SP Technologies Timepiece Speakers

doug s. · « **Reply #80 on:** 18 Nov 2003, 12:55 am »

thanks, nate - that's ackshully quite a bit closer to what it looks like in there!

the original shot was taken at ~1/6 second, w/no flash...

doug s., w/no foto-shop experience... obviously!

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #81 on:** 18 Nov 2003, 09:30 am »

Nice job on that photo nathan - looks like a Kodak moment ! Nice room Doug !

audiojerry · « **Reply #82 on:** 5 Dec 2003, 10:11 pm »

My Walnut finish Timepieces have arrived, and they are stunning with their high gloss piano black front baffle and gently contoured tweeter waveguide - very sensual. The shipping boxes are impressively engineered, and they did a great job of protecting their valuable contents.

I'm a bit pressed for time, but I wanted to share what I've already learned. Every impression is highly positive thus far. I will not make any direct comparisons with my reference speakers until I've spent sufficient time acclimating myself and the Timepieces.

Let me highlight the qualities I've discovered already:

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #83 on:** 5 Dec 2003, 10:31 pm »

Hey Jerry, You've been getting a nice selection of equipement passing thru you doors, I'll look forward to a review of those speakers. Enjoy !!

nathanm · « **Reply #84 on:** 5 Dec 2003, 11:36 pm »

Quote

"My home is open to anyone wishing to hear them.

I'd love to hear them Jerry! When will Mrs. Audiojerry be gone? I don't want her running after me with a garlic necklace or anything! I can provide hearing protection if necessary.

What was that SP said about them sounding great up until the drivers reach critical mass?

Muwhahaha! I think this bit should be properly tested, don't ya'll!?

I could play a little

and Jerry could play some

or some

It'd be a hoot.

audiojerry · « **Reply #85 on:** 6 Dec 2003, 01:49 am »

You crack me up Nathan

I think I could sneak you into the basement. Later Fridays or Saturday nights would work best. You've got the hear that percussive attack of a snare drumstick caressing the skin of Dianna Krall's cheek. Check your p.m.

Aether Audio · « **Reply #86 on:** 6 Dec 2003, 08:03 pm »

Quote

What was that SP said about them sounding great up until the drivers reach critical mass? Muwhahaha! I think this bit should be properly tested, don't ya'll!?

[/code]

Just be forewarned everybody, SP Technology Loudspeakers does not warranty blown drivers!

This is for the very reason quoted above. Unless you can hear your amp clipping or better yet, have clip indicators on it, you will be increasing the average or RMS power being delivered to the speakers as you drive your amp deeper into clipping. Hopefully you can hear this but usually the loudspeaker will produce more audible distortion first - unless you have a rather small amp to begin with.

Whether you believe the following or not, I will share this with everyone just so you know. During testing and critical listening we use a Crown Macro-Reference amp rated at 750W/ch. RMS into 8ohms and 1,060W/ch. Peak. This amp provides a huge supply voltage to its output stage. On our first serious listening test we kept cranking up the volume - expecting to hear some distortion. The volume was increadibly loud - louder than most people would ever listen at. At a certain point we noticed a light flashing at the front of the room. It was the amp's IOC clip indicators flashing! That meant we were pumping over 1,060 watts into those babies and we couldn't hear a hint of distortion!!!

Since then we've repeated this and confirmed that we can clip that amp once every several seconds for at least 10 minutes without harm. We didn't want to push our luck so that's about as long as we dared to let it go at that level. Also, that was on wide dynamic range recordings. If you try that with highly compressed recordings like heavy metal (we did) you won't clip the amp and will end up pumping more average power into the speaker. That will blow the woofer (we smelled the voice-coil enamel baking) as it is only rated at 125 Watts RMS.

So... have fun - but be careful.

-Bob

JLM · « **Reply #87 on:** 6 Dec 2003, 08:18 pm »

This is all very exciting. Jerry, please do keep us posted as I know you will.

