Lien Constructeur
http://www.proac-loudspeakers.com/
Tablette reference 8
A good two-way stand-mount loudspeaker takes a lot of beating, and ProAc’s Tablette 8 is a fine example of the breed. A high quality mid/bass driver and tweeter combination in a dense and compact ported enclosure ensures an extremely communicative sound that should work to good advantage in almost any system. Note the ‘almost’.
At 86 dB/w/m, the Tablettes are not the easiest drive for low wattage amps, and while I’m sure good valve amps will make them sing, it may be at the expense of satisfying volume levels. Even with 100 watts of solid state power behind them, the little ProAcs proved to be a speaker that demanded an open throttle – late night listening at snoozer-friendly levels isn’t really their thing. At medium to high volumes, however, the Tablettes are a good deal more convincing.
It’s understandable if you’re looking at the mid-bass driver in the accompanying photo and wondering what I mean by ‘high volume’. Four and a half inches across is definitely on the small side.
Nevertheless, the ProAcs make a lot more noise than you’d expect, and they stay clean at volumes that should satisfy most music lovers. Still, these won’t suit those two-stroke engine tuners who like to spanner away in the shed with a musical accompaniment from the lounge (you know who you are).
“And what about bass extension?” you ask. The Tablette is rated to 40Hz and, although that may be within a minus six decibel margin, rather than the customary minus three, these little guys are quite capable of generating a good portion of the low-end wobble on Leftfield’s Leftism, and they gave an excellent account of bassist Stanley Clarke on his eponymous LP. There are a number of floorstanders on the market that would be hard-pressed to play as low and as tunefully as the Tablette Eight.
In fact I have no qualms about recommending the wee ProAcs as front speakers in systems geared primarily to stereo, but with a secondary home cinema application. Of course, miracles will not be performed: there is a slight rounding of leading edges on bass transients compared to some similarly sized speakers in their class, and the really floor shaking stuff is ultimately beyond them, so don’t chuck out your active subwoofer.
At the other end of the audio spectrum, good though the bass and mid are, the treble may be the ProAc’s strongest asset. Its quality is evident in my first assessment of the ProAc sound as slightly recessed. However, once I adjusted to the more distant soundstage, I realized no detail was missing from the music, rather the tweeter integrated seamlessly with the mid, drawing no attention to itself.
If there is any ‘smallness’ to the Tablette’s sound, it is in the tendency for the soundstage to end at the speaker cabinets, and in less attack in snare drums and rim-shots than a conventional six inch midrange driver might deliver. Perhaps predictably, these speakers shine most brightly with well recorded acoustic music, but only because this shows off their strengths, for they are not a delicate “chamber music-only” transducer by any means.
It should be stressed that these speakers require a good set of stands to deliver their best. If you use them as bookends you’ll be rewarded with lumpy bass and compromised imaging. Despite their size, the Tablette’s like a bit of space around them. This must be taken into account if you’re tossing up between the ProAcs and a pair of competent floorstanders, such as Tannoy’s Eyris 2.
Good stands will push the package price of the smaller speakers comfortably into the $3000+ range. That’s a hefty wad for boxes this size, but the wood veneer is good, if not outstanding, and the ProAc name has a certain resonance amongst those in the know.
All up then, the ProAc Tablette 8 pretty much lives up to its advertising copy. Extremely easy to live with and visually unassuming, once they’re connected you can forget about them and focus on the music. If the exchange rate and freight costs make them seem like poor value for money, don’t be deterred: as air movers they more than hold their own against the bulk of their taller rivals.
Tablette reference 8 signature
Souvent, lorsqu’on se retrouve en face de minuscules enceintes, comme cette Tablette Reference 8, les préjugés fusent. Et cette enceinte prouve une fois de plus l’erreur que l’on fait en se fiant à la taille pour se forger une première impression.
La Tablette Reference 8 Signature est la version améliorée de la Tablette Reference 8, sortie en 2000. Le transducteur grave-médium et le tweeter ont été à nouveau modifiés. Dorénavant, le boomer de 11,5 cm à membrane en papier possède une ogive en cuivre et des aimants en néodyme. Le tweeter d'origine Vifa adopte un dôme en soie de 25 mm de diamètre. Pour le reste, rien n’a quasiment été modifié.
En ce qui concerne l'ébénisterie, ProAc a déclaré la guerre aux vibrations : le constructeur propose avec ses enceintes des pieds parfaitement adaptés et d’un poids conséquent pour atténuer tous ces phénomènes indésirables. Le coffret est construit en panneau de contreplaqué de 2 cm d'épaisseur, tapissés intérieurement par des plaques de bitumes amortissantes. La charge est de type bass-reflex accordée par deux évents arrière.
