Recording - February 2014 - 30

BY LORENZ RYCHNER

PreSonus Sceptre S8
CoActual Active Studio Monitors
An innovative coaxial design combines with DSP for an amazing listening experience
center of the woofer sits a black plastic piece of unique shape,
which turns out to be a very special horn projecting the sound
from the compression driver, with a dispersion of 110 degrees x
90 degrees. More about that in a moment. There is a horizontal
bass port low in front, and around back is the regular 3-prong
IEC A/C socket for the detachable power cord, and an on-off
power switch. Audio connectors are balanced 1/4" TRS and XLR.
A level control adjusts the incoming audio signal before it reaches the internal amps, so it's not a conventional "volume control" and
is best left at unity if your studio's gain staging is what it should be.
What's different?
Coaxial Speaker Coherence Alignment, and TQ™ Temporal
Equalization Technology, that's what's different. Both are from a company called Fulcrum Acoustic. At www.fulcrum-acoustic.com/
technologies/temporal-eq.html you can read a detailed account of
the concept and process that aims at eliminating reflections in the
horn, thus preventing a phenomenon called "time smear" that can
occur in horns where sound gets acoustically reflected back to the driver repeatedly, smearing transients in the process.
Fulcrum tackles the problem with DSP, after having addressed the
known issues of coaxial speaker arrangement in the hardware
design. The result: A speaker that articulates transients without
smear, offering increased clarity and definition. You can read much
more on the above-mentioned web page, and the new design concepts of the coaxial arrangement are described in great detail at
www.fulcrum-acoustic.com/technologies/building-better-coax.html.
PreSonus managed to incorporate Fulcrum's design concepts
in these affordable monitors, including the massive DSP, with
remarkable results.

Did you just do a double take on seeing the word
CoActual™? It's a word that the folks at PreSonus have coined,
and you thought you read "coaxial", didn't you? Maybe that
was the intent all along? Let's see what we have here.
The two models in the same series, the active two-way Sceptre
S6 and S8, share lots of features. It's easier to list what they don't
share, so let's do that before we concentrate on the S8, the model
we received for evaluation. Ready? The S6 and the S8 differ in the
size of their drivers and cabinets, in their crossover frequencies,
low-end extension, and maximum SPL. That's it. So, on to the S8!
The S8 cabinet
The black cabinet is made of vinyl-laminated MDF, measuring
11.4" W x 11.8" H x 15.75" D and weighing 24 lbs. each.
Two integrated amplifiers, each rated at 90 W, power the two
speaker elements.
The speaker elements are an 8" woofer made of glass-reinforced paper and a 1" high-frequency compression driver. In the
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RECORDING February 2014

User controls
There is no need for the user to do anything about those issues of
acoustic reflection in horns and problems of coaxial transducer
arrangements-they are taken care of by behind-the-scenes DSP and
designer wizardry. But there are other issues a user is confronted
with, and the S8 offers considerable control to remedy those. A common quandary is bass buildup as a result of compromises in monitor
placement. In our less-than-perfect rooms we can't always place the
speakers in the acoustically ideal spots, much as we would like to.
Maybe the wall behind where you have to place the monitors
is a bit too close, and you can't help that this placement results in
excessive bass? Your mixes sound bass-deficient when heard elsewhere, because you heard too much bass while mixing and therefore dialed it down? Use the first of three user controls on the rear
of the Spectre S8 and some of that bass will be attenuated. The
"Acoustic Space" control offers one passive ("linear") and three
active settings: -1.5 dB, -3 dB, or -6 dB of the frequency range
below 250 Hz can be attenuated. You probably won't be using
the rather drastic -6 dB setting unless your speaker is not only
close to a wall but maybe near a corner where bass buildup can
be just as drastic. Your ears will have to be the judge.

http://www.fulcrum-acoustic.com/technologies/temporal-eq.html http://www.fulcrum-acoustic.com/technologies/temporal-eq.html http://www.fulcrum-acoustic.com/technologies/building-better-coax.html

Recording - February 2014

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