New: Spatial Audio Lab X3 (Open Baffle) Speakers.

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

Hello everyone, I've been hanging out at the Audio Circles forum for awhile. As you know, I completed Danny Ritchie's crossover upgrade on my SVS Ultra Bookshelf speakers. Great upgrade but I learned that I cannot build speakers. I just have no talent in that area (especially woodworking). While there, and watching Ron at New Record Day videos, I learned about Clayton Shaw's open baffle design speakers. I took the plunge and ordered a pair of his X3 speakers. They were delivered yesterday. When you order, Clayton will speak with you on the phone. He prefers if you send him a photo of your listening space and room dimensions. In my case, he was fine with me ordering the X3s.

X3s are 50 inches tall by 18 inches wide and 5 inches deep. 85 pounds. 8 Ohms and 97dB Sensitivity. 3 way dipolar design. Air Motion Tweeter driver crossed down to 1,000 Hz. 12 inch mid range driver crossed down to 90 Hz. 15 inch subwoofer (with its own amplifier) can reach down to 25 Hz. Full specs: X series speakers

I added the isoAcoustics GAIA II isolation feet. This is a very well regarded upgrade. Apparently, the speakers could use as much as 350 hours of burn in. But, I must say, right out of the box, these speakers are a superb upgrade over my bookshelves. I set up my system for 2 channel stereo for testing and burn in. I play mainly classical (DSD and PCM) music. Last night, I sampled everything and I was blown away by the sound. The X3s set up a terrific soundstage and disappeared. In other words, I could not identify the sound as coming from the speakers but rather enveloping the entire front of my room. Piano, violin, ensembles, orchestras, vocals were all placed as they should be placed. Finally, violins and female vocals are not "screetchy." Male vocals are deep and robust. So far, these are keepers.

Here are a few photos. If there is interest, I will keep posting my impressions.

Marcus
Las Vegas, NV

 

[Sonnie Parker]

Very nice looking speakers. The air motion tweeter has done well in speakers we have evaluated over the years.

I would love to hear a pair in my room... and I see he has a robust return policy as well, although I suspect shipping would NOT be cheap.

Glad to know you are liking them. In comparison to the bookshelf speakers I can only imagine how much better things are all around.

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

@Sonnie , Thanks for your thoughts. Yesterday was my first full day of auditioning the speakers. There were several "sit up and take notice" moments. What impressed me the most was vocals. It is as if the singer is right in front of you in your Livingroom. Speaker positioning is important (as with all speakers). The farther out in the room and away from the front wall, the better. Clayton recommends at least three feet. My best position is 4 1/2 feet (front wall to baffle). Side walls are less of an issue as the open baffle design causes side reflection cancellation. The same cancellation is true for vertical (to ceiling).

My newest recording is Berlioz, La Damnation de Faust, Rattle, London Symphony Orchestra, LSO0809 (original recording format: DSD64). Christopher Purves (baritone) plays Mephistopheles (the Devil's agent). What a superb voice. When I first played the music on my new speakers, Mephistopheles' singing made me sit up as I thought he was right there. I'm sure the 12 inch mid range driver did the job! Soundstage was amazing, deep and robust. The AMT will give you horns like nobody's' business.

I did try a multichannel experiment using my SVS center channel speaker. I played the 5.0 version of Faust and the results were terrible. No knock on SVS as they served me well over the years. But, vocals (typical center channel stuff) completely collapsed. It was so obvious. Playing a movie last night was a similar, but not so dramatic, experience. The X3s for home theater are exceptional ... but ... now I am considering a third X3 to pick up center channel duties. Heck, this is what tax refunds are for, right?

I am playing music 24/7 to expedite burn in. Low volume listening is great, a true advantage of these speakers. My SVS subs are off and I have not missed them. I do have one more upgrade coming (delivery tomorrow), a new DAC. We'll see how much better this works out. I am keeping my Parasound Halo A52+ amplifier. I am not a "tube" guy. The Parasound is class A for the first 10 watts.

Thanks for listening.
Marcus

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I remember back when we first started our speaker evaluations at HTS. We just weren't getting much with the speakers up close to the wall where most people seem to place them, especially when you have them in a shared great room and the wife says no to the speakers being pulled out into the room and wires to trip over. I got to looking around and stumbled upon the Cardas setup guide: http://www.cardas.com/room_setup_main.php .... and tried those recommendations and was amazed at what I heard. Since then, speakers have always been pulled out into my room, and everyone at all of our evaluations have always agreed any speaker we've evaluated sounded better pulled on out into the room... varying from 4-6ft.... and usually 4-5ft from the side walls (my room is 19.5ft wide). Soundstage, imaging and depth acuity are phenomenal with the best speakers.

I would read Floyd Toole's book and the section about burn-in. I've never noticed it with any speakers I've owned, although I'm not saying it's not there, but Toole does believe it's a myth and explains why. Speakers do grow on us though.

