GR Research Brute Speakers

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VinceT

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #60 on: 3 Nov 2023, 10:06 pm »
Those Sonicaps really open up at around 400 hours. You think they sound good now

Tyson

Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #61 on: 3 Nov 2023, 10:12 pm »
Dynaco, Schiit and GR Research - very nice American made system you put together there :thumb:

Presb4

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #62 on: 3 Nov 2023, 11:18 pm »
Thanks, yes I am expecting and looking forward to the caps breaking in more and enjoying the change.

Presb4

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #63 on: 4 Nov 2023, 12:05 am »
Ok, now that I have detailed my initial impressions and my journey getting to where I am.
What did I hear today? And how did my different system components effect the sound?


Well in a few hours today I tried out a number of different system components, listening to the same tracks over and over to evaluate the changes.

When I do this, I find that 3 or 4 tracks is all I can listen to and remember the subtle differences enough to appreciate the change and put it in words, so thats what I did.

During this session, I had the speakers up against the front wall (about 6" off the wall) small room with lots of stuff in it, so thats where they are  :? , and pointing straight out, no toe in. I set each track to play at an average of 60db, at that average I would commonly get db peaks of 69 db.
My source was Qobuz, streaming at the highest quality for each of the track it has below.

Test condition 1
Qobuz streaming via my Nvidia Shield (HDMI) -> Pioneer 5.1 AVR 100 watt AB SS receiver -> Brutes via Blue Jeans cables.

Test condition 2
Qobuz streaming via my Nvidia Shield (USB) -> Schiit Bifrost 2/64 (Balanced) -> Schiit Freya+ 1x Active Buffer, No tubes (RCA) -> Schiit Vidar2 100 watt Class AB SS -> Brutes via BlueJeans cables.

Test condition 3
Qobuz streaming via my Nvidia Shield (USB) -> Schiit Bifrost 2/64 (Balanced) -> Schiit Freya+ 1x Active Buffer, No tubes (RCA) -> Dynaco ST70 w/NOS Sylvania 6GH8-A and JJ 6L6GC Tubes -> Brutes via Danny's braided speaker cables.

The tracks I used were as follows:

Track 1.



Track 2.



Track 3.



Track 4



Track 5 - Bonus Track, only used if I really want to hear a dynamic track with lots going on and want to push the speakers a bit.




nlitworld

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #64 on: 4 Nov 2023, 03:47 am »
Chocolate Chip Trip is a good one that I've used for comparison as well. Hearing the three dimensionality of the drums is a lot of fun. The album as a whole can be a little hot up top so it's a great track for finding a balanced sound of detail without fatigue, and showcasing a lot of soundstage placement. Good stuff.

Presb4

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #65 on: 4 Nov 2023, 03:55 am »
I have two pairs of speakers in my den currently, a pair of Polk R600's and a pair of GR Brutes. All of the songs above were compared listening to these speakers as I switched through the different systems I detailed before.

Now I always enjoyed the Polk 600's, but when comparing them to the Brutes there were significant differences.
If the Brutes set the bar of sound quality at (10) out of (10), then the Polk R600's would be a (7).

The differences being:

Bass - The Brutes are very neutral in bass tone. The Brutes are a 12" sealed woofer design with clean, controlled, and quick bass, kick drums sound insanely good. Most folks know what a 12" woofer sounds like, but that mental image is most likely polluted by the fact that all the box speakers with 12" woofers they have listened too in the past, were ported boxes. The Brute is not that, you will not get the same level (volume) of bass out of the Brute as you do in a typical 12" ported box. It is obvious to me now that they are very different animals. If you need that level of slam, then you will want to blend the Brutes with a good subwoofer.
 
The Polks in comparison, are very bass forward. This was surprising as I was expecting the opposite. The Polks are a 6" - 2.5 way design with a down firing port.
Their bass hits lower and with more power, loads the room more, but is not as quick and lacks definition when compared to the Brutes.

Mids - The Brutes are once again very neutral, maybe a touch forward when compared to the Polks. The mid-range tone is where these two speakers are at their closest in comparison.

