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Planar Speaker Asylum Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share your ideas and experiences. |
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In Reply to: Re: NFR 645 updates posted by rlinder on September 5, 2003 at 15:58:58:
Newform Research Update - Aug 2003
Written by John Meyer
Let’s get right to the main event. After 6 years of false starts, dropped programs and delays, Newform finally has a digital amplifier system that is ready to go, is incredibly cheap and offers superb performance. Anyone who has a lot of experience in audio will take quite a while to digest what follows. There are several major incongruities that will only be reconciled by time and listening. The over used term “paradigm shift†actually does apply here.
The Background
Four years ago at the CES in Las Vegas I spent an afternoon in a hotel room with the Texas Instruments (TI) digital amplifier development team. They had wanted to get my response to their development platform and direction and hear about the pitfalls encountered by other companies who had tried and given up on digital amps.
They were certainly a very sharp and well grounded group of individuals and they had Tis backing to make digital amplifiers work. TIs commitment included their own talented people, an audiophile product designer and whatever outside expertise or companies they had to buy to get the job done. Outstanding talent, incredible technical resources, patience and deep pockets have combined to produce the desired results.
But back to Las Vegas. The team had an early prototype of a digital amplifier with a digital power supply. At 12 watts, it sounded fine with that fundamental digital amp sound source resolution that Spectron had so clearly demonstrated years before. Beyond that, you couldn’t tell much with a pair of micro speakers set up randomly on the dining room table of a hotel suite. The package was interesting though as it was very small and lightweight with no transformers or large caps.
Two years later, I was informed that one of their large development partners (Panasonic) was working on a 6 channel x 100w product which would make it to market eventually. Well, it is here now and it (the Panasonic XR45 6 channel receiver) serves notice that the all-digital chain has landed.
What is the Panasonic XR45 and better yet, who (in audiophile terms) is Panasonic? Panasonic is a division of Matsushita Electronics, one of the largest companies on the planet with 290,000 employees. In the early ‘80s Matsushita presented their calling card at the Chicago Audio Show with a display of close to 10,000 square feet featuring Japanese art, waterfalls and no products. The message of a long term outlook and a huge background presence was subtle, powerful and unforgettable.
To me Panasonic, besides making the most advanced electric assist (pedelec) bicycles, is fax machines and telephones. Despite some very decent sounding DVD players, its audio gear is low to mid-fi at best. The XR45 does not change that market focus in the least. At 3" high, weighing 9 pounds (no transformers, no external heat sinks and no large caps are responsible for this) and with a street price of $350US, the XR45 will not appear as a life form to any audiophile on this planet.
Few audiophiles will stumble on and embrace the XR45. And certainly not in public.
“Say George, I just traded in my $8000, 200 pound Krells for a 9 pound, 3" high Panasonic receiver. Would you like to come over and listen to it?â€
“No Tony, it’s OK, I have to cut my cats nails right now and then my wife and I are going on 2 year world tour so you don’t need to try calling me again. Ever.â€
Even Panasonic isn’t making it easy. Fire up the XR45 out of the box and it sounds like the cheapo receiver you expect it to be. Thin sounding, with no bottom end whatsoever. I have worked with enough TI digital amp evaluation boards and prototypes to know that the sound had to be better than that.
The factory defaults appear to be surround sound with some type of trick “enhancements†and a 100Hz subwoofer filter. The factory obviously assumes that it will fulfill it’s lowball mission of driving a cheap set of speakers in a “venue†(hall, movie theater, tavern, grotto ) surround mode. After fighting my way through the menu system for 90 minutes, I was able to arrive at a simple, unfiltered, modeless and unenhanced stereo configuration.
The result was a truly amazing bottom end normally delivered only by the likes of Spectron, Classe, Bryston etc.. Deep, powerful bass with superb pitch definition out of a 9 pound package. It was many days before I could stop gazing in wonder at the XR45 every so often during listening sessions. Even with my background of digital amp evangelism, the hearing and the seeing requires a radical mental re-alignment.
As a low end piece of gear, the XR45 wears the part well. Let’s first grimace at the specs. 105 watts per channel into 6 ohms at 1kHz, with 0.3% distortion. This sort of spec phrasing is what you would expect during the ‘70s when some manufactures marketing departments gave power figures that could only be achieved, going downhill with a tailwind during a lightning storm. Bryston would probably rate this at 17 watts (joking!).
Specs here simply do not give any indication of the sound quality. Once we get more comfortable with digital amps which simply do not spec out as well as the best A/B amps, the whole distortion perception area should be revisited in depth by a qualified research team.