À l'écoute, dès les premières notes de musique, on sent que cette enceinte va être plaisante. Elle caresse l’auditeur dans le sens du poil. Avec un son typiquement britannique, une délicatesse et un timbre étonnants.
Certes, pour une enceinte de petit gabarit, la ProAc Tablette Reference 8 Signature a un prix imposant. Cela ne paraît pas tant exagéré au vue des prestations musicales offertes. Pour les amateurs de rondeurs et de douceurs, cette enceinte comblera les envies. Elle a du répondant, une bonne attaque et, finalement, du "coffre" qui se libérera avec une amplification puissante.
Studio 100
Studio 125
The second ProAc to come under Choice scrutiny in the past year, this highly respected, well established and upmarket British speaker brand has built its formidable reputation largely on the basis of export sales, but has more recently been turning its attention to the UK market.
This £1,000 Studio 125 is ProAc's new 'entry level' floorstander - well above most brands' starting price, but a whole lot less expensive than the £3,995 Response 3.8 reviewed last October. And the Studio 125 has much of the charm and character of its bigger brother, sonically as well as physically. Indeed, if you shrunk an R3.8 by about 50 per cent, it would end up looking very like an S125.
Gorgeous veneerwork (our samples were yew finished), neat little matching plinths, and a hefty and thoroughly solid cabinet build quality go some way towards justifying the price. Various thicknesses of MDF are used, plus bituminous damping pads and acoustic foam lining. The enclosure is reflex-loaded by two slightly dissimilar ports, both set into the rear panel, just below a twin terminal.
The simple two-way driver line-up looks rather more prosaic, although the modestly sized main driver (6.5in frame, 120mm diameter cone) does have a cast frame, and both units are nicely rebated to create a flush front panel. The 19mm fabric dome tweeters are mounted offset from the centre line (the better to distribute edge-diffraction effects), while mirror-image construction preserves acoustic and visual symmetry.
A simple half-grille hides the naughty bits, for those who prefer their speakers clothed, while still leaving plenty of real wood veneer on view. My only real concern - and it's a criticism which also applied to the Response 3.8 - concerns the sloppy fixing of the threaded inserts for the spikes, which need to be both tighter and more secure if proper floor coupling is to be achieved.
My first impression of the Studio 125 was of how closely it echoed my nine-month-old recollections of the Response 3.8. It doesn't match its big brother, in terms of scale, weight, openness or top-end sweetness, but it does have a very similar overall character.
This is further confirmed by the far-field averaged room plots, the Studio 125 giving a near-identical in-room balance to the Response 3.8 across much of the bass and midrange. It's a distinctive pattern with two notable characteristics: the balance is unusually smooth and flat from 100Hz up to 2kHz; second, there's a strong mid-bass peak centred on 50Hz.
Above 2kHz, the Studio 125 is rather less impressive than the Response 3.8, showing a significant presence suckout 2.5-3.5kHz, although output above 4kHz is again flat and smooth. The Studio 125 shows a useful sensitivity advantage over its bigger brother, comfortably meeting the 87dB/W spec.
Sonically, the excellent broad midband neutrality ensures that the 125 always sounds delightfully unstrained, natural and even-handed. It sets a standard here which few rivals can match, and this would seem to be the key to ProAc's powerful reputation. The sound is notably 'unboxy', delivering spacious stereo images with fine precision.
The midbass excess is rather less to my taste, with a 'thumpy' tendency I found slightly irritating with heavier rock and dance music. But the extra weight it brought to classical material - and also to film soundtracks - could be rather effective, so I daresay some will deem this a plus.
Although the presence dip seemed obvious enough at first and added a measure of 'pinched' coloration to voices, I found myself quickly adjusting to this, and it should also ensure the speaker will always sound well behaved, even with less than perfect sources and amps. While the dynamic range seemed satisfactorily wide, dynamic expression and tension seemed rather muted.
CONCLUSION
At £1,000 for a compact two-way stand-mount, the Studio 125 looks far from cheap, but it's a lot more subtle and refined than most of the competition, both in presentation and sonic neutrality. Indeed, in some respects the performance gets quite close to the much larger and more expensive Response 3.8, which itself makes the Studio 125 quite an achievement.
