FRFR aren’t they all the same?

Ohhh the can of worms are opened here.
I have tried so many FRFRs. They ALL sound different. And mostly horrible.
But the CLR is just a little better. (still not perfect....but it does work for Live gigging)
All the others sound very similar....in that they are HIFI and fizzy with saturated bottom end.
The HEADRUSH, well, I'm sorry.....for me...They suck!
However, if you just want it for bedroom use, It'll do just fine.
 
What about Xitone? Read a number of reviews rating it better than CLR?

I haven't tried the CLR but I love my XiTone. Mick does fully custom designs and will make pretty much anything you throw at him. Mine is a fully sealed, 14 inch-deep 1x12 cab and it sounds huge. It's also super durable thanks to the protective coating he puts on all his cabs. I made a thread about mine maybe a week ago and posted pics
 
Ohhh the can of worms are opened here.
I have tried so many FRFRs. They ALL sound different. And mostly horrible.
But the CLR is just a little better. (still not perfect....but it does work for Live gigging)
All the others sound very similar....in that they are HIFI and fizzy with saturated bottom end.
The HEADRUSH, well, I'm sorry.....for me...They suck!
However, if you just want it for bedroom use, It'll do just fine.
What's the point in an Axe Fx 3 if your FR FR makes it sound like you have an extensive collection of solid state garbage practice amps? :tearsofjoy:
Headrush is SH£@ at any volume.
 
I paid as much for my jbl pa speakers as i did on the axe. This has helped me enjoy the power amp modelling and appreciate the quality of the axe
 
I play the FM3 through the effects return of my Mustang GT100
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It sounds great. Much better than it rightfully should.
 
even if a FRFR was actually FRFR then all bets are off as soon as it goes on a stand, goes next to a wall, a corner, is tilted or not.. so a someones version of a EQ curve wont work for you in your place.. matching the speakers to a room is commonplace in audio situations.

Best case imo, get your boxes of choice and play music through them and EQ to that... then you will have FRFR'd them as best you can

reality is that a large percentage of folk do not actually want FRFR.. they want something that sounds good to them, or feels good etc etc..

Fractal should either make one or actively endorse some and provide an output EQ dedicated to the particular units. This would then at least provide the end user with some confidence that their unit sounds as intended.
 
FRFR means nothing. It's not an official term and shouldn't be. Any "full-range" speaker should be flat response. Otherwise what is the purpose?

With full-range monitors it's no different than hi-fi speakers. Listen to a bunch and pick the one that sounds best to you. There is some correlation between price and quality but higher price does not necessarily mean better.
Precisely why I have ignored the "high end" FRFR options. After hearing many of them side by side, I figured I go the cheapest and best-sounding route I could. I bought 2 empty Palmer 1x12 cabs and loaded them each with a Fane Sovereign 12-250TC. The cabs are partially open in back but I am closing them up and adding ports. I've used them in a band situation a few times and they worked fine after a little tweaking in the Axe-Fx. At this point, I have less than $300 into each cab, however, I am using an outboard power amp also.

Recently, I have become more interested in the Celestion F12-X200s and will probably get a couple to compare against the Fanes.
 
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even if a FRFR was actually FRFR then all bets are off as soon as it goes on a stand, goes next to a wall, a corner, is tilted or not.. so a someones version of a EQ curve wont work for you in your place.. matching the speakers to a room is commonplace in audio situations.

Best case imo, get your boxes of choice and play music through them and EQ to that... then you will have FRFR'd them as best you can

reality is that a large percentage of folk do not actually want FRFR.. they want something that sounds good to them, or feels good etc etc..
But we need a control point, no other industry works with no reference point so you can zero it in and THEN tweak to taste.
I worked in photography and colour reproduction and the idea of just getting it to look right without reference is frankly stupid. this is what we are doing here. With regular gear there is no accurate but this is a hi fi ball game.
 
there is a reference point.. a frequency response with +/- specs.. how good is it?.. meh not much.. can they make it better?.. sure but why bother. its pretty pointless as there are too many variables to consider to what sounds good... transient response, coloration, diffraction, phase, crossover point, intermodulation to name a few...

