Vivid

[The Knife]

Sold my Martin Logans yesterday as I plan to upgrade. While waiting for the new arrivals, my local dealer suggested I borrow a pair of box speakers to try, so I chose the G4s. They sound nice, but it’s clear that I miss the sound of my electrostats. After a few hours of listening, I’ve noticed a few shortcomings with the G4s and, honestly, no real advantages compared to the electrostats.
To be cont.

 

[ecwl]

Haha… Interesting… Can’t wait to hear more.
But the Martin Logan ESL 11A have 8” woofer that’s DSP driven with dedicated crossover and option for digital room correction so just on specs alone, you’re going to get a lot less bass from the G4’s 5” woofers. Sure, I see the big subwoofer B&W DB1D in the room but without careful re-integration with the G4 with measurements, it’ll be difficult to get back the ESL 11A sound. Moreover, G4 is much less sensitive than the ESL 11A so you would also have to turn down the volume of the B&W DB1D to match the G4’s lower sensitivity.
Also, I think most people don’t appreciate the absence/reduction of diffraction in their speakers because almost all speakers have significant diffraction effects.
Your room looks gorgeous but I see very little acoustic treatment. That often sets the ceiling for what you can hear from speaker upgrades. It took me over a decade to finally come to terms with adding acoustic treatment to my living room. Heck, it took me a few years to remove the coffee table. Haha, I recommended a good friend to put a blanket over the glass coffee table to optimize the sound during listening sessions. His wife (also a good friend) is probably still upset at me for that.
With all that said, super curious about your experience of the Vivid G4

 

[The Knife]

Haha… Interesting… Can’t wait to hear more.
But the Martin Logan ESL 11A have 8” woofer that’s DSP driven with dedicated crossover and option for digital room correction so just on specs alone, you’re going to get a lot more bass from the G4’s 5” woofers. Sure, I see the big subwoofer B&W DB1D in the room but without careful re-integration with the G4 with measurements, it’ll be difficult to get back the ESL 11A sound. Moreover, G4 is much less sensitive than the ESL 11A so you would also have to turn down the volume of the B&W DB1D to match the G4’s lower sensitivity.
Also, I think most people don’t appreciate the absence/reduction of diffraction in their speakers because almost all speakers have significant diffraction effects.
Your room looks gorgeous but I see very little acoustic treatment. That often sets the ceiling for what you can hear from speaker upgrades. It took me over a decade to finally come to terms with adding acoustic treatment to my living room. Heck, it took me a few years to remove the coffee table. Haha, I recommended a good friend to put a blanket over the glass coffee table to optimize the sound during listening sessions. His wife (also a good friend) is probably still upset at me for that.
With all that said, super curious about your experience of the Vivid G4

The carpet is 60kg indian whool.
Beneath it lays a foundation of professional heavy material carpets for pianos. The curtains are also ca 80kg extra dense fabric. The sofa is deep and quite massive. There is a wall of diffusors behind it. The DB1D is a ”smart sub” (they all are these days except those from REL) integrates it self via microphone. The glass table resting on stones from the Berlin wall will remain. The ML’s handled that table just fine . I will adjust somewhat according to your advice and continue to thinker, but I am only true to myself. The Vivid is good given their humble footprint and modest size but they do not excell like the ESL11 and less so be in competition with the ESL15 that are on their way. This room favours the sound radiation of a pair of electrostats, I am quite certain.

 

[The Knife]

 

[ecwl]

The DB1D is a ”smart sub” (they all are these days except those from REL) integrates it self via microphone. I will adjust somewhat according to your advice and continue to thinker, but I am only true to myself..

According to the DB1D manual that I can see, I don’t think the subwoofer adjusts to your speakers volume automatically. That I thought you have to adjust yourself but I may be wrong. G4 is about 5dB quieter than ESL 11A according to the specs so you may have to set the subwoofer 5dB quieter. And you may have to increase the crossover frequency of the DB1D to compensate for G4’s smaller woofers. My experience is that most 5” woofers are almost always going to have more distortions than 8” woofers when playing the same bass notes so you’ll probably notice a difference unless you just let the subwoofer take over more of the bass frequencies.

 

[The Knife]

According to the DB1D manual that I can see, I don’t think the subwoofer adjusts to your speakers volume automatically. That I thought you have to adjust yourself but I may be wrong. G4 is about 5dB quieter than ESL 11A according to the specs so you may have to set the subwoofer 5dB quieter. And you may have to increase the crossover frequency of the DB1D to compensate for G4’s smaller woofers. My experience is that most 5” woofers are almost always going to have more distortions than 8” woofers when playing the same bass notes so you’ll probably notice a difference unless you just let the subwoofer take over more of the bass frequencies.

Thanks for the good advice. Yes, I clearly hear that there is a disadvantage that the G4´s doesn't run on any DSP etc. For this room some kind of room correction would have been beneficial as it was with the ESL11´s. I also got better results after applying Anthem with them. I have dialed the DB output on the DB1D (done via the B&W app on the Iphone from the sofa) and it goes as high as it can; 150hz. So yes, while the base isn't as perfect matched to this room as with the ESL11´s I wish from the G4 that they could render a richer more present midrange. In my humble opinion it just is not there in my room the same way it was with the ML. This could partly be explained by amplification, but I believe the Essence to be a quite sturdy piece of equipment.

 

[ecwl]

Thanks for the good advice. Yes, I clearly hear that there is a disadvantage that the G4´s doesn't run on any DSP etc. For this room some kind of room correction would have been beneficial as it was with the ESL11´s. I also got better results after applying Anthem with them. I have dialed the DB output on the DB1D (done via the B&W app on the Iphone from the sofa) and it goes as high as it can; 150hz. So yes, while the base isn't as perfect matched to this room as with the ESL11´s I wish from the G4 that they could render a richer more present midrange. In my humble opinion it just is not there in my room the same way it was with the ML. This could partly be explained by amplification, but I believe the Essence to be a quite sturdy piece of equipment.

Hmm… 150Hz sounds a bit excessive. also bass would become directional. I never set mono subwoofer crossover above 100Hz and often not even above 80Hz. Not sure how you integrated previously with the ESL11A. I just assumed you might have had the B&W set at say 40Hz sounds you might need to change it to 60Hz with the G4. But mostly, the mismatch would be related to volume of sub and speakers.

I’m also confused by the Anthem comment. You used Anthem Room Correction with ESL11A? Yeah, hard to compare a speaker that’s corrected to your room than one that isn’t. It sounds like you’re waiting for the ESL 15A anyway. Sometimes it’s just not worth spending too much time optimizing for speakers you ain’t keeping. You just want some sound until the new speakers come. Electrostatic speakers also sound very different than standard speakers with drivers anyway. If you like electrostatic, you’ll never achieve the same sound with regular speaker drivers.