Harry the Haddock welcomes Arke Speakers.

fab .. hope it goes well

This will be interestin, going to stick my neck out here Jason's Arkes imho will be natural, whether they get close to anything else thats another matter for the boys to decide.

The Estelons may surprise you then Jason. 

I'm sure they will Dave. Can't wait. Really looking forward to hearing the Humboldt too.

Ah, not quite natural Tony.....more, "supernatural"

These Vader speakers will be greatly underestimated by anyone who hasn't heard them. Being available for DIY seems to give people the impression that they can't hang with big ticket items.

These speakers make a fool of that notion, as has everything Jason has let me have a listen to so far.

These Vaders wipe the floor with anything I have heard.

I would it will rather enlightening for you Oli

Thanks for the feedback Dave and Mark!  Thanks for hosting too, it was a fantastic day out with a great lunch and fantastic sounds!

Well, there is certainly lots to unpack and digest from yesterday - it was an eye (ear) opening experience for many, many reasons...  It may take a few post to cover everything, but I shall make a start:

Firstly, credit to the man: Troels Gravesen!  Yes, I redesigned the cabinets (within the Troels guidelines) and built the speakers, but Troels designed the (CNO4) speakers from scratch and did a frankly outstanding job with the driver selection, speaker design and most importantly, the crossover.   Without Troels these speakers would not exist.

MEASUREMENTS AND BASS EQ:
This is certainly a massive challenge in a relatively short time window.  I probably spent a week completely optimising the Vaders for my room (perhaps I am quite obsessive too! ) - It is quite an in-depth process of tweaking the DSP, measuring, tweaking, measuring etc.  then some listening and more tweaking/measuring/tweaking etc...  It is extremely difficult to do as the mic is only sampling the FR (frequency response) at one location in the room - the listening position.  Mark's room has two main listening locations either side of the 'sweet spot', and with three of us (yesterday) Dave generally sat to one side (near a side wall).  I didn't have adequate time to measure the speakers in many locations, so the tuning was optimised for the sweet spot, unfortunately, this meant that there were variations in our listening positions and Dave would've been sitting in a strong room mode (bass) peak.  

The initial measurements of the Estelon XBs and Vaders showed that the listening region had some very large variations in FR from 20-200Hz - up to +/-10db!  This sounds massive, but is actually consistent with most rooms I have measured.  I would wager than most rooms have bass output variations of at least 10db at the listening position - Mark's room was no exception.  There was a very large suckout at 40Hz and a big boost at 60-70Hz.  This chart shows the FR measured at the 'sweet spot':


Note: Psychoacoustic smoothing applied
Red = Estelon XBs, Blue = Vaders (no tuning), Green = Vaders ('quick tuning')

One thing became immediately obvious when level matching:  The Vaders were about 6db more sensitive - this was quite evident when listening too.  Both the Estelons and (untuned) Vaders clearly highlighted how the room effected the frequency response from 20-200Hz.  With a 'quick' tuning of the Vaders I managed to reduce these variations, however, more work would be required to improve this further.  Both speakers display a gentle roll off through the upper mids and HF regions - this is normal when measured at the listening position, especially at a relatively large distance.  Both speakers also displayed a dip around 2kHz - The Vaders about 3db relative to 3.5kHz and the Estelons about 6db relative to 4kHz.  I believe this is slightly an effect of the room as the Vaders do not display this dip nearfield (I didn't measure the Estelons nearfield).

A final comment is that these peaks in bass do concur with the room dimensions.  A mid 20Hz lift is expected due to the length mode and the 60-70Hz lift coincides with a strong height mode - both speakers have bass drivers near the floor, so do excite this height mode.

On first listening it was obvious that the Vaders were producing a serious bass output!  On mosts track I know, it sounded about right, but I did tweak it back slightly.  I believe Mark and Dave found it too much to start as the Vaders move considerably more are than the Estelons.  The bass was definitely too much for Dave sat by the boundary!.  Fortunately, the Bass could be adjusted 'on the fly' and tweaked to meet their tastes.  

PLEASE NOTE: The Vader's tuning is NOT a finished tuning for Mark's room.  I would spend a lot more time taking spatially averaged measurements around the listing positions and tuning the bass response much more accurately.   Further tuning would be using measurements and client preferences.

During initial listening the Vaders produced slightly more HF than Mark and Dave were used to.  It was not excessive by any means, but we did reduce the HF output by 2db on the Vader's HF attenuation selector.  I thought it was perfect after this tweak.  I have them set to neutral, however, Mark's room has relatively little absorption so the 2db attenuation worked well.  The chart above shows the tweeter on standard setting - the attenuation will lower the output from 2.5kHz-20kHz by about 2db.

I'll add some extra thoughts on the SQ and how the Vaders sounded with Mark's DAC and AMP.

Andrew, thanks for the questions.  The Vaders perform like a standard passive speaker with virtually no setup - one preset on the plate amps is a standard 'flat' tuning, so that can be used straight away.  Therefore, as a bare minimum the active version will perform at least as well as a passive speaker in the room.  The Vaders/CNO4s also have a fully passive version, where biamping is strongly recommended.  

I would spend a day helping a client to setup some new speakers.   I only had a short time yesterday as we needed to listen too!  It is also possible to email tweaked tuning files for people to try after purchase - they can be uploaded in seconds.  The Active bass has advantages and disadvantages... The main advantage is being able to work well in virtually all rooms and to be able to counter peaks and troughs in the room response.  The main disadvantage is that it takes some time and skill (and a calibrated mic) to setup and they require 2 more power leads!

We also had very limited time to explore various placement positions yesterday.  The Vaders essentially sat in the same location as the Estelons.  A proper setup would explore the optimum location before tuning the DSP.

Thanks Dave that is a very impressive endorsement of the work that Jason is doing and what can be achieved by looking at the bespoke route rather than the main stream .

Thanks Steve.  The Ektas are perhaps a slight outlier (in the Troels line up) as they are not the easiest load, so definitely benefit from the right amp - the 686 won't disappoint!

One pair of Vaders have been ordered.

Well done, Jason.
Will the Vaders directly replace the Estalons?

Will you be asking for them to be made in wibbly-wobbly shaped cabinets?

So, where's the nearest pair of Vaders to me?

(I heard Alan's Ektas a week or so ago).

You cannot take any barometer of performance from the Ekta when considering the Vaders. It pains me to say this, but the Etka sound like toy speakers compared to the Vaders/CNO-4.

They are in an entirely alternate universe performance wise and I can say wholeheartedly that it broke my heart when I heard them.

They are VERY special speakers

Fair enough.

The presentation of my MBL based system is very different to Alan's Ekta system.

What was immediately noticeable on the return to my own system was the 3D palpability and solidity of the imaging.

Also, to be fair, the MBLs are quite literally my dream speakers. They just latch on to me in a very 'form fitting' way that any other speaker is going to struggle to match, not because they aren't as good but just because they are different.
.... But that's probably what Dave's brother thought about his Estalons!