Sadurni Acoustics horns - any thoughts?
- Thread starter spiritofmusic
- Start date
if it's my good friend Marty about whom you are talking I say jump at the chance as you will hear IMO one of the best systems on the planet
Steve, Bonzo has had the pleasure of being hosted by Marty, and has raved about the experience to me ever since. If you know Bonzo he's a fussy fellow re what he likes/doesn't like, and in a lot of ways this has been the experience that has been the biggest one to convince him of the unique benefits of dsp. If I do travel to the States, I want to listen to 5 things - the Sadurnis, Trio Classico/Basshorns/SETs, visit Oswald Mills Audio to listen esp to the Imperias and New Yorkers, drop by on Marty and his dsp'd Pipedreams/JL Gothams/Spectrals, and maybe visit Zu Audio and demo their flagship Dominance spkrs.
Bruce, I can see your a well-listened guy, and ultra serious/ambitious in your choice/ownership of equipment. So can I ask what horns you're comparing the Sadurnis too, and what aspects of sound are so good according to you? I'm pretty much down to a final choice btwn two horns, these or the AvantGarde Acoustics Trio Classico w/single pair Basshorns. I would be most grateful if you tell me how you feel they are significantly better than the horn competition.
I maintain a love/hate relationship w/horns, interestingly backed up independently by my strictly non audiophile GF at the weekend. Much as I melt at the tone, dynamics, air and ease of horn presentation, I struggle a little w/lack of solidity and often bland presentation of flat, non audiophile recordings, and my GF despite finding the AvantGarde Duos we listened to fascinating, concluded the music was almost too beautiful/ethereal and at the same time too microscopic/forensic, compared to my Zu Definitions 4s.
Bruce, I can see your a well-listened guy, and ultra serious/ambitious in your choice/ownership of equipment. So can I ask what horns you're comparing the Sadurnis too, and what aspects of sound are so good according to you? I'm pretty much down to a final choice btwn two horns, these or the AvantGarde Acoustics Trio Classico w/single pair Basshorns. I would be most grateful if you tell me how you feel they are significantly better than the horn competition.
I maintain a love/hate relationship w/horns, interestingly backed up independently by my strictly non audiophile GF at the weekend. Much as I melt at the tone, dynamics, air and ease of horn presentation, I struggle a little w/lack of solidity and often bland presentation of flat, non audiophile recordings, and my GF despite finding the AvantGarde Duos we listened to fascinating, concluded the music was almost too beautiful/ethereal and at the same time too microscopic/forensic, compared to my Zu Definitions 4s.
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Ha ha Bonzo, just like your GF telling you she liked the Animas when you said you liked the Animas. Yes, we have great GFs!
No, I didn't give here a single opinion, pricing, anything on any speaker during the show. Proper blind test. Only after she loved the animas I told her that's my favorite. No opinions given on Wilson and Magico either.
Women are VERY intuitive Bonzo. She would have picked up on you tapping your feet, smiling, the hairs on the backs of your hands standing up, your breathless manner showing barely restrained excitement. Or maybe you're both tone deaf and bound to agree. Take your pick. Anyhow, if you knew anything about my GF, you'll know she has no issues saying what I don't like to hear, it's her fatal attraction to tell me I'm an idiot when it's needed.
She loved the AG Duos presentation generally, but found things a little too ethereal and overly forensic for her liking. On balance she gives the edge to my Nats/Zus. I actually like the very things in the Duos she isn't the greatest fan of, but every component in audio esp at the high end has balances of positives and negatives, and it's how these pan out in the individual's mind that dictates whether it's chosen.
She loved the AG Duos presentation generally, but found things a little too ethereal and overly forensic for her liking. On balance she gives the edge to my Nats/Zus. I actually like the very things in the Duos she isn't the greatest fan of, but every component in audio esp at the high end has balances of positives and negatives, and it's how these pan out in the individual's mind that dictates whether it's chosen.
There are a few questions Spiritofmusic has asked me on private emails and also that I get a lot and i would like to answer to them here in the forum.
How come your horns don't sound like horns?
