Your kit for my small B&Ws was a game changer. It absolutely changed them from OK to amazing. I just want people to know that I am super happy with my purchase. Worth every penny. Highly recommend Danny's service.
I did the CDM-1NT upgrade and owned two pair of them. A buddy of mine and me spent a good part of 2 days doing A-B listening. Imaging, fullness, and low-frequency capability all were dramatically improved. For fun, we ran a 32Hz signal through the upgraded pair and the original pair. The upgraded pair produced the signal cleanly, the original pair just clattered. This is what happens when you put crossovers only found in $20K+ speakers into speakers that have good drivers to start with.
That's how i built "crossovers" in my youth, I just put a 3.3uF cap on the tweeter. I'm getting the impression that this thing wasn't built by a speaker builder, but by a cabinet maker who was enamored by the admittedly very well regarded esotar.
"a cabinet maker" >You summed up a majority of hi-fi companies that build boxes and try to figure out the rest _after_ they've designed something off cosmetics.
Danny, no need to keep apologizing, as long as you are giving fair and honest measurements and reviews. Not to mention if the people that sent them in are happier after you finish working on them....job well done. Also, watching your reviews makes me appreciate the measurements I get from my low-end speakers...😁
@@davidcarr2216 Everyone is selling stuff, even the other youtube audio reviewers. If that is how you make your living, you do it. I watched a couple of specific youtube videos where some reviewers questioned Danny and they understood and appreciated what he was doing. I guess you could take him up on his offer to go to their "lab" and give your review.
Man, that's got to be a heart breaker when you drop serious ducats on a piece of gear and it blows. Hey Danny, just wanted to let you know that I received my Ukrainian headphones and they are awesome. Can't wait to put a few miles on them to hear them fully broken in. Anyway, thanks for making these headphones available to people in the states. Cheers! 👽✌️
@@stephenyoud6125 I appreciate the kind words, but to be honest the "buying from the Ukrainian seller" was kind of just a happy circumstance. I mainly bought them from Danny's review. However, I'm with you 100% on giving Danny kudos for making his viewers happy by making these headphones available and also supporting a Ukrainian company. These guys make a darn good pair of headphones for a bargain price. 🎧👍
One has to imagine these were desiged with the tweeter polarity flipped, but that detail was skipped on the production floor. That should absolutly be a recall or at least a public notice with instructions to correct it.
It was quite obvious that the tweeter polarity was wrong on these. I also believe the hump innthe response at 700 hz is because of the size of the dust cap on those Morel midbass drivers. Usually I prefer using drivers with phase plugs instead of the dustcaps to avoid this.
It's likely that they aren't going to use a 3 inch phase plug on those Morel drivers :) I guess it would look interesting, but that's about 1/3 of the radiating area gone lol
@@RennieAsh 🤣I was not refering to the Morel's, they cannot be changed as they are with dustcaps already. I meant that I prefer drivers with phase plugs over the ones with dustcaps ☺
Danny, for all those who have listed to bad so long they believe good is lacking (I know in my 30+ years I see this all the time and as you know it's always either brightness or lacking bass)! Bad speaker choice is one thing however room, speaker placement, and treatment are key. As a matter of fact I'm doing a talk on this subject at CAF in November. Your always going to get the naive comments. Keep up the great work you do and thanks for all the knowledge I've gained from this channel...
I am a chemical engineer and my only experience in electronics and audio is through my DIY speaker building hobby which I have dabbled in for many years. How is it a incidental simpleton like me can comprehend the phase characteristics of odd vs even order networks and yet these seemingly brilliant minds at relatively high-end speaker companies get it so wrong? Time after time, I watch Danny try to use restraint to describe what is obvious to me through his body language complete disgust in some of these network and driver topology selections. It's as if all of the crossover designers are off doing something else and the receptionist did the design. If I built chemical plants like this, you'd sse a lot of explosions on CNN and FOX.
blows my mind how so many high end speakers go out the door and build a reputation with bad crossovers, steel parts, and bad measurements, which seems like it would be easiest to fix before they go to customers, but they do.
Sometimes I want to run as far as I can from the this hobby. I read some reviews of the this Eggleston speaker.....great coherence, excellent detail retrieval, the bass doesn't obscure the mids, etc....positive stuff. Here is GR Research revealing a messy speaker. Thanks Danny, you do an excellent job.. Love your videos and keep them coming. I will only depend on my ears and not catchy marketing hype. There is an expression in Jamaica that says " fisherman never says his fish is stink".
Are you sure you read a review of this particular speaker? Was it the Fontaine or the Fontaine Signature SE (two significantly products). Where was the review published?
@@Mark-rw3kw If that's true then I really got lucky. I saw a pair of aDs 910s online and bought them without ever hearing them. Turns out they're likely my end-gamers. Originally built as studio mains in the late '70s, they spec: 4ohms/93db/28htz-25khtz. I'd love to send one to Danny for testing, but I'm told they're very neutral and linear, and they sound incredible in my room, plus they weigh 130/each with stands.
The extremely poor measurements doesn't matter because ordinary people who really enjoy music can't afford them. Thanks for another informative video, Danny.
I've played around with the out of phase crossovers before. It does tend to give a somewhat non harsh, and larger, more distant soundstage due to the increased reflected to direct sound in that midrange region. You'll end up with something like this when tuning by ear and wanting a non forward, expansive sound. A bit like the Bose 901 effect. They also likely enjoyed the cancellation of direct woofer peaks in that midrange region seeing as there's no filter. A well designed speaker is preferable of course.
Keeps amazing me that you had to keep its way and everybody are you just trying to help us all out here in audioland. Thanks for your honest work and your patience with all of us
dont let it get you down that your speakers are great and others' lack. It measures how it measures. poor components are poor components, don't let the trolls knock you down.
well i'm from mexico and here the high end audio shows i experience thhis type of "sound signature" actually is very popular in high end margules uses it in the magenta entry level line.... and yes it sounds like the soundstage is proyected backwards or something... i like the sound of those speakers is very relaxed
@@dannyrichie9743 well "soud signature" to be fair, i think most manufacturers use this to get a wider soundstage that projects in the backgroud... but i can't really tell, 'cause the speakers i retore are vintage japanese models that for some reason were very popular in mexico, and japanese sound signature always projects the soundstage in front of the speakers for a forward sound that i prefer the most but sometimes i do mistakes putting the tweeter in "reverse" and there you have the "generic" mid range lacking high end type of sound
There was/is a great fashion for tuning speakers by ear by small UK speaker designers. That Eggleston Works speaker seems to have that fashion in its genes. They considered low cabinet resonance as a virtue. Then they wanted lots of cone surface area with big motor coils with a narrow front baffle. Then they didn’t want too much crossover in the way. Then very expensive drive units should be technically well behaved and a good talking point. Reflex port loading for exciting bass from a small speaker. On paper to an audiophile reader it all seems legit and no doubt, the manufacturer discussed their use of subjective tuning to get their “sound”. Perhaps an MTM style front baffle and third order crossover slopes might have saved them. Great to see what a head-scratcher their lack of attention to what they had ‘bodged’ together, based on no proper engineering of crossovers and front-baffle design, turned out to be. These were expensive to buy and probably difficult to make, market and sell. Great to see you pulling them back into focus by applying measurement and crossover engineering.
owned the meadowlark kestral 2's. transmission line 2 way 1st order x over. amazing speakers with a sloped baffle. it can be done.! sorry pat mcginty is not making speakers any more. great review as always.
had those speakers and they had wrong crossover setup from factory sold them but they were close to 10 000 and sounded bad with great cabinets and great drivers
I can see that Danny is not a fan of 1st order crossover but when done really well it works magic, like some of the older Duntech designs and also Dunlavy. There is a crazy ruler flat response, perfect phase/time behaviour and when set up properly there is magic appearing. The vertical off axis response is way off, and the horizontal off axis response constrained, so you need to sit in the perfect spot. You cannot move around so it may be like large headphones, there is only one good spot. I do have a very old pair of John Dunlavy designed Duntech PCL-15, you never see them second hand because people just don´t want to part with them .... 1st order designs when done proper are insanely good IMHO 😎
I have spent time with John Dunlavy in his listening room. Your observations are spot on. So long as you are the one in the sweet spot, they are very good.
