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speaker design represents a mix of advantages and compromises.
Achieving good reproduction across the frequency range from
low to high often involves employing drivers of different sizes
linked with a crossover network. The large majority of loudspeakers
feature such designs. Yet, it's possible for a speaker to
approach full-range response without a dedicated woofer and
tweeter (or other arrangement) connected by a crossover network.
Instead, several drivers of the same size can be employed by
using an equalizer to shape response and boost the bottom end.
The most famous such design is the Bose 901. This speaker, first
introduced in 1968, relied on nine 4.5-inch cone drivers for
an omnidirectional sound to simulate the sound of a live
performance.
The 901 cabinet featured an angled back containing eight of
the nine drivers, while the front panel housed a single driver.
With its primarily back-output design, the 901 was meant to
use the listening room as a reflection and reverberation hall,
along with the direct reflected sound from the front driver,
to create a sense of space and ambience one hears in a concert
setting. Supporters lauded the 901's deeply spacious presentation;
others cautioned that the sound waves reflected from the rear
drivers didn't meet the ear until after the sound from the
front driver had passed and detail in the sound necessarily
suffered. Never hearing the 901s I don't have an opinion,
yet the omnidirectional design intrigued me.
When I came across the website of Ambiance Acoustics and saw
the company's lineup of matched-driver speakers called Cubes,
I sent a note explaining my interest and soon was chatting with
Ambiance owner and designer Robert Salvi. One look will tell
you these aren't conventional speakers. The Cubes are, well,
cubes. They're also rear-ported and available in
three guises: the four-driver California Cube, the nine-driver
Super Cube and the 16-driver Hyper Cube. Each Cube sports a
quartet of drivers, spaced equally from center on the front
panel. Moving into the Super and Hyper, additional drivers are
placed on the sides and tops for additional sound dispersion.
After discussing my listening room dimensions, Salvi recommended
the Super Cubes.
Design
& Setup
The
Super Cube consists of nine identical 4.5-inch, impedance-matched
drivers. Along with the four front panel drivers, two more are
placed on the top of the cabinet, two on one side (outer) and
one on the other (inner). The Cubes are designed to be positioned
with the lone driver facing inward. The speaker's dimensions
are 13 & 5/8 inches on each face and each Super Cube weighs
32 pounds. A variety of finishes are available, including laminated,
painted or veneered. Rated impedance is 8 ohms and recommended
for amps with output from 10 to 500 watts per channel. Gold-plated
binding posts accept one pair of speaker cables. The Super Cube's
frequency response runs from 45Hz to 16.5kHz with a sensitivity
rating of 90dB at 1 watt/1 meter.
Salvi told me, when designing audio components there are errors
of commission and errors of omission. In the case of the
Super Cubes, the error is one of omission: Without a dedicated
tweeter in the mix, you won't have the crystalline highs and
detailed upper frequencies that other speakers might deliver.
But the advantages of Salvi's design are many, including no
crossover phase or time distortions, consistent audio balance
and amplifier current between the matched drivers and improved
sound dispersion. To compensate for the matched-driver design,
the Super Cubes come with an active equalizer called the EQC-1.
This 3-pound black box is wired before the amp or receiver to
ensure continuous current flow to the Super Cubes. The EQC-1 features
four pairs of gold-plated RCA jacks that can be connected either
to a preamp, an amp or receiver's pre-out or through a tape
monitor. The equalizer is designed to be plugged in and powered
on all the time for best performance, but it never got warmer
than room temperature during my appraisal. The front of the EQC-1
has three button switches for monitoring a tape source, activating
a subsonic filter and/or to bypass the EQ itself. The circuitry
was designed by John Murphy of True
Audio and Salvi emphasized that Murphy did an excellent job
of designing the electronics that are the heart and soul of the
Cubes. As a system, Ambiance sells the Super Cubes and EQC-1 direct-to-consumer
for $1,695.
Passive listening and the Super Cube do not go together. This
is a speaker that demands the listener's attention –
and that's a good thing. As Salvi related, this is not a background
speaker. As such, setup and proper placement are critical
to achieve good playback results. My instructions were to place
the Super Cubes on stands in the 28-inch height range and toe
them in so the four forward-facing drivers would be directly on-axis,
and from my listening position I would be looking dead center
in the middle of the four drivers. Because the Super Cubes are
rear-ported, they should be positioned off the walls by a couple
feet, to minimize bass loading, and set approximately 10 to 12
feet away from the listening spot.
