Russell K speakers - Oh. My. God!

[DocG]

Hi all,

Been a while since I bored you guys with some input, but this I had to share.
Yesterday, having a day off, I popped into my dealer's in Ghent. Nice music playing; probably the Avantgarde horns, I heard myself think.
No, rather average looking box-speakers, with a funky red baffle. Some new, top of the line actives apparently!
No, plain, ported, passive two-ways.

Russell K is the name, after Russell Kaufman, who worked for Morel, Wharfedale, B&W and Monitor Audio, until he founded his own company recently. The man has a very refreshing look in speaker design, using thin wall cabinets, braced but without internal damping. A minimalist cross-over is applied, combined with the drivers' mechanical roll-off.

I heard the Red 100, which, finished in standard grey, with red baffle and without grille, sells for EUR 1495 per pair.
You can have the speakers with black baffles too, veneered or in piano gloss black, and with grilles if you like. All paying extras, adding upto EUR 500 to the price, but only if you feel you need them.

This couple sounds amazing!They're fast (a major quality in my book) and vivid and produce very convincing timbres in voices and acoustic instruments like piano or plucked guitars. And their bass rendition is surprising for their size. They remind me of Harbeths, only more open and dynamic... And about half the price (if you don't mind the personal but rather plain finish)!
I imagine they shouldn't be difficult to position in an average room either, being front ported.
And though I heard them, coupled to an Accuphase E600 (not quite price-matched!), they're supposed to be rather easy to drive, with a very friendly impedance curve.

Bottom line: if you're looking for a pair of speakers in the 1500 - 4000 EUR price bracket, start googling for the closest dealer now. Go and listen. And be prepared to be amazed!
A game changer? You bet! (all in my humblest of opinions, of course)

 

[Vladimir]

I think this bloke has great future in the audiophile cable market.

Cabinet walls that flex ensure a crystal clear sound with no distortion.

Source

 

[DocG]

I think this bloke has great future in the audiophile cable market.

Cabinet walls that flex ensure a crystal clear sound with no distortion.

Source

Hi Vlad,

Your link doesn't seem to work. I'm curious now...

Goes without saying that you heard his speakers. If not, you wouldn't be so cynical, would you? *fancy smiley*

 

[Vladimir]

It's a quote from the official website. http://www.russellk.co.uk/the_loudspeakers.php

I haven't heard the speakers but i wont comment on the sound, just the design. I hope that is OK?

Few basics to begin with:

Loudspeakers are not musical instruments and shouldn't be.

Musical instruments create sound with the strings/reeds and their vibrating bodies. The sum of it all is the instrument's timbre (sound signature, color).

Loudspeaker must not have a vibrating and flexing cabinets that add harmonics to the pistonic work of the drivers. The drivers give their best to recreate an accurate sound from the recorded instruments (and vocals). Any added harmonics from the cabinets and standing waves will add coloration and change the natural timbre of the musical program.

To prevent coloration speaker designers add heavy bracing to their cabinets, curvy forms and internal damping to prevent standing waves and narrow baffles with preferable curves or felt damping to prevent reflections. Angled baffles help with time alignment.

A sonically dead cabinet is the perfect cabinet. When you knock on the cabinet walls if you hear a hollow sound, that is bad design. BBC broadcasting van monitors are outdated technology, curently surpased by hi-tech innovative companies like Vivid Audio, Tannoy, Genelec, Adam, KRK, JBL, Yamaha etc. just to name few.

The cabinet is a source of much colouration due to stored energy. Several years ago the BBC conducted research into cabinet design and found that rigid heavy enclosures coloured the sound making the spoken word sound unnatural. The BBC solution was to use thin walls with heavy bitumen pads attached for damping. Our own research has found that the heavily damped thin wall cabinet works well for the midrange but too much cabinet flex softens the bass response. Our solution is to keep the cabinet walls thin and to use internal bracing shelves to control cabinet flex. The Red 100 light cabinet vibrates when the drive units are playing but stops quickly when the drive units stop ensuring near-perfect sound reproduction.