@@dannyrichie9743 Thx for your reply Danny! I think it´s a gross mistake to take a first order filter as being simple, we need to correct for phase and make sure drivers align properly.... the crossover for, say Thiel CS 3.7 is really complex... when late Jim Thiel thought he had it close to sorted out, he spent even close to one more year optimizing .... not very simple indeed, so when Egglestoneworks think they can pull it off with leaving the lo-pass out on the woofers, not even close to acoustic 1st order .... I am shocked 😵 I believe acoustic 1st order is very different from electric 1st order!!!!!!!!
@@Harald-MacGerhard I use first order filters often for low crossover points. They are easy to implement down there. It gets tough higher up though. Those Dunlavy's are also loaded with notch filters and are fairly complex.
Seeing as how these have measured this way before, I felt they were already well aware of the issues. I also did not see these same issues in later models that have been measured. So they may have already made those improvements.
@@mcgovernjimmy Were you honest with them about your intent to send them to a third party (Danny) to have him blast it all over the internet? Are you the first owner or do you still know the first owner?
@@mcgovernjimmy I think that failing to mention the fact that sending to a 3rd party was a possibility, if you could not obtain help from them. I think that divulging that information to them would be the most honest way to go about things. I'm not saying that *leading* with that is the right call. But alerting them that the sword of Damocles does rest on that thread above their head seems to be a very uncontroversial, basic courtesy to pay to the OEM of a product. Further, how do they know you are not a competitor or some other person that does not have their best interests at heart, who is trying to reverse-engineer their products (regardless of their inherent quality)? Prompted by your pointed curiosity regarding their crossover. I mean, if they were worried about that...that would have ended up being a well-founded concern on their part. SO, yes, I'm saying that it's possible that you may have inadvertently disincentivized them from helping you.
@@mcgovernjimmy I think that you actively minimizing that concern proves that they *should* have been concerned about you. Intensely ironic. Keep going, though. This is fascinating to watch.
Except most people are not capable of DIY and many of those who are (e.g. myself), simply don't have sufficient spare time to do a build. I was planning on doing a DIY but ultimately decided not to for the reason mentioned.
Why not consider speakers from one of the many manufacturers Danny doesn't get in for fixing? There are plenty of good manufacturers out there building good speakers.
Your approach sounds grounded (hah!) in solid electrical theory. Doug Self would approve. He would recommend active crossovers, though. Much easier to design, and cheaper, at the cost of needing one power amp and wire pair per driver. But class D amp modules are cheap and good these days. Amps for tweeters don't need to be large. Floyd Toole would approve your sonic philosophy too.
we often use the 6.5 inch version of that morel driver in cars as a midbass only with dsp..and i really dislike them until cranking on them as you say..the take abuse well but the trade off is meh sound
I tried using those Morel woofers in a car stereo in the 80s. I was impressed by the 3" coils and high Qts but I think Xmas was the issue with them, if I remember correctly.
To my mind the more crossover intervention required the more life is sucked out of the sound. Better to choose drivers that play well together. Seems to me that the speaker engineers and the crossover engineers are often in two separate universes.
It's not that uncommon for high-end brands to be committed to low order crossovers that are tuned completely by ear. Some of them sound quite good (at least in the short term) even though they have no chance of measuring well. Your best hope is that the response compliments whatever is going on in your room. I remember trying a pair of Gallo Classicos and hearing what sounded like a giant hole in the response that changed as you moved around.
The Fontaine (a very old speaker) was later replaced by the Fontaine II, which corrected many of its problems, and then later replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE, which was a full range 3-way floor-standing speaker. But not even the Fontaine Signature SE is still sold, that is how old these are.
Just makes you wonder whether you could actually move the tweeter to the center while moving the 1 woofer to the top? It would all be dependent on cabinet construction, and how much work you'd be willing to put into it, to whether you could make the adjustment to help clean things up with that speaker.
@@dannyrichie9743 Right, and I don't know if you can actually make those adjustments in any way to help the possible diffraction issues or not? Plus it would take someone that would have the desire and the woodworking capabilities to mess with this, as I'm sure the adjustment may only go so far if the woofers themselves are not completely desirable. Hard to say sometimes? Whether making a spacer for the speakers to help push the speaking out further flush with that sharp edge, and finding a way to round over or chamfer the hole on the inside by trying use a file of other means to do it. It'd basically turn that into a project, and whether it would be worth it would be unknown?
If I m not wrong (and please let me know) this model has a non flat "equalization" that with the special cabinet and high price convince some for its 'magic".I know that many people like them ONLY at medium to loud levels,So how bad can be a tweak in frequencies to differential from correct ....and hype
Hello folks: tweeter some 20 years ago was an easy $300 each and a bit more for a match pair. Now that is why Dynaduio stop selling to the aftermarket and diy wholesalers back then same. An started thier own line of speakers for the showroom dealers. Ride Easy
Good video as usual.Just curious Danny, which amplifier are you using to test these speakers frequency response and could the measurements change based on the amp, wattage, sensitivity, ohm load etc?
@@dannyrichie9743Actually, that’s true of most solid state amps, Nelson Pass’ transconductance amps notwithstanding. It is no true of zero feedback tube amps, where the output impedance of the amp can be half the nominal load impedance.
Hey Danny, how do I get info on placing one separate amp on each driver in my speaker cabinet? By doing this will it bypass the need for those expensive crossovers? I would love to start with some good planar, midrange and mid base drivers. Subs are good with 500W Plate amps, for now. No super high-end audiophile budget yet. Will some Good class D amps with TI chips work? How do I set the frequency out per amp for the driver being used?
After years of reading reviews and then YT reviews, I have realized to many flawed speakers at any price point are given too much positive opinions, often quite flowery, while not addressing flaws adequately if at all. Comparisons to other speakers which also have flaws that should have been addressed or even corrected by a manufacturer result in a review that does a disservice to everyone if they are inclined to want to replicate the original recording as intended, which could also be flawed or poorly recorded. Now, can I enjoy a flawed speaker and prefer it to many others, yes. I guess what that means is that my brain is accepting certain aspects of playback and rendering them more acceptable and enjoyable regardless of how well the sound matches the original intent of the artist, recording process and those involved, etc. I have also listened to speakers that measure fairly flat and didn't like them so I have to ask, is it the speaker, the room, the recording, source and amp, etc., as to why I find more fault than acceptance in any particular product. The more I watch these videos picking apart a speaker using measurements, and listening to the reasons why they may sound as they do, regardless of curve, the more I understand what is more or less pleasurable for me on average to the material I listen to as well as the equipment I use in my own space. So at least I have a better understanding as to what is going on. I tend to purchase well received equipment typically considered budget by audiophiles, not only by subjective reviewers but also by users of the product itself. For the most part, I find the presentation enjoyable, even if colored in some fashion, flawed or having some glaring deficiency probably due to my listening SPLs in my room. As another reviewer and seller of high end equipment stated, and I am paraphrasing, if you don't listen at louder, closer to lifelike levels, and pretty much only ambient levels, you shouldn't really invest in higher priced gear as you are wasting money for your needs. My most expensive amp is a Hegel h160 and Focal 807Ws, but I have lower priced equipment which I enjoy, not to mention trying a bit more expensive speakers. I can hear certain issues with any, although my more expensive gear together does sound better, its still an enjoyable, if yet differing presentation. I also tend to respond more to mids and highs than bass. As long as bass isn't a flabby mess I tend to be happy with it, especially in an apartment with neighbors. I use a sub from time to time but only add a bit of lower frequencies rather than overemphasizing it. I get the sense, that the differences between poorly measuring and better measuring speakers come into play at certain SPLs where the deficiencies become much more obvious especially to someone who knows what something should sound like. If one listens at lower to more moderate levels, perhaps these deficiencies are less glaring and the speaker performance more acceptable. Any thoughts given your own experiences?