It would be nice to have more secure spike fixing, and the bass 'thump' might not suit all tastes, but the natural perspectives, evenhandedness and superb presentation adds up to a seductive and persuasive loudspeaker.
Response D15
By Michael Wong
March 2004
ProAc Response D15 loudspeaker. $5995
For 25 years, Stewart Tyler, ProAc chairman and chief designer, has been responsible for these oft praised British brand of loudspeakers. From the much loved, Tablette mini-monitor through to the Response 4 and 5 behemoths, ProAc's products have met with critical acclaim and sales success. These are luxury products characterised by fine build quality, performance and cost.
Launched in the UK in 2002, the D15 succeeds the old Response 1.5 and is the entry level model for the new D (for Dynamic) flagship range. 2003 saw the release of big brothers, the D25, D38, D80 and D100.
I've had plenty of experience with the large Response 3.8's and was interested in seeing how much of the Response gene pool filtered through to these new entry level speakers.
Build quality and tech stuff
In typical ProAc fashion, the D15 is a beautifully made floorstander of modest proportions; a whisker below the 1m mark at 984mm high with a small 190mm x 254mm footprint. The solid 23kg cabinet is covered in real wood veneers. The review speakers were finished in a light Cherry, with other exquisite woods like Mahogany, Ebony and Bird's Eye Maple also available.
A two-way speaker, the D15 uses a custom made 19mm (3/4") soft dome tweeter to cover the high frequencies. Midrange and bass is handled by a new 165mm (6.5") bass/mid driver with a new linear motor assembly with large copper magnet, phase plug and a glass fibre woven cone. The previous Response range used carbon fibre doped paper cones and other models in the D-series use coated polypropylene drivers. The back of the cabinet is finished in black with a substantial bi-wire ready binding posts.
The speaker sits atop a screw-on wooden plinth fitted with sharp cone feet and a cut-out for the downward firing bass port, another first in a Response series ProAc speaker. The removal of the bass port from the back to the bottom of the cabinet should allow for extra flexibility in placement.
The D15 has a nominal 8 ohm impedance, is suited to 20-180 watt amplifers, has a frequency response of 30Hz to 30kHz (no limits specified ...tsk ...tsk) and has a sensitivity of 88dB for 1 watt at 1 metre.
Performance
The ProAc D15's were auditioned with Well Tempered, Shelter, Marantz, Denon sources; amplification by Krell, Plinius.
A quick perusal of the installation guide advises new owners to resist the temptation to connect and play the speakers immediately. Like a fine wine, the speakers should be allowed to stand in the listening room for a few hours at about 15º C ...
I didn't read this until after I had everything setup and was greeted with pretty disappointing sound quality. As always, read the manual first!
So does the smallest Response carry on the family tradition of great sound? Yes, with a few qualifications.
Hmm... I feel continuing the above wine analogy is appropriate (feel free to skip this section if you hate wine or car analogies in audio writings). If the big Response series was like a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, this new D15 is like a new world Cabernet Sauvignon/ Merlot blend.
Once acclimatised to room temperature the D15 impressed with a smooth, coherent sound. There was surprising bass weight and extension from the small bass driver (albeit nowhere near the 30Hz claimed by ProAc), proof that ProAc's new bottom exiting reflex port works, only lacking in some bass articulation. Midrange was smooth with no sign of any peaks or troughs. Highs were clean and clear with good extension.
The soundstage produced by this speaker was quite remarkable given the compact size of the speaker, having good width and depth presentation and particularly fine focus of performers and instruments. Overall, the D15 is a natural sounding speaker.
But like so many blends a few compromises are evident.
The sound, while generally of a high standard, couldn't quite escape the confines of the speaker boxes, occasionally sounding boxy. Dynamic impact was a little soft, lending the speaker a polite disposition. Finally, the speakers couldn't quite manage the sense of scale a larger speaker is capable of.
The bottom line
Although they came to be a speaker I admired rather than desired, I enjoyed listening to these speakers.
They are expensive but are also extremely well made, look marvellous and for the most part sound pretty good. For anyone in the market for a luxury pair of compact floorstanders, these are worth an audition.
Response D25
D25-D38
The ProAc Response range is one of the most popular British high-end loudspeaker lines in the world, and the ProAc Response 2.5 was the one of the most successful £2,000-plus speakers, ever. Changing it would be a daunting and perhaps foolish task - geese and golden eggs, or babies and bath water, all spring to mind. But the Response 2.5 was almost eight years old and change was inevitable.