Most horns people are used to, are in reality hybrid designs of a horn wrongly matched with a cone woofer inside a box. The horn having 110 dB sensitivity and the woofer having 95 dB sensitivity for instance. Playing music on it will get you on one set of frequencies peaks of 110 dB and peaks on another one of 95 dB; this spells shouty! Padding the midrange down with resistors will not avoid these peaks. Now please imagine we could invert places, let’s say the woofer was having these peaks of 110 dB and the midrange 95 dB: Windows would be shaking even at low volumes and walls would be coming down! We usually don’t realize this because of the low distortion horns are capable of, we don’t realize how high the volume is at higher frequencies than at lower ones.
Sensitivity is a hugely overlooked factor. To get this sort of response across the whole listening range gets complicated. We basically need another front horn to complement the midrange horn on the lower frequencies. Getting a lower frequency response out of a horn that matches with the midrange calls not only for a bigger horn, but also for a special driver inside it. After trying and measuring huge compression drivers and a lot of dynamic woofers of all shapes and sizes, we settled for a wonderful cone woofer manufactured specially for us.
The idea of using a cone driver in a horn is to get a higher output and limit the movement of that driver in order to lower its distortion. I won’t go too technical on this, but adding a horn to our special cone driver adds from 6 to 8 dB of sensitivity to it! We add compression to the driver thus limiting movement and distortion plus adding output and dynamics! What could be better? Horns add sensitivity to the final combo and lower distortion down to 100 hz! This special 110 dB sensitivity horn plays the most complicated part where most of the instruments of an orchestra are playing also called “The Musical Range”, from 100 hz up to 1000 hz.
Physics does play a part in this, so front horns do get bigger the lower they go, in diameter or square area but also in length, there is a relationship between these two: Area and Length. The limit on how big you can go with a horn depends really on practicality. If it becomes as big as a wall, you cannot really fit it inside a house, if it becomes too long you will lose extension and immediacy.
SO for bass we had to search for a different approach.
How come your horns don't sound like horns?
Most horns people are used to, are in reality hybrid designs of a horn wrongly matched with a cone woofer inside a box. The horn having 110 dB sensitivity and the woofer having 95 dB sensitivity for instance. Playing music on it will get you on one set of frequencies peaks of 110 dB and peaks on another one of 95 dB; this spells shouty! Padding the midrange down with resistors will not avoid these peaks. Now please imagine we could invert places, let’s say the woofer was having these peaks of 110 dB and the midrange 95 dB: Windows would be shaking even at low volumes and walls would be coming down! We usually don’t realize this because of the low distortion horns are capable of, we don’t realize how high the volume is at higher frequencies than at lower ones.
Sensitivity is a hugely overlooked factor. To get this sort of response across the whole listening range gets complicated. We basically need another front horn to complement the midrange horn on the lower frequencies. Getting a lower frequency response out of a horn that matches with the midrange calls not only for a bigger horn, but also for a special driver inside it. After trying and measuring huge compression drivers and a lot of dynamic woofers of all shapes and sizes, we settled for a wonderful cone woofer manufactured specially for us.
The idea of using a cone driver in a horn is to get a higher output and limit the movement of that driver in order to lower its distortion. I won’t go too technical on this, but adding a horn to our special cone driver adds from 6 to 8 dB of sensitivity to it! We add compression to the driver thus limiting movement and distortion plus adding output and dynamics! What could be better? Horns add sensitivity to the final combo and lower distortion down to 100 hz! This special 110 dB sensitivity horn plays the most complicated part where most of the instruments of an orchestra are playing also called “The Musical Range”, from 100 hz up to 1000 hz.
Physics does play a part in this, so front horns do get bigger the lower they go, in diameter or square area but also in length, there is a relationship between these two: Area and Length. The limit on how big you can go with a horn depends really on practicality. If it becomes as big as a wall, you cannot really fit it inside a house, if it becomes too long you will lose extension and immediacy.
SO for bass we had to search for a different approach.
Another question is :
How do you get the bass to match the Horns?
How will you get down to 25 hz and match up to horns? This is where it gets tricky!
There are a lot of topologies, from just adding a lot of woofers in an array, to pro audio solutions that work good for a stadium. We were looking for a High End solution that would sound like a true front bass horn, yes: that huge wall sized horn, when it comes to silence of the bass, and the attack that almost startles us. Clean and dynamic, that can be played at very low levels and does not loose integration with the other channels or can be played loud and won’t overload of be ever present.