That is extremely disappointing. You're right you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. You did an admirable job but that is still a fairly crap response from what are some fairly expensive drivers. Those esoteric drivers are bringing a premium these days. Would it be worth trying to re-cabinet these drivers with a new crossover?
These sound like a candidate for DSP EQ and / or full active amplification. Yes, comes with a whole raft of other potential issues, but the size of the problem being solved may justify the solution.
There are a lot of other drawbacks to going down that road, and it isn't going to fix the stored energy issues, but you could go in and balance out some of the amplitude problems.
@@dannyrichie9743 yep u know know what u are doing ☝️😃 Wish u were in Australia or at least closer. I enjoy seeing your work. Hope to hear the lgk 2.4s someday…
Dude. You're awesome. A long with other reviews, your look at the Sony SSCS5 nudge me to buy those. For my use, they are awesome. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Hello, I would like to know if you can tell more about monitoring speakers, I'm mixing engenier and will be nice to see something in that way, thanks for the content
Sort the room, average speakers in a good room can sound as good is good speakers in a bad room. Early reflections are the most important, get rid of them. This is the best advice I was given.
Hi Danny, I recently got a pair of Polk Reserve R700 towers, I tested both with a 9-volt battery and it looks like the woofers are wired out of phase, I contacted Polk via email and they told me the R700 uses a second order cross over, will I have a problem during Audyssey setup of the speakers? I'm using the Denon AVR X-4700H.
Not necessarily. Crossover components shift the phase of the signal being sent to the driver, so a polarity flip in a woofer, mid, or tweeter isn't uncommon. in such cases, wiring a driver electrically "out-of-phase" allows it to remain acoustically in-phase with the other driver(s) it's being crossed to. If there is a phase issue when trying to match them with a subwoofer, you will just need to set the phase on the subwoofer from 0 to 180 degrees or vice versa to get them back in phase.
It's typically not a problem with horn/waveguide loaded tweeters since horns tent to narrow the response compared to flat-mounted tweeters. The more common issue is throat-cancellation where higher frequencies reflect off the sides of the horn/waveguide and arrive out of phase from the direct sound of the tweeter, creating a narrow band dip in the treble. It tends to occur when a tweeter it used in a horn/waveguide that isn't properly designed or hasn't been properly mounted.
Thats crazy they charge a fortune i was going to say flip the polarity but still they cost a fortune it shouldn't be that way and pisses me off because I build beautiful speakers and i couldn't give them away because I don't pay a reviewer maybe i will send a pair to Danny for his honest opinion. I believe he would give an honest evaluation maybe that's what I will do
Why Eggleston Works designed the earlier models like this is not an enigma to me. I think they are designed almost as a ideology. Let me explain my theory. Every morning when I wake up I put on my little Tivoli One fm radio and listen to the news for about 30 minutes before I muster sufficient energy to climb out of the bed and face the coming day. This little mono radio with a roughly 3 inch full range driver reproduces the sound of the human voice beautifully it obviously isn’t particularly good with any Mahler symphony and that’s the point. I believe Eggleston Works designed their speakers like a full range driver for supreme voice reproduction with additional support for the bass (some models used an isobaric bass driver + an extra full range driver, others like this only an extra full range driver). In the treble they did the same by adding a tweeter. Actually not the worst idea in the world, but they made a terrible execution of it . They should instead have found a fantastic wide range 4,5 inch driver, put it into a wide (wide to push the diffraction loss/transition from 2 to 4 pi as low as practically possible)super low diffraction cabinet. And then added a supporting bass driver and tweeter where the full range driver runs out of puff. The supporting drivers should obviously be done with steep filters. Why didn’t they do this? Probably because they were afraid of the power handling, and probably because they wanted to claim some magical benefits of low order filtering and phase linearity. A pity, because I actually would like to hear a well engineered version of a speaker as described above. This turned out longer than I expected, so I wish a most wonderful day for those who managed to read through my ramblings. Greetings from Denmark
I remember that in the middle 80‘s there were many speakers with a massive suck-out, I took some masters from my studio to demo speakers at shows and remember having huge arguments with manufacturers, it’s one thing to give a speaker it’s own flavour but when it is downright misrepresentation of the artists music then that is a step way too far, thankfully this „fad“ did not seem to last too long, many times it was simply a polarity reversal on the tweeter was all that was needed to rectify the majority of the problem
I doubt they "scrimped" on the cross-over more than 25 years ago when they made this as a studio monitor (not a full range speaker system). It's hard to know what they were thinking, but it wasn't saving money.
@@dannyrichie9743 I don't know about Eggleston today, but hey started out as company that just bought some very expensive drivers from other companies and tried to build good sounding speakers. They probably were not audio engineers and probably had limited financial resources back then. Maybe if there had been some freelance crossover experts around back then like you, they might have hired you to do the crossovers. The Andra speaker review you mentioned is 26 years old, so the Fontaine is even older than that. Eggleston revised the Fontaine two times after the initial model you reviewed, and even the newest Fontaine is not longer sold. I remember reading some scathing reviews of your original LGK speaker, and to your credit you revised it to add one or more woofers because it could not really be used to play full spectrum music in a normal listening room. So maybe you should give some others a break for speakers that are more than 26 years old, and even though they had some pretty severe measurement anomalies, Stereophile said they sounded great (the Andra).
Wow, is that a vented design that's tuned to 90 Hz with those two 6.5" Morel drivers, like the impedance curve suggests? Did the port tube fall off inside the cabinet or something?
Nah, it's got two, short, very large 4" ports in the back, which were smothered by polyfill. When looking at the marketing it was supposedly designed to act something like a quasi-transmission line enclosure, but based the measured response, it fell quite short of that goal.
According to the Eggleston website, the original Fontaine is a very old speaker that was originally designed as a stand-mounted studio monitor, without much bass response. It was eventually replaced by the Fontaine II, and then replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE, which was a floor-standing full range 3-way speaker, but that model is also somewhat old and no longer available in their lineup of speakers.
Great video. Such a simple fix to a mess. I have learned so much from watching these. I have also become disappointed with commercial speakers in general. I understand low quality parts, but poor engineering/design is unacceptable. Good or bad engineering costs the same, so no excuse for that. As for these, would making them a 3 way fix some of the issues? I would guess the expense might not be worth it, but in theory?
In theory a 3-way design could help but it would only address a couple of the issues, especially since some of the issues are inherent to the woofers themselves and would only add a lot more cost. it really needs to be redesigned from the ground up with better quality woofers. so, this was the better compromise that Danny and the customer came to.
The speaker Danny tested was the original Fontaine, over 25 years old and designed as a studio monitor. It was later replaced by the Fontaine II, and the replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE, which is a 3 way speaker. These are so old that even the Fontaine Signature SE is no longer available. Eggleston makes many 3-way full range speakers that sound quite good.
