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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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In Reply to: Sonus Faber- Electa Amator I vs Electa Amator II posted by SR on March 6, 2000 at 19:02:06:
EA vs EA IITreble
Both EA and EA II have slight brightness in the 5-8kHz region. This is not apparent in most recordings but it shows up in both speaker when both are fed test signals. Certainly there will be an ocassion or two where it will unceremoniously show up in either speaker. However, if not emasculated by OCOS or some soft sounding copper cable, the EA's tweeter is more likely to go berserk than the EA II's more friendly tweeter in my experience. On its own, the EA's Esotar tweeter is indeed better than the Scanspeak unit in the EA II. However it does not follow that all speakers with Esotar tweeters have truly superb highs. For me, the Esotar implementation in the EA is mediocre at best. First, it does not sound like the Extrema or Guarneri (both of which use Esotar too) treble at all. Secondly it is so easy to localize (most treble coming from the vicinity of the speaker ...) that it becomes really annoying. Besides, it sounds detached from the midrange too.
The EA II's tweeter otoh while lacking the fancy reputation of the Esotar, quietly gets the job done. It lacks ferrofluid damping of any kind so it uncovers some subtle nuances (and unfortunately recording garbage too) that is not heard through the EA. If anything, the EA II's tweeter sounds more refined to my ears. Even so, I secretly wished Serblin stuck in a Scanspeak Revelator into the EA II though.
Midrange
The EA has a dark full chocolatey lower midrange that is pro-Pavaroti. Unfortunately it also has a malnourished upper midrange that is simply too stingy to female sopranos. This type of midband sound romantic to other people. It sounds monotonous and unrealistic to me. The EA midrange is also quite lively - so dynamics is bunched up into the higher end of the stick. As a result the speakers are better playing lively energetic music as opposed to subtle emotional music that has finer dynamic gradations.
The EA II has a dryer, leaner but more natural sounding midband that is capable of portraying a significantly wider tonal palette than what the EA is capable of. It is more laidback sounding compared to the EA but its dynamic range is wider.
Bass
The EA has underdamped midbass. Their port output is so high, the ports actually sing tunes when driven loudly. The good news is that consequently, the EA has bass even at low volume (but even then, it certainly sounds better when played louder too) The bad news is that its bass is nowhere as good as its midrange or highs in terms of resolution. Like most speakers where the underdamped reflex tuning does the dirty bass work, the bass sounds slower and less dynamic than the midband w/c is not good for pace n rhythm.
The EA II in contrast has overdamped bass alignment. Midbass is produced only when the midwoofer's excursion goes beyond a certain threshold. The bad news as a consequence is that the EA II should be played louder than usual otherwise bass is missing in action and the speakers sound too thin. The good news however, is that when that threshold is crossed, the EA II produces excellent midbass and upperbass that are produced through sheer woofer excursion. The EA II exhibits a punchiness and remarkable agility in the bass coupled with authority, weight and scale. At full song, the EA II's midrange and bass dynamics are cut from the same cloth. As a bonus, the EA II's more rigid cabinet also result to deeper bass extension.
Let's not talk about musicality, pace n rhythm and other musically related stuff as even the Concerto and Signum, let alone the EA II will slay the EA in that regard because the key to all that is treble-midrange-bass integration ... the one key area where the EA is unfortunately the weakest.
Oh and yup, the EA 2 is bigger, heavier and has deeper bass than the EA.
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- Re: Sonus Faber- Electa Amator I vs Electa Amator II - Hyperion 11:46:12 03/07/00 (0)
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