Bad, bad, bad. Rigid enclosures add coloration and flexing cabinets produce crystal clear accurate sound? Oh yeah... Russ K. cables are not that far in the future.

 

[BigH]

It's a quote from the official website. http://www.russellk.co.uk/the_loudspeakers.php

I haven't heard the speakers but i wont comment on the sound, just the design. I hope that is OK?

Few basics to begin with:

Loudspeakers are not musical instruments and shouldn't be.

Musical instruments create sound with the strings/reeds and their vibrating bodies. The sum of it all is the instrument's timbre (sound signature, color).

Loudspeaker must not have a vibrating and flexing cabinets that add harmonics to the pistonic work of the drivers. The drivers give their best to recreate an accurate sound from the recorded instruments (and vocals). Any added harmonics from the cabinets and standing waves will add coloration and change the natural timbre of the musical program.

To prevent coloration speaker designers add heavy bracing to their cabinets, curvy forms and internal damping to prevent standing waves and narrow baffles with preferable curves or felt damping to prevent reflections. Angled baffles help with time alignment.

A sonically dead cabinet is the perfect cabinet. When you knock on the cabinet walls if you hear a hollow sound, that is bad design. BBC broadcasting van monitors are outdated technology, curently surpased by hi-tech innovative companies like Vivid Audio, Tannoy, Genelec, Adam, KRK, JBL, Yamaha etc. just to name few.

The cabinet is a source of much colouration due to stored energy. Several years ago the BBC conducted research into cabinet design and found that rigid heavy enclosures coloured the sound making the spoken word sound unnatural. The BBC solution was to use thin walls with heavy bitumen pads attached for damping. Our own research has found that the heavily damped thin wall cabinet works well for the midrange but too much cabinet flex softens the bass response. Our solution is to keep the cabinet walls thin and to use internal bracing shelves to control cabinet flex. The Red 100 light cabinet vibrates when the drive units are playing but stops quickly when the drive units stop ensuring near-perfect sound reproduction.

Bad, bad, bad. Rigid enclosures add coloration and flexing cabinets produce crystal clear accurate sound? Oh yeah... Russ K. cables are not that far in the future.

So Harbeth speakers are rubbish then?

 

[DocG]

OK Vlad, these speakers are badly designed. I appologize for liking their sound. Must have been the E600 overriding the poor speaker quality! *pardon*

No, seriously. Until the day before yesterday, I would fully agree with your analysis. I heard the Audionote AN-K, and was underwhelmed. And recently, I demoed the Musical Affairs Crescendo, and it was horrible. But these Russell Ks...

After all, I heard them first, not knowing anything about the pep talk on the website. And they sound really great! Scout's honour!

(just imagine what they would sound like in a dead, fully damped cabinet! *wink*)

 

[Vladimir]

It's just old design, reselling the 60s and 70s and that BBC mini monitor story again and again and again...

But does a Rusell K. speaker share any actual Rogers LS3/5a design DNA? Hmmm. I don't remember the BBC monitors having bass ports... fixed front baffle... or have a 'fine tuned crossover' but first order simple. *mosking*

The BBC monitors have massive internal damping. Arm thick foam and bitumen sheets are the extreeme of extreeme internal damping solutions. The front baffle is detachable from the cabinet, separated by cork gaskets and the crossover is attached to it because this sends less vibration to the cabinet walls and is easier to remove quickly for repairs (they were pro field speakers). They have crossovers like Pentium II motherboards to tame the KEF drivers trying to escape from the claustrophobically small enclosures. They added felt strips arround the tweeter to prevent reflections. They didn't wan't the enclosure to resonate but they couldn't do better at that time (40 years ago) with that budget, knowledge and time frame. By today's standards the LS3/5a sounds just wrong compared to a Genelec pro monitor.

CABINET AGILITY

Cabinet walls that flex ensure a clear sound with no distortion.

NO INTERNAL DAMPING

With no damping, the cabinet moves in time with the main drive unit for superbly accurate sound reproduction.