Enter the £2,995 Response D25. The intervening years have brought about profound changes in materials, science and technology. Those Scan-speak carbon-fibre impregnated paper cone bass drivers are gone, replaced instead by an identically sized 165mm custom unit made in association with UK pro-speaker designer Volt (the driver brand behind the likes of PMC), with a special polypropylene cone on a die-cast chassis. ProAc's designer Stewart Tyler suggests these up the sensitivity by a couple of dB, but sourcing your own drive unit is an extremely expensive way to crack this nut and shows just how seriously ProAc takes speaker design. This is allied to a heavily modified Scan-Speak 25mm soft dome tweeter with a special inner damping and a curious surround arrangement, which looks more like that of a bass driver. The crossover is redesigned too, featuring ProAc's proprietary High Quality Crossover design with custom components and wired throughout with ProAc's own multi-strand oxygen-free cable.
Externally at least, the cabinet appears unchanged, and with its offset tweeters and grilles, the speaker is functionally identical to its predecessor, the Response 2.5. They are also just as damped and rigid and, at 26kg a piece, just as damnably heavy too. But there are some significant differences. The down-firing port that moves air out through the plinth of the speaker makes the speaker less fussy about positioning (the port on the Response 2.5 was a rear-firing affair and this meant that at least a good metre was needed between the back of the speaker and the rear wall). This feature also masks some of the more obvious 'chuffing' endemic to ports. By loading air under the speaker, it acts almost in the same way as a horn, which then raises efficiency and room coupling as well as evening out the resonance.
All of which helps to make this a speaker that is suggested to be supremely easy to drive. ProAc claims an efficiency of 88dB, a nominal impedance of eight ohms, a frequency response from 20Hz to 30kHz and a range of compatible amplifiers between ten watts and 200 watts. But there are watts and watts, and ProAc is quite selective about the type of low-powered amplification it wishes to see partnered with the Response D25. Decent Class A transistor or valve amplifier systems are the recommended choices. Sure, it can be partnered with cheaper integrated amplifiers, but the quality of the speaker is far too good for amplifiers that cost anything short of £3,000.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the Response 2.5 was one of the most copied speakers ever produced (type 'ProAc Response 2.5' into a Google search and the first listings are for DIY versions of the speaker; ProAc itself hardly gets a look-in). The down-firing port and the relative scarcity of the drive units might make this a tougher act to copy, but you can bet the DIY-ers will be out with their jigsaws and soldering irons soon. This is just too good a speaker to pass up. Unfortunately, few DIY-ers will ever get the finish as good as ProAc can; the company makes the D25 in seven finishes as standard (yew costing £3,295, while the distinctive birds-eye maple finish of the review samples cost £3,575), and an even wider, funkier range can be had to special order.
SOUND QUALITY
Somehow, the Response D25 addresses the criticisms levelled at the Response 2.5 without introducing any negative elements along the way. Given that the criticisms of the 2.5 always came with the "this is nit-picking" caveat, the bloom and slight tendency toward a saccharine sound have gone, but that hasn't turned the speaker into a harsh detail retriever. It is more comfortable in less-than- perfect surroundings, but it hasn't lost any of the speaker's critical faculties in the process. And although the D25 can go louder than the 2.5, there's no hint of hardness or harshness to the performance.
ProAc's D25 produces a sound that is both audiophile-friendly and naturally musical (the two do not automatically go hand-in-hand). This is the key to the the speaker's success - it can sound magical with those hi-fi demonstration discs, yet not overly analytical when it's time to listen to something produced under less sterile conditions.
It has this wonderful facility to fill a room with sound. Even something sparse and simple like Nick Drake's Pink Moon or Damien Rice's O - just a singer and his guitar - takes on a fully embodied, room-filling sound that seemingly makes the artist physically appear
between the speakers, in their own acoustic space. Yes, practically every speaker produces a soundstage of sorts, but precious few do such a good job at delivering one which seems so close to reality. Surround sound attempts to fill a room, but you
would really have to deploy some
deadly serious surround sound components to make a room disappear more effectively than a pair of these ProAcs can.
It's a supremely detailed speaker, too. Classic jazz from the early 1960s can be a tough test for loudspeakers. Why? Because the analogue stereo tape recordings were early enough to be reasonably free from processing, while the artistes were so consummately professional they had no need for chop-ins. The out-takes of Don't Get Around Much Anymore from the second disc of The Great Summit by Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington made any form of veiling immediately apparent. We heard studio chat, papers shuffling... all of which makes for a fascinating insight into this classic recording, and it was all presented beautifully.
