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Horning Eufrodite – Taming of the Shrew Part One

Horning Eufrodite – Taming of the Shrew Part One

The Eufordite speakers have been praised by many audiophiles for its exceptional performance, however, comments on its bass behaviour by many owners as well those who have auditioned them have not been consistent, below is a day by day account of my experience of these speakers and hopefully will shed some light on how to make these idiosyncratically box design perform better, please note it is not my intention to discuss/argue whether flea-power tube amp or normal 40-60 watts push-pull should be used, so read on….

With the departure of my beloved speakers early last week and a time gap of 2 weeks before the arrival of the big horns, P.T. has very kindly loaned me the famous or infamous Horning Eufrodite to keep me company during this lonely period. On second thought, my cynical side tells me there may be a hidden agenda on this generous gesture, perhaps P.T. wants to see how well or how poorly I can play these special speakers.

Day one (Tue 19), the speakers arrived with its screwed-on spike feet (I later found out P.T. had them specially made from a German company) and for convenience sake, they were placed on the exact spot of my departed monoliths. After connecting the speaker cables and using the same interconnects, I turned on the amps and played several tracks of Aaron Neville’s Warm Your Heart, to my horror and shock or vice versa, uncontrollable bass was everywhere ! Had I not have heard them before at P.T.’s showroom, I might well have turned off the amps and called it a day and asked P.T. to take them back. Also knowing the many excellent products – from source, electronics to speakers Tommy Horning has successfully designed and received accolades in the hi-fi circle, I’m sure he did not design this particular model to behave like this, so I proceeded with the tackling of the speaker placement problem. This battle lasted for exactly 4 hours, with the spike feet taken out, moving the speaker was a cinch, I continued to push the speakers towards the rear wall from its original distance (measured from the rear top end side) of exactly 6 FT to 47 inches, afterwards, the spike feet were screwed back to the speakers, the bass problem I initially encountered was substantially reduced, at least I could hear the basic tonality of the speakers without the interference by the bass resonance. Next, I changed the positioning of the bass resonators as well as the sugar cubes, these adjustments resulted in further sound improvement, by then, it was time for bed !

Day two, remembering what P.T. had said that these speakers must be used with feet underneath them due to the resonance, this resonance issue (also Franck Tchang’s comment about them when he heard these speakers last year) prompted me to scrutinize the structure of these 2 black boxes, they are VERY susceptible to vibration caused by sound wave and the big open rectangular hole under the 4 isobaric woofers should be tackled together with panel of the speakers. First, 2 interface pucks were placed on the corner of the top panels, these cleaned up the sound further, then I realized the gold special resonator to treat the middle area of the rear wall which was previously placed just behind my transport was taken out a day earlier, I put them back and the improvement in sound was huge, focus, highs, mids and bass all improved – wow. Now the black hole, I put a disused large heavy metal spike feet upside down inside the hole of the speakers, the bass became cleaner, then a sugar cube was added, this brought further very minor improvement but by then, it was time to go to bed.

Day three, after listening to my usual CDs, although music with strings and opera were good, Aaron Neville was not quite singing openly to me as before, so I proceeded with more adjustments on the sugar cubes & diffusers located on the walls & doors, sound coherence improved further. I kept staring at these thin but very deep black boxes and knew the side panels must be treated also as I could intuitively sense the clarity & transparency were compromised by the micro-vibration from these panels. 3 sugar cubes were used on each speaker, one on the outer panel, another in the middle of the center panel and third one between the horn tweeter and the Lowther driver. I played a few tracks and now I was satisfied, I could play many different types of music and in particular, string sonata, chamber and operatic music coming out of these speakers were slightly better than my old monoliths. I must say that these idiosyncratic speakers which cost a little less than 25% of my departed ones are really a true bargain as well as a remarkable achievement. This proved the motto “ there are many roads to Rome” is really true. The joy and excitement soon ended as it was bed time again.

Day 4 (Saturday), I stared at the speakers first thing in the morning and still suspected MORE can/should be done to control the resonance of the speaker panels. After taking my daughter to her piano lesson, I removed the specially designed tiny resonators from the engine of my car and experimented them on the Hornings. I pushed the heavy spike feet mid-way of the hole & placed the tiny Basic resonators near the front of hole, straight away, this had cleared up the bass further. Then I placed another sugar cube on the inner panel, the sound improved with better harmonics on the entire frequency spectrum. Now, these speakers are really singing to me, however, despite having done all these tweaks in the morning, I had a busy day and could not sit back to enjoy the fruits of my labour – to be continued.

