Space-challenged Audio Skinflints, Step This Way
Written: Nov 01 '00 (Updated Nov 02 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Binding posts and a low, low, low price
Cons: Mediocre sound in the grand scheme of things
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| artdeco73's Full Review: Acoustic Research AR 215PS Main / Stereo Speaker |
Ahh, the Weekend System. Those of us who read audio equipment reviews in any number of print or online publications frequently see those golden-eared purveyors of purportedly unbiased hi-fi wisdom mention their weekend systems and talk about how the performance of a given piece of gear there compares with its performance in their main system. "Fahgahdssakes, two high-end systems?" we exclaim, green with a mixture of envy and disgust, "They better be old review samples, or else people's priorities in this life have gone to seed altogether." Truth be told, though, if you are a music lover, you quickly begin to need a way to listen to music wherever you go lest withdrawal symptoms set in. If you spend an appreciable amount of time anywhere other than home, well, you need an audio system there, and unless your priorities are sufficiently twisted or your wallet sufficiently large (or you are a professional reviewer), you either have to settle for that nemesis of good sound - the boombox - or you have to get creative. Enter the Acoustic Research 215PS bookshelf loudspeakers.
215PS’s pedigree is impressive indeed. AR’s first product, the AR1, designed by the now-famous Henry Kloss, was the first ever bookshelf speaker on the market. The common wisdom of the day held that if you wanted deep bass and a big sound, you needed a big speaker with a giant enclosure that functioned as a resonating chamber. Kloss took a radically different approach. He mounted the driver to the cabinet using a flexible material and sealed the box, which resulted in a design now known as acoustic suspension. The AR1 could make your ears happy while still keeping the interior decorating elements in your household at bay, even in the face of the still radical idea that you might want to put two of these things in the room.
215PS’s design, unfortunately according to some, does not follow the sealed box approach of classic AR speakers. It opts instead for the more common ported cabinet, also known as bass reflex. It is, however, definitely a bookshelf speaker, maybe even a window ledge speaker, or, if you are so inclined, a mantelpiece speaker. At only 10 inches tall and a footprint of 7 by 6 inches, it is diminutive to the extreme. It is a two-way design (two drivers, a 1-inch tweeter for high frequencies and a 5¼-inch cone for everything else) crossed over at a somewhat high 4 kHz. The tweeter is made of polycarbonate, but AR is surprisingly tight-lipped about the woofer material. AR claims a bass extension down to 75Hz – not great, but not too shabby for something this tiny – and a respectable sensivity (a measure of efficiency, i.e. how loudly a speaker will play when fed a certain amount of power) of 89 dB. What more than makes up for any lack in specifications, however, is the price. Although the 215PS’s MSRP is an inexcusable US $239, a pair can be easily obtained for US $99, making it an ideal choice for a weekend system for someone who can't afford a weekend system. The fact that second-hand speakers are expensive – way out of whack with prices for other types of used components – makes the case for a pair of new 215PSs that much more compelling.
Compelling enough for me to part with some hard-earned money and buy a pair. A $10 first-time buyer discount from 800.com worked a bit of its own persuading magic, of course, along with their astonishingly low shipping rate of $1.16 all the way from Oregon. Immediately after taking the speakers out of the box, I was pleasantly surprised by their look and feel. They felt very solid and sturdy and were unexpectedly heavy (just under 5 lbs. each) for their size. There is no baffle - the drivers are mounted directly to the MDF of the front wall of the box, as are the plastic surrounds of the front-firing bass ports. Tapping the cabinet lightly with my knuckle produced a dull thud rather than the hollow pop one would expect from a cheap speaker. The best part, however, were the connectors. Are you ready? Instead of the spring-loaded or clamp-down wire clips I was expecting, the 215PSs featured five-way binding posts! Binding posts for $99? Don't wake me up!
Now for the fun part. I have asserted in the past that an average consumer is fundamentally incapable of providing a valuable review since he or she lacks the ability to make comparisons between competing products under sufficiently impartial conditions. Not this consumer! Since the complete weekend system does not really exist yet, and in any case its intended location is a five-hour drive away, I have two pairs of speakers and one of everything else (receiver, CD player, turntable) in the same room at the same time for the foreseeable future – as close as an amateur is likely to get to the hallowed world where professional reviewers dwell. The first thing I did was swap the ARs in for my regular speakers (I will not tell you what they are just yet lest I get accused of comparing apples to oranges) to get a general impression of their sound in isolation.
