Five Easy Pieces
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday May 19, 2003
Life was simple when recorded sound was monophonic. There was only one speaker, a simple single-channel amplifier and the best sound was always directly in front of the speaker.
Stereo was a big step forward, but because two of everything was required to make it work, the cost of good sound doubled overnight. It also required speaker manufacturers to lift their game because the left and right speakers had to be identical for a good stereo image.
The arrival of true multichannel surround sound, first in the shape of Dolby Digital 5.1 and more recently with DVD-A and SACD, has introduced new problems for manufacturers and consumers alike. For manufacturers, the problem is to produce five separate speaker enclosures that sound exactly the same. Many don't even try. It isn't hard to find home-theatre speaker systems where the left and right speakers use one set of woofers and tweeters, the centre speaker another set and the rear-channel speakers another set again.
German manufacturer ALR/Jordan uses identical woofers and tweeters in all five satellite speakers. The bass/midrange driver that's common to all cabinets has a 110mm-diameter metal cone. Although metal-coned speakers are common in high-priced
hi-fi speaker systems, they're not usually found in home-theatre speaker systems, where cheaper paper and plastic materials are generally used. ALR/Jordan has instead saved money in the cabinet finish, which is a rather ordinary vinyl wrap.
The tweeter is a 26mm fabric-dome type powered by a small but very powerful neodymium magnet. ALR/Jordan has taken advantage of the magnet size to position the tweeter so close the woofer that it overlaps the driver rim. This puts the acoustic centres of the two drivers as close as possible, delivering superior imaging.
Horizontally oriented centre-channel speakers compromise sound somewhat because the sound to either side of the speaker is slightly different to the sound directly in front, but they're necessary if the speaker is to be placed on top of or underneath the TV for home-theatre applications. The additional bass driver is required for DVD movies because about 80 per cent of a movie's dialogue comes from the centre-channel speaker. The second driver increases power-handling capacity.
ALR/Jordan's Entry subwoofer contains a 300mm-diameter bass driver and a 150-watt power amplifier. It's well equipped, with all necessary inputs and outputs, and filtering options are unusually comprehensive.
Sound quality with multichannel audio signals sourced from DVD-A and SACD discs was excellent. Bass was deep and powerful and it was impossible to hear where the sound crossed over from the subwoofer to the smaller satellite speakers. When auditioning stereo soundtracks from CD it was as if we were listening to a pair of large three-way speakers rather than a sub/sat configuration. The system was equally impressive reproducing Dolby Digital movie soundtracks from DVD, delivering a seamless image across the front soundstage.
Info file
ALR/Jordan Entry S Speaker System
Price: $3500
Audio Dynamics Pty Ltd
155-157 Camberwell Road
East Hawthorn, Victoria 3123
(03) 9882 0372
info@audiodynamics.com.au
www.audiodynamics.com.au
© 2003 Sydney Morning Herald