Stepping back a bit, the typical distortion/output curves for digital amps I’ve seen would probably put the XR45 at 75w/ch, 20 to 20kHz with .04% distortion. This would be a much better looking spec and more indicative of the listening experience but marketing departments like to go for that big fat 100w figure. I guess it sells better to their target demographic.
But the XR45 plays very loudly and very cleanly and due to its digital brain, clipping is extremely graceful and in fact almost impossible to perceive. NAD put a lot of work into its amps to take the edge off clipping without hurting the music and they were the best at it in solid state amp but XR45 is downright tube-like in this area. In any case, there is more than enough power to light up our 22'x23' big room with the 645s biamped (using 4 of the XR45s 6 channels).
Partly due to cost and partly due to the lack of rear panel real estate, only the main speakers get binding post terminals. The other 4 channels get pretty well thought out micro clamp terminals for bare wire ends. These couldn’t cost more than 4 cents each and they do save a great deal of space. The tiny gauge power cord is one of those things with one side rounded and one side square plug. We are in video game player territory here. No high end magazine is going to review the XR45 but you can imagine the comments if they did? The snickering would be deafening. Who could blame them?If you ever managed to secure a really heavy duty set of audiophile cables to the back of the Panasonic, the resultant torque might flip the tiny package on its side or back or even hold it suspended in the air. Maybe this will result in a whole new market segment - “Digital Amp Clampsâ€. To put the kidding aside for a second, the XR45 is very well put together inside and out but the high end clues of heft and overbuilding simply are not there.
Panasonic has not ignored sound quality in the XR45. I know many listening tests were done during its development. In fact, the XR45 is an upgraded version of the XR25 (probably $100 less) which has similar specs. The XR45 benefits from higher quality components and capacitors etc. Great sound is no accident but it is not the driving force behind the development of the product. Efficiency, packaging and cost were larger drivers.
The XR45 may signal a turning point in the life of high end audio but it is not a magnificent product to be coveted for decades. Like virtually all digital products, it is an appliance and soon something better and even less charismatic will come out. The engineering and development (not to mention cost) behind the XR45 is truly astonishing and easily eclipses the work of the creators of many of the great audiophile classic components.
But development here was done by teams inside huge corporations and the result is something that cannot be shown off, fondled or even understood by most of us. It’s only joy is in the using. Its only task is to get out of the way of the music and this it does as well as virtually any audio component out there. Digital may deliver the goods but the romance of technically driven aesthetics may be dying a quick death. Such is progress as art is displaced by science.
Behringer DSP Crossover
Arriving within 3 weeks of the XR45 was the Behringer DCX 2496 digital crossover. It is incredibly flexible and powerful crossover and the other necessary component to make the digital chain complete.
The 2496 is a digital package as well, compact and light but stuffed with capability. It’s a 3 way stereo crossover (we use it as a 2 way stereo so there is room for a sub crossover capability). Amazing crossover flexibility, 6 to 48 dB slopes, Butterworth, Bessel or Linkwitz-Riley filter types, 1 to 180 degree phase control with a fair amount of EQ capability plus many other features.
As a loudspeaker designer with 30 years of crossover component lead twisting and alligator clip jumping, using a real time crossover by just dialling in the values, slopes and alignments plus some equalization from the listening seat while the music is playing is joy itself.
With the price of digital amps and the cost and capability of digital crossovers, passive crossovers are now history for the serious tweaker.
The Whole System.
Added together the XR45 and the Behringer are a killer combination both in terms of performance and value. As shipped, the system is plug and play. If you have to install the external crossover terminal plates, setup will probably take 2 hours. If your system already has direct wired drivers count on 15 minutes as we ship both components fully configured with all of the cables and interconnects.
So the package consists of:
- Panasonic XR45 6 channel receiver (we make use of 4 channels)
- Behringer DCX2496 digital crossover
- All interconnects including an interconnect to the coax output of your CD or DVD player
- biamp Analysis Plus speaker cables
- external crossover terminal plates
System cost
- with the R645s $3210US delivered
- if you have the R645s or R630s, $973US delivered
Strong Points
Freed from coils and resistors in the circuits, the 645s ScanSpeak midbasses can dig very deep with great authority. A subwoofer for music in any room under 400 square feet is almost certainly not needed.
Dynamics. Note the capital “Dâ€. 105 watts, 75 watts, spec it as you like, the jump and the power is there in spades for virtually any room and perceptible clipping is not a factor.
Classic digital amp sound source resolution and rock solid soundstaging.
Detail and transparency with a foundation of bottom end openness, reach and pitch definition.
Weak Points
You will start to pick apart your music’s production quality from cut to cut. Great cuts are an absolute joy. Mediocre cuts are, “well, if they loved their music so much, why didn’t they do a better job of producing it†- kind of attitude. Poor cuts aren’t punishing but the difference is striking. You will seek out for good material.