 

[Vladimir]

Just to note that I haven't heard the Russell K. Red 100 speakers and I have absolute confidence in DocG that they indeed sound amazing. My comments were spurred after reading the manufacturers website and are limited to the speaker design concept, nothing more.

And I was bored.

 

[davedotco]

Vlad, you may recall a weak or two back we were discussing and comparing loudspeaker response traces and I said that I was a big fan of 'waterfall' plots that show a speakers decay in relation to time.

I have always considered these plots to be most enlightening, speakers that stop radiating very quickly when the signal ceases have always sounded good in various respects, I doubt that has changed. Speakers that continue to radiate after the signal stops do not, generally, audition very well, I can only assume because the continued radiation is no longer masked by the music.

The web site suggests that the cabinets are brace with 'shelves' to reduce resonance and this has been shown to be effective, furthermore such bracing will reduce the size of the resonant 'panels' and shift the resonant frequencies above the troublesome bass frequencies. It may be the science of compromise, but it is science.

Similarly I like simple crossovers (passive ones anyway) but the drive units have to be right for this to work, this is both difficult and expensive. Few manufacturers get it right, Sonus Faber and Epos often do, but I am struggling to think of much beyond those two.

For what it is worth I have known Russel K since he was a teenager working part time in Tottenham Court Rd in the 70s. We used to buy some Densen product from him when he was their sales manager in the 90s, never close, but we got on all right and he is a very decent guy, I wish him the best of luck.

 

[Al ears]

Hi Doc, welcome back. You presence has been missed.

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/where-have-all-hifi-members-gone?page=1

(see post #22)

Great to hear you like the sound of these speakers as that's what it's all about at the end of the day. Rigid, flappy, whatever, it really does't matter a jot. The perceived sonic ability is the be all and end all. Understandably everyones hearing will be different but another speaker make to attempt to audition is always welcome.

I can understand Vlads' jibes about cables next but some manufacturers do tend to shoot themselves in the foot with the blurb they put on their websites. Oh, and he always posts some very nice pictures. Something I have yet to explore. *biggrin*

 

[DocG]

Hi Doc, welcome back. You presence has been missed.

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/where-have-all-hifi-members-gone?page=1

(see post #22)

Oops, I'm supposed to say something funny now, right? *smile*

 

[Vladimir]

I can't comment on measurements since I can't find any on the website. No comment on Russell as a person since I have never heard of him before and I have no reason not to trust you that he is a decent guy and seasoned professional.

I understand using bracing shelves but [font="ProximaNova-Semibold, arial, verdana, sans-serif"]this idea that deadened cabinets kill the nature of speech and music[/font] doesn't add up for me.

The 4 decades old thin-wall BBC philosophy says cabinet ringing is unstopable so why go against the river current. A thick bell will ring longer than a thin bell therefore thin flexing walls drowned in the music is better than just thick walls. A fully enclosed box (6 fixed walls) will resonate more than a semi-fixed structure (screws and gaskets).

Although logical and interesting, this aproach has been deserted by modern innovative speaker designers who use computer simulations, laser interferometry, better materials and better production technology to get the desirable results.

I think we have gone long way forward since the days of thin flexing walls. Harbeth is a survivor of that era and is selling the heritage, not the innovation.

 

[Freddy58]

I auditioned some of these (R/K) speakers, and have to say I didn't like them. As I recall, they sounded very 'busy' and therefore tiresome. Horses for courses....

 

[Freddy58]

I auditioned some of these (R/K) speakers, and have to say I didn't like them. As I recall, they sounded very 'busy' and therefore tiresome. Horses for courses....

Just to add, I thought they sounded great when it was just one man and his guitar, it all went wrong (for me) when more layers were added.

 

[davedotco]

I can't comment on measurements since I can't find any on the website. No comment on Russell as a person since I have never heard of him before and I have no reason not to trust you that he is a decent guy and seasoned professional.

I understand using bracing shelves but this idea that deadened cabinets kill the nature of speech and music doesn't add up for me.

