2. speakers
  3. 1416758570

Surreal Speakers: Made to order in Virginia, USA

My wife and I have just returned from a listening session at Surreal's auditioning room in White Stone, VA, and we have been super-impressed with these speakers and the marvelous musical experience they create! I'm convinced that the newest version of the Surreal Speakers out-perform speakers at twice their price.

Over the past three years, I've watched Surreal evolve these speakers. Today's listening session convinces me that the designers have really achieved the promise that these speakers have suggested since day one. These speakers integrate seamlessly across the frequency spectrum, deliver exceptional dynamics and resolution, and deliver superb results with tube amplification of as little as 30 watts per channel.

The speakers operate with a single cross-over at 135hz. The sound above this crossover comes from a single driver per side for exceptional coherence and soundstage precision. Crossing over below 135hz are six dynamic 10" woofers per side in a dipole array for incredibly fast, dynamic and highly resolved bass reproduction. This woofer cabinet is fast enough and accurate enough to mate seamlessly with electrostatic speakers. With the dynamic drivers used by Surreal on the top, the sound of the entire speaker is completely coherent.

If you are anywhere near Virginia, scheduling an audition of these speakers will reward your effort in doing so.

Surreal Speakers: http://surrealspeakers.com/
128x128rushton
trelja
3,223 posts
 
Curious, Rush... Have you moved on to these speakers?
bifwynne
2,206 posts
 
Lewinskih01 ... I noted from your 11/29 post that you are considering DIY speakers and also mentioned the import of time alignment.

I don't know anything about Surreal or its drivers. But I have been doing a vertical learning curve on time alignment. If you think the Surreal drivers are special and might be used in your DIY project, I'd like to suggest you consider incorporating a DEQX unit in your set-up.

You can learn more about DEQX in the threads "Is DEQX a Game Changer?" and "Sloped Baffles." Also, Kal Rubinson just reviewed the DEQX PreMATE in the December Stereophile issue.

I bought the PreMATE about 2 months ago. And yeah ... it made a big difference.

I agree with Rushton's comment that speaker design entails many compromises. Classic time coherent speakers necessarily require their drivers to cover a larger frequency pass band because they use 1st order crossovers which cut over at 6 db per octave. I somewhat dubious that the drivers used in such speakers can really maintain linear performance over the larger pass band at which they are asked to perform. Also, room EQ effects can be quite considerable.

Ergo the DEQX. My speakers use a 3rd order crossover (18 db per octave) between the tweeter and midrange and a 2nd order crossover (12 db per octave) between the woofers and midrange. To put it mildly, my speakers were a time INcoherent mess, but the DEQX PreMATE tamed them very nicely. Plus, my room twisted the FR of my speakers into an acoustic pretzel. The PreMATE did room EQ correction too.

Bottom line: I think the DEQX PreMATE has helped me squeeze a lot more performance out of my system.
mechans
3,048 posts
 
An Acoustic pretzel, what an image, I am having some difficulty with that. I was a little surprised but don't doubt the veracity of quality control problems with the legendary Lowthers. It has been a darling of the single driver crowd for a verty long time. The AERs look like the German answer to a single driver intense strong superbly engineered and taking no prisoners (another easy audio concept)!
lewinskih01
906 posts
 
Hey Bif!

We've been coming across these threads a fair amount lately. A good thing! Yes, we exchanged in the sloped baffle and the DEQX threads regarding these same aspects. I've been thinking about it for a while. And will continue doing so for a while too. Before going the DIY speaker route I want to implement DRC through Acourate, then digital crossovers and multiamped system.

These AER drivers are intriguing though, just as the dipole subwoofer section is. Accomplishing crossovers in the digital domain seems to be less of a challenge than with analog XO, from some reading I've been doing.

Cheers!
bifwynne
2,206 posts
 
Lew ... unfortunately, I haven't had the pleasure of auditioning the better time coherent speakers on the market. But I gotta tell ya, time coherence aside, room effects can smear the heck out of even the best speakers ... be they time coherent or not.

That's what I meant when I said my room effects made my speakers FR plots look like acoustic pretzels. It was like I was using two different speakers for my fronts. DEQX "tamed" my system. Perfect?? No!! Better?? Yes!!
More to discover