Future Directions
What is next? Internal crossovers to replace the Behringer or perhaps a Behringer with room correction built in. Increasingly sophisticated room correction is now on some lower end Yamaha receivers. Dedicated, higher end digital amp packages from leaders like Spectron. Panasonic has a definite lead here and they can basically hit the targets they want to while smaller companies will struggle to turn their visions into reality. The question is, what is Panasonic’s vision?
There are a number of parallels with the progress of video front projectors. It is now possible to get a really good front projector for under $1000 (Infocus X1 and possibly several others). There are better front projectors out there but they cost a great deal more. But the main point is, the X1 is good enough and cheap enough to allow people to switch from tubes and rear projectors into the front projector configuration. Once there, they can await the virtually guaranteed rapid price reductions and performance increases and upgrade when they see fit, easily selling and replacing their existing unit.
With digital amps and DSP crossovers, the same plug and play future awaits. Prices may or may not go down but performance and features (room correction etc.) can only improve. A ready market exists for the used amp and crossovers so cost recovery should be pretty good on an already very small investment. To put this in perspective, try selling your 65" rear projector.
Caveats
OK, we have been preaching the advent of the complete digital chain. This isn’t completely digital all the way. There is one section of AD/DA as the Behringer only outputs analog and the Panasonic only takes analog for its multi channel inputs.
When a one box solution (amps and crossovers in one piece or gear) is available this issue will go away.
The Behringer is a very flexible piece of pro gear. Get off the beaten path when you are still a novice and you will find yourself lost in configuration menu hell. That is why we send it out fully configured. Feel free to experiment but MAKE GOOD NOTES and build up familiarity with the menu system before making changes.
General Points
Room equalization is a huge topic. Some things can be addressed very well by room correction and some things can’t be. Tact has the best system around and the EQ capability built into the Behringer is very crude by comparison but it can be extremely useful if applied properly.
Most Newform customers have amps and preamps worth in the neighbourhood of $5000. This package cuts that investment down to less than $1000. The system does not have the flexibility of a preamp with multiple inputs but is quite convenient if you are only using a CD or DVD player. The Panasonic does come with a remote control for volume.
Splicing into a home theater system can be done fairly readily but it is best left for another discussion.
How good is the system really?
Does it crush the current state of the art, Tact, Bryston, Spectron, Krell et all? No, the current state-of-the-art is extremely good and this is not a quantum leap in fidelity. However, it is better than many very good systems and sits on the same plateau in many respects as the best out there. I doubt anyone will be disappointed in the performance and anyone who does not have a superb system now will be thrilled.
Investment Strategy
Great sound for a $1000 total investment in amplification is a no-brainer for audiophiles. To the point of being greeted with disbelief, in fact. For the price of a good set of cables, you replace and probably improve the whole front end. When something better comes out, the XR45 can be used or sold as a normal receiver and there is a ready pro market for the Behringer. The point here is: low entry cost, decent resale value.
An End to Tweaking?
Will tweakers feel abandoned? With dozens of parameters to fine tune, the Behringer offers immense tuning potential not the least of which is basic room correction (EQ). The loss of passive crossover components will be more than made up for by the array of DSP crossover choices. Will audiophiles adjust? We’ll see. Just remember to write down your settings or you’ll spend hours in a never ending menu maze. And, of course, there are a lot of interconnects involved. Oh yes, speaker cables are still with us. Now, that power cord ....
Upgrading Current Speakers
Upgrading your current Newforms will take about 60 minutes and require some soldering. The external crossover terminal plates are $70US and they screw right into the existing terminal cups existing holes. You do not have to remove the woofers or otherwise go inside the box to perform this upgrade.
External Crossover Terminal Plates
New Web Site
It was close to a year in the making but the new website is finally up. Please look through it and tell us what you think. We wanted a subdued site that was exceptionally easy to navigate given the large amount of material we have on line. Let us know how you found it to use.
Also, please send in pictures of your system with stock Newform speakers. People like to see how our speakers look in the real world.
As soon as we learn to use our new CNC router, we will get the No Holds Barred systems finished and up on the site. This will be the subject of our next Update! The NHB systems have been waiting for the in-house CNC capability since no external supplier is interested in taking on the very convoluted and painstaking manufacturing process given Newforms low volume. Also, we had always planned to offer NHB systems with DSP crossovers exclusively and have been holding back development until the Behringer DSP crossover was available and working to expectations.
Again, the No Holds Barred line will not replace any current models but will offer higher end performance and finer aesthetics at a significantly higher cost.♪ moderate Mart £ ♫ ☺ Planar Asylum
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Follow Ups
- repost -> "Newform Research Update - Aug 2003" - Mart 22:28:26 09/05/03 (0)
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