Bob (SP Pres), what amplifier characteristics (or example by brand/model) do you recommend that would mate best with your speakers? I can easily see building a system around these remarkable products. As they're a bit more than I wanted to spend on speakers, and way less efficient, I'm hoping your amplifier advise will compensate.

thanks

doug s. · « **Reply #88 on:** 7 Dec 2003, 04:26 am »

bob, i know your two-woofer model is 3db more efficient (according to the specs - the graph looks the same as the one woofer model?), & will handle double the power of the one-woofer model, but how is imaging/soundstaging effected? any difference in standing-vs-sitting w/the two different models? some folk have faulted the soundwave propogation of m-t-m designs - any insights here?

thanks,

doug s.

Hogg · « **Reply #89 on:** 7 Dec 2003, 04:25 pm »

Bob,
Any plans to be at CES 2004 next month? Thanks

Jim

infiniti driver · « **Reply #90 on:** 9 Dec 2003, 01:31 am »

I recently set them up for an experiment amongst several very good loudspeakers in a relatively controlled environment using natural recorded sounds of birds, sounds of street traffic and rain and storms. Also this series of recordings I made included various natural sounds from simply walking down burbon street to walking through a forest. It was all captured to DAT via a pair of B&K4006 running battery power (not ideal for them) and the playback sounded most natural overall on the SP Tech 2.0 timepiece loudspeakers to 100% of the 14 people that were involved in this set-up. No one had advance information of the loudspeakers that were compared or could see them behind the acoustically transparent barrier that I constucted.

We all agreed that if the recording arts are to improve, recording, mixing and mastering engineers shall use loudspeakers that are as uncolored as possible. Some very well regarded speakers sounded "boxy" and others artifical.

Speakers tested were:

BBC LS3/5
Wilson Watt/Puppy circa 1997
Klipsch Forte
Quad ESL57
JBL 4311
Yamaha NS1000M
Dalquist DQ10's (new broken-in woofers and cleaned up xovers)
Snell type A

Each loudspeaker system was matched to 85dB with a swept 300hZ to 1KhZ sine wave to match volume level average.

Each preferred performance was "C" from A-I, which "C" , the SP techs.

Many folks got down to the comparing of three systems and of each, the SP techs were involved. Everyone had to come to a concensus of overall authenticity of the program material.

The Quads, the Yamaha NS1000M's and the SP's scored the highest marks.

This experiment was conducted over a 6 day period.

Afterwords, folks brought their own material and it was a sweep...the Quads would have won except the bottom end and the nature of the narrow sweet spot. The yamahas were very close but some boxyness in the 200hZ range was apparent as was more "up-front" midrange dynamics that left the woofer behind at times. The Yamahas excelled in the ability to reach the low 20hZ range with awesome authority but the naturalness of the overall dynamics became somewhat colored due to certain overall factors.

BTW, this experiement was in a free field environment...sans floor. Each speakers center point was 39 inches above the floor.

Aether Audio · « **Reply #91 on:** 9 Dec 2003, 04:41 am »

OK Folks - I'll give it my best shot.

Dear JLM - More is better...power that is. I'm certainly not out to slam the fortunate folks that have the means to afford the top notch gear like Pass, Krell, Levinson, BAT, etc. God bless 'em everyone. For the rest of us poor stiffs, whatever we can lay our grubby little fingers on that can deliver the juice will have to do. I'm talking 8 ohm power ratings here. You don't need 50 output transistors per channel to deliver kiloamps - you need voltage to keep from clipping those lofty digital peaks we pay so dearly for. The Timepiece is an 8 ohm design and the impedance never drops below 6 ohms, so an amp with a high 4 ohm rating won't do a thing for you (although that does imply stability). I worked in Crown's engineering department for 8 years on 40KW amplifiers so I think you can trust me on this one. If you can afford top quality then fine, but you'll get more mileage from a workhorse with headroom than some little frilly amp that has that "efflorescent harmonic bloom" - if you catch my drift. Rumor has it that there's a kick but Carver out there that's getting some raves and is bargain basement. Maybe some other kindly folks out there can help JLM with this one.