There is a slight warmth to the
ProAc tone, adding richness to piano tones and a bloom to bass guitars. But this is not necessarily a criticism. It is this same richness that makes people still listen to valve amplifiers, not the sort of lushness that strongly colours music. Any negative feelings toward the richness is quickly ameliorated by the easy dynamic range of the speaker, which bounces along far better than its predecessor. American high- enders like to talk of microdynamics, the way that smaller dynamic sounds can be resolved within a bigger, more dynamic sound - the ProAc is certainly adept at digging
out these subtle elements within a recording, which makes for a sure sign of quality.
It behoves the reviewer to find fault with any product and no thing can be notionally perfect. But, in fairness to the ProAc design, it's a real struggle to find much that isn't just pointless criticism. I could say, the Response D25 isn't as 'good' as
a Wilson WATT/Puppy 7 system or an Avalon Eidelon, but that's akin to saying that a Porsche Boxster isn't as 'good' as an Aston Martin DB9. And even here, it depends how you define 'good' - if you factor in the price and compatibility, the Porsche and the ProAc come out as the real winners.
Perhaps the only solid criticism of ProAcs of old is that they weren't the automatic choice for those who prefer the tighter, more rhythmically controlled sound of, say, Linn or Naim systems. Then again, it could equally be argued that those who prefer the rich, enveloping sound of ProAc are just as unlikely to choose the more etched and stark sound of Linn or Naim. Even this is subject to some rapprochement as this is (by a long way) the tightest and most rhythmic speaker ProAc has ever produced, while Linn and (in particular) Naim both recently produced electronics that are much fuller sounding than their stereotypical 'sound' might lead one to expect.
If the harshest criticism that can be levelled at the Response D25 at its price point is little more than an observation about compatibility, then it seems inevitable that ProAc has another winner on its hands. Which means, if you go to audition them, you will more than likely leave with a pair for yourself.
Alan Sircom
Response D38
April 2004
by Marc Mickelson
Sound "Effortless, free-from-the-speaker-cabinets sound, a detailed and sweet midrange, plenty of air around performers, and robust low frequencies"; "the D38s don't have the fullness of darker-sounding speakers…but their particular balance is enjoyable to the extreme"; "the sort of speaker whose sound you settle into like a favorite sweater or chair."
Features Three-driver two-way design that uses ProAc-specified drivers from D.S.T. and Volt. "The D38's cabinet is constructed of 25mm, 22mm, and 18mm medium-density fiberboard that's heavily damped with bitumen." "ProAc says the D38 is 91.5dB sensitive, a jump of 4.5dBs over the sensitivity of the Response 3.8."
Use "Sounded their very best paired with the most powerful amps I had around, which meant the Atma-Sphere MA-2 Mk II.3 OTLs and especially the powerhouse Simaudio W-6 monoblocks."
Value "If the D38s had been available when I bought my Response Fours, I would have purchased them instead. Such improvement at a far lower price is something about which ProAc can be very proud."
Do loudspeakers, like people, have personalities that are formed at least to some extent by their country of origin? I note similarities among Canadian speakers from Paradigm, Energy, PSB, and Axiom, which in general measure very well and aim at sounding as full-range as possible given price constraints. There are American companies like Thiel, Aerial Acoustics and Wilson Audio, which do things in grander, and pricier, fashion, trying to push performance to new levels every time out. Then there are the British speakers, whose refined, buttoned-down sound seemingly trades appeasing engineers for pleasing listeners.
I can't say that I've been a fan of UK brands like Spendor, Harbeth and Quad, whose speakers have always struck me as being polite to the point of producing apathy. I will concede to them a certain midrange refinement and ease, which for some listeners is enough to buoy their interest. Not me -- I need more than any one sonic region done really well, even to my idea of perfection. I want a sense of the whole musical picture, a North American kind of perspective, I suppose.
In the past, ProAc, a British brand to be sure, impressed me enough with a good many of its models that I took the plunge and bought the company's top-of-the-line offering, the Response Four. It was a speaker that could take over a room like few speakers can, and while it could be driven with lower-power tube amps and sound good, it sounded its very best with some beef behind it. There certainly was refinement to the Response Four's sound, but that speaker was also full-range and could play loud, all the while never turning ugly.
I had discovered from Richard Gerberg, ProAc's US distributor, that there were some significant changes to current Response-series speakers. Given this and my previous ProAc experience, I was very interested in hearing the new Response D38, which replaced the Response 3.8, a speaker I had heard a few times and enjoyed greatly.
