Its official - Web Site Rollout:
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Wondering why no FR 10 listening evaluations a week out? Mine came yesterday 3 days early but won’t get them hooked up until Tuesday. Really looking forward to it along with the S300.
Any updates on the sound of the FR10?
Here’s my update. FR 10s settling in nicely after about 75 hours of playing time.
Had friends over for Christmas Eve dinner last night and one who listens to and attends a fair amount of classical concerts said, “Now this is what a symphony should sound like!” I asked him what he meant, and he had a similar reaction to my take on the FR 10s at this point: highly responsive and revealing, great sense or air and presence, well-defined bass that provides a solid, impactful foundation for the mids and highs without overwhelming them.
He, my daughter, and son-in-law all loved the design and matte black finish (as do I). They called it a statement speaker for its size and price, and I agree. While I’d love to have the FR 20s, for my small listening area the FR 10s hit the spot, and my sense is they could easily fill a larger area without breaking a sweat.
As I’ve said previously, they bring the music to life and make me want to listen more and deeper into the music. I look forward to what they sound like with another hundred+ hours on them.
Thanks to all at PSA for this wonderful Christmas present!
Bob
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Thanks, Bob! Happy holidays!
And to you and yours, Paul!
Bob
Thanks @rcf051 for posting your impressions!
Unfortunately I left for vacation about a week after the FR10s arrived and only returned some days ago, so I lost a week of burn-in. But they’ve been cooking again these past 4-5 days. Total I estimate about 60-70 hours on them so far and I spent an hour yesterday carefully adjusting their positions to be as symmetrical as possible wrt my listening position (distance, toe-in, and level). Between these two aspects, they seem to have just passed some sort of milestone! To try to dissect it, I would say that there’s more coherency from top-to-bottom, smoothness in the midrange-to-treble, and a more dynamic and tighter bass response. I emphasize that I am describing a qualitative “feeling” about them, like when, in sports, I have found myself in the zone… all the parts are still there in equal measure but there’s a new flow where action feels effortless seemingly for the first time. Those who’ve found the zone in music, sports, etc will know what I mean.
Having said that, I sense that more tweaking - and break-in time? - is still needed to get the best out of them. @Chris_Brunhaver - I plan to post some meaurements soon with a couple of questions that I hope will help me further.
Thanks! Stew
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Stew,
I agree that the FR 10s start to gel nicely given 75-100 hours of break in, plus the inevitable tweaking we all do with positioning as we get the speakers settled in. I continue to be impressed with what Chris and PSA have produced. I’m getting more details, a better integrated sound (your “coherency”), and a much more life-like presentation. The FR 10s are keepers, for sure.
I’ll be very interested to see where the they are after another 75-100 hours, and how my system sounds once the final release of the Massive update for the MK2 is out.
Bob
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Thanks guys for the updates. Indeed, they need some burn in to loosen the stiff surrounds Chris designed. Terri and I have a pair on order as well, finally losing our KEFs.
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Please post your Massive MK2 impressions.
My next anticipated update is the APS transformer + VOCM mods to my DS MK1. But that will be a little further down the line…
My first entre to hifi was Totem Mani 2 “standmounts”. They are at a friend’s house because I can never sell them. Enormous bass from a small package.
Fine speakers requiring a fair amount of current IIRC. At one I had considered upgrading to them from my Totem Signature 1 speakers. The Manis demanded excellent electronics upstream that could deliver the current. My Signature 1’s were most happy with Exposure electronics.
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My old coworker Igor designed that woofer (the HiVi D6.8) used in the totem Signature.
It is a little dynaudio inspired but with (at the time) an improved motor with a neo bucking magnet on the top of the pole is rather low distortion and has good bass extension (though slightly lower sensitivity).
This is the same kind of direction we went with the FR5 woofers parameter-wise. The bass is very impressive in medium to smaller rooms (we will go even a little lower than the Totem).
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In my experience it was a wonderful speaker with the right electronics upstream. They excelled at acoustic jazz and small ensemble classical music.
