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Audio Physic Scorpio I vs Scorpio 25+

Stereophile:
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Audio:
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Stereo:
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I think a lot of the arguments for 'sizing' speakers for a room kind of fall away when it comes to near-field listening scenarios. If, for example, as audio physic themselves suggest - the speakers and listener should be located as far away from the room boundaries as possible ... maybe it doesn't REALLY matter? any acoustic 'sculpting' might be done by playing with the proximity of the 'listening area' to any part of the room boundary. I had a nice little naim system (just a 62/140) with tiny castle speakers in a loft when i lived in NYC - it was firing crossways in a room approximately 6x18 or so metres and sounded the best i'd ever heard it ...
 
Stereophile:
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Audio:
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Stereo:
Bildschirmfoto-2020-01-18-um-16-44-43.png

I had seen the Stereophile review before, my reading of their posted results didn't have the roll off quite as high as the other review listed but I guess lucky for me I don't listen in an anechoic chamber. As for the previous comment about not having deep bass because of high sensitivity? I believe they rate them at 91db but that same Stereophile review claimed their actually more like 87db, I wouldn't really call that a high sensitivity speaker.

Maybe I had them in a smaller then normal room, but in their previous room (currently waiting on my dedicated room to be built) ~3.7x4m, as I said they played flat till the lower 30's & -3db was in the upper 20's. I have listened to most of the speakers available in North America at shows & local dealers & I can't think of any speaker in the same price range or even double the price that I thought, "wow this speaker does bass so much better then my Scorpios", in fact the opposite, most I hear in that price range I was concerned about them possibly not being able to reproduce the lows I was use too (which is one of the reasons I still have these after 10yrs, while all the other gear has changed). For my size of listening space the bottom end really was almost limitless in the fact you could find the most bass heavy tracks, play them at levels far greater then I normally ever would, the bass would be ratting the construction materials of the house, with zero audible distortion at the bottom end, you would think the bass driver would be flapping like crazy only to take a look at them to see they are barely moving.

Now how they fair in the OP's much larger space, that I can't say.
 
Hi,
14,8sqm is a really tiny room for German living room. It doesn't make me wonder why they play so deep in your room and so loud. I wouldn't have even consider the speakers for that kind of room size, maybe a Virgo or a Tempo. I used mine in an 28sqm room.:)

I also think that they can play loud in bigger rooms but reducing the room gain through rising the room size they won't play that deep.

Stereophile simulates/emulates the bass as far as I understood this review.

"When I measured the big Harbeth's frequency response (See October, p.157, fig.3), it did appear that the speaker's bass response was elevated somewhat. But, as I went into in some detail in my 1999 article on measuring loudspeaker frequency response, not having access to a large, expensive anechoic chamber, I assess a loudspeaker's low-frequency response by measuring the drive-unit and port outputs in what is called the "nearfield"; ie, with the microphone capsule almost touching the radiator. First described by veteran speaker engineer Don Keele in 1973 (footnote 1), this technique gives a response that accurately reflects a loudspeaker's low-frequency output as assessed in the farfield, with the important caveat that, mathematically, it assumes that the loudspeaker's front baffle continues to infinity in all directions, which boosts the measured low-frequency response by up to 6dB. I have pondered over the years whether to apply a correction for this boost, but that correction will not be appropriate for any but very large rooms or anechoic chambers. In the end, I leave the curve uncorrected for this 2pi boost (which I did mention in the review text)."

https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-m401-loudspeaker-ja-november-2008

About the sensitivity:
"This lack of energy—presumably due to destructive interference between the tweeter and midrange-unit outputs on this axis, which is 41" from the floor—would help explain why the Scorpio's measured sensitivity was lower than the specified figure."

https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-physic-scorpio-loudspeaker-measurements

You can also see here: 606Scofig06.jpg that the speaker with room gain will play much deeper.
 
Hi,
14,8sqm is a really tiny room for German living room. It doesn't make me wonder why they play so deep in your room and so loud. I wouldn't have even consider the speakers for that kind of room size, maybe a Virgo or a Tempo. I used mine in an 28sqm room.:)

I also think that they can play loud in bigger rooms but reducing the room gain through rising the room size they won't play that deep.

Stereophile simulates/emulates the bass as far as I understood this review.

"When I measured the big Harbeth's frequency response (See October, p.157, fig.3), it did appear that the speaker's bass response was elevated somewhat. But, as I went into in some detail in my 1999 article on measuring loudspeaker frequency response, not having access to a large, expensive anechoic chamber, I assess a loudspeaker's low-frequency response by measuring the drive-unit and port outputs in what is called the "nearfield"; ie, with the microphone capsule almost touching the radiator. First described by veteran speaker engineer Don Keele in 1973 (footnote 1), this technique gives a response that accurately reflects a loudspeaker's low-frequency output as assessed in the farfield, with the important caveat that, mathematically, it assumes that the loudspeaker's front baffle continues to infinity in all directions, which boosts the measured low-frequency response by up to 6dB. I have pondered over the years whether to apply a correction for this boost, but that correction will not be appropriate for any but very large rooms or anechoic chambers. In the end, I leave the curve uncorrected for this 2pi boost (which I did mention in the review text)."

https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-m401-loudspeaker-ja-november-2008

About the sensitivity:
"This lack of energy—presumably due to destructive interference between the tweeter and midrange-unit outputs on this axis, which is 41" from the floor—would help explain why the Scorpio's measured sensitivity was lower than the specified figure."

https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-physic-scorpio-loudspeaker-measurements

You can also see here: 606Scofig06.jpg that the speaker with room gain will play much deeper.

Yes ~15sqm would be fairly tiny for a Canadian living room as well, mine were in a converted bedroom ;) My future dedicated listening space will be right around ~24sqm as well, so the impact on sound with less room gain will be interesting.
 
I always thought my Tempos were just a BIT bass light in my space (about 35 sq.m.) until i changed my amplifier - now i find them quite bass-heavy. go figure.
 
I always thought my Tempos were just a BIT bass light in my space (about 35 sq.m.) until i changed my amplifier - now i find them quite bass-heavy. go figure.

Very true, as a Naim user my switch from previous 200 to current 250DR amp had a significant impact on the bottom end (among other things). As well, other smaller things such as even changing speaker cables had surprisingly noticeable impact on the bottom end.
 


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