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

I would read Floyd Toole's book and the section about burn-in. I've never noticed it with any speakers I've owned, although I'm not saying it's not there, but Toole does believe it's a myth and explains why. Speakers do grow on us though.

Thanks for the link. Personally, I agree about burn in. 350 hours worth seems very excessive. But, I'm sure all the electrical components and the speakers need some "exercise" to get them to their best. A couple days worth, maybe. And, yes, there is truth that speaker sound does "grow" on us. We get accustomed to it.

Marcus

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

New DAC on FedEx vehicle for delivery today. Ships from CAN. Huge delay with customs in Minneapolis, MN (big backlog there).

exaSound S88 Streaming DAC

Multichannel DAC. Pricey, but I've been lusting for an exaSound DAC for years. Finally get to try it out with my new speakers. Here is a link to Kal Rubinson's review: Kal's Review

Marcus

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

Update: I settled on a final position for my new speakers (see photo). About 4.5 feet from the front wall and 2 feet from the left side wall (there is no right side wall). I repositioned two of my GIK diffusor/absorber panels to vertical and put them in the corners. Seems to work out better. I'm a multichannel guy so I ordered a third X3 to take center channel duties. I'll keep the SVS surrounds as they seem perfectly fine. Yes, I'll have to raise my projector screen. As an aside, I looked at the Cardas website. My positioning is half their recommended distances. I really can't meet their target. My wife is already feeling overwhelmed having the speakers 4 feet out in the room.

The new DAC: I never had a separate DAC before so it took a bit of work to install (talk about a mess of wires behind my equipment rack - Gesh!). Everything is working well now. At the moment, I am running the DAC analog output to my pre/pro analog in. Most folks seem to prefer running the DAC direct to their amplifier. I will check this out some time in the future. I set my Marantz pre/pro to "pure direct" output to my amplifier. This supposedly cuts out most circuitry in the pre/pro to allow a "pure" analog signal to pass through.

Listening: A beautiful experience. I've run through hundreds of tracks (mostly classical and some jazz) by now. The DAC converts DSD/PCM to analog. If the recording microphone picked it up, the DAC sends it to my speakers. For instance, I am hearing instruments within an orchestra I never heard before. Subtle but there. I can "feel" the bow of a violin moving along the strings as an added robustness of the sweet sounding melody. Truly an immersive and emotionally connected experience.

The combination of the DAC and new speakers is amazing for me. Open baffle speakers offer lots of advantages over boxed speakers (in my mind, anyway).

Marcus

 

[Sonnie Parker]

Wow... that is a very nice piece of equipment in that S88. I actually considered it but couldn't quite get over the cost of it, not that it isn't worth it, especially if I were doing multi-channel.

Sounds like you got it going on... would love to hear it.

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

@Sonnie Thank you. ...and if you ever come to Las Vegas, let me know.

I've certainly had my "did I do the right thing" moments. No buyer's remorse. Just wondering if upgrading is worthwhile or if my equipment choices were good ones. My answer every day to myself is "Yes". My hearing better hold out another decade (lol).

It is true that multichannel audio is limited (mostly classical and some jazz). Blu-Ray audio pretty much fizzled out. However, there are classical titles on Blu-Ray video of concerts. They will play through the DAC. We also enjoy home theater. I need to bypass the DAC and go HDMI to my pre/pro to get the various codecs (ie, ATMOS). But, the speakers will be employed for home theater. So, I think I am good.

Marcus

 

[ddude003]

Very nice system @Marcus DiBenedetto... It sounds like you have reached dipolar AV NIRVANA...

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

@ddude003 Thanks. Yes, I am striving for dipolar AV NIRVANA. I'm actually quite impressed with these speakers and the new DAC, especially for classical music with vocals.

Marcus

 

[pratul]

Nice looking and interesting speakers!

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

Today, I had to raise my projector screen because the new floor standing speakers are much higher than my bookshelves. Luckily, I had room to raise the screen 14 inches. Tested out watching a movie tonight and no issues. We sit in recliners. Once tilted back, no problem looking at the screen. Music is fabulous. I listened to jazz tonight. Awesome. My three GIK 6A 2D-a panels are back in place, directly behind the speakers. As I learned on a different forum, the panels are absorbing the mid range (125Hz up to 800Hz). Diffusion kicks in above 1,000Hz.

Can't wait for the third X3 to show up and take over center channel duties.

Marcus

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

Learned a few things and had to make changes. Using a separate DAC with analog out to my pre/pro (or direct to my amplifier) means there is no room correction (Audyssey) by my pre/pro. My front three speakers are equal distance from the MLP. However, my side surrounds and subwoofers are not. My first correction was to enter speaker distances in to JRiver's DSP Studio. I found out that it works for PCM files but is not implemented in DSD files.

Yesterday, I downloaded ROON. Yes, ROON will input speaker distances (and some volume leveling, if desired) on both PCM and DSD files. Great. But, I also discovered ROON processing speed gets hammered by DSP implementation. Playback was briefly interrupted while ROON caught up. Not a good situation. I made some recommended ROON settings changes, better, but not solved. After reading a few ROON messages, I learned I had to make sure my core i7 processor (windows 10 computer) was operating at full speed and nothing was put to sleep. This required BIOS setting and Windows setting changes. Reboot. Relaunch ROON. Working great now.