Treble - The Brutes extent higher in the treble, have detail for days, are quicker to snap into action and produces more sparkle then the Polks. This was surprising to me as the Polk R600's use a ring tweeter with a center wave guide which is described to be better for high tone details, I believe they are THX certified as well. Nevertheless, the Polks sounded more vailed and lacked air when compared to the Brutes.

Words that come to mind to generalize the differences between these two speakers are; the Brutes are "Clean", "Balanced", "Detailed". Whereas I would describe the Polk's as "Power", "Bass", "Non Fatiguing".

Sound Quality Details - The Brutes are exceptional in the detail department. There are details I have never heard before in tracks I have loved for decades. I never knew a soft dome tweeter could sound so good. Its the first thing I noticed when I plugged in the Brutes on day one. The initial tap of the drum stick on the high hat just before the crash, yup I have never really heard that, but do now. When I speak of details, it is not just the high end where this is heard.
The mid-range has detail as well, like the subtle touch of a finger to a bass guitar being plucked, the slide to the next cord. The raspyness of a Sax in the low tones at the moment the player runs out of breath. Yup, all are details that are hard to describe to one who has never heard them before in track they know very well. But the Brutes pull back that veil and lets you hear what's there. 

Sound Stage - To me this is best described as playing a well recorded rock concert video on your TV. You see everyone on stage, you see and hear their position on stage and they match, that's good sound stage. As the singer turns away, the tone changes or maybe the sound widens to the side they are now facing.
In an orchestra you can hear the distance between you and the various players in the band shell. Anyone who has been to such an event knows what that sounds like.
Well the Brutes bring you much of that.

For TV or Movie use, center image is locked very well. No matter where I sit on my couch the image stays locked on the screen and rarely does it sound like it is playing from the speakers. The sounds stage is easily between the speakers, it can and does expand to the outside of the speakers but maybe to a lesser degree of accuracy than the center image.

On that note, a funny thing happened the other night as my wife and I were watching TV. In the show we were watching, there was a scene where a couple were arguing and their dog was locked in a different room barking. This went on for awhile and my wife looked at me and said, "I really wish our neighbors would tell their dog to stop barking, its ruining our show".  I laughed and said, that's coming from the TV, not the neighbors next door. Now that's a wide soundstage.

Well I hope all these posts help those who are looking to dive into their first set of GR speakers or for those on the fence and are wondering what all these audiophiles are talking about when they "hear things".

Tyson

Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #66 on: 4 Nov 2023, 04:15 am »
Very nice writeup! 

Presb4

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #67 on: 5 Nov 2023, 04:55 am »
Very nice writeup!

Thanks Tyson, it has been a fun project for the past couple of months.

hawkeyejw

Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #68 on: 13 Nov 2023, 06:12 pm »
Great write up! Like you I was surprised by how good the T26SG tweeter is when I first fired up my X-Statics. It’s special.

Presb4

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #69 on: 16 Nov 2023, 04:26 am »
So tonight I broke out my Umik and graphed the in-room response of the GR Brutes at 75db while connected to my ST-70 tube amp. Each of the major horizontal white lines on the graph is 10db. I recorded this in a small listening room at my listening position and have a significant room mode at 80-100Hz and as that is a room effect, I have filtered that from the graph as its not true speaker output.

The rest of the in room response looks pretty dang good to me.

The HF roll off above 16KHz is most likely where my tube amp starts to loose bandwidth.

When I get a chance this weekend I will re-test with my SS amp and see if I have the same HF roll off.


Danny Richie

Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #70 on: 16 Nov 2023, 02:49 pm »
Top octave drop out like that is common in every room.

Another tip is to be sure to measure one speaker at a time. Trying to measure them both at the same time can cause pretty rough results down low.

Presb4

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #71 on: 17 Nov 2023, 03:30 am »
Thanks for the tip Danny, I will give that a try this weekend.

Tyson

Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #72 on: 17 Nov 2023, 03:39 am »
Even as-is, those measurements are pretty damn good.

Danny Richie

Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #73 on: 17 Nov 2023, 08:40 pm »
Even as-is, those measurements are pretty damn good.

I agree.

Presb4

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #74 on: 18 Nov 2023, 03:46 am »
Top octave drop out like that is common in every room.

Another tip is to be sure to measure one speaker at a time. Trying to measure them both at the same time can cause pretty rough results down low.