A new Response
The Response series is ProAc's best, although owners of Studio and Tablette models are certainly zealous about their speakers. The new Response lineup includes the D100 ($24,000 USD per pair), D80 ($14,000), D38 ($8000), D25 ($5000), and D15 ($3000). There is also the Response 1SC ($2000), a holdover from the previous Response series that I bet will be replaced sometime soon.
All previous Response-series speakers used silk-dome tweeters sourced from Scan-Speak and modified by ProAc. No more. The tweeter used currently, still a silk-dome unit, is sourced from D.S.T. of Denmark. Except for the earliest floorstanding Response speakers like the 3.0 and 3.5 or the smaller models, woofers were either 9" ATC or 7" Scan-Speak carbon-fiber jobs. But with the D100 and D80, ProAc began an affiliation with Volt, a pro company based in England. ProAc used a modified version of a Volt woofer in the D100 and D80, but a little over two years ago Volt began producing a new driver built to ProAc's specifications. This new 6 1/2" woofer is used in D38 and D25. The D80 uses Visaton dome midrange drivers, while the even larger D100, like the Response Four, uses the famed ATC dome midrange, one of the most expensive speaker drivers extant.
Changes are not limited to the D38's drivers, however. The Response 3.5 and 3.8 were front- and rear-ported speakers respectively, but for the D38, ProAc designer Stewart Tyler came up with a novel and elegant new scheme. Near the bottom of each speaker, just above the plinth, is a wide channel that runs from one side of the speaker to the other. If you look into this channel and upward, you'll see the actual port for the cabinet. It fires downward and its output makes it to the outside world via the channel. Therefore, the D38 is actually ported on the bottom of its cabinet, which is pretty much impossible without a solution like the one ProAc employs. Very neat.
The D38's cabinet is constructed of 25mm, 22mm, and 18mm medium-density fiberboard that's heavily damped with bitumen. Indeed, ye olde knuckle-rap test indicated a cabinet that was well damped. Binding posts are the same Michell rhodium-plated numbers that were on my Response Fours, two pairs of them for biwiring/biamping. These binding posts are nice, but the supplied jumpers, which are thicker-than-normal rhodium-plated pins, make it hard to single wire the speakers with spade-terminated speaker cables. The pins are too thick to allow the spades to make good contact with the binding posts. It's probably hard to imagine what I'm talking about here, but if you try using the jumpers, you'll understand.
ProAc says the D38 is 91.5dB sensitive, a jump of 4.5dBs over the sensitivity of the Response 3.8. Frequency response is quoted as 20Hz to 30kHz with no +/- variation given, while nominal impedance is 4 ohms. The crossover frequency is 2.8kHz, with both woofers covering the same frequency range. But Stewart Tyler pointed out that because the crossover is shunted, there is a larger-than-normal overlap in the tweeter's and woofers' output.
The D38 measures 49"H x 9 1/4"W x 13 1/2"D and weighs 88 pounds. ProAc speakers may be rectangular boxes, but they are attractive ones, due not only to their proportions but also the beautiful veneers. They look almost as though they are hewn from the trunk a tree. Buyers can choose from four standard and four premium finishes for their speakers (premium yew or ebony would be my choice) as well as others on special order.
One final new feature is the D38's plinth, which is now permanent and not something you have to put on for use and take off for shipping. The speakers also come with some of the best spikes I've used. They're broad enough to give the speakers ample stability but pointy enough to pierce carpet with ease. They screw into threaded inserts on the underside of the plinth.
Review system and setup
The Response D38s were the first review product to take up residence in my new listening room. I'm fortunate -- my new room is larger than any other I've had, a whopping 20' x 29' with a 10' ceiling, and that size affords me many additional options for placing speakers. I'm always surprised that reviewers don't talk much about their listening rooms. Just the dimensions can give readers so much context for a reviewer's comments, especially regarding speaker reviews. And it really is the truth that the room can greatly affect the final sound. Witness all of the complaining at audio shows.