If you want to follow your photography analogy.. then consider looking at a color corrected image on a screen with random white balance, tint and gamma.. you would tweak the display to get it to look its best and move on.... :)

we do this with pickups, we do this with amps, so its no surprise that we do this with speakers also.

But we need a control point, no other industry works with no reference point so you can zero it in and THEN tweak to taste.
I worked in photography and colour reproduction and the idea of just getting it to look right without reference is frankly stupid. this is what we are doing here. With regular gear there is no accurate but this is a hi fi ball game.
 
there is a reference point.. a frequency response with +/- specs.. how good is it?.. meh not much.. can they make it better?.. sure but why bother. its pretty pointless as there are too many variables to consider to what sounds good... transient response, coloration, diffraction, phase, crossover point, intermodulation to name a few...

If you want to follow your photography analogy.. then consider looking at a color corrected image on a screen with random white balance, tint and gamma.. you would tweak the display to get it to look its best and move on.... :)

we do this with pickups, we do this with amps, so its no surprise that we do this with speakers also.
No you don't (photography issues) I remember spending an inordinate about of time printing a set of wedding pictures for a client (analogue days) getting the dress to look white only to find out that the dress was in fact "Champagne" every other part of either set looked right if you hadn't actually seen it. It helps enormously to have a reliable control point even if you ignore it, because that would be your choice not just compounded errors. Also the more presets or channels you have the easier it is to bring them all back to a reference point.
 
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The ideal "monitor" should produce sound pressure proportional to the voltage at it's input with zero distortion. Real-life monitors never achieve this, regardless of price. The degree to which they deviate from this ideal is what differentiates the bad from the good. Typically the more you pay the better the performance but not always.

Most consumer-grade monitors are nothing more than boxes with some cheap speakers, a cheap Class-D power amp and some connectors. Pay a little more and you might get a crossover network that was properly designed and uses components with better than 50% tolerance, key word "might".

FRFR means nothing. It's not an official term and shouldn't be. Any "full-range" speaker should be flat response. Otherwise what is the purpose?

With full-range monitors it's no different than hi-fi speakers. Listen to a bunch and pick the one that sounds best to you. There is some correlation between price and quality but higher price does not necessarily mean better.

The MI industry is all about cheap. Most companies use the lowest cost components they can. There is zero regard for fidelity. It's all about price (and marketing).

Hi,

a newbie question...

I'm really curious about how fractal audio calibrate their products. using what speaker, do you use / test all speaker on the market? using instrument to judge or using human ear? how do you judge your creation? and on what parameter you can say now this is sound really close to the real one.

Can i plug a mic to the axe fx3, and then axe fx3 automatic calibrate the speaker so it sound that axefx3 intend us to hear? (doing an auto eq)


thanks..
 
Hi,

a newbie question...

I'm really curious about how fractal audio calibrate their products. using what speaker, do you use / test all speaker on the market? using instrument to judge or using human ear? how do you judge your creation? and on what parameter you can say now this is sound really close to the real one.

Can i plug a mic to the axe fx3, and then axe fx3 automatic calibrate the speaker so it sound that axefx3 intend us to hear? (doing an auto eq)


thanks..
Best question I've read on here.
 
Hi,

a newbie question...

I'm really curious about how fractal audio calibrate their products. using what speaker, do you use / test all speaker on the market? using instrument to judge or using human ear? how do you judge your creation? and on what parameter you can say now this is sound really close to the real one.
This is a great question.

I would assume that they would be testing in more of a recording/studio environment where it's possible to easily A/B compare a mic'd amp with the output of the product. That would largely remove the inaccuracies of the amp/speaker system from the comparison process.

That said, I'd love to know what Fractal would recommend as the "best" reproduction wedge monitor for stage use. Clearly this is an area where you get what you pay for to a large degree, but it would be great to get a sense of what their team feels is the gold standard from a sound reproduction standpoint, and what characteristics make it the best choice. Perhaps they don't want to endorse a specific brand (understandably), but maybe some guidance on what to look for in the selection process?

Bluntly put, the most expensive powered wedges on the market don't cost much more than an Axe-FX3 and FC-12 setup, so assumably people buying a best-in-class digital amp can consider pairing it with a best-in-class cabinet, right?
 
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