Day 5 (Sunday), after spending over an hour of listening in the morning, I continued to ponder over the black hole in the lower compartment of the speaker, I said to myself maybe I should experiment with objects of different weights to see if they could alter the bass performance or not. I took the heavy spike feet out and ended with a stone which gave better bass transient and once the bass spectrum improved, the mids and the highs also benefit as a result. Finally, I raised the diffuser & sugar cube on the center large rear window, this had the effect of raising the soundstage a little bit more to my liking and now its time for more pleasurable listening.
To sum up, my latest venture in high efficiency / quasi-horn speakers is a rewarding experience, the last 3 three years I spent tackling all sort of problems from my ex-full range giant speakers has greatly helped me in tackling the severe bass boom I initially encountered in my room and it only took me exactly 4 hours of laborious effort to move the speakers to a position where the bass is behaving and subsequent not so minor tweaks substantially lifted the performance of the Eufrodites.
They are very good to listen to on classical chamber music, opera and surprisingly music such as Eagles’ Live (Hotel California & Desperado). Similar to other superb designs, there have strengths and weaknesses, for now, the weaknesses I would put down in my inability to overcome, perhaps over time, I can minimize them. I would invite P.T. together with those who have good experience with the Eufrodites to hear them in my room before my big horns arrive later next week, I will let them write their impression as I think we should take all hi-fi reviewers’ reviews with a pinch of salt as their equipment & room surroundings may not be compatible with the equipment they are testing, so their recommendation/criticism may not be valid. For me, one thing is sure, the bass issue of these speakers will never go away, if you can tame it, then the overall sound will bring you many hours of listening pleasure, if you are experiencing the bass boom in your room and can’t tackle it, then they can be a nightmare but no worries, I’m sure P.T. with his many room tuning gadgets can solve this problem. Part two of this will go to P.T. – over to you !

See the attached photos below :

Comments

  • 1) 4 “ Sugar Cubes “ are used to tackle panel resonance, two on each side of the speaker and two on the front, this treatment resulted in better focus & harmonics.

  • 2) Speaker 47” from the rear wall with interface puck sitting atop the corner of the top panel.

  • 3) Adventure into the ‘ Black Hole’ – this is where the bass problem is suspected, the installation of the tiny basic resonator used to damp vibration of my car engine together with a precious stone cleaned up the bass resonance substantially, after this tweak, bass goes really deep and tuneful.
  • Mr.Zanden,

    Over here in Taipei, you have quite a crowd of fans including me. Your spirit is truly inspiring! I love the Horning. You have experience upfront now. I am sure you understand the magic. Before the Horning, I had the Wilson Alexandria - the best speaker for home theatre reproduction. For 2 channel, it is a nightmare.

    Can you share how your Zanden amp control the bass of the Eufro? What about the impact of the lower mid-bass? Are you contended with the speed of the bass?

    Jeff
  • Mr. Zanden, 你真是高人, 可以控制這麼大bass, 佩服^^
  • Gentlemen,

    Thank you for your feedback to my latest report, I am no expert but an audiophile with an incurable hi-fi fever of 103 degrees for last several years.

    Jeff, you have hit the right spot with your comment on the lower mid-bass. Can you not see where I had stuck the 3 sugar cubes, they were aimed at this particular frequency sprectrum which had bothered me most in last several days. I strongly believe once any owner of these speakers can tackle this, well shall I call it strong character or flavour in sound, then rest of the frequencies should sound very good.

    The bass goes surpisingly deep on certain CDs and sound pretty coherent but I'm not sure whether this is due to the Zanden power amps or not, anyway, since they are recommended to drive the Avalon's Eidolons, they should be able to have a strong grip on the bass of any high efficiency speakers.

    Anyway, my very limited encounter with the Eufrodites tells me speaker positioning is the key and once you manage to make the speakers sing without bass boom, then they should sound very musical indeed on operas and classical music. If I were keeping them, then I would become more critical of the nasal tonality on voices I can not get rid of so far, my experience is this is may be a typical characteristic of all Lowther designs and some listeners actually find it pleasing or more realistic. I hope I won't get into any heated debate with other owners but if you have a decent FM tuner (I use a German professional vintage tube FM tuner & decoder) and hear the live broadcasting voice, then you'll know what I'm getting at.

    Not withstanding what I have commented above, perhaps Eufrodite owners may need to use Horning's own designed electronics to hear what the designer is listening to, the case in point is the Shindo electronics, the designer wants his speakers to be driven by his own amps, otherwise, the tonality of sound/music is not quite neutral to put it mildly ( this is my very limited experience when I heard these amps driving the Cessaro horns - P.T. may strongly disagree with me on my impression ).

    Mr Zanden
  • Mr.Zanden,

    Very well said about speaker positoning. As you said, the nasal character of lowther is controversial. I am not good at debate. But I like the lowther far much more than ceramic mid-range, another form of coloration in upper mid high and above. I always need to cover this region up with warmer cables to reduce the ringing. Doing so reduces resolution in this area. Dynamic in this region is constipated. The bell sound is quite clear but not dynamic. I am sure you know what I am talking about after fighting with Avalon for years in your experience. Personal choice, I'd opt for lowther, which gives me much more immediacy.

    The coated lowther in Shanghai probably reduce this problem to the minimal. The nasal character of lowther in the Eufrodite compares to many lowther design that I heard is miminal. Tommy Horning only uses the most linear region of the lowther to do the mid-range. Though the lowther is full range, but in the Eufrodite, Tommy only use the "non-shouting" region.

    Strange that I do not have the bass problems that you mention. I drive it with many amps in my collection: kondo gakuon, marvel bro's baldur, Horning integrated amp, Zanden 9500 and Wavac which is by far the best match with Horning. My comrade, Professor Hung, however did experience some problems you mention.
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