Best of Class--great value.
Written: Mar 16 '01 (Updated Apr 11 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: State of the art for table radios
Cons: Minor tweaks in design are still possible.
The Bottom Line: This is an excellent design that outshines everything else in its class, even at twice the price.
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| shieber's Full Review: Cambridge Soundworks Model 88 Mini System |
Some of the discussion below may be too technical to be interesting. Sorry, but I thought a few basic points, even if only glossed over, might help provide some useful background. Don't buy hype by basically good application of good technology. That's what the Model 88 does best in its class.
How does the Model 88 make bass:
Is it magic, advanced science, or just excellent application of basic technology? This is a basic design that uses no new technology. There haven’t been any really major shifts in technology for table radios in decades. The difference between the better and worse products is how well the existing technology is designed into the unit and how well they are made. The Bose, for example, uses relatively inexpensive parts, invents a new name (wave guide) for a decades old technique of speaker damping called labyrinth or transmission line loading, patents the particular shape of the "guide" and then suggests that they have done something no one else can do. All Bose has done that no one else can do is call the tube a "wave guide." You pay a lot of money to Bose for that, but it's not really new or exotic at all. But in any event the wave guide in the Bose and the front port in the Model 88 do not make the bass louder! Sound is energy and you can't get energy from the mere presence of a tube of air -- only the addition of energy can provide more sound. What they the wave guide and the Model 88 port do is damp the speakers from excessive movement at low frequencies so that they don't sound like cardboard panels buzzing in a stiff breeze. They damp the vibration at the low frequency at which the speakers resonate. An undamped speaker cannot be used at low frequencies because it is too easily overdriven and sound flubby, tubby, muddy. Control the speaker resonance at low frequencies and you can use the speaker at low frequencies without overdriving it so easily.
Why can the 88 make loud bass:
But damping doesn't make the bass load. To get volume (loud sound) from a small speaker takes a lot of energy. The volume (loudness) is purely a function of how much air the speaker can move back and forth. The lower the frequency, the more air that needs to be moved for a human to hear it. In a typical music program about half of the energy is below 60 cycles per second -- in other words, the bass eats up about half the energy. That's a big drain on an amp and a good reason to use a separate amplifier for the bass, which the Model 88 does. So it can provide a lot of energy for bass frequencies without draining what's available for the other frequencies. A large (and heavy) transformer is needed to power all this this amplification. This radio weighs in at rough 14 pounds.
Small Speakers can't make bass as loud large speakers:
An 8" speaker has about half the area of a 10" speaker, so it needs to move back and forth twice as far to move the same amount of air. A 3" speaker needs to move about 10 times farther than an 8" speaker. To have a 3" speaker be able to move that far forward and then snap back in time for the next cycle, it needs to be relatively springy and, other things being equal, needs more juice to make it move.
Kloss dealt with this in the Model 88 by supplying energy via a separate internal amplifier to the bass -- the amplifier is set to boost enough energy to the speaker get the right amount of loudness. Cambridge Soundworks calls it electronic contouring. That's not any different, in principle, than what you do when you turn a tone control up or down. The question is, did Kloss design a unit that does these things (damps, boosts, contours) with the right amount of bass boost to get small speakers to perform well?
Yes.
Did Kloss do everything right:
Yes and no. With a lot more money you can buy better stereo systems and better tuners. But with the Model 88, Kloss has made a table radio better than anyone else has -- including the Bose Wave. If you think a small speaker design like this is going to provide bass with the same quality as an equally well designed but larger unit, that's simply not true. Try listening to a "D-Box Mammoth" with an 18" driver that can handle the subtle timbre of a string bass and cannot only rattle windows but the walls themselves. There's no comparison between THAT and something like the Bose Wave or Model 88. But the Model 88 sounds better than anything else I have heard in small units. Simply the best in its class -- table top size radios.
Too much of a good thing?:
There is plenty of bass, and if you are not discerning when you adjust its level, you can end up with a very tubby sound, especially noticeable on voices. But the knob on the back lets you adjust the level and when done properly, you can get a very good balance between loudness and clarity at lower frequencies. These small speakers can't move enough air to fill a large room with symphonic levels of sound. That's too much to ask. If you try to fill a living room with sound from this unit, at least with the bass turned up high, you'll get very noticeable distortion from overdriving the speakers. But that's to be expected from such a small unit meant as a table top radio.
The tuner is a gem:
The tuner is very very good for a small radio. I have a $1,000 Sony receiver with a tuner that can't perform nearly as well as the Model 88's. I also have some $600 and $1,000 tuners that are better than the one in the Model 88. And the Model 88 isn't a $15,000 Seguerra tuner either. But it is a very good tuner and a much better one than I think you will find in any other system or unit for anything near this price of $150-$200.
Could it be better?:
The speakers are covered with a grill made of sheet metal with small holes in it. I think if this were removed, the higher frequencies would sound even clearer. A metal grill tends to give a lot of reflections back and forth that give higher frequencies a sort of masked over sound. I don't mean that the Model 88 sounds bad on the high frequencies. But I think it might sound even better if the grill were more transparent--for example, a fine grill cloth instead of metal plate. But the metal grill probably adds to the rigidity of the box -- crucial in a box producing bass frequencies without rattling. And this type of grill protects the speakers from being poked, bumped, etc.
And this box does not rattle. It's mostly plastic but it is solidly built -- it needs to be if it going to be capable of produce a lot of bass, which it does, without rattling, which it doesn't.
The bass could be a little tighter, a bit less boomy but it's very hard to get deep extension and tight bass both in a very small format. On the other hand, the Bose Wave doesn't have bass extension quite as low, nor is it any tighter. As with all speakers that produce bass frequencies, placing it close to a wall or in a corner tends to reinforce the lower bass frequencies. The bass-level adjustment knob allows pretty good compensation for wherever you want to place this unit.
This is an excellent design that outshines everything else in its class. I think this would still be the class leader if it cost twice as much as it does. The actual price makes it an even better value. That rates 5 stars in each category for its class.
I noticed after I bought my Model 88 that you can bid for "refurbished" machines on Ebay from the vendor, Hifi.com -- these are machines returned under the 45-day trial and are checked, refurbished if necessary, and have full warranty. Buying a "refurb" on Ebay saves about 20% or so from the regularly charged price but the bidding can be very competitive. Another radio and radio/cd player of each color is added for auction each day and four similar auctions close each day--auctions last for about a week. I tried this for a Model 88CD, the model with a clock and CD player built in. If the savings is important, consider going the Ebay route but note: the service is not quite the same. The vendor, Hifi.com, won't do Ebay transactions over the phone or on-line and they don't issue confirmation emails for Ebay items! They require you to mail them a check or you can use secure credit card payment by signing up for free at Paypal. If you want more convenience when purchasing, pay the extra 20% or so and buy new.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
shieber
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Member: Scott Hieber
Reviews written: 34
Trusted by: 2 members
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