Impressions of Coincident Speakers

Brad,  No problem!  

Recent Coincident designs are anything but colored.  I avoided box speakers like the plague until I bought my Triumph Extreme II monitors.  I listen to a lot of live music, or at least I did until I moved to the middle of nowhere, and I could not find a box speaker I could live with at any kind of reasonable price until the Coincidents.  I might question the designer's business model but never his ears.  There is not a single piece of Coincident gear that I have heard that is not true to tone.  That includes the electronics.  At best, coincident gear is capable of sublime beauty. 

If I were in the market for new speakers, which I am not, I think Audiokinesis and NSMT 100 speakers would be on my short list.   I'd travel to audition, and have long conversations with both designers before purchasing.  I've talked to both of them in the past, and trust both of them to give me a straight answer on room requirements and compatibility of ancillaries. The AK speakers are nice to look at.  High WAF, I would think. 

I've really just put too much effort into optimizing the SVIIs and optimizing the room around them.  You get to a certain point and the chance that a change is going to make things worse gets pretty high.  But you know how it is, we are all perfectionists, so on occasion I long for more refinement in the midrange. 

@brownsfan 

I might question the designer’s business model but never his ears. There is not a single piece of Coincident gear that I have heard that is not true to tone. That includes the electronics. At best, coincident gear is capable of sublime beauty.

Bill, very interesting how you succinctly summarized Coincident ’s greatest strength (And they do many things well) . Purity and truth of tone/timbre. As you well know I own the Statement Line Stage, Frankenstein 300b and speakers. They do in fact share this trait. Israel Blume does rightfully deserve credit for this accomplishment. "Capable of sublime beauty " this has been my experience. Well said Bill.👍

Charles

 

 

 

@brownsfan 

Every speaker, regardless of design, is going to have an optimal placement and relationship to the main listening position in a given room, or said in another way, no speaker is going to reach its potential in a given room if you can't accommodate the optimal position.

If one is not careful to dial in speaker position and the main listening position, these speakers are capable of inarticulate bass.  If one is careful, they are capable of nice articulate bass.  This just isn't a speaker that you can plop down anywhere and get it to workup to its potential.

Both bass response and imaging benefited from an enormous effort in optimizing speaker and listening position placement as well as room treatment. In the absence of this, speaker performance in those areas was disappointing. These will not be speakers that will work in any room, and might not be the best in a room where you don’t have freedom to ad

 

Wnen setting up / positioning speakers , I follow the George Cadas Near Field Setup or a modification of, along with his Golden Cubid setup.

Of course like most Audio perfectionist I spend a good portion of a day or two inching speakers and seating around assisted by the floor grid and layout pattern outlined in "Get Better Sound" by Jim Smith. I also tried to employ (where I could) other methods based on Jim's book. Equipment Rack relocation and the corner traps resulted in the most significant improvements in sound by eliminating or reducing center fill reflection and standing waves.

I believe, my near field arrangement / configuration helps with the first reflection.

After looking over my listing area (family room) I believe  that the walls would be able to accommodate sound absorbing treatment panels, without distracting from the aesthetics of the room (too much) if obtaining a reasonable SQ requires it.  I have been fairly satisfied with SQ in the past without these treatments, but recognize probably further gains could be realized with additional treatments.

@brownsfan 

So you will be wanting to find a speaker that is happy with what you can give it.  It is essentially impossible to predict that a priori.  

I agree 100%.  I think that with a reasonable amount of knowledge /  experience one can get a pretty good idea of what type of speaker would be better suited in a specific size and configured room; at least to a certain degree.  I have found that my room works best with front ported and acoustically suspended speakers but that really limits ones speaker options, especially if a high sensitivity speaker with benign impedance is a priority. 

 After reading the information you provided, I realize the potential of this speaker to be a more difficult fit (in my room) with its 12" side firing woofers, opposed to The Devore Super Nine 7" front firing woofer. I appreciate  your  Candance in describing not only the attributes of the SV, but also the shortcomings that one should be concerned with. Like Charles had mentioned, There are" concerns about literally any speaker as none represent perfection".   