The 4 decades old thin-wall BBC philosophy says cabinet ringing is unstopable so why go against the river current. A thick bell will ring longer than a thin bell therefore thin flexing walls drowned in the music is better than just thick walls. A fully enclosed box (6 fixed walls) will resonate more than a semi-fixed structure (screws and gaskets).

Although logical and interesting, this aproach has been deserted by modern innovative speaker designers who use computer simulations, laser interferometry, better materials and better production technology to get the desirable results.

I think we have gone long way forward since the days of thin flexing walls. Harbeth is a survivor of that era and is selling the heritage, not the innovation.

Are you suggesting that Harbeth speakers do not sound good?

Or that their designer does not know what he has doing?

Or are you just looking for 'the full half hour'?

 

[Vladimir]

Harbeths sound good and the owner knows exactly what he is doing.

Thank you for the full half hour.

 

[davedotco]

Harbeths sound good and the owner knows exactly what he is doing.

Thank you for the full half hour.

Just wondering why you chose Harbeth as a negative example in your earlier post.....*unknw*

There are many different ways to make a good sound out of a pair of speakers, the important thing being that the technology used is appropriate to the aims of the project.

I didn't think that the website was overdone at all, the design choices were explained quite well and without any great hyperbole. Thin wall technology is well known, as is the technique of dividing, the bass mid enclosure as described.

 

[Vladimir]

I don't have a horse in this race. I just tell them the way I see them.

You seem to miss the fine print of what I said. But it could be just my coarse english.

 

[davedotco]

I don't have a horse in this race. I just tell them the way I see them.

You seem to miss the fine print of what I said. But it could be just my coarse english.

Then explain your point, I'm not normally stupid but I am not quite sure what you are getting at.

The basic technology behind moving coil speakes is a hundred years old and coventional speakers with paper cones are still used in hi-fi, some at a quite exalted level. As indeed is horn loading and valve amplification, it is all in the implementation.

Would you have been happier if the thin, low mass enclosure had reflected modern technology and used, say, carbon fibre construction? I trained as an engineer and the idea of using existing technology in a different but effective way has become part of my way of thinking, why re-invent the wheel?

I have neither seen nor heard this speaker, the website suggests that it is more carefully thought out than the average modern speaker and to me that is a good thing.

 

[Freddy58]

I don't have a horse in this race. I just tell them the way I see them.

You seem to miss the fine print of what I said. But it could be just my coarse english.

Then explain your point, I'm not normally stupid but I am not quite sure what you are getting at.

The basic technology behind moving coil speakes is a hundred years old and coventional speakers with paper cones are still used in hi-fi, some at a quite exalted level. As indeed is horn loading and valve amplification, it is all in the implementation.

Would you have been happier if the thin, low mass enclosure had reflected modern technology and used, say, carbon fibre construction? I trained as an engineer and the idea of using existing technology in a different but effective way has become part of my way of thinking, why re-invent the wheel?

I have neither seen nor heard this speaker, the website suggests that it is more carefully thought out than the average modern speaker and to me that is a good thing.

Even if it doesn't sound good? Not sure that these will have broad appeal. But, I know nothing

 

[davedotco]

I don't have a horse in this race. I just tell them the way I see them.

You seem to miss the fine print of what I said. But it could be just my coarse english.

Then explain your point, I'm not normally stupid but I am not quite sure what you are getting at.

The basic technology behind moving coil speakes is a hundred years old and coventional speakers with paper cones are still used in hi-fi, some at a quite exalted level. As indeed is horn loading and valve amplification, it is all in the implementation.

Would you have been happier if the thin, low mass enclosure had reflected modern technology and used, say, carbon fibre construction? I trained as an engineer and the idea of using existing technology in a different but effective way has become part of my way of thinking, why re-invent the wheel?

I have neither seen nor heard this speaker, the website suggests that it is more carefully thought out than the average modern speaker and to me that is a good thing.

Even if it doesn't sound good? Not sure that these will have broad appeal. But, I know nothing

I thought we made it clear thar we were not discussing the sound quality of the speakers, neither I nor Vlad have heard them, we were just debating the validity of their design approach.

You opinion is taken into account, as indeed is DocG's, I am making no judgement at this time.