Thanks for the explanations. I did appreciate Danny’s “quick fix”. Elegant. Also, I didn’t know the age of this speaker design. Still, it seems that the designers could have done a lot better, at least not leave big holes in the frequency range.
@@Eddie07S Yes, they could have done better, but they were a bunch of amateurs back then buying expensive drivers and building cabinets in their garage. From what I can tell, they make decent speakers these days, but still very low volume. Their website says all speakers are made to order, and they only have about 10 US dealers. These days one can get on the Internet and there are several sites that will design crossovers online for free, but none of that was available back then.
This looks like a speaker designed by someone who had zero measuring equipment and just used tired out audiophile memes like, "The fewer components between the source and our ears the better". "Tilt a speaker back to time align it". etc.
Something doesn't seem right here. When was that model manufactured? How old are the drivers? Also, I'm reading some of the reader response and there's a lot of bashing based this teardown. Perhaps it's a bad attempt at a design. If you can find it, read Bob Ludwig's mastering studio build around the flagship Eggleston Works speaker. Truely amazing. EW can build soeakers. I've heard other models myself. Good performers. Don't know what happened here.
Oh, and one more thing. When you see a speaker that is junk somewhere, go and look for TH-cam reviews on them. That way you can make a list over time of 'reviewer's' that can't be trusted, which by the way, with my current list it doesn't leave many at all! 😂 Time to wake up, realise a lot of these people are merely influencer's, it's just like those con market stalls with fake buyers roping people into the drama and thrill of the ride.
Is there a TH-cam review of the original Fontaine model that Danny tested? I believe the model Danny tested is about 25 years old, maybe older. It was replaced by the Fontaine II, and then later replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE (a 3-way floor-standing speaker), but none of the Fontaine models are in the current lineup of Egleston speakers according to their website, so I think Danny should have emphasized that the speakers he tested were very old models, and not even designed as full range speakers (designed as studio monitors many years ago).
They are quite old, and were meant to be studio monitors, not full range speakers, according to their website. They are not even listed under "legacy products" at the Egleston website, that is how old they are. They were replaced by by the Fontaine II and then later by the Signature SE, which itself is no longer sold.
What a shame 😢 audiophiles just judge things by the price tag and what there audiophile buddies and favorite reviewers tell them. I can build a high end beautiful cabinets perfect in everyway and unless there friends have it or reviewer I couldn't give it a away.
It was their first design from 1997, developed by a company that started in Memphis TN (probably in a garage). I am sure they have a lot better speaker systems today, and I don't think it is fair to call them "snake oil" because of a 1997 product.
I was always skeptical about the overrated eggs. They always got high praise. It shows that like Wilson, you can't just throw (expensive) drivers in a shiny box, you need to do the engineering. Point 2: it also brings to light how poor the hearing/listening ability is of many so-called golden ear audiophiles.
Well, you know the old saying: "Ya Can't Shine Poop, It Only Smears". But I would imagine this will now reflect at least a little bit of moon light. Cheers 🍻
It's a little presumptuous to be talking about a speaker at least 25 years old that was originally designed as a studio monitor (not as a home stereo speaker). It was later replaced by the Fontaine II, which corrected many of its problems, and then later replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE, which was a full range 3-way floor-standing speaker for home use. But not even the Fontaine Signature SE is still sold, that is how old these are.
Nope, I have seen measurements of them made by others that match mine. These were also the upper sections of the Andrea model that measured the same as well.
You must remember that the hifi media is only viable due to advertising....so at no point will they slag off anything as it could lose them money. You have to learn how to read between the lines. You have to wonder how a company can sell something that measures so poorly. Did they even measure it before it went to market? Also, did the buyer listen to these before buying??
Like it when these really problematic speakers come in, and there is still something to be done. Love to learn from the explanations and others mistakes.
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Your kit for my small B&Ws was a game changer. It absolutely changed them from OK to amazing. I just want people to know that I am super happy with my purchase. Worth every penny. Highly recommend Danny's service.
I did the CDM-1NT upgrade and owned two pair of them. A buddy of mine and me spent a good part of 2 days doing A-B listening. Imaging, fullness, and low-frequency capability all were dramatically improved. For fun, we ran a 32Hz signal through the upgraded pair and the original pair. The upgraded pair produced the signal cleanly, the original pair just clattered. This is what happens when you put crossovers only found in $20K+ speakers into speakers that have good drivers to start with.
Laughed out loud when I saw that response 😂
That's how i built "crossovers" in my youth, I just put a 3.3uF cap on the tweeter. I'm getting the impression that this thing wasn't built by a speaker builder, but by a cabinet maker who was enamored by the admittedly very well regarded esotar.
Funny you should say that because I was thinking the exact same thing.
Yeah that's basically so you don't blow the tweeter 😊
"a cabinet maker"
>You summed up a majority of hi-fi companies that build boxes and try to figure out the rest _after_ they've designed something off cosmetics.
Danny, no need to keep apologizing, as long as you are giving fair and honest measurements and reviews. Not to mention if the people that sent them in are happier after you finish working on them....job well done. Also, watching your reviews makes me appreciate the measurements I get from my low-end speakers...😁
You really think this guy isn't just another audio BS merchant ?
@@davidcarr2216 Everyone is selling stuff, even the other youtube audio reviewers. If that is how you make your living, you do it. I watched a couple of specific youtube videos where some reviewers questioned Danny and they understood and appreciated what he was doing. I guess you could take him up on his offer to go to their "lab" and give your review.
Man, that's got to be a heart breaker when you drop serious ducats on a piece of gear and it blows.
Hey Danny, just wanted to let you know that I received my Ukrainian headphones and they are awesome. Can't wait to put a few miles on them to hear them fully broken in. Anyway, thanks for making these headphones available to people in the states. Cheers! 👽✌️
Kudos to you too for supporting the guy in embattled Ukraine. and to Danny for taking that opportunity
@@stephenyoud6125 I appreciate the kind words, but to be honest the "buying from the Ukrainian seller" was kind of just a happy circumstance. I mainly bought them from Danny's review. However, I'm with you 100% on giving Danny kudos for making his viewers happy by making these headphones available and also supporting a Ukrainian company. These guys make a darn good pair of headphones for a bargain price. 🎧👍
One has to imagine these were desiged with the tweeter polarity flipped, but that detail was skipped on the production floor. That should absolutly be a recall or at least a public notice with instructions to correct it.
They sent them all out like that. The Andrea model had the same issue as well.
It was quite obvious that the tweeter polarity was wrong on these. I also believe the hump innthe response at 700 hz is because of the size of the dust cap on those Morel midbass drivers. Usually I prefer using drivers with phase plugs instead of the dustcaps to avoid this.
It's likely that they aren't going to use a 3 inch phase plug on those Morel drivers :) I guess it would look interesting, but that's about 1/3 of the radiating area gone lol
Thats what i would try first..swap polarity of tweeters. . And i hate those morels..
@@RennieAsh 🤣I was not refering to the Morel's, they cannot be changed as they are with dustcaps already. I meant that I prefer drivers with phase plugs over the ones with dustcaps ☺
GR, I enjoy your passion for true sound.
true sound :-)))))))))))))))
Danny, for all those who have listed to bad so long they believe good is lacking (I know in my 30+ years I see this all the time and as you know it's always either brightness or lacking bass)! Bad speaker choice is one thing however room, speaker placement, and treatment are key. As a matter of fact I'm doing a talk on this subject at CAF in November.
