Measurements
Contents
We measured the speakers on the CLIO 12 QC interface and software. We also did a measurement through the Prism. This is to properly map distortion. The microphone is a DPA 4091.
Fenton
We can be brief. The Fenton measures very oddly and pretty poorly. The phase is a mess and the impedance measurement is… not very good. When we open the box to see how the filter is constructed, we find out that there is no filter in this speaker at all. There are only two capacitors on the terminals. That explains a lot.
About the response: the specs may say 20 Hz – 20 KHz. Forget it. The Fenton picks up from 60 Hz. The -3dB point is at 65 Hz we estimate.
DALI Oberon 5
DALI has constructed a good speaker with the Oberon 5. For 700 Euros, it’s just technically a very decent product. The response is pretty flat ( /- 2.5 dB, mostly /- 1dB) and the phase is also just right. The AE 120.2 measures just a bit tighter, but there is a price difference and musically it is very close.
Impedance is again very friendly. We don’t see anything below 5 ohms. We may not call this a difficult speaker. In the waterfall plot we see some resonances. In this price range, no shame.
Remarkable is the particularly low distortion of the DALI. At this point, the DALI even wins… hats off!
Acoustic Energy 120.2
Acoustic Energy puts up the neatest measurements in this test. The heavy cabinet certainly helps with that. No resonance to be seen in the waterfall. Impedance – like the DALI – is very tidy with no dips below 5 Ohms. Response is neat. The treble rises very calmly to 20 KHz. We did not label this speaker as “fresh”. Perhaps because it rises so smoothly. Phase is also very flat.
Distortion is low from the AE 120.2. We see everything is well below 1%. Very neat!
Focal Theva N2
We see a typical Focal curve. Pretty straight with a subtle rising treble from about 12 or 13 KHz. All in all, pretty straight. So nicely done.
What is noticeable is some resonance in the midrange: between 1 and 2 kHz. Perhaps this explains the up-front character. We see nothing crazy there in the response curve, but we do see it in the distortion! There we also see a bump. It is still well below 1%, but it coincides exactly.