 

[Vladimir]

Dave forget about it. Me and my silly ideas, not worth the bother really.

 

[Freddy58]

I don't have a horse in this race. I just tell them the way I see them.

You seem to miss the fine print of what I said. But it could be just my coarse english.

Then explain your point, I'm not normally stupid but I am not quite sure what you are getting at.

The basic technology behind moving coil speakes is a hundred years old and coventional speakers with paper cones are still used in hi-fi, some at a quite exalted level. As indeed is horn loading and valve amplification, it is all in the implementation.

Would you have been happier if the thin, low mass enclosure had reflected modern technology and used, say, carbon fibre construction? I trained as an engineer and the idea of using existing technology in a different but effective way has become part of my way of thinking, why re-invent the wheel?

I have neither seen nor heard this speaker, the website suggests that it is more carefully thought out than the average modern speaker and to me that is a good thing.

Even if it doesn't sound good? Not sure that these will have broad appeal. But, I know nothing

I thought we made it clear thar we were not discussing the sound quality of the speakers, neither I nor Vlad have heard them, we were just debating the validity of their design approach.

You opinion is taken into account, as indeed is DocG's, I am making no judgement at this time.

I too was discussing the validity of their approach, but if their approach doesn't produce a speaker that (imo) sounds good, is it the wrong approach? Just sayin'...

 

[davedotco]

I don't have a horse in this race. I just tell them the way I see them.

You seem to miss the fine print of what I said. But it could be just my coarse english.

Then explain your point, I'm not normally stupid but I am not quite sure what you are getting at.

The basic technology behind moving coil speakes is a hundred years old and coventional speakers with paper cones are still used in hi-fi, some at a quite exalted level. As indeed is horn loading and valve amplification, it is all in the implementation.

Would you have been happier if the thin, low mass enclosure had reflected modern technology and used, say, carbon fibre construction? I trained as an engineer and the idea of using existing technology in a different but effective way has become part of my way of thinking, why re-invent the wheel?

I have neither seen nor heard this speaker, the website suggests that it is more carefully thought out than the average modern speaker and to me that is a good thing.

Even if it doesn't sound good? Not sure that these will have broad appeal. But, I know nothing

I thought we made it clear thar we were not discussing the sound quality of the speakers, neither I nor Vlad have heard them, we were just debating the validity of their design approach.

You opinion is taken into account, as indeed is DocG's, I am making no judgement at this time.

I too was discussing the validity of their approach, but if their approach doesn't produce a speaker that (imo) sounds good, is it the wrong approach? Just sayin'...

No, you just said you didn't like them as they failed on complex material.

Perfectly valid opinion, I've not heard them so can not comment.

 

[Freddy58]

I don't have a horse in this race. I just tell them the way I see them.

You seem to miss the fine print of what I said. But it could be just my coarse english.

Then explain your point, I'm not normally stupid but I am not quite sure what you are getting at.

The basic technology behind moving coil speakes is a hundred years old and coventional speakers with paper cones are still used in hi-fi, some at a quite exalted level. As indeed is horn loading and valve amplification, it is all in the implementation.

Would you have been happier if the thin, low mass enclosure had reflected modern technology and used, say, carbon fibre construction? I trained as an engineer and the idea of using existing technology in a different but effective way has become part of my way of thinking, why re-invent the wheel?

I have neither seen nor heard this speaker, the website suggests that it is more carefully thought out than the average modern speaker and to me that is a good thing.

Even if it doesn't sound good? Not sure that these will have broad appeal. But, I know nothing

I thought we made it clear thar we were not discussing the sound quality of the speakers, neither I nor Vlad have heard them, we were just debating the validity of their design approach.

You opinion is taken into account, as indeed is DocG's, I am making no judgement at this time.

I too was discussing the validity of their approach, but if their approach doesn't produce a speaker that (imo) sounds good, is it the wrong approach? Just sayin'...

No, you just said you didn't like them as they failed on complex material.

Perfectly valid opinion, I've not heard them so can not comment.

You highlighted the wrong part, which was my point.