As an aside, I have put hours in to tagging hundreds of classical albums in JRiver. I learned how to set up ROON to implement file tags instead of ROON tags (JRiver puts its tags in to file metadata). Yes! All my tags migrated to ROON. Additionally, if I make a tag change in JRiver, ROON tags are updated immediately. I tested this and it works great.

I've still go 13 free trial days left to evaluate ROON. So far, I like it. Am I ready to pay $12 a month? Not sure yet.

Marcus

 

[ddude003]

There are 3 types of EQ in Roon... Parametric EQ, Convolution and Procedural... I am sure you could use one or more to do room correction...

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

@ddude003 Thanks. My primary concern was making sure audio timing was correct by setting speaker distances. I've got that done now. Not sure about additional processing. I'd prefer to limit impact on the music file. After I run REW, I may make some additional EQ. Just waiting for the third speaker to show up before getting REW involved.

Marcus

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I love Roon... lifetime sub here. I have discovered some great music with qobuz too, but I like how it lays out my library on the server.

I have used Convolution filters in Roon that Mitch at Accurate Sound created for me.

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

@Sonnie Thanks. I still have 8 days to evaluate. A couple features I really like: ROON lets me view (using my pad is best) all JPG files in each album folder. Typically, I have the album cover but also the back cover. Now that I can do this, I may add additional photos. Also, I can easily access and read the pdf file (most classical music includes a pdf file of liner notes). I still need JRiver for movies (I have a projector system). But, for music, ROON looks like it has some robustness that I find useful.

As always, thank you for your comments!

Marcus

 

[jtwrace]

Roon is awesome! @Mitchco ain't bad either.

@Marcus DiBenedetto if you haven't learned about Mitch, see this...

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

@jtwrace , Thanks! I've decided to keep ROON. There are many features that I really like (finding more everyday). I've seen this video before and just watched it again. Yes, I will contact him to do an analysis/DSP correction for me. I've done some room treatments but I am completely lost trying to use REW and figure out solutions.

Thanks again, Marcus

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

Update. I finally installed, a couple days ago, my center channel Spatial Audio Lab X3. Most of my music is 5.0 channel SACD. Speaker placement is critical. Over the past couple months with just the left and right speakers, playing 2.0 channel Stereo, my best sound was pulling the speakers about 5 to 6 feet from the front wall. Phantom center channel was rock solid. Soundstage depth and width are exceptional. Adding the center channel speaker greatly improve the sound for me. Not only did it improve the "presence" of the center but I noticed an almost holographic or 3D image. Musicians were more precisely placed all along my front wall with increased depth. Of course, I play almost entirely classical music. I am using ROON to adjust for speaker distances. I installed GAIA II isolator feet with carpet spikes.

Next step, REW and then contact Mitch at Accurate Sound.

Marcus

Photo taken from MLP. Distance to MLP is 11 feet.

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

Two years later, here's an update. The WAF (wife approval factor) is completely violated here. I've done my best to accommodate her sensibilities. We came to agreements that allowed me to keep the speakers about five feet out from the front wall. I tried using sliders but these 100 pound speakers just won't move very easily.

Since my last posts:
-- I purchased a Coleman audio switch. For music, I use XLR cables from my ExaSound S88 DAC to the switch. For movies, again XLR cables from my Marantz 8805 pre/pro to the switch. The switch has XLR output to my Parasound A52+ amplifier. This allows me to play music directly from my DAC to my amp.
-- I also purchased a speedy new computer to use as a music server. USB out to my DAC. SSDs hold all my music.
-- SVS Ultra bookshelves are behind me for rear surround (ITU setup).
-- All speakers are 10 feet from the MLP (main listening position).
-- I abandoned ROON and went back to JRiver Media Center.
-- I purchased Audiolense XO and hired Mitch at accurate sound. We worked my listening space over and finally came up with a set of convolution filters that I installed in JRiver.

Listening to music (and watching movies) is fantastic. I could not be more pleased with the entire setup. If you want to read about the music I consider the best for both performance and recording/mastering see my list at Audio Circle: Demonstration Worthy Classical Recordings. Every album on this list will challenge your audio system to its maximum capability.

Here's a few photos.

This is it for me.

Marcus
Las Vegas, NV

 

[Sonnie Parker]

Nice... and if I come to CES is there an invite for a listen?

I want to know what are you doing to folks you strap down in those two funky-looking torture recliners in the back of the room there? Those things look dangerous!

 

[Marcus DiBenedetto]

Sure Sonnie, I'd love to have you come over. We live in the Northwest area (Centennial).

Torture recliners? Ha, they are massage chairs.

Marcus

 

[Sonnie Parker]

Right... it's torture for those of us who have to look at them in a picture... and it's torture when you have to get up out of one.