Usher CP 6311 Loudspeaker - Soundscape Audio & …

1 Usher CP 6311 LoudspeakerManufacturer: Usher Audio Technology 67 Kai-FongStreet Sec. 1, Taipei TaiwanUS Contact: Thee High End, 6923 Inwood Road, Dallas,TX 75209; 214/704-6082; : $2,195/prSource: Manufacturer LoanReviewer: Gary LeaMy cycling buddy Snug calls me the Ultimate StuffGuy. He anointed me with this title almost 15 yearsago. My two favorite passions, aside from wife andfamily, are bicycling and HiFi. For a great many of usour passions are fueled not just by the activity but alsoby a deep and sometimes disturbing fascination withthe associated world of cycling is, interestingly, very similarto HiFi in this respect. Cyclists are constantly beingbarraged with new and better technology to makebikes lighter and faster.

2 It is a pursuit of lighter weightmeasured in ounces and grams, and often at staggeringcosts per gram. Rarely amonth goes by withoutsome new product madeof unobtanium andcantaffordium that sendsour lust meters have, at times, beenso sucked into the vortexthat this technology rushcreates that I forget aboutthe main reason I love thesport of cycling. In essence it is the activity of the is the challenge of going faster and further with eachride. It comes from the adrenaline surge created bysuffering a wicked steep climb up a twisty canyon roadand then the ensuing ear to ear grin that comes withthe thrill of rocketing back down at insane speeds. Itis those visceral sensations that stay in my mind andnot the equipment all these years later!

3 I speak of thisbecause in many ways the same paradox applies tothe world of the HiFi was driven home to me at CES when I sawthe intense focus on equipment that fell into theunobtanium and cantaffordium categories. Onecompany actually introduced a new set of mono blockamps at a retail price in excess of $300,000. Let sexamine that for a moment, $300k for amps!?If my elementary understanding of math servesme correctly I should be able to buy a nice 2000 squarefoot house and two very nice automobiles for that kindof money in many cities in this great country of could also buy a fabulous $50K dream Audio systemand have enough left over to attend roughly 4outstanding concerts a month for two, with an averageticket price of $100 each, for the next 26 years.

4 Giventhat kind of disposable income I would opt for thelatter choice over spending it on two amps. That missesthe point though. Very few of us have disposableincome of modest levels let alone of gargantuanproportions. It begs the question How much betteris the sound from a $300,000 amp versus a $5,000 guess Not so much! In a time when more andmore people migrate away from the HiFi hobby thefocus should be on bringing excellence to the massesthrough reasonably priced Audio equipment. Weshould be getting equipment that gives us much ofthe ultimate sound quality experience at an affordableprice. The good news is there are a few companiesout there trying to do just that.

5 This is what the UsherCP6311 is all CP6311 is a two-way ported design designedby Dr. Joseph D Appolito and Usher President Lien-Shui Tsai. Dr. D Appolito designs the crossovers anddoes the final voicing of the speaker. The remainderof the design work belongs to Mr. CP6311 is a tall, slender, and attractive speakerfinished in a high glossfinish of piano black,metallic white, or silverand it s accented by realwood panels on the sidesand a matching woodtweeter surround. Thedriver array hosts a 1 tweeter mated to a 7 inchwoofer in a cabinet that istilted slightly backwardsto enhance sounddispersion and time phase coherency. The tweeter ismounted on top of the cabinet to avoid diffraction andto aid in a more natural sound according to DrD Appolito.

6 The speaker is supplied with dual bindingposts for bi wiring capabilities. The dimensions of thespeaker cabinet without the decorative side panels, inches tall by 9 inches wide by 12 inches heavy metal base is 26 inches deep by 14 wideand is supplied with some of the nicest spikes I haveseen in a while. With the base attached and spikesinstalled the weight of each speaker is is also a chamber in the bottom of each speakerfor additional mass loading with either sand or leadshot. With the chamber filled the weight of eachspeaker will easily top 100 pounds. The ever scientificknuckle rap test proved the speakers to be very stoutindeed. The workmanship on these cabinets is sat with Dr.

7 D Appolito at CES and talked for aconsiderable amount of time on his design work withUsher and the 6 series in particular. Of particularimportance was the manufacture of the drivers utilizedin the CP drivers used in the CP6311 have beendesigned by Mr. Tsai and are manufactured by to Dr. D Appolito this particular modelemploys the Usher 8945W woofer. It is a verysophisticated, low-distortion design that consists of acast aluminum frame and a carbon fiber filled papercone. The woofer also utilizes a T-shaped pole piecewith a copper shorting ring and a copper sleeve. It useslow-loss linear suspension with a large flat spider anda large half roll surround.

8 This motor design yields avery low distortion at high SPLs. Two tone IMD at90db SPL is rated below tweeter in this two way system is the UsherT9950. It is a low distortion model with a 28mm coatedsilk dome design. It also uses an aluminum voice coiland optimized pole piece geometry. There is a largerear chamber for low resonance and it utilizes lightFerro fluid damping. Two tone IMD at 90db SPL israted at crossover that Dr. D Appolito specified for thisunit is an acoustic fourth-order in-phase Linkwitzalignment at 2500Hz. The crossover uses very heavygauge air core and quality film capacitors mountedon glass fiber reinforced circuit D Appolito told me, the two primary designgoals were flat on-axis response and broad uniformhorizontal polar response.

9 The first goalyields accurate first arrival informationcritical to imaging and the second goalassures a balanced reverberant field andbroadens the sweet spot. This is requiredbecause we judge overall frequencybalance psycho acoustically by fusingdirect and reflected arrivals over a periodof 5-30 milliseconds (the Haas fusionzone). What does this all mean in thelistening room? Well when the speakerboxes arrived I unpacked them andwrestled them into my normal referenceplacement. The speakers were inches from the side walls and 51inches from the back wall. The placementhad the speakers spaced feet apartand feet from the listener s ear. Inmy small listening room this seems toalways be a good starting point.

10 InitiallyI set the speakers up facing directlyahead with zero toe-in. It is in thisposition that I took the in roommeasurements with my trusty RadioShack digital sound pressure meter. Imeasured frequency at 1 meter from thespeakers utilizing a test response is stated by themanufacture at (-3db) 34 Hz to 28 in room response on thespeakers was amazingly consistent from 20 kHz allthe way down to 40Hz. There was a slight drop outbetween 125Hz and 80 Hz, and by slight I mean a 1-dB drop off. It was not noticeable in the listening testsbut the measurements showed it. There was a 5-dBdrop off at 31Hz. After that it became rather steepdown to up on the Ushers was James Taylor s Fireand Rain (Greatest Hits, Warner 3113-2).