SB Acoustics Ara Beryllium Speaker Kit

Introduction

Welcome to Part II of the SB Acoustics Ara Speaker Kit review. This article covers the assembly process of the speaker kit, an upgrade to the Beryllium tweeter, and our very first episode of "Pimp my Speaker" !

Description

A short walk back to the initial article of the SB Acoustics Ara Speaker Kit review would be useful to understand the speaker in depth. For now, let's have a look at the assembly and tweaking process.

Assembly of the speaker kit is quite easy for anyone with some DIY experience. I would not however recommend it for first timers as decent soldering experience is required, and the speaker driver units are quite expensive - one slip of your screwdriver is all it takes to destroy them.

Assembly

My kit came with fully assembled cabinets and crossover boards. The crossover board is wired with their leads terminated in push-on clips for the drivers, and tinned leads for the binding posts. 

The most tedious part of the assembly would be the cutting of the fiberfill pads to size, and pushing / gluing everything into place. The crossover board can be a bit tricky to install though, as you need a short stubby cross head screwdriver to attach the board to the base of the cabinet. In my case, one of the cabinets did not have any pre-drilled guide holes and I had to hammer the screws into the cabinet to make my own guide holes.

The rest of the hook-up process is quite idiot-proof. The push on clips are sized to match the terminals of the speaker drive units, so you can't install them in reversed polarity. I also liked the fact that the holes for the binding post plate and both drivers had metal thread inserts - no more stripped MDF, and you can torque the bolts with confidence (but not gorilla strength please !). The length of the supplied cables were generous and you do not need to be a contortionist or Octopus to attach the wires to either the binding post or the speaker drivers. The binding post leads do need to be soldered though - the only time your soldering iron will get any action. A glue gun is also required to seal the guide holes where the crossover board wires connect to the binding posts, or you could use your imagination to seal them in any other way you deem fit.

Pimp My Speaker

Good Audiophiles like to milk every ounce of performance out of their gear and DIY equipment are a great way to express and showcase your creativity and talent. I installed the crossover board on top of the speaker, and extended the leads using Belden wire and terminals blocks. The speakers were given about 10 hours of run-in time in between each stage of modification unless otherwise indicated.  

Part 1 - Replace the sandcast resistors with Ohmite and Mills resistors

Nothing fancy used here - just wirewound Ohmite and Mills MRA-12 resistors. The latter have non-inductive windings. Despite their specified tolerances, all of the resistors measured very closely, within +/- 0.1 ohms of their stated values.  

The stock resistors are "thoughtfully" glued into place. Brute force is required here to detach the resistors from the board. 

There is a slight but noticeable improvement here, with an uplift in clarity and reduction in grain. 

Part 2 - Replace the plastic capacitors with Auricap XO film capacitors

The stock Jantzen Cross Caps supplied are quite decent, but the Auricaps are well worth the expense. The Auricaps improve clarity and lend an extra level of dimensionality and detail to the speakers. In comparison, the Jantzen sound flatter and drier. 

Stock crossover board in the middle of surgery

All complete except for the wires

Part 3 - Replace the speaker drive unit leads with Neotech OCC cables, and the binding posts with Furutech.

I used 20 AWG Neotech Pure Silver solid core OCC wire for the tweeters, and 16 AWG multi strand copper OCC cable for the woofers. I am not really fond of push-on terminals, and soldered the cables directly to the drive unit terminals.

The initial impressions were quite negative, with the speaker losing both drive and vitality. These cables use Teflon insulation, which have a reputation for long run-in time -  I put in 48 hours of run-in here. Post run-in, the cabling provided a higher level of refinement and micro-detail. The stock wiring has a more forward and incisive sound, but in terms of layering and staging, the Neotech is noticeably better. The Furutech FP-803B(G) binding posts just happened to be lying around - the stock posts would do just fine.  

I would rate the capacitor upgrade as the most effective, followed by the internal wiring upgrade. The resistors and binding posts could be left alone, unless you are the sort that leaves no stone unturned. Actually even with the stock crossover board, the performance level is already very high. 

Comparisons

The Beryllium tweeter is well worth the upgrade in my opinion. In my earlier article, I pointed at a slight discontinuity between the two drive units, and a prominence to the tweeter that called a bit of attention to itself. There were no such issues with my personal build (the version I heard used the silk dome crossover board with some modifications). I would only recommend the fabric dome version if budget is tight, or you have a dislike for extended high-frequencies.

If you felt that the base level kit was great value, this premium version will have the competition running scared - it's that good ! 

SB Acoustics Ara Speaker Kit

Introduction

SB Acoustics is not a familiar name to many Audiophiles although they are one the largest OEM speaker suppliers in the world. A collaboration between Danesian Audio of Denmark and Sinar Bajar Electric in Indonesia, SB Acoustics brings affordable and technologically advanced speaker drivers to the market by marrying the considerable design experience of Danesian and Sinar Bajar's 27 years of transducer manufacturing.

Manufacturing in Surabaya, Indonesia would result in certain cost efficiencies, and the lucky beneficiaries are cash-strapped audiophiles like you and I ! It's well worth to have a look at the factory visit done by AudioXpress to find out more about their manufacturing quality (Link here).

