the 170 for the 340 so you no longer hear the sibilance is just masking it… it is still there, just not being reproduced as audibly.

    Hope this helps!

    David,

    Thank you very much for posting that-even I can understand those graphs now!! Very much appreciated.

    Randy

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