Dear doug s - Imaging of the Continuum is virtually identical to the Timepiece. Controlled horizontal dispersion and the lack of diffraction is the key here(Oh great! Now I've gone and told my competition how to make speakers that image well). They're the same on both models as they both use the same waveguide/driver. If anything - depending on your room conditions - it might be a little better due to the narrowed verticle dispersion reducing ceiling/floor early reflections. This is very room dependant though. The stand-up/sit-down is different. Here again, the Continuum has a narrower verticle dispersion pattern. The effect is noticable if you sit real close (less than 6 feet) but back further, the Continuum produces very little change in frequency response when changing from a seated to standing position (unless your 7 feet tall).

Dear Hogg - Nope, can't make it to CES this year. We're still trying to wring the bugs out of the production machine. I can engineer all kinds of great stuff - once. Making them by the dozens presents a different challange that is stretching all of us here at SP Technology. Maybe next year.

Have a great day everyone.

-Bob

audiojerry · « **Reply #92 on:** 9 Dec 2003, 05:25 pm »

Infiniti Driver,
Wow, that sounds like a really painstaking and laborious test. Thanks for conducting it. Would you mind a few questions?
What was your motivation?
What was the make up of your auditioning audience?
Were all speakers generally well suited to the amplification and front-end?
Were all comparisons done with a single listener sitting in the sweet spot?

I have not begun my critical evaluation yet, but one of the aspects of the 2.0 that really stands out for me is their speed, or attack. Percussive sounds have more slam, or impact than anything I've heard before. This is not just limited to the very lowest frequencies. I believe that this is one of the qualities that contribute to the realism that you mentioned. You are right about them being extremely uncolored and un-boxy. I hope to learn more about them this weekend.

infiniti driver · « **Reply #93 on:** 10 Dec 2003, 12:26 am »

From audiojerry:

Wow, that sounds like a really painstaking and laborious test. Thanks for conducting it. Would you mind a few questions? It certainly was! Overall it took a ton of prep and bending of my schedule to accomidate everyone.

What was your motivation?

For the first time, I was able to have this many loudspeakers (these ones) in one place with a large enough room for some critical analysis. usually it takes time for any one indivigual to get a grasp on the differences but the recordings, the people, the speakers and the rooms lent itself an oppurtunity I was no about to pass up.

What was the make up of your auditioning audience?

Myself, two college band directors, one composer, one high end freak (smiles) one master guitarist, two studio engineers (one male one female), 2 high school teachers (female) two rappers, one tenor singer and a church organist.

I am 44, the two college professors 39/51 the composer 49, high end freak 42, master guitarist 39, engineers 29/32 teachers 27/33 rappers 21/20 tenor 62 organist 55.

Were all speakers generally well suited to the amplification and front-end?

I would say they all could give it their best shot. Amplifier was a McIntosh MC2500 with a modded Foreplay preamp (quite stable and uncolored with mods)

Were all comparisons done with a single listener sitting in the sweet spot?

Listeners were in groups of three seated one behind the other at 12/14.5 and 17 feet repectively on backless 24 inch stools with cushions.

It was amazing how closed in and colored the Watt/puppys were. Even the dalquests outperformed them in transparency.

Horsehead · « **Reply #94 on:** 10 Dec 2003, 12:40 am »

Could you give some more impressions with people using their own program material and their impressions of the SP Timepieces? When you say the Quads would have one, do you mean the SP's won overall? Where were the Quads better etc. Thanks for your time and informative posts.

infiniti driver · « **Reply #95 on:** 10 Dec 2003, 05:59 am »

None of the participants brought any program material. I am sad to say, I have no data on this as it was not part of the session. The session included natural recordings "live" without any form of EQ, compression or artificial sounds. This is what everything was judged with.

As per the quads, many folks were left with the impressions... they did very well but everyone noted they could not handle the lower registers or the ability to translate the same thoughts from different seats. (we played musical chairs to offset one seat being "better" or "worse"). Each had the oppurtunity to switch and everyone excersized this at some point or another.