Your always going to get the naive comments. Keep up the great work you do and thanks for all the knowledge I've gained from this channel...
Speaker placement, and treatment are absolutely key.
I am a chemical engineer and my only experience in electronics and audio is through my DIY speaker building hobby which I have dabbled in for many years. How is it a incidental simpleton like me can comprehend the phase characteristics of odd vs even order networks and yet these seemingly brilliant minds at relatively high-end speaker companies get it so wrong? Time after time, I watch Danny try to use restraint to describe what is obvious to me through his body language complete disgust in some of these network and driver topology selections. It's as if all of the crossover designers are off doing something else and the receptionist did the design. If I built chemical plants like this, you'd sse a lot of explosions on CNN and FOX.
blows my mind how so many high end speakers go out the door and build a reputation with bad crossovers, steel parts, and bad measurements, which seems like it would be easiest to fix before they go to customers, but they do.
Sometimes I want to run as far as I can from the this hobby. I read some reviews of the this Eggleston speaker.....great coherence, excellent detail retrieval, the bass doesn't obscure the mids, etc....positive stuff. Here is GR Research revealing a messy speaker. Thanks Danny, you do an excellent job.. Love your videos and keep them coming. I will only depend on my ears and not catchy marketing hype. There is an expression in Jamaica that says " fisherman never says his fish is stink".
In france there is a saying " don't stress the fish😅 it's also a fisherman's motto
Are you sure you read a review of this particular speaker? Was it the Fontaine or the Fontaine Signature SE (two significantly products). Where was the review published?
It’s scary because very few of us will have the chance to see a speaker’s guts and hear its real world performance before taking delivery on it
@@WeeWeeJumbo These Fontaine speakers were made more than 25 years ago as studio monitors, not designed for home use as a full range speaker system.
@@Mark-rw3kw If that's true then I really got lucky. I saw a pair of aDs 910s online and bought them without ever hearing them. Turns out they're likely my end-gamers. Originally built as studio mains in the late '70s, they spec: 4ohms/93db/28htz-25khtz. I'd love to send one to Danny for testing, but I'm told they're very neutral and linear, and they sound incredible in my room, plus they weigh 130/each with stands.
The extremely poor measurements doesn't matter because ordinary people who really enjoy music can't afford them. Thanks for another informative video, Danny.
A speaker built for disco! No graphic equalizer required!
I've played around with the out of phase crossovers before. It does tend to give a somewhat non harsh, and larger, more distant soundstage due to the increased reflected to direct sound in that midrange region.
You'll end up with something like this when tuning by ear and wanting a non forward, expansive sound. A bit like the Bose 901 effect.
They also likely enjoyed the cancellation of direct woofer peaks in that midrange region seeing as there's no filter.
A well designed speaker is preferable of course.
Keeps amazing me that you had to keep its way and everybody are you just trying to help us all out here in audioland. Thanks for your honest work and your patience with all of us
Rookie mistake, they forgot to invert the tweeter, which tells you these don't see any QC before leaving the factory.
They supposedly "fixed" the polarity issue in the Fontaine II but I think everything else was kept the same.
@@Hobblesmrkat From what I can tell, the original Fontaine tested by Danny is over 25 years old.
@@mcgovernjimmycorrect. the polarity issue wasn't addressed until the Fontain II towers a few years later.
dont let it get you down that your speakers are great and others' lack. It measures how it measures. poor components are poor components, don't let the trolls knock you down.
Fantastic resonance dampening.
Good gracious! Using one of the finest tweeters ever built… 😯
well i'm from mexico and here the high end audio shows i experience thhis type of "sound signature" actually is very popular in high end margules uses it in the magenta entry level line.... and yes it sounds like the soundstage is proyected backwards or something... i like the sound of those speakers is very relaxed
An out of phase alignment isn't a signature sound. It is a flaw, and was corrected with later models.
@@dannyrichie9743 well "soud signature" to be fair, i think most manufacturers use this to get a wider soundstage that projects in the backgroud... but i can't really tell, 'cause the speakers i retore are vintage japanese models that for some reason were very popular in mexico, and japanese sound signature always projects the soundstage in front of the speakers for a forward sound that i prefer the most
but sometimes i do mistakes putting the tweeter in "reverse" and there you have the "generic" mid range lacking high end type of sound
great segment Danny Thanks 😊
Those morel woofers probably look super cool when you take pictures of them outside the box though.
"guys look what I designed. I did it as a joke but they sent them out like that."
Frequency response can be a little choppy, but it shouldn't look like a roller coaster.
Albert knew what he was doing with E.W.
Was he the one in charge of the marketing department?
So glad I built my own, with Jantzen Super Zs. Goodness gracious, most speaker companies Suck.
I need a kit for my Elac debut b6’s.
There was/is a great fashion for tuning speakers by ear by small UK speaker designers. That Eggleston Works speaker seems to have that fashion in its genes. They considered low cabinet resonance as a virtue. Then they wanted lots of cone surface area with big motor coils with a narrow front baffle. Then they didn’t want too much crossover in the way. Then very expensive drive units should be technically well behaved and a good talking point. Reflex port loading for exciting bass from a small speaker. On paper to an audiophile reader it all seems legit and no doubt, the manufacturer discussed their use of subjective tuning to get their “sound”.
Perhaps an MTM style front baffle and third order crossover slopes might have saved them. Great to see what a head-scratcher their lack of attention to what they had ‘bodged’ together, based on no proper engineering of crossovers and front-baffle design, turned out to be. These were expensive to buy and probably difficult to make, market and sell. Great to see you pulling them back into focus by applying measurement and crossover engineering.
owned the meadowlark kestral 2's. transmission line 2 way 1st order x over. amazing speakers with a sloped baffle. it can be done.! sorry pat mcginty is not making speakers any more. great review as always.
I really enjoyed the meadowlarks that I owned, he is still making them although he has moved to multi-amped DSP powered speakers.
Line with fiberglass, low pass the lower driver, align each speaker by ear, and EQ it.
That doesn't solve the stored energy issues.
had those speakers and they had wrong crossover setup from factory sold them but they were close to 10 000 and sounded bad with great cabinets and great drivers
I can see that Danny is not a fan of 1st order crossover but when done really well it works magic, like some of the older Duntech designs and also Dunlavy. There is a crazy ruler flat response, perfect phase/time behaviour and when set up properly there is magic appearing. The vertical off axis response is way off, and the horizontal off axis response constrained, so you need to sit in the perfect spot. You cannot move around so it may be like large headphones, there is only one good spot.
I do have a very old pair of John Dunlavy designed Duntech PCL-15, you never see them second hand because people just don´t want to part with them ....
1st order designs when done proper are insanely good IMHO 😎
I have spent time with John Dunlavy in his listening room. Your observations are spot on. So long as you are the one in the sweet spot, they are very good.
@@dannyrichie9743 Thx for your reply Danny!
I think it´s a gross mistake to take a first order filter as being simple, we need to correct for phase and make sure drivers align properly.... the crossover for, say Thiel CS 3.7 is really complex... when late Jim Thiel thought he had it close to sorted out, he spent even close to one more year optimizing .... not very simple indeed, so when Egglestoneworks think they can pull it off with leaving the lo-pass out on the woofers, not even close to acoustic 1st order .... I am shocked 😵
I believe acoustic 1st order is very different from electric 1st order!!!!!!!!
@@Harald-MacGerhard I use first order filters often for low crossover points. They are easy to implement down there. It gets tough higher up though. Those Dunlavy's are also loaded with notch filters and are fairly complex.
Dunlavy was 1 of 1. A true genius.
Vandersteen is another one.