My initial concern was the weight and impact of the bass and how it may be a nuisance to the neighbors, after all,  two 12" woofers is bound to generate some questions or doubt (at least for me.) For others some look for bass weighted speakers , like the Legacy Focus SE, with four 10" long throw Sub woofers (different folks, different flavors) Charles had described the bass as: "I wouldn't say that the bass reproduction is "tame" it is present yet controlled,  certainly not  overemphasized or too prominent. It will be suitably proportional to the volume level chosen." In addition to other comments / info I came across, I am drawing the conclusion that the low end wont overload or overpower my room, but requires careful speaker placement and dial in to achieve articulate bass; I would think that this would be true of any speaker going to 20-22Hz or below. On the other hand a 2.5 way with 2 ea 7"mid/woofers should be a little bit more forgiving in its placement requirement. Based on the information you provided, the real question may be; does my room have the flexibility to properly accommodate the SVIII. I'm going to contact Israel Blum and see what has to say about this and other topics and maybe arrange for a demo at his location, although a demo would reveal the SV's potential, how effective it would be in determining what sound I could expect in my room carries with it a big question mark.

I may plan to demo the Devore Super Nine in SFO.  If the dealer would permit me to use my Integrated and cables, the sound would more closely coincide with what I would be able to reproduce at home, and not so much and apples and oranges comparison.

 @brownsfan 

having the woofers firing towards each other in a narrow room gives too much cancelation due to out of phase waveforms.

I understand the problems with out of phase waveforms. But also consider the phase issues that two subs can create.  

This may or may not be, since I don't know much about open baffle speakers, but supposedly the interference between the forward and back pressure wave of the woofer some how results in a bass reproduction that some people find more musical and real than that produced in a sealed woofer.

There's an interesting statement from Stereophile found on the Coincident web site regarding facing side firing woofers inward.  Listed below.

The Stereophile Show 2001 provides a dramatic real world illustration of the benefits of mirror imaged side firing woofers. The demonstration rooms were plagued with a standing wave centered at 100 hz ( elevated in amplitude by 12db!). This was the case when the Total Eclipse woofers were firing to the outside and as other exhibitors experienced, when the woofers were front facing . However, when the woofers aimed to fire to the inside, the room standing wave was avoided and flat frequency response to below 30 hz was achieved.

I'm sure its room specific in terms with speaker to speaker and side wall distance

@pehare 

Hi Brad mine were placed about 8 feet apart between rack and about 18" from rear wall which is the long wall and sounded better with the woofers pointed inward.  Good luck and have fun!  

 

@charles1dad 

 I do understand the concerns regarding side firing woofers. In my case the woofers facing inward was just okay. When I changed to outward firing position this resulted in a "substantial " improvement. Case by case scenario as it will simply depend on one’s listening room acoustics.

Case by case scenario as it will simply depend on one’s listening room acoustics.

 

I agree Charles, positioned inward works for @pehare . Positioned outwards works for you and Bill. Room size and  acoustics dependent.  

 

​​​​​​​@charles1dad @brownsfan @hilde45 @pehare @palasr @prof @pehare @jond 

First off, sorry about the underlining of statements.  I haven't figured out (yet) how to highlight the text in this format.

I can't express how grateful I am in all the informative responses I received, and I appreciate all the effort and time you guys took in assisting me.

Your logical reasoning and the subject matter presented was and is very helpful, in a greater capacity than probably what I would have been able to come up with on my own.

Thank You Very Much

PS:  I will get there

Brad - Portland Oregon

 

 

 

 

 

@bradf, one final comment.  I encourage you to use the free Room Equalization Wizard software for optimizing speaker placement and establishing the best listening position.  It takes some effort to get up to speed on using the software, but it really isn't all that difficult.  There is a forum where you can go to ask questions, and there are a number of people on this forum that can also offer assistance in getting started including me and @hilde45.  I can tell you that I would never have gotten my room to where it is now had I not used REW.  None of the various guidelines, including the Cardas method, are able to really able to anticipate the peculiarities of side firing woofers.  REW can also help if your room is anything less than perfectly symmetrical.  

I've helped others set up a room optimally in as little as 3 hours.  My own room took a good bit longer, because I was still learning about room acoustics and how to get the most out of REW while I was optimizing.  

One problem is that when trying to optimize using critical listening, at least for me, is that my ability to listen critically wanes after an hour or two.  Memory between sessions isn't exact.  Any change in one position will offer improvement at one frequency and compromise another.  REW allows you to study in depth the impact a given change in position has on the entire frequency range, as well as issues with  excessive decay times,  You can even use it to locate points that may be compromising imaging.  

Well worth the effort, regardless of which speaker you ultimately end up buying. 

@bradf, I might also mention that I was not able to get the SVIIs work near field.  My listening position is about 13 ft from the front baffle.  At that distance, the SVIIs presentation is pretty much like a single driver.  At 7-8 ft, you can, as I recall, discern between the sound coming from the mid and the tweeter.