As per the Quads again... they also had moments of good intention and other moments of not so authetic. Overall, they were not judged to be inadaquate in comparison with the SP techs or the Yamaha NS1000's. If it were not for the slight woodyness in the lower mids, the Yamahas may have scored better. Some sounds simply were out of focus throuought the entire register with the Yamahas. Birds chirping while distant thunder was where the un-nasturalness showed itself in the Yamahas and the quads ommited detail in the distant thunder to the point of a "fake" quality...especially when the panel ran out of excursion at low to moderate volume.

other loudspeakers in the test were deemed "horrible" only after test "C" was played. We had to go back to scratch many times after the units "C" were played...due to the paridigm being opened to afford something that was satisfactory being deemed totally non-worthy of comparison.

(you don't know what you miss until you are enlightened)

We all agreed, certain sounds were very well preserved with the quads...just not all of them at once. The effect is as their were no speakers at all with the SP Techs, just the sounds...VS hearing some form of "issue" once they were played and the audiences were self conditioned. I must admit, the lack of open bottom-end brought a death blow to most of the candidates.

All in all, the test encompassed rigurous testing of loudspeakers attempting to recreate something that is normally heard without the use of loudspeakers.

nathanm · « **Reply #96 on:** 10 Dec 2003, 06:40 am »

Wow, I wish I could get that many speakers in a room at one time! Sounds like a really cool experiment. I've noticed that switching from one speaker to another often creates extreme contrasts of subjective quality in one's mind. You get accustomed to hearing one frequency balance and then when it changes it's like, "Ugh! No! Wrong!" But in time your ears adjust. It's all relative to a degree. It's amazing how quickly the brain acclamates to widely different sounds.

Is there any chance of the rest of us getting say, a high bit-rate MP3 file of these natural recordings to peruse on our own systems? Might be interesting.

Quote

Also this series of recordings I made included various natural sounds from simply walking down burbon street to walking through a forest.

Was there a moon over it?

audiojerry · « **Reply #97 on:** 10 Dec 2003, 02:17 pm »

The moon was slightly above and just outside the left speaker, but gradually moved towards the right speaker later in the session...

infiniti driver · « **Reply #98 on:** 12 Dec 2003, 12:12 am »

Nathan, if you have an ftp slot, you may email to [email protected] the user address, name and passcode and I can upload it to you.

I can do 16/44.1, 24/96, 24/192 or 32/192.

The 24/192 is 2 gigs but with my service, it would upload overnight no problem.

ALSO...for everyone else.

Great news!

I have a new listening room and it is serving well, excuse the mess since I am simply starting to get equipment in there but the SP's in the corner locations did not suffer from the bass rise that other speakers suffer from usually. In my review, I could not get usable output below 27hZ. This has now changes and I was able to get a whopping 106dB with 150 watts of sine wave each channel at 20hZ.

This means at 20hZ in this new room, they are only 5 dB down! 23hZ is only 2dB down and remember, this speaker gives NO HINT of having that capability unless it is in the programme.

I thought it was awesome that they actually reached that.

The room is 22 wide, 24 deep 11...sloping to 9 feet on the ceiling.

The picture is the new set-up of the facility. Unlike the other room, this one does presurize somewhat and so far, I am enjoying the balance of the pressurazation VS open Field response. It is not airtight and far from it...it simply has some boundary effects that come into play that really are not miss-communicating at all.

The NS1000's reside for now in comparison. Clearly the SP techs are a better overall tool.

Excuse the mountain Dew cans, I have to have it.

audiojerry · « **Reply #99 on:** 12 Dec 2003, 03:43 pm »

Wow, I like the placid landscape mural as your backdrop! You've inspired me to try something similar in my room. It would help to enhance my mood while listening to music. (Probably not ideal for something like death metal, though

)

I am not that surprised that you are able to get useable bass down to 20hz. Although I'm not getting that result in my room, the bass is so authoritative down to around 35hz, it's hard to imagine that it would roll off very sharply below that frequency. I like to keep them well away from the wall behind them, which provides no bass augmentation. The soundstage is as deep and expansive as that mural you have. I've had speakers that produced a deep soundstage before, but at the cost of sounding recessed as well. The Timepiece places images up front when the recording calls for it.

Does the Continuum have a lower F3?