Tonight I took the measurement again but with only one speaker at a time with the mic at my seated position. I took the measurement at 75 db again but changed amp to the Schiit Tyr monoblock SS. I was surprised to see a bit of a higher peak at the 400 Hz range than with my Tube amp. Maybe it was always there but the measurement before with both speakers playing nulled some of the peak  :dunno:

Anyway the Brutes measure way better in room than my old Polks ever did. I have a small listening room (den) and my seating position is right up near the rear wall.  I get a lot of wall gain around 55 Hz and a null around 110 Hz. So I use a Dirac curtain filter to fix the peak and the null between 30Hz and 200Hz, the result is awesome.

Here is the in-room uncorrected before Dirac filter is added. Same as last time, each major horizontal white line is 10db.






Danny Richie

Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #75 on: 18 Nov 2023, 04:44 pm »
Try pulling them forward into the room about a foot at a time.

Tyson

Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #76 on: 18 Nov 2023, 07:41 pm »
I always find using EQ anywhere except the mid/low bass sucks some of the life out of the music.  Even very high end EQ. 

If it were me, I'd play with positioning as Danny suggest, that should help.  My guess is the 50hz is a floor-to-ceiling mode, so it might not change with positioning.  But the other dips will respond. 

I'd use EQ on the 50hz peak and that's it.  Try that first and listen to it for a while before doing any other EQ.  I think you'll find the music more lively doing it this way.

Another option is to get some bass traps for the front corners of the room.  But you may not need it.  For a box speaker, your in room response is already really good. 

Oh, one other rule for EQ (if you decide to use it) only ever remove peaks, never ever fill in dips.  Trying to fill in dips will suck up tons of your amp's power and also will give a lot more muted sound in the mids and higs. 

Presb4

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #77 on: 19 Nov 2023, 12:46 am »
I always find using EQ anywhere except the mid/low bass sucks some of the life out of the music.  Even very high end EQ. 

If it were me, I'd play with positioning as Danny suggest, that should help.  My guess is the 50hz is a floor-to-ceiling mode, so it might not change with positioning.  But the other dips will respond. 

I'd use EQ on the 50hz peak and that's it.  Try that first and listen to it for a while before doing any other EQ.  I think you'll find the music more lively doing it this way.

Another option is to get some bass traps for the front corners of the room.  But you may not need it.  For a box speaker, your in room response is already really good. 

Oh, one other rule for EQ (if you decide to use it) only ever remove peaks, never ever fill in dips.  Trying to fill in dips will suck up tons of your amp's power and also will give a lot more muted sound in the mids and higs.

All good recommendations, thanks Tyson.
To be clear I am not using any EQ'ing above 200Hz. Dirac lets you create curtain filters so the EQ'ing only happens within the curtain range and not across the entire frequency range. I agree EQ'ing everything flat across the entire range sucks the life out of the sound. Unfortunately my couch and tv arraignment is oriented toward the narrow side of the room, so moving the speakers out into the room is not an option. But in a few years all the kiddos will be off to collage and Dad's taking back over the downstairs living room. I will convert it back into a proper listening room then. Its much larger then my current listening room, at 15' x 15' I will be able to play around with speaker and seating positions better then.

Presb4

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Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #78 on: 26 Nov 2023, 06:38 pm »
So this question is for Danny....
I was thinking it might be fun to bi-amp the GR Brutes. I would like to try using my tube amp for the midrange and tweeter and my SS amp for the bass woofer. Is that as simple as adding a new set of tube connectors with dedicated and separated wires only going to the woofer side of the crossover? Or would that mess the speaker network and change the impedance of the circuit?

Danny Richie

Re: GR Research Brute Speakers
« Reply #79 on: 28 Nov 2023, 12:14 am »
So this question is for Danny....
I was thinking it might be fun to bi-amp the GR Brutes. I would like to try using my tube amp for the midrange and tweeter and my SS amp for the bass woofer. Is that as simple as adding a new set of tube connectors with dedicated and separated wires only going to the woofer side of the crossover? Or would that mess the speaker network and change the impedance of the circuit?

It would be easy to split the crossover and add a new input for the woofer only.

However, due to differences in the input impedances of amps, and differences in output levels, it might be hard to match them.

Every time I change amplifiers I have to change the settings on my sub to match the change in levels.