Danny, did you contact Eggleston about these speakers? What did they have to say?
Seeing as how these have measured this way before, I felt they were already well aware of the issues. I also did not see these same issues in later models that have been measured. So they may have already made those improvements.
@@mcgovernjimmy Were you honest with them about your intent to send them to a third party (Danny) to have him blast it all over the internet? Are you the first owner or do you still know the first owner?
@@mcgovernjimmy I think that failing to mention the fact that sending to a 3rd party was a possibility, if you could not obtain help from them. I think that divulging that information to them would be the most honest way to go about things. I'm not saying that *leading* with that is the right call. But alerting them that the sword of Damocles does rest on that thread above their head seems to be a very uncontroversial, basic courtesy to pay to the OEM of a product.
Further, how do they know you are not a competitor or some other person that does not have their best interests at heart, who is trying to reverse-engineer their products (regardless of their inherent quality)? Prompted by your pointed curiosity regarding their crossover. I mean, if they were worried about that...that would have ended up being a well-founded concern on their part.
SO, yes, I'm saying that it's possible that you may have inadvertently disincentivized them from helping you.
@@mcgovernjimmy I think that you actively minimizing that concern proves that they *should* have been concerned about you. Intensely ironic. Keep going, though. This is fascinating to watch.
@@mcgovernjimmy I hope you elect to not con another OEM. Good day.
Sir, do you do Martin Logans, electrostatic with woofers?
I have.
Niiiicccee t-shirt… great video!
This is why people should go the DIY route to start with. I'll never buy a factory speaker again, even looking at building my own amplifier as well.
I definitely feel like most models that can be bought, are compromised in some carefully-concealed way.
It’s a dark feeling. That’s a lotta chicanery
Some people(like me) can't build a square box. We need factory built speakers.
Except most people are not capable of DIY and many of those who are (e.g. myself), simply don't have sufficient spare time to do a build. I was planning on doing a DIY but ultimately decided not to for the reason mentioned.
Why not consider speakers from one of the many manufacturers Danny doesn't get in for fixing? There are plenty of good manufacturers out there building good speakers.
are you telling Danny to redesign the box
in my area, they throw away a lot wood pieces from furniture. BUT I have no tools to built a perfect box
Your approach sounds grounded (hah!) in solid electrical theory. Doug Self would approve. He would recommend active crossovers, though. Much easier to design, and cheaper, at the cost of needing one power amp and wire pair per driver. But class D amp modules are cheap and good these days. Amps for tweeters don't need to be large.
Floyd Toole would approve your sonic philosophy too.
we often use the 6.5 inch version of that morel driver in cars as a midbass only with dsp..and i really dislike them until cranking on them as you say..the take abuse well but the trade off is meh sound
I tried using those Morel woofers in a car stereo in the 80s. I was impressed by the 3" coils and high Qts but I think Xmas was the issue with them, if I remember correctly.
To my mind the more crossover intervention required the more life is sucked out of the sound. Better to choose drivers that play well together. Seems to me that the speaker engineers and the crossover engineers are often in two separate universes.
It's not that uncommon for high-end brands to be committed to low order crossovers that are tuned completely by ear. Some of them sound quite good (at least in the short term) even though they have no chance of measuring well. Your best hope is that the response compliments whatever is going on in your room. I remember trying a pair of Gallo Classicos and hearing what sounded like a giant hole in the response that changed as you moved around.
Why didn’t you try and make it into a three way?
Because the 2 woofers share the same airspace.
The Fontaine (a very old speaker) was later replaced by the Fontaine II, which corrected many of its problems, and then later replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE, which was a full range 3-way floor-standing speaker. But not even the Fontaine Signature SE is still sold, that is how old these are.
Just makes you wonder whether you could actually move the tweeter to the center while moving the 1 woofer to the top? It would all be dependent on cabinet construction, and how much work you'd be willing to put into it, to whether you could make the adjustment to help clean things up with that speaker.
In this case it would help the vertical off axis issues to some degree, but it won't fix the most glaring problems.
@@dannyrichie9743 Right, and I don't know if you can actually make those adjustments in any way to help the possible diffraction issues or not? Plus it would take someone that would have the desire and the woodworking capabilities to mess with this, as I'm sure the adjustment may only go so far if the woofers themselves are not completely desirable. Hard to say sometimes? Whether making a spacer for the speakers to help push the speaking out further flush with that sharp edge, and finding a way to round over or chamfer the hole on the inside by trying use a file of other means to do it. It'd basically turn that into a project, and whether it would be worth it would be unknown?
@@MassBoost I agree.
Looked like a candidate for a 2.5 system. But then the impedance may have dropped too low.
If I m not wrong (and please let me know) this model has a non flat "equalization" that with the special cabinet and high price convince some for its 'magic".I know that many people like them ONLY at medium to loud levels,So how bad can be a tweak in frequencies to differential from correct ....and hype
Great vid, Danny.
omg , is that for listening music?
I'd sure like to send my Beethoven Grands in to you, but man, clear from Washington State that'd be spendy. Great video, thanks for sharing!
It might be worth a road trip.
Why the hell is that tiny tweeter in the middle of that huge pieplate?
Did you flip the tweeter polarity?
How about turning it into a 2.5 way where the upper woofer plays mids & lows and the lower woofer only plays lows, would that work for such a speaker?
It did not.
Did Stevie Wonder put that crossover together?
It's really weird but the woofers and especially the tweeter looks like stuff from parts express how much are those
Hello folks: tweeter some 20 years ago was an easy $300 each and a bit more for a match pair.
Now that is why Dynaduio stop selling to the aftermarket and diy wholesalers back then same. An started thier own line of speakers for the showroom dealers.
Ride Easy
I had the ceter chanel and it was a sows ear too.
Cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear but you can make a wallet out okf a cows ear.
That shirt is awesome!!! Ya got a link?
The shirt was given to the athletes competing in the 2022 Oklahoma Senior Games competition.
Good video as usual.Just curious Danny, which amplifier are you using to test these speakers frequency response and could the measurements change based on the amp, wattage, sensitivity, ohm load etc?
The measurement does not change based on the amp, and each measurements is corrected to a 1 watt level.
@@dannyrichie9743 Thanks for answering my question, I'm learning everyday.
@@dannyrichie9743Actually, that’s true of most solid state amps, Nelson Pass’ transconductance amps notwithstanding. It is no true of zero feedback tube amps, where the output impedance of the amp can be half the nominal load impedance.
Nice shirt😃
Hey Danny, how do I get info on placing one separate amp on each driver in my speaker cabinet? By doing this will it bypass the need for those expensive crossovers? I would love to start with some good planar, midrange and mid base drivers. Subs are good with 500W Plate amps, for now. No super high-end audiophile budget yet. Will some Good class D amps with TI chips work? How do I set the frequency out per amp for the driver being used?
That is a much more expensive way to get to the same point.
I was thinking the polarity of the tweeter
After years of reading reviews and then YT reviews, I have realized to many flawed speakers at any price point are given too much positive opinions, often quite flowery, while not addressing flaws adequately if at all. Comparisons to other speakers which also have flaws that should have been addressed or even corrected by a manufacturer result in a review that does a disservice to everyone if they are inclined to want to replicate the original recording as intended, which could also be flawed or poorly recorded.
Now, can I enjoy a flawed speaker and prefer it to many others, yes. I guess what that means is that my brain is accepting certain aspects of playback and rendering them more acceptable and enjoyable regardless of how well the sound matches the original intent of the artist, recording process and those involved, etc.