Description 

The Ara is sold overseas as a kit, but available in Singapore in fully assembled form. My review sample came in Gloss White, and has a visually interesting cabinet, with a chamfered corner (mirror-imaged for each pair), and a backward tilt of about 7 degrees which time aligns the drive units. The cabinet  is very well made (18mm thick MDF panels), with a single pair of sturdy binding posts and magnetically attached protective grills - no DIY or homemade looking kit here. 








The Ara is a bass-reflex design with a rear port with a flared opening. The standard Ara kit comes with the Ring Dome Satori TW29R tweeter and Satori MW16P-4 woofer. An option is also available to swap out the tweeter for the top-of-the-range Satori Beryllium tweeter. The crossover circuits are slightly different though, so it would be best that you make your selection at the outset. 

The speaker crossover is a 12 element design and comes fully assembled on a PCB that fits at the bottom of the cabinet. Crossover parts are decent, with all capacitors being Jantzen cross cap metallized polypropylene capacitors, save for a single electrolytic capacitor. The large inductors are air-core, while sand-cast resistors are used throughout. Those handy with a soldering iron are free to swap components, but limited space will necessitate some creative mounting for some over-sized aftermarket capacitors. 

The crossover board - picture taken from SB Acoustic's web-site.

The Ara's specifications are as follows :-

Nominal Impedance : 4 ohms
Sensitivity : 87 dB
Frequency Response : 45 - 25000 Hz +/- 3 db
Crossover point : 3000 Hz
Recommended power : 40 - 150 watts

Installation

My own experience suggests that you need a fairly powerful amplifier to drive these speakers. The best amplifier match for these speakers in my room was the Mivera Audio Purepower-Icepower 1200AS2-2 amplifier, which delivers 700 watts per channel into 4 ohms.I preferred this match compared to my usual Conrad Johnson ART monoblock amplifiers. The Mivera was driven directly from my Totaldac DAC using digital volume control. 

The Ara was set-up on 24 inch Partington Dreadnought Broadside stands, and placed in open space with minimal toe-in. The fairly long footprint (388 x 190 mm) of the Ara would probably require you to have a customised top plate for maximum stability.

Sound Quality

Any worries that the Ara kit would sound anything less than a finished commercial product were quickly put to rest after my initial listening sessions. The Ara is a very pleasing and easy going speaker, that combines a smooth tone with a detailed sound. You get a seamless presentation with very good integration between the two drive units. The Ara resists a common trend in bookshelf speaker voicing - a mid-bass hump and tipped up treble. Instead, you get very civilised and even behaviour throughout the frequency range. 

The Satori drivers used in the Ara are from SB Acoustic's flagship range and offer remarkable performance for the money, even exceeding the performance of some other more expensive drive units I have used previously. No surprise then that the Satori has also been used by a number of leading audiophile speaker manufacturers.  

The Ara has decent low frequency grunt for a bookshelf speaker, albeit a fairly large volume one. Tight, tuneful and agile, bass notes are fast enough to avoid being lumpy or one-note. Double-bass is reproduced with good articulation and detail. However, you cannot avoid using a subwoofer if you want to enjoy large orchestral works in their full glory. In any event, you are probably better off going for the floorstanding version of these speakers if you are pursuing that route. 

Midrange is smooth, with a subtle warm tone. Presentation is laidback, with vocal presentation further back in the soundstage. While sounding distant, this also creates an illusion of depth. 

Treble quality is very good, with a silky quality, that is very fluid yet detailed. Some listeners may prefer a bit more bite, but if you like a pleasant and easy-going tone, you will love this. If you don’t, SB Acoustics still has you covered, just read on !

Where the Ara wipes the floor with it's competition is soundstaging ability. Both width and depth are class-leading, with excellent dimensionality. While the competition is able accurately place voices and instruments in the soundfield, they do so in a flat manner, unable to flesh out sonic images with the palpability of the Ara.

I also had a quick listen to the Beryllium tweeter equipped version of the Ara in another setup. There is a significant improvement in low-level detail, clarity and air. The tweeter sounds subjectively "hotter" than the fabric dome tweeter, so some may actually prefer the stock version, especially if you favour listenability over details and precision. While I found driver integration to be still very good, the two drive units do not speak with the exact same voice, and the tweeter does call a bit of attention to itself. I found this effect to be subtle, and not disconcerting in practice. 

The choice of tweeter will ultimately depend on what you value more. A more forgiving and easy-going sound, or a high resolution warts-and-all approach ? If you are interested in the Beryllium version, and the assembly process, please have a look at Part II of this review.

How does the Ara stack up against the competition ? Very well indeed I must say. It ran rings around my KEF LS50 speakers in terms of resolution, detail and dimensionality. The only area where the LS50 was able to trumph the Ara was in terms of imaging specificity, which is not surprising given the coaxial driver used. 

Conclusion

The Ara is an excellent buy at it's price range. You get very high quality sound for your money and a speaker that is able to withstand a fair amount of upgrading in the rest of your system chain. 

Buying the kit is probably the highest level of endorsement I could give it, so enough said there - Best Buy.

I would like to thank Artisan Acoustics for arranging this review. 

SB Acoustics Ara Kit

Price - POA

Artisan Acoustics

http://speakers.artisanacoustics.net