My 18" stands were way too short for the 215PS (26"-28" would be more appropriate), but after some tweaking, I managed to devise the right combination of stacked pillows and telephone books which, when sat upon, elevated my ears roughly to the level of the ARs' tweeters, and the listening commenced. From the very beginning, I was impressed. Not blown away, not taken to a higher plane of consciousness, but impressed. The ARs produced a fairly large sound that belied their size and filled my room without too much effort. The best part about the speakers' voice was their treble. In my experience, as I move down in price, the first thing I expect to lose is smoothness in the top end and get a shrill, nasal tone. Mercifully, the 215PSs managed to avoid sounding that way and produced perfectly inoffensive highs. The cymbals rang, not hissed, and violins - one of the hardest treble instruments to reproduce - merely scratched at my ears, not sliced them with a razor. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there was some bass. Not a tremendous amount of bass, but certainly more than a trace. Santana's "El Farol" from Supernatural didn't throw me against the back wall, but it sounded complete. No significant aspect of the frequency range was missing. The detail was not completely absent either. On my favorite jazz recordings, such as Freddie Hubbard's Ready for Freddie, some was revealed. Again, not a lot of detail, but the music was not completely murky and foggy. On Larry Coryell's Spaces Revisited, for example, Billy Cobham's drum kit cracked away fairly convincingly. Imaging and soundstaging - characteristics people typically don't even talk about in this price range - did not fare as well. The ARs managed to spread things some from side to side, but they utterly lacked any depth, and the image was one smeared blob rather than a set of distinct sound sources placed at various points in a given space. Here is the important thing, though: the 215PSs produced music. Die-hard audiophiles will trample each other to be the first ones to tell you (not before discussing individual aspects of a speaker's or a component's sound for hours, of course) that the "body parts" approach is all wrong and that all that matters is whether whatever you are evaluating makes you feel the music. Well, the 215PSs pass muster on that count. I could listen to them and enjoy the music.
It is the comparison to my "reference" speakers (since I only own one other pair, I get to call them my reference) that truly revealed the ARs' limitations, but how could it be otherwise? The speakers in question are the B&W DM602 S2 which are four times the size and six times the price of the 215PSs. Is it any surprise that they were in a different league altogether? Tons more bass. Infinitely more detail. Where the ARs' treble was merely inoffensive, the B&Ws' was silky-smooth in comparison. The soundstaging could not even compare - on that same Santana CD, the B&Ws resolved the dense mix with ease and grace. The keyboards were obviously way in the back, while Carlos and his guitar were front and center. The ARs did not provide even a hint of this information. The overall sound of the B&W was noticeably fuller, deeper and more spacious. Where the ARs made me go "not bad," the B&Ws never failed to elicit an "ahhhhhh..."
So, are these mini-boxes for you? That, of course, depends. If your sole objective is the lowest possible price, there is hardly anything else out there that compares. The only other $99 speaker that has any promise of quality (I have not heard them myself) is the KLH Model 17, also marketed through Cambridge Soundworks - ironically, the company that Henry Kloss works for now. They are, however, less efficient, have even less bass, and do not offer binding posts. Going up in price slightly opens up many more options, most notably the highly praised Paradigm Atom and the PSB Alpha Mini, both $179. While they probably will not add a lot in overall impact, the level of detail is almost guaranteed to be vastly superior. For space-challenged bass-mongers, Acoustic Research makes an equally miniature, 8" subwoofer with a street price of around $200, and I will surmise it would mate very will with the 215PSs. Sure, $300 would buy you a pair of much higher-quality bookshelf speakers (Paradigm, PSB, Axiom, KEF and countless others, even other AR models), but none of them will have the oomph of our AR subwoofer/satellite combo. Some have suggested that the 215PSs will function well as surround speakers in a home theatre setup. Perhaps, but I must leave that pronouncement to someone who knows what he or she is talking about. Here is something else to consider: a pair of 215PSs, an entry-level two-channel receiver from Sony (STR-DE135, $149) or Onkyo (TX-8211, $199) and a single-disc CD player from Sony or JVC (or even a second-hand one from any number of manufacturers) is guaranteed to run circles around one of those space-age mini-systems in terms of musical enjoyment at about the same, if not a lower, price.
One other thing left to mention. Many reviewers will provide an "Associated Equipment" section, also known as "my toys are cooler than yours." For the record, here is mine:
Digital source: JVC XL-Z411 CD player
Analog source: Music Hall MMF-2.1 turntable with stock tonearm and Goldring Elan MM cartridge
Amplification: Yamaha RX-596 stereo receiver
Speakers: B&W DM602 S2 bookshelf loudspeakers
Other: Monster Cable interconnects and speaker cables, Sanus speaker stands.
As for the weekend system itself... Well, like I said, I will to have to get creative.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
artdeco73
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Member: Tony
Location: Washington, DC
Reviews written: 82
Trusted by: 60 members
About Me:
"Books do furnish a room" --Anthony Powell
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