Active speaker comparison

[FredM]

What happens when you put a couple enthousiastic audio guys, a mastering engineer and a producer in a recording studio with some impressive active speakers, using the dCS Rossini & clock as the source?

 

Please enjoy this 2+ hour live comparison of:

1. Dutch & Dutch 8C (@11m35)

2. ATC SCM100A (@56m30)

3. Grimm LS1be (@1h44m30)

 

 

 

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I'm interested but not interested enough to commit to 2 hours.  Is there a precis or summary?

[botrytis]

Any Cliff Notes on this comparison?

[fas42]

Very quick listen to the video, jumping to equivalent bits of music for the three - the ATC stood out, then the Dutch & Dutch; the Grimm was a sorry 3rd, well below the others.

[FredM]

1 hour ago, Kal Rubinson said:

I'm interested but not interested enough to commit to 2 hours.  Is there a precis or summary?

Hi Kal and botrytis, at the end of the session the overall findings where touched just briefly, most likely a summary will appear on Alpha-Audio.net.
 

When you can’t wait, after each track the findings and some direct comparisons between the speakers are made. To get a faster impression, during the last part (while listening at the Grimm’s) a couple comparisons are made. Perhaps 1h52m30 till 2h01m30 is most condensed, just to get a quick impression.

 

I had an entertaining Sunday morning watching the session, when you have the time, just press play and sit back.

[FredM]

32 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Very quick listen to the video, jumping to equivalent bits of music for the three - the ATC stood out, then the Dutch & Dutch; the Grimm was a sorry 3rd, well below the others.

Perhaps a bit too quick...? We typed in parallel, above I mentioned a time slot with some comparisons, just as a rough impression. I guess it’s best to watch the full movie, or wait for the summary.

[Kal Rubinson]

15 minutes ago, FredM said:

I had an entertaining Sunday morning watching the session, when you have the time, just press play and sit back.

Thanks for the summary.  I do not think I will ever be in the proper state of mind to sit through this.  I sampled it to confirm.

[fas42]

48 minutes ago, FredM said:

Perhaps a bit too quick...? We typed in parallel, above I mentioned a time slot with some comparisons, just as a rough impression. I guess it’s best to watch the full movie, or wait for the summary.

 

And I agree  ... I've extracted the audio, and aligned them, for a particular selection, in Audacity - the volumes alter through the piece I was looking at, per speaker - a bit more fiddling, and a touch more analysis ... a more careful appraisal, later on ...

[FredM]

1 hour ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Thanks for the summary.  I do not think I will ever be in the proper state of mind to sit through this.  I sampled it to confirm.

That tells we’re not alike 😘

 

A recording of 2+ hours does asks some time, but the good thing imho that the viewer is able to decide to press play and remotely listen at the tracks, take note of the findings and comparisons from the ‘panel’ and can even watch the live chat on YouTube. More accessible and transparant, if one chooses 👍. Like we each have our own music taste and sound preference.

[FredM]

31 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

And I agree  ... I've extracted the audio, and aligned them, for a particular selection, in Audacity - the volumes alter through the piece I was looking at, per speaker - a bit more fiddling, and a touch more analysis ... a more careful appraisal, later on ...

Hi Frank, based on your reply, perhaps interesting: just recently Alpha Audio released a Sample Database.

 

https://alpha-audio.net/2020/10/alpha-audio-launches-hifi-sample-database/

 

My guess is that the recordings of the active speakers will be added.

[Kal Rubinson]

54 minutes ago, FredM said:

That tells we’re not alike 😘

Indeed.  Your statement makes sense for some but not for me.  

[fas42]

41 minutes ago, FredM said:

Hi Frank, based on your reply, perhaps interesting: just recently Alpha Audio released a Sample Database.

 

https://alpha-audio.net/2020/10/alpha-audio-launches-hifi-sample-database/

 

My guess is that the recordings of the active speakers will be added.

 

Yep, on to it ... was going to put a link up, but you beat me to it ... 😉.

 

Had another round of listening - and still put the Grimm last  ... it suffers, in this capture of how it's performing, from 'digititus' - tending now to push D&D to the top.

[fas42]

And yet another listen - was originally using the Trio Fugue item, because it was common to an earlier comparison I looked at from that website. This time, the James Taylor piece - and the D&D indeed was well above the ATC; the latter dropped back to "inside the box" sound - made the differences very easy to pick.

[Rexp]

The good news is the recording is good enough to show up some real differences, too bad I don't like the sound overall. Assume they used Qobuz/Tidal and the analogue out of the DAC? 

