by dingostolemyipod » Mon May 07, 2012 5:23 pm
My equator D5s arrived last thursday, i got to use them a bit over the weekend with a borrowed dac, but at the moment i can't use them with any of my stuff as i don't have long enough leads.
I was using them with a yamaha audioengine3 USB interface which i could sit right between the speakers so my leads would reach.
Thoughts?
These are only priliminary observations, don't read too much into them. I would have liked to wait longer before saying anything, but since you seem eager to hear something, you get it.
They seem like they should do a good job as monitors for mixing and whatnot (not my intended use), but maybe not the best for music playback(too clinical perhaps).
There seems to be a bit too much mids, especially upper mids. Is this the speakers being accurate, and i'm just not used to it? dunno.
I don't want to be overly critical of them yet, as i don't think i've got them setup optimally (placement, room acoustics, etc)
Getting off topic, speaker placement and other acoustic considerations are just as important as the speakers themselves, or even more important. Some people that run massive$$$ speakers in a poorly optimised room is as much a sin as running HD800s from an iphone. Its always amazed me that acoustics gets so small a look-in in circles of audiophillia. The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make a major improvement for most setups, yet people will continue to upgrade ever other component for marginal or non-existent improvements. (one thing headphones really have going for them)
/rant
so... detail across the board is very good, lots of micro detail
soundstage is absolutely superb, this is where coaxial setups really shine
separation is good, but to the point where it makes some music sound crap, like when you can notice multiple close-mics on an instrument rather than hearing it as one instrument - this isn't an issue on really well produced material though
overall balance seems good, except for where i'm a bit concerned about the mids, but with a bit more care with the setup, and I want to measure the response to check it too, and perhaps with a bit of burn-in (yes i went there) we'll see how things turn out
bass is even and smooth, but the extension only goes so far, missing the lowest octave. a 5" woofer in a small box can only do so much, it has to obey the laws of physics. so considering that, the bass extension is acceptable. Bass is punchy, and keeps control well, but there is a noticeable difference from "woofer bass" to "port bass", not the worst in this regard but noticeable none the less.
treble? there's the right amount of treble, no sibilance issues, but it does seem to be lacking just a bit of sweetness, time will tell more here
Bear in mind that all of this was with an unfamiliar DAC, this may have accounted towards some of the issues of balance.
also, i'm getting a bit of "rub & buzz" on one of the speaker at certain bass frequencies at certain level. This might just be the lead-out wire on the driver or something that can be fixed by opening it up (no real biggie), or it could be the woofer buzzing on the coax tweeter due to slight misalignment (do not want), or maybe something else going on.
There's also a little bit of boxiness to the sound, if they were larger and more solid this would probably get rid of most of this, but they certainly wouldn't be $300 then. Mind you they're pretty solid, and for the price they're fantastic in this regard.
Overall its pretty decent, for the price ($430 shipped), they're pretty incredible considering that's speakers, box & amps.
They're not the most musical speaker as far as things go now, but tweaking the setup, and throwing a sub into the mix, they might just be amazing.
I still plan on doing some DIY speakers myself, but i think these will serve as a very good benchmark for me to work off.
As for use in production, their clinical nature(flat) and very high detail, separation, soundstage - i'd imagine would go pretty well.
I'm hardly the expert on the matter but these seem to get a big wrap in those sort of forums (not that i frequent those places, i was just looking for info on these speakers and thats what google hits lol)
a girl cannot tell a man when exactly he must do a thing
and it's been over 2 weeks