I have also listened to speakers that measure fairly flat and didn't like them so I have to ask, is it the speaker, the room, the recording, source and amp, etc., as to why I find more fault than acceptance in any particular product.
The more I watch these videos picking apart a speaker using measurements, and listening to the reasons why they may sound as they do, regardless of curve, the more I understand what is more or less pleasurable for me on average to the material I listen to as well as the equipment I use in my own space. So at least I have a better understanding as to what is going on.
I tend to purchase well received equipment typically considered budget by audiophiles, not only by subjective reviewers but also by users of the product itself. For the most part, I find the presentation enjoyable, even if colored in some fashion, flawed or having some glaring deficiency probably due to my listening SPLs in my room. As another reviewer and seller of high end equipment stated, and I am paraphrasing, if you don't listen at louder, closer to lifelike levels, and pretty much only ambient levels, you shouldn't really invest in higher priced gear as you are wasting money for your needs. My most expensive amp is a Hegel h160 and Focal 807Ws, but I have lower priced equipment which I enjoy, not to mention trying a bit more expensive speakers. I can hear certain issues with any, although my more expensive gear together does sound better, its still an enjoyable, if yet differing presentation. I also tend to respond more to mids and highs than bass. As long as bass isn't a flabby mess I tend to be happy with it, especially in an apartment with neighbors. I use a sub from time to time but only add a bit of lower frequencies rather than overemphasizing it.
I get the sense, that the differences between poorly measuring and better measuring speakers come into play at certain SPLs where the deficiencies become much more obvious especially to someone who knows what something should sound like. If one listens at lower to more moderate levels, perhaps these deficiencies are less glaring and the speaker performance more acceptable.
Any thoughts given your own experiences?
That is extremely disappointing. You're right you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. You did an admirable job but that is still a fairly crap response from what are some fairly expensive drivers. Those esoteric drivers are bringing a premium these days. Would it be worth trying to re-cabinet these drivers with a new crossover?
That's a tough call. Plus, we have less expensive drivers that measure better and sound better.
@@dannyrichie9743 it is a bit of a gamble, you might build a new cabinet and it sounds no better. Maybe keep the tweeter and ditch the rest.
These sound like a candidate for DSP EQ and / or full active amplification. Yes, comes with a whole raft of other potential issues, but the size of the problem being solved may justify the solution.
There are a lot of other drawbacks to going down that road, and it isn't going to fix the stored energy issues, but you could go in and balance out some of the amplitude problems.
" ... Pig's Ear"
I've heard two versions. "can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear", and "you can't make a diamond out of river mud"
Thanks.
When you have 2 woofers you must roll one off earlier..
Danny that is total bs. You are one of the only trusted straight as a arrow non bs truth telling mentors
Danny, i really enjoy your vids- keep em coming plz!
What about making that second woofer a passive radiator?
😅
Pat
There was nothing I could do with the woofers. They have stored energy at 700Hz that I just can't fix.
@@dannyrichie9743 yep u know know what u are doing ☝️😃
Wish u were in Australia or at least closer. I enjoy seeing your work. Hope to hear the lgk 2.4s someday…
Have you ever done a set of acoustic energy ae5???
Dude. You're awesome. A long with other reviews, your look at the Sony SSCS5 nudge me to buy those. For my use, they are awesome. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Hello, I would like to know if you can tell more about monitoring speakers, I'm mixing engenier and will be nice to see something in that way, thanks for the content
Have a look at our NX-Studio Monitor.
Sort the room, average speakers in a good room can sound as good is good speakers in a bad room. Early reflections are the most important, get rid of them. This is the best advice I was given.
@@Margarinetaylorgrease That's good advice.
Hi Danny, I recently got a pair of Polk Reserve R700 towers, I tested both with a 9-volt battery and it looks like the woofers are wired out of phase, I contacted Polk via email and they told me the R700 uses a second order cross over, will I have a problem during Audyssey setup of the speakers? I'm using the Denon AVR X-4700H.
Not necessarily. Crossover components shift the phase of the signal being sent to the driver, so a polarity flip in a woofer, mid, or tweeter isn't uncommon. in such cases, wiring a driver electrically "out-of-phase" allows it to remain acoustically in-phase with the other driver(s) it's being crossed to. If there is a phase issue when trying to match them with a subwoofer, you will just need to set the phase on the subwoofer from 0 to 180 degrees or vice versa to get them back in phase.
In relation to diffraction , how does it affect horn loaded speakers ?
It's typically not a problem with horn/waveguide loaded tweeters since horns tent to narrow the response compared to flat-mounted tweeters. The more common issue is throat-cancellation where higher frequencies reflect off the sides of the horn/waveguide and arrive out of phase from the direct sound of the tweeter, creating a narrow band dip in the treble. It tends to occur when a tweeter it used in a horn/waveguide that isn't properly designed or hasn't been properly mounted.
Thats crazy they charge a fortune i was going to say flip the polarity but still they cost a fortune it shouldn't be that way and pisses me off because I build beautiful speakers and i couldn't give them away because I don't pay a reviewer maybe i will send a pair to Danny for his honest opinion. I believe he would give an honest evaluation maybe that's what I will do
Its sad that they measured like sxxt when using expensive drivers. I have a diy with morel drivers what model was in these ? But I have sb a. Tweeter.
Thats the same shirt as the last video! Were they filmed at the same time? 🤔😂
They were, and good catch.
Many, including well paid reviewers, have gone ga-ga over Eagelston at CES and audio shows. Oh, how easily they are fooled.
Ouch.
Why Eggleston Works designed the earlier models like this is not an enigma to me. I think they are designed almost as a ideology. Let me explain my theory. Every morning when I wake up I put on my little Tivoli One fm radio and listen to the news for about 30 minutes before I muster sufficient energy to climb out of the bed and face the coming day. This little mono radio with a roughly 3 inch full range driver reproduces the sound of the human voice beautifully it obviously isn’t particularly good with any Mahler symphony and that’s the point. I believe Eggleston Works designed their speakers like a full range driver for supreme voice reproduction with additional support for the bass (some models used an isobaric bass driver + an extra full range driver, others like this only an extra full range driver). In the treble they did the same by adding a tweeter. Actually not the worst idea in the world, but they made a terrible execution of it . They should instead have found a fantastic wide range 4,5 inch driver, put it into a wide (wide to push the diffraction loss/transition from 2 to 4 pi as low as practically possible)super low diffraction cabinet. And then added a supporting bass driver and tweeter where the full range driver runs out of puff. The supporting drivers should obviously be done with steep filters. Why didn’t they do this? Probably because they were afraid of the power handling, and probably because they wanted to claim some magical benefits of low order filtering and phase linearity. A pity, because I actually would like to hear a well engineered version of a speaker as described above. This turned out longer than I expected, so I wish a most wonderful day for those who managed to read through my ramblings. Greetings from Denmark
I remember that in the middle 80‘s there were many speakers with a massive suck-out, I took some masters from my studio to demo speakers at shows and remember having huge arguments with manufacturers, it’s one thing to give a speaker it’s own flavour but when it is downright misrepresentation of the artists music then that is a step way too far, thankfully this „fad“ did not seem to last too long, many times it was simply a polarity reversal on the tweeter was all that was needed to rectify the majority of the problem
How does a company selling High-End speakers get away with producing junk? Are they trying to sell to fools?
Eggleston tried to depict India on a map😅
Using "high end" expensive drivers, making a crazy dead cabinet, and then scrimping on the xover doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Sure it does, because you can't see it, and most people don't understand it.
It’s still confusing, because they could have ended up with a better speaker even if they’d spent less on it
I doubt they "scrimped" on the cross-over more than 25 years ago when they made this as a studio monitor (not a full range speaker system). It's hard to know what they were thinking, but it wasn't saving money.