I fibbed. My first speaker was the Totem Model 1 in 1993 and then a quick jump up to the Mani 2. Still have both pairs for a future surround sound system 5.1 in some basement somewhere. I like the fact that the PS audio drivers have a similar attitude. My guess is the PS Audios are a lot easier to drive.
Well, the Totem Mani 2 was very low sensitivity but with good bass extension. We will have a bit higher sensitivity than this on our FR5 bookshelf but we wanted good bass extension like that totem model, so it won’t be a speaker to use with low power tube amplifiers.
Still, it’s not hard to find good solid state amplifiers in the 100+ watt range at 4 ohm and you get rewarded with something that can still sound satisfying without a subwoofer.
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I’d be curious to see your measurements and would be glad to give any feedback and assistance that I can.
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@Chris_Brunhaver Finally found a minute to take the screen shot. This is from Dirac Live which I run using a minDSP (dig in from server, dig out to DAC). I expanded the correction brackets here so you can see the fullrange uncorrected purple (left) and blue (right) channels. The yellow is my correction curve but I normally stop correcting at 2Fc frequency (in my room w/ 8’ ceiling, I calculate Fc = 421Hz, so 2Fc = 842Hz). Per the theory I’ve read, Schroeder recommended the max correction frequency should be < 4*Fc to avoid correcting the higher direct frequencies - please LMK if I have that right or not.
Anyways, 842Hz sounds best based on a few different upper bound freq I’ve tried: 421Hz, and 550Hz which is the FR10’s first crossover freq. 842Hz tames the bass and smooths the lower midrange but doesn’t interfere with upper mids or the tweeter.
Above about 200Hz, the L and R curves overlap incredibly well IMHO indicating very good speaker level matching - nice job!
My question is - any thoughts on the raised “shelf” between about 2k to 4k range? It looks to be a few dB higher than <2k and >4k. Would that be caused by some sort of room interaction, or due to speaker toe-in, or is inherent in the speaker response, or any other ideas?
This all looks as expected and, yes, if you don’t want to change the direct sound/tonality of the speaker and just want to EQ the modal behavior of the room, that sounds like a good range. You’ve done the correct thing and not boosted below 30 Hz (the PR tuning).
Overall the response does look very similar left to right, which points to having stable imaging and a strong center image. Also, the response before EQ looks nearly textbook and your target curve is quite close to the harman house curve.
The region around 2-4 kHz is an area of tweeter baffle diffraction where there is a shallow dip on-axis and a broad peak off-axis. We tried to make the net result flat in the in-room response. If you want a little less energy in that region, aim the speaker more on-axis )pointing it more directly to the listening position.
Part of the slight dip in the 1-2 kHz range in-room is that the 8" midrange is somewhat directional vertically, so you might have a slightly strong ceiling reflection. Long term, some absorption on the ceiling might be a good thing (if you can make it work in your beautiful space).
EQ can also be used on the minidsp in the 2-4 kHz region too, if you want to tweak the tonality of the speaker to your taste a bit. The Sonus Fabers you have do have a few dB dip in this range (BBC dip), in part because they aren’t using a waveguide on their tweeter and directivity flared around this area jsut above where the woofer crosses over to the tweeter. You might prefer this kind of sound if you are used to listening to it.
Hope this helps.
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Thanks for your helpful comments. Indeed, center image is very stable (much better than my SFs) and with more depth… all positive steps forward with the FR10s. The bass doesn’t measure very much differently between the two but the FR10’s articulation and “force” of the bass is clearly better.
In the 2-4kHz, I plan to try increasing the toe-in and then re-measure. To your comment that EQ can also be used in that region: that frequency range > 4*Fc… think it’s ok? Of course, I can and will try it just to listen to its effect but wanted to get your technical thoughts on EQ’ing in that higher freq range. I’ll have to look at the SF plots in the 2-4kHz in my room, but yes I do prefer (or am used to) that range more “tamed” so I’ll experiment with EQ vs toe-in to find the right balance. Thanks!
For 1-2kHz, I would put money that I do have a strong reflection but putting panels up there is a no-go for the wife and I have to say I agree in this room. A dedicated or secondary room would yield a different answer!