Flat Panel speaker impressions

[Himself]

Picked up a cheap set of <A HREF="http://www.justerusa.com/products/aw-861.htm">flat panel speakers</A> to see what the technology was like. Well, first impression out of the box was geez, what junk! Vibration noise on low volume settings, no power, sound quality like you'd get from a cheap pair of headphones. Turns out these speakers are very sensitive to input signal strength, if you use the sub to control the volume a lot of the problems go away. The live's front outputs are at a high signal strength, probably to drive headphones. As God intended, these speakers come with a power cord, not a wall fungus.

All in all, the sub is great for the size, it only tried to render lows, not low to mid bands like some others. The flat panel speakers are like tweeters, litte to no lows, few mid tones, but great high frequency response. There is a large separation of lows and highs, all the lows come from the sub, there is a band of mid level tones that just don't work well at all, they get extremely mumbled. Rock music, with it's constant white noise, sounds like crap, classical music sounds great, dance music, synth type 80s tunes work well. Games, you don't notice, games don't have real music, so you can interpret it differently. Depending on the mp3 you play, you will have to change volume settings to avoid rumble, however the latest MP7 version helps a lot here. In general you won't be rocking the house with these.

The value of these things is mainly in the looks department, they just look damn cool on your desk. The flat panels are very thin, 3-4 mm. I paid $44 CDN for them, so it's no huge hit to the wallet, I'm sure the Benwin variety are much better, but the characteristics are likely to be similar.



[This message has been edited by Himself (edited 12 January 2001).]

[Greebe]

Monsoon would be the only flat panel (true magnaplanar's) computer speakers I'd reccommend.

[Himself]

The cheapest Monsoon speakers here in Canada I can find are $123 CDN, going from there to $238 CDN. I don't think any flat panel computer speakers are worth that. The whole point of it for me over normal speakers would be how they look, the monsoon speakers are just ugly.








[This message has been edited by Himself (edited 12 January 2001).]

[dZeus]

are flatpanel speakers 'electrostatic' speakers? I thought those were famouse for very good high tones, but a lack of bass.. maybe if you can built a combo box with one electrostatic for the middle/high tones, and a woofer for the bass?

[Himself]

Some other looks out there:










[This message has been edited by Himself (edited 12 January 2001).]

[Gurm]

Basically these speakers trash midranges.

In fact, if you know anything about audio, you wouldn't even go for satellite/subwoofer combos.

The best sound to be had comes from a standard, classic speaker configuration:

1. Woofer (12" or more recommended)
2. Midrange (4"-6")
3. Tweeter (2" or so)

And the possible addition of a subwoofer, depending on what you want to listen to.

Now, various schemes work around this. I've seen a flatpanel setup from Bang&Olufsen (sp?) that does very well, but there are small midranges hidden in the casing to compensate for frequency loss.

Now what's REALLY neat are the speakers that don't use vibrating paper at all any more. There are new speakers that use glass for resonance, and others that use ceramics and polymers. And those are really neat.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[DentyCracker]

Unfortunately most of us "audiophiles" don't have audiophile budgets so we settle for sub sat systems.

[Greebe]

Oh I thought you were interested in high qualtiy sound, not cheap trendy looks...

Those you have pictured are the MM500's if I'm not mistaken and are not a full magnaplanar, but a hybrid cone mid/planar tweeter design. Monsoon's simply kick the shit out of those Justers.

I'd suggest getting the MM-700 or the MM-1000's

dZues, there are two types of "ribbon" speaker design... electrostatic and magnaplanars.

[Himself]

Well, I agree that a real system is the ideal, but when dealing with a PC desktop, space is more important, as well as location of the speakers. I for one, wouldn't want real speakers on my desk, there would be no room for anything else. I've seen very nice sounding systems connected to computers, but when you are sitting at the computer you feel like you are in the bathroom at a concert. Unless you are going to have your audio system designed around your computer it won't be all that great, and who wants to do that?

When I first heard of flat panels, the ones you mention involving glass probably, they were supposed to be able to clip on to any surface, not have glued on mousepads. I agree that there is more work to be done with flat panels, but the space saving feature is very nice. You can hang them on a wall, the stand comes off, so that's interesting. It's probably not the time to buy them for real use now, but spending a few dollars to check out a cheap set won't kill anyone.

[Himself]

Greebe,

For the price, they should, $238 for the high end version is a bit steep for me for the sake of computer speakers. I could buy a real system from used parts for that.

[Gurm]

Personally, I like the Altecs that attempt to build a mini-"real" system. Subwoofer (as usual) with midrange/tweeter in the satellites and a little mini-woofer in the base of each satellite pointing down. Pretty cool sound.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[xortam]

I still haven't seen any PC speakers as nice as my AR (Accoustic Research) Powered Partners. Rugged metal case, individually powered at 70 watts, 4" and 3.5" drivers, runs off AC or DC, and of course shielded. I'll sometimes grab these and my Sony DiscMan and I've got a very nice sounding system for the vacation cabin. I have a friend that uses these for speakers in his truck. Unfortunately, I don't see these sold anywhere now.

[Dilitante1]

*crackle* *pop* *crackle* *crackle*.......how's that for an impression?



-Dilly

[Bohrn]

Gurm, I have those (Altec Lansing ATP3) and they are quite good. Not Quite like a good sub and 4 B&W 302's but $650 bucks cheaper!

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AsusP3B-F,P3 880 Slot1, 256mgsPC133,G40032megSH, Diamond MX300,13.5gigs of HD's,52X CDrom,WinME, PD 5.41 w/ 6.10ICD,Altec Lansing ATP3Subwoofer,
Envision 17",Terrayon Cable modem w/D-Link nic,1 grey cat,1 black cat & 1 calico

[Himself]

Just finished upgrading someone's system for them, tried the speakers with his Vortex 1 card, much better sound. So there is a bit of GIGO going on here as well that is masked by normal speakers.