Listening
My
first impressions of the Super Cubes were that these drivers
delivered a lot more musical weight and strength than I expected.
The rear-ported design of the speakers make the Super Cubes
behave as if they employed a pair of 8-inch drivers, and the
bass and midrange react accordingly. The bottom end and middle
frequencies are presented in bold and persuasive colors.
With some recordings, though, I found the bass actually too
heavy in the mix. This was typically due to overly compressed
mixes rather than arrangements with bass emphasis. I listened
happily- sans EQ- to low-end thumpers such as Burning Spear's
Hail H.I.M.,and Funkadelic's delirious rump-shaker
One Nation Under A Groove, and never was compelled
to smooth out the bottom end. Fortunately, if/when you need
to, the EQC-1 can compensate with its Subsonic Filter, which
rolls off the low end 24dB/octave at 60Hz. I found the nine-driver
array endlessly fascinating, and often put my ear to the various
sides of the Super Cubes to hear what each speaker was
doing. Moving around the room as such hammered home how important
it was to be in the sweet spot with the Cubes. Off-axis, the
sound quickly thinned and lost dimensionality – much in
the way the Cubes sound without the equalizer. But put your
butt down in the zone and your ears reap the benefits with a
surprisingly focused sound image. Even with the sound emerging
from four different planes, there wasn't smearing or unpleasant
delay in what I heard.
Good recordings really shine with the Super Cubes. Yes'
2004 release, Magnification, is notable for the orchestration
provided by soundtrack composer Larry Groupe, largely replacing
the keyboard textures of prior lineups. The album is a melange
of musical textures and melodies, highlighted by Groupe's
arrangements and the artistry of the band members. I was taken
by the suave and brooding strings announcing the beginning of
Give Love Each Day. The sound is close and detailed yet
I felt like I could reach into the air and grab the notes with
my hands. That studio hall ambiance and sense of intimacy made
for a great experience. The Super Cubes, however, do not suffer
poor recordings. Listening to the Allman Brothers Band Live
At American University was an almost painful exercise.
The music and band are fine, but the recording is so tinny that
it's almost like listening through a two-cans-and-a-string
play telephone. Dynamics are smeared, smashed and crushed; sonorities
are tempered and tamed.
By contrast, on another Allman recording, Seven Turns,
the results were completely opposite. I caught myself doing
an about-face as it became difficult to distinguish the tracks
from a live, in-studio session. Open, rich and radiant acoustics
flowed forth as the band members coalesced into a single musical
entity. This is the sense of exhilaration one gets from being
there - like a rush of wind carrying guitar notes and harmonies
through the air and dancing around the ears. You not only hear
the music but feel it. Re-creating that experience of a live
performance is what the Super Cubes do very well. In the late
1970s, guitar-slinger Ronnie Montrose's self-named band
broke up, after which he formed Gamma. The group's second
album, Gamma 2, is a forgotten hard-rock release. If
you like Bad Company and your songs served up with a heady dose
of expertly crafted riffs, check out Gamma. Vocalist Davey Pattison
sounds like a cross between Paul Rodgers and James Dewar. The
spacey blues crawl of Voyager is worth the price of admission.
Background winds swirl around Pattison's voice and Montrose's
otherworldly lines, while the Super Cubes deliver all the punch
and fire.
Finer top-end details are not the Super Cube's forte. Listening
to tunes from The Beach Boys Sunflower album, I noticed
some of the knottiest arrangements lacked impact and the clarity
of detail from subtle dynamics that can bloom only with a speaker
whose design accommodates such demands, but again that's
an error of omission – Salvi's compromise.
Final
Thoughts
Lively
and life-like - from the get-go the Super Cubes go a long way
to putting you concert, stage-center for a private performance
of your favorite recordings. The Super Cubes are not for the
music generalist or casual listener, but if your tastes run
toward rock and/or you want the experience of a live performance,
these are worthy of serious consideration. Placement is paramount
– for the Super Cubes and listener – but find the
sweet spot and you'll be rewarded with engaging sound from
this unusual and fun speaker system.
System
Setup
Ambiance
Acoustics Super Cubes
Yamaha R-S700 Receiver
Emotiva Audio ERC-1 CD Player
Pro-Ject RPM 5.1 turntable
Sumiko Blue Point No. 2 moving coil phono cartridge
Parasound Zphono Preamplifier
RS Audio Cables Kevlar Starchord Power Cable
RS Audio Cables Illume Silver Interconnects
RS Audio Cables Illume Silver Loudspeaker Cables
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Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2011 avrev.com.
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