Well I don’t think we can beat that, but we are close to the sound…
Our ABW bass stands for Added Back Wave, it is based on an idea coming from the 50's, that got a rebirth with the use of computers for its calculation. What it basically does is use the back wave of the driver and load that into a labyrinth, this limits the movement of the driver, reducing distortion again,changing its parameters, and double the efficiency adding that output to the front wave in a special chamber before it leaves the cabinet. This will work for only 2 octaves, and it will need to be used with a special active high order crossover on both the low and the high end of the output frequency and fed to dedicated bass amplifiers.
This is also very helpful in placement of the bass modules separately than the Horn speakers, and being able to add room tuning to it, but also it gets the bass vibrations away form sensitive midrange drivers and tweeter.
How do you get the bass to match the Horns?
How will you get down to 25 hz and match up to horns? This is where it gets tricky!
There are a lot of topologies, from just adding a lot of woofers in an array, to pro audio solutions that work good for a stadium. We were looking for a High End solution that would sound like a true front bass horn, yes: that huge wall sized horn, when it comes to silence of the bass, and the attack that almost startles us. Clean and dynamic, that can be played at very low levels and does not loose integration with the other channels or can be played loud and won’t overload of be ever present.
Well I don’t think we can beat that, but we are close to the sound…
Our ABW bass stands for Added Back Wave, it is based on an idea coming from the 50's, that got a rebirth with the use of computers for its calculation. What it basically does is use the back wave of the driver and load that into a labyrinth, this limits the movement of the driver, reducing distortion again,changing its parameters, and double the efficiency adding that output to the front wave in a special chamber before it leaves the cabinet. This will work for only 2 octaves, and it will need to be used with a special active high order crossover on both the low and the high end of the output frequency and fed to dedicated bass amplifiers.
This is also very helpful in placement of the bass modules separately than the Horn speakers, and being able to add room tuning to it, but also it gets the bass vibrations away form sensitive midrange drivers and tweeter.
Smallest room
What is the smallest room you can place your speakers in that will still sound good?
The smallest room we have installed the Staccatos is the standard room at RMAF: 13´ X 19´ X 9´ It sounded great when the room was full, we did have a few issues that would have been fixed with more time. One of our design rooms was a 14´X 21´ X 9´ It sounded great. What you will lose with a smaller room is the possibility to play really loud, and inevitably: soundstage. This will happen with any speaker in a smaller room. Given the directivity of horns, they can be placed near the walls or corners with no big disadvantage.
What is the smallest room you can place your speakers in that will still sound good?
The smallest room we have installed the Staccatos is the standard room at RMAF: 13´ X 19´ X 9´ It sounded great when the room was full, we did have a few issues that would have been fixed with more time. One of our design rooms was a 14´X 21´ X 9´ It sounded great. What you will lose with a smaller room is the possibility to play really loud, and inevitably: soundstage. This will happen with any speaker in a smaller room. Given the directivity of horns, they can be placed near the walls or corners with no big disadvantage.
Jorge, thanx for your in depth answers. I very much get the idea that the third large lower mid/upper bass horn is needed for true realism, and single midrange horns are a compromise as you go twds 100Hz (Avantgarde Unos and Duos/Tune Audio Animas/Cessaro Chopins and Liszts). Interesting that the top models in the Avantgarde and Cessaro lines have 3 horns plus sub bass. And these models are at least 2-5x pricier in the UK than your Sadurnis. And I'm relieved that your bass solution is a much more ingenious solution than simple subwoofer drivers/cabinet.
I'm presuming you would say there is a seamless transition to the bass stack, and the bass is as fast as the frequencies higher up?
Did you ever contemplate going for a more uncompromising solution for the lower frequencies like the Avantgarde G2 Basshorns beasties, or do you feel your labrynth/back wave solution for down to 25Hz is inherently superior?
I'm presuming you would say there is a seamless transition to the bass stack, and the bass is as fast as the frequencies higher up?
Did you ever contemplate going for a more uncompromising solution for the lower frequencies like the Avantgarde G2 Basshorns beasties, or do you feel your labrynth/back wave solution for down to 25Hz is inherently superior?