@@Mark-rw3kw They certainly scripted on their research and development.
@@dannyrichie9743 I don't know about Eggleston today, but hey started out as company that just bought some very expensive drivers from other companies and tried to build good sounding speakers. They probably were not audio engineers and probably had limited financial resources back then. Maybe if there had been some freelance crossover experts around back then like you, they might have hired you to do the crossovers. The Andra speaker review you mentioned is 26 years old, so the Fontaine is even older than that. Eggleston revised the Fontaine two times after the initial model you reviewed, and even the newest Fontaine is not longer sold. I remember reading some scathing reviews of your original LGK speaker, and to your credit you revised it to add one or more woofers because it could not really be used to play full spectrum music in a normal listening room. So maybe you should give some others a break for speakers that are more than 26 years old, and even though they had some pretty severe measurement anomalies, Stereophile said they sounded great (the Andra).
DOOR STOP...!!!
Wow, is that a vented design that's tuned to 90 Hz with those two 6.5" Morel drivers, like the impedance curve suggests? Did the port tube fall off inside the cabinet or something?
Nah, it's got two, short, very large 4" ports in the back, which were smothered by polyfill. When looking at the marketing it was supposedly designed to act something like a quasi-transmission line enclosure, but based the measured response, it fell quite short of that goal.
According to the Eggleston website, the original Fontaine is a very old speaker that was originally designed as a stand-mounted studio monitor, without much bass response. It was eventually replaced by the Fontaine II, and then replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE, which was a floor-standing full range 3-way speaker, but that model is also somewhat old and no longer available in their lineup of speakers.
Is this a frequency response or a naive painting of the alps 😂😂😂
Look "Shinny"
Great video. Such a simple fix to a mess. I have learned so much from watching these. I have also become disappointed with commercial speakers in general. I understand low quality parts, but poor engineering/design is unacceptable. Good or bad engineering costs the same, so no excuse for that.
As for these, would making them a 3 way fix some of the issues? I would guess the expense might not be worth it, but in theory?
In theory a 3-way design could help but it would only address a couple of the issues, especially since some of the issues are inherent to the woofers themselves and would only add a lot more cost. it really needs to be redesigned from the ground up with better quality woofers. so, this was the better compromise that Danny and the customer came to.
The speaker Danny tested was the original Fontaine, over 25 years old and designed as a studio monitor. It was later replaced by the Fontaine II, and the replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE, which is a 3 way speaker. These are so old that even the Fontaine Signature SE is no longer available. Eggleston makes many 3-way full range speakers that sound quite good.
Thanks for the explanations. I did appreciate Danny’s “quick fix”. Elegant. Also, I didn’t know the age of this speaker design. Still, it seems that the designers could have done a lot better, at least not leave big holes in the frequency range.
@@Eddie07S Yes, they could have done better, but they were a bunch of amateurs back then buying expensive drivers and building cabinets in their garage. From what I can tell, they make decent speakers these days, but still very low volume. Their website says all speakers are made to order, and they only have about 10 US dealers. These days one can get on the Internet and there are several sites that will design crossovers online for free, but none of that was available back then.
This looks like a speaker designed by someone who had zero measuring equipment and just used tired out audiophile memes like, "The fewer components between the source and our ears the better". "Tilt a speaker back to time align it". etc.
Something doesn't seem right here. When was that model manufactured? How old are the drivers?
Also, I'm reading some of the reader response and there's a lot of bashing based this teardown. Perhaps it's a bad attempt at a design.
If you can find it, read Bob Ludwig's mastering studio build around the flagship Eggleston Works speaker.
Truely amazing. EW can build soeakers. I've heard other models myself. Good performers. Don't know what happened here.
I have seen measurements made by others that matched ours really well. They really were that bad.
Thats a trainwreck. I've built a speaker before with a full range 6" and a cap only on a tweeter and it was like infinitely better than this!
Oh, and one more thing. When you see a speaker that is junk somewhere, go and look for TH-cam reviews on them. That way you can make a list over time of 'reviewer's' that can't be trusted, which by the way, with my current list it doesn't leave many at all! 😂
Time to wake up, realise a lot of these people are merely influencer's, it's just like those con market stalls with fake buyers roping people into the drama and thrill of the ride.
I don't trust any reviewer that doesn't do measurements.
Is there a TH-cam review of the original Fontaine model that Danny tested? I believe the model Danny tested is about 25 years old, maybe older. It was replaced by the Fontaine II, and then later replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE (a 3-way floor-standing speaker), but none of the Fontaine models are in the current lineup of Egleston speakers according to their website, so I think Danny should have emphasized that the speakers he tested were very old models, and not even designed as full range speakers (designed as studio monitors many years ago).
still doesnt change the fact of a huge crater in the response@@Mark-rw3kw
I can't believe, not that you aren't correct Danny, that someone could hear these and in turn buy them. That just blows my mind.
They are quite old, and were meant to be studio monitors, not full range speakers, according to their website. They are not even listed under "legacy products" at the Egleston website, that is how old they are. They were replaced by by the Fontaine II and then later by the Signature SE, which itself is no longer sold.
A lot of people buy with their eyes.
so what if its not full range, it should play 1k shouldnt it? right where a massive hole is@@Mark-rw3kw
What a shame 😢 audiophiles just judge things by the price tag and what there audiophile buddies and favorite reviewers tell them. I can build a high end beautiful cabinets perfect in everyway and unless there friends have it or reviewer I couldn't give it a away.
a snakeoil ""high end " audiophile speaker that measures like garbage? who woulda thought
It was their first design from 1997, developed by a company that started in Memphis TN (probably in a garage). I am sure they have a lot better speaker systems today, and I don't think it is fair to call them "snake oil" because of a 1997 product.
I was always skeptical about the overrated eggs. They always got high praise. It shows that like Wilson, you can't just throw (expensive) drivers in a shiny box, you need to do the engineering. Point 2: it also brings to light how poor the hearing/listening ability is of many so-called golden ear audiophiles.
Well, you know the old saying: "Ya Can't Shine Poop, It Only Smears". But I would imagine this will now reflect at least a little bit of moon light.
Cheers 🍻
All I can think is that a pair of engineering samples got shipped out inadvertently. (Yeah.)
It's a little presumptuous to be talking about a speaker at least 25 years old that was originally designed as a studio monitor (not as a home stereo speaker). It was later replaced by the Fontaine II, which corrected many of its problems, and then later replaced by the Fontaine Signature SE, which was a full range 3-way floor-standing speaker for home use. But not even the Fontaine Signature SE is still sold, that is how old these are.
Nope, I have seen measurements of them made by others that match mine. These were also the upper sections of the Andrea model that measured the same as well.
More like scrambled Egglestons. smh
Yes, speaker and crossover design has come a long way since 1997.
believer me , they werent that far in the dark ages in 97 to build shit like this@@Mark-rw3kw
You must remember that the hifi media is only viable due to advertising....so at no point will they slag off anything as it could lose them money.
You have to learn how to read between the lines.
You have to wonder how a company can sell something that measures so poorly. Did they even measure it before it went to market?
Also, did the buyer listen to these before buying??
This is why a real reviewer would ideally buy them out right. I'm thinking I might do this at some point in the future.
These are very old model designed as studio monitor, not a full range speaker. Read my other comments.
@@mcgovernjimmy Speaker system and driver design has come a long way in the last 27 years, so I wouldn’t invest money in them either.
Like it when these really problematic speakers come in, and there is still something to be done. Love to learn from the explanations and others mistakes.