[FredM]

24 minutes ago, Rexp said:

The good news is the recording is good enough to show up some real differences, too bad I don't like the sound overall. Assume they used Qobuz/Tidal and the analogue out of the DAC? 

Yes, the recordings give an impression for playback at home. With the local (your/our) system and room in the chain it’s certainly not ideal, but better then no sonic impression at all. Luckily the panel is there to share their thoughts.

 

As I understand the analogue output is used for all speakers (as the ATC don’t have a digital input). In wonder if there would be differences when a digital signal would have been used for the D&D’s and Grimms. 

 

 

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

And yet another listen - was originally using the Trio Fugue item, because it was common to an earlier comparison I looked at from that website. This time, the James Taylor piece - and the D&D indeed was well above the ATC; the latter dropped back to "inside the box" sound - made the differences very easy to pick.

 

From what I heard from laptop I definitely prefer Dutch & Dutch, ATC second. Grimm is nice looking, it may win in silent mode :-)

 

[Alpha Audio]

10 hours ago, FredM said:

Hi Frank, based on your reply, perhaps interesting: just recently Alpha Audio released a Sample Database.

 

https://alpha-audio.net/2020/10/alpha-audio-launches-hifi-sample-database/

 

My guess is that the recordings of the active speakers will be added.

 

Thank you all for listening to this test and commenting. 

We will add these speakers to the database for sure. We have the lossless recording and will extract the music and level it. 

We use a dB-meter to level during the test, but it's hard. We have to find a method that is more accurate. 

[Alpha Audio]

7 hours ago, FredM said:

Yes, the recordings give an impression for playback at home. With the local (your/our) system and room in the chain it’s certainly not ideal, but better then no sonic impression at all. Luckily the panel is there to share their thoughts.

 

As I understand the analogue output is used for all speakers (as the ATC don’t have a digital input). In wonder if there would be differences when a digital signal would have been used for the D&D’s and Grimms. 

 

 

 

 

 

We did use the analog output of the dCS Rossini. The ATC's don't have digital in, otherwise we would have kept it digital. We used Qobuz and WAV. 

I always advise to use headphones for these kind of tests. Otherwise you get 'double acoustics'. 

[Alpha Audio]

19 hours ago, FredM said:

What happens when you put a couple enthousiastic audio guys, a mastering engineer and a producer in a recording studio with some impressive active speakers, using the dCS Rossini & clock as the source?

 

Please enjoy this 2+ hour live comparison of:

1. Dutch & Dutch 8C (@11m35)

2. ATC SCM100A (@56m30)

3. Grimm LS1be (@1h44m30)

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for posting it. In the description I added an index to make it more easy to find the relevant parts. 

[FredM]

40 minutes ago, Alpha Audio said:

 

Thanks for posting it. In the description I added an index to make it more easy to find the relevant parts. 

Many thanks for setting up the session and sharing your recordings and your actual listening experience in the room! I can image it did ask for quite some preparation, using the recording studio and collaboration with two professionals. Much appreciated 👍

[Alpha Audio]

7 minutes ago, FredM said:

Many thanks for setting up the session and sharing your recordings and your actual listening experience in the room! I can image it did ask for quite some preparation, using the recording studio and collaboration with two professionals. Much appreciated 👍

 

You are welcome! It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun! 

[fas42]

6 hours ago, FredM said:

Many thanks for setting up the session and sharing your recordings and your actual listening experience in the room! I can image it did ask for quite some preparation, using the recording studio and collaboration with two professionals. Much appreciated 👍

 

+1

[Rexp]

9 hours ago, Alpha Audio said:

 

We did use the analog output of the dCS Rossini. The ATC's don't have digital in, otherwise we would have kept it digital. We used Qobuz and WAV. 

I always advise to use headphones for these kind of tests. Otherwise you get 'double acoustics'. 

If the aim was to show these speakers at their best, I think using the digital in would have been preferable. Or even better comparing them to a live performance since you were in a recording studio. Many thanks for the video.

[Alpha Audio]

8 hours ago, Rexp said:

If the aim was to show these speakers at their best, I think using the digital in would have been preferable. Or even better comparing them to a live performance since you were in a recording studio. Many thanks for the video.

We wanted to compare apples to apples... the ATC doesn't have a digital input. 

[Alpha Audio]

The lossless samples are online. You can check them on cloud2.alpha-it.nl. You need an account to get full access (it's free).

 

You can create a Single Sign On account on https://alpha-audio.net/register/ after logging in, you can login to cloud2.alpha-it.nl with one click.