I had a spate of amps on hand to use with the Response D38s in all manner of circuit configurations. They included Lamm ML1.1 push-pull tube, Song Audio SA-300B MB single-ended-triode, Atma-Sphere MA-2 Mk II.3 output-transformerless, and Simaudio W-6 solid-state monoblocks. I also used Odyssey Audio's Khartago solid-state stereo amp. Preamps were Lamm L2 Reference and Atma-Sphere MP-1 Mk II two-box tube units. Sources were Esoteric DV-50 and UX-1 universal players, and Mark Levinson No.37 or 47 Labs PiTracer transports connected to a Zanden Model 5000 Mk III DAC. Cables were primarily from Nordost -- Valhalla and Valkyrja -- but I also used for a short time DH Labs Revelation interconnects and Q-10 speaker cables. Power cords were Shunyata Research Anaconda Alpha, Anaconda Vx, Taipan and Python, while a Shunyata Hydra Model-8 conditioned power coming from the wall. For the most part, the preamps and amps rested on Silent Running isoBase 3.0 bases, with preamps/bases and all other gear on a pair of Michael Green Designs racks, with CD transports supported on a Bright Star Audio sand-filled Big Rock on top of which sits a Townsend Seismic Sink.
Even though ProAc says the D38s are more sensitive than the Response 3.8s they replaced, I found that they sounded their very best paired with the most powerful amps I had around, which meant the Atma-Sphere MA-2 Mk II.3 OTLs and especially the powerhouse Simaudio W-6 monoblocks (I recall that Simaudio's W-5 stereo amp drove my Response Fours extremely well). The Song Audio single-ended amps just couldn't drive the D38s -- no surprise, I guess, given their 8W output. Tonally, the D38s matched best with the Atma-Sphere and Simaudio amps as well. As a rule of thumb, any reasonably powerful amplifier with a neutral balance should perform well with the D38s. ProAc USA used Sudgen electronics at the CES this year, and in the past they've relied on amps from Audio Research.
Setting up the D38s took some experimentation as well. Slight adjustments of an inch or so produced noticeable gains in image specificity and soundstage depth. I found I could place the D38s farther apart than I anticipated and still have the speakers fill in the soundstage between them. Ultimately, the speakers ended up 48" from the front wall, 50" from the side walls, roughly 11' apart, and toed in so their output was summing right at my listening position. Any closer to the walls and the bass was too thick; any less toe-in and the treble sounded overly mellow. I listened with the grilles on. They seemed to effect very little sonic penalty and dressed the speakers up some.
The speed of sound
Have you heard about NASA's new X-43A experimental jet that reached Mach 7 -- a cool 5000 miles per hour? Before you start booking your seats, the X-43A flew unmanned and "landed" by crashing into the Pacific Ocean, so there's a heavy emphasis on this jet being "experimental." At this point, a person traveling at Mach 7 is little more than a concept, and may never be more than that.
The X-43A dovetails nicely with something Stewart Tyler said to me when I interviewed him at CES 1998: "If you built the perfect loudspeaker, nobody would probably buy it." Thus, while concepts like Mach 7 travel and perfect loudspeakers can certainly be newsworthy, they have little consequence in people's lives. Tyler believes that music, more than anything else, is about emotion. "A lot of designers try to blind with science," he told me. "I’m an emotional person, and if there’s no emotion, the speakers don’t do anything."
To be sure, the Response D38 is an emotionally involving speaker, easily one of the two or three best that I've heard in this regard. Driven by the right amp, the D38 is the sort of speaker whose sound you settle into like a favorite sweater or chair. Long listening sessions come easily, and even when you're in evaluation mode, you'll find it's no effort to let the music the D38s produce wash over you as you revel in its unique blend of beauty and truth. Yes, designing speakers involves science, but it's an artistic endeavor as well. Few speakers I've heard illustrate this as well as the Response D38.
I found myself listening to more classical music than usual while I evaluated the D38s, most of it on various JVC XRCD remasters. These are superior CDs in every sense, mating performances of historical importance with terrific sound. The sound of Offenbach's Gaîté Parisienne [JVC JVCXR-0224-2] floated free of the speaker cabinets, instantly defining this feat as a characteristic of properly positioned D38s. They are box speakers that definitely do not sound boxy.
There was a nimble, open and detailed quality to the sound that I know my Response Fours couldn't match. On "Another World" from the Deluxe Edition of Joe Jackson's great Night and Day [A&M B0000701-02], the xylophone sounded effortlessly detailed, the rest of the dense, percussion-laden instrumentation (which features no guitar) filling in all around. This is not an easy piece of music to unravel, but the D38s made easy work of it.
Past ProAc Response-series speakers I've heard had a golden tonal hue, one that didn't sound quite neutral but did sound very pleasing. The D38s retain a small bit o' this honey, but compared to my departed Response Fours, for example, they offer greater clarity and airiness, and not as much overt friendliness. Perhaps this is due to the change in tweeter or a general revoicing of the speaker, but the Response D38 (and I'll bet the other new Response-series speakers) sound more neutral while retaining a small measure of their characteristic sweetness. "Fruits of My Labor" from Lucinda Williams' World Without Tears [Lost Highway 088 170 355-2] sounded clear, detailed and enjoyable to the extreme. ProAc treble has always been something to behold, and with the D38, it's a touch more delicate and finely drawn. It's gorgeous.