I have only heard these speakers once at last years Cap Audio fest. The sound was mushy and flat. I will call the sound uninspiring. I was in the room with two friends. The other people in the room were loving the sound. Then my friend got up and took a good look at the speakers. The tweeters were not connected. We asked and learned that the tweeters were blown out that morning. Hopefully they will be back at the Cap Fest this year so we can give them a listen again. It was amazing how many audiophiles in the room didn't seem to notice that.
Joe, let me tell you of an experience I'm embarrassed to relate, but actually really see the funny side. During my ferocious anti digital tirade of the late 80s, I went to a demo. Music went on that had a fair amount of surface noise, and I luxuriated in a sound that I felt on this tt couldn't ever sound better on cd. Only when the song ended was it pointed out to me that it was indeed from a CD w/noise deliberately recorded in. Ooo err!
I did read this episode re non tweeters, and it doesn't exactly fill me w/confidence. I guess this means your impressions weren't accurate in any way. Keep me posted of experiences in more optimal situations.
I did read this episode re non tweeters, and it doesn't exactly fill me w/confidence. I guess this means your impressions weren't accurate in any way. Keep me posted of experiences in more optimal situations.
I think the analogy is different. Both the TT and the CD were functioning well, so tough to tell which is playing from a distance unless you are familiar with both components, the system, and the recordings being played.
A more appropriate analogy to Joe's example would be enjoying the sound of the music if the TT or the CD Player in your example was broken (say music coming out of only one channel of the CDP), yet you were saying wow, what a sound.
Joe, I actually knew a guy who for years lived with a Martin Logan SL3 which had one of the woofers blown off. He enjoyed his music and couldn't detect a change in sound when any of the upstream components were changed.
A more appropriate analogy to Joe's example would be enjoying the sound of the music if the TT or the CD Player in your example was broken (say music coming out of only one channel of the CDP), yet you were saying wow, what a sound.
Joe, I actually knew a guy who for years lived with a Martin Logan SL3 which had one of the woofers blown off. He enjoyed his music and couldn't detect a change in sound when any of the upstream components were changed.
Anyhow, i will INSIST the tweeters are working ahead of possible trial LOL!
My final possible shortlist (very short) is likely to be the Sadurnis and AG Trio/Basshorns G2, if I move away from my Zus.
I'm in the active process of considering a move to a smaller space, i.e. fro 27x22x13 to poss 18x15x9 or maybe 24x20x9 if I get lucky, and I'm a little anxious that both models may overpower these spaces. But Jorge reassures me his babies will wk in these spaces, esp w/possibly more placement-flexible Sadurni subs than the AG Basshorns.
My final possible shortlist (very short) is likely to be the Sadurnis and AG Trio/Basshorns G2, if I move away from my Zus.
I'm in the active process of considering a move to a smaller space, i.e. fro 27x22x13 to poss 18x15x9 or maybe 24x20x9 if I get lucky, and I'm a little anxious that both models may overpower these spaces. But Jorge reassures me his babies will wk in these spaces, esp w/possibly more placement-flexible Sadurni subs than the AG Basshorns.
Hello Joe,
Yes we had a lot of issues on that show, hauling around huge horn speakers is complicated, and setting them up to sound good on any given room in one day even more. We have had good sound in shows but nothing compared to what you will hear at a dedicated room like the one set up in New York (Jersey).
As a disclaimer: all reviewers were advised that the tweeters were out. Sadly we wont be able to make it to CAF this year.
Even though our tweeters add a lot of sparkle and tone to the sound, the midrange driver has a flat response up to 18 kHz. So you still get the idea of what the speakers are capable of.
Let me make it up to you! If you have the chance I would like to arrange a private listening session for you and your friends in New Jersey or Chicago, which ever is closer to you.
Yes we had a lot of issues on that show, hauling around huge horn speakers is complicated, and setting them up to sound good on any given room in one day even more. We have had good sound in shows but nothing compared to what you will hear at a dedicated room like the one set up in New York (Jersey).
As a disclaimer: all reviewers were advised that the tweeters were out. Sadly we wont be able to make it to CAF this year.
Even though our tweeters add a lot of sparkle and tone to the sound, the midrange driver has a flat response up to 18 kHz. So you still get the idea of what the speakers are capable of.
Let me make it up to you! If you have the chance I would like to arrange a private listening session for you and your friends in New Jersey or Chicago, which ever is closer to you.
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