As a sign of their low-end resolution, the D38s clearly differentiated the bass line on "Righteously," also from World Without Tears, sounding agile and quick, yet well extended in the process. This reminded me of the bass of the Thiel CS2.4 -- deep but without exaggerated weight. In fact, even though the D38s are two-way speakers with dual 6 1/2" woofers, they could display notable power and slam when called on to do so. I've used Suzanne Vega's Nine Objects of Desire [A&M 31454 0583 2] to test the low end of many speakers, and the ProAcs passed the test -- provided that they had ample power driving them. The 110Wpc Odyssey Khartago sounded dynamically compressed in the bass driving the D38s, "Headshots" displaying obviously less power. But with the Simaudio amps in particular, the D38s could charge even my large listening room with surprisingly deep and powerful bass.
The midrange of the Response D38s is a deft combination of high resolution and pleasing smoothness -- voices are rife with nuance and texture. The D38s don't have the fullness of darker-sounding speakers (including the Response Fours), but their particular balance is enjoyable to the extreme and encourages listening to all kinds of vocal music. I had purchased Bonnie Raitt's Silver Lining [Capitol 31816] months before hearing it for the first time on the ProAc D38s. Nick of Time [Capitol 7 912668 2] and Luck of the Draw [Capitol C2-96111] may be more popular, but Silver Lining sounds just as good and has the same blend of bluesy music. Raitt's voice can sound rough and ragged, but it was like butter over the Response D38s. "Back Around" from Silver Lining showed off the D38s' full arsenal -- effortless, free-from-the-speaker-cabinets sound, a detailed and sweet midrange, plenty of air around performers, and robust low frequencies. However, this CD illustrated that image density, the sense of a singer's complete presence, is not a strength of the D38s, which sound more ethereal than full-bodied, but the speakers' capacity here fits in perfectly with their overall presentation. Great sound is about the proportions of the elements that make it up, with no single quality grossly surpassing any other. The sound of ProAc D38 is certainly in proportion.
Comparisons
Comparing the Response D38s to Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy 7s, at a shade over $22,000 per pair, is not an unfair act. The two share some traits, though these traits are not part of each speaker's sound in equal abundance. The D38s are not as dynamically agile or quite as detailed as the WATT/Puppy 7s, and not their equal in terms of bass depth or power. I praised the Wilson Sophia, $11,700 per pair, a while back, calling it a "human" loudspeaker, and this also applies to the WATT/Puppy 7. But the Response D38 improves on this quality by sounding a little sweeter and more light-filled than either of the Wilson speakers, which counter with greater image solidity and a slightly more detailed presentation. The D38s were the most difficult of the three to drive. The two Wilson Audio speakers sounded very good driven by 18W Lamm SET monoblocks, for instance, whereas the ProAcs sounded their best in my room with at least 200 watts behind them.
I could spend much more space talking about the differences of these three very fine speakers, but in the end it is something that they share that defines them most. I own the WATT/Puppy 7s, and have heard the Sophias and now the D38s at length in my system. All three offer truth and beauty in abundance -- not in identical ways, but both are present and accounted for. Thus, while you can analyze with any of these three speakers in your system, you can relax, enjoy and connect as well. I can't give higher praise than this.
In the end…
The new ProAc D38 has an ample amount of the graceful sound for which British speakers are known and a great deal of sonic resemblance to earlier Response-series speakers. However, it is also its own speaker, sounding open and effortless, sweet in the treble, gutsy down low, and very involving with all types of music. To my ears, it retains Stewart Tyler's sought-after emotion and mixes it with a lighter, more detailed and boxless presentation. The D38 sounds more transparent than earlier Response-series speakers as well, but it never casts off its family resemblance.
Summing up the ProAc D38s is difficult because above any of their particular sonic characteristics is their great overall appeal. Stewart Tyler has succeeded in making a speaker that enhances the emotional connection with the music and has bettered his previous best, the $20,000-per-pair Response Four, in some meaningful ways. In fact, if the D38s had been available when I bought my Response Fours, I would have purchased them instead. Such improvement at a far lower price is something about which ProAc can be very proud.
Response D80
Response D100
Future 4
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