Morel's Statement Loudspeaker: The Fat Lady
Since I literally just got it yesterday morning, it is way too early to say whether it really is over when Morel’s The Fat Lady sings (although even on a first audition, with the speakers barely out of their handsome travel cases and not yet close to broken-in, two very experienced listeners, who’ve heard everything I’ve had in or out of my system for the last decade, seemed to think The Fat Lady might be “it” or very close to "it"—they loved her). The Fat Lady is certainly a witty name but it will be tough to live up to the implicit claim that name makes; after all, there are many great speakers out there. The name is certainly misleading in one sense: The Fat Lady ain’t fat. In fact, she’s a surprisingly demure (13 x 50 x 17 inches), strikingly beautiful, sensuously curvaceous bit of modern sculpture, molded out of fiberglass resin and carbon fiber, without a single straight line in her body.
Morel says she looks like a musical instrument—and with her modernesque, slimmed-down-doublebass-like profile, she does. Like a musical instrument, she also has no internal damping. Her high-tech chassis was specifically designed to “sing along” with the drivers in a controlled fashion—and, thanks to the superior damping properties of the materials it’s made of, to stop singing as soon as the drivers stop. The drivers, in turn, were specifically designed, developed, and fine-tuned to the cabinet.
Like Focal, Morel has a leg up on certain other speaker-manufacturers in that it not only builds speakers but also builds and markets high-tech drivers (indeed, Magico used Morel-made cones at one point in its ongoing metamorphosis), and The Fat Lady uses bespoke ones: Two 9-inch cabon-fiber/Rohacell composite cones (with integral one-piece domes, double-magnet hybrid-Neodymium/Ferrite motors, 3-inch long-throw aluminum voice coils mounted externally, copper-insulated center pole pieces, diecast aluminum basket) for the bass; a 6-inch cabon-fiber/Rohacell composite cone (with integral one-piece dome, hybrid Neodymium/Ferrite motor, 3-inch long-throw underhung aluminum voice coil mounted externally, copper-insulated center pole pieces, diecast aluminum basket) for the midrange; and 1.1-inch hand-coated soft dome (with pancake Neodymium magnet motor and underhung aluminum voice coil) for the treble. Frequency response is claimed to go from 20Hz to 22kHz (and to measure an impressive +/-1.5dB from 40Hz to 18kHz); I assume distortion numbers must be commensurately impressive. Sensitivity is rated at 88dB. With a nominal 4-ohm speaker like The Fat Lady this usually means that sensitivity is actually 3dB lower than its rating. Not here, however. If anything The Fat Lady seems higher in sensitivity than its specification, as I can drive it to very loud levels with a lot less gain than I’m used to from Magicos. Like the Nolas, these speakers will rock the house with considerable ease (indeed, Morel claims that The Fat Lady can handle peak power of 1000W, which would result in SPLs that would drive me out of the room).
An Israeli company, Morel has had three decades of experience in driver and speaker manufacturing, and it poured all that experience into The Fat Lady project. Over the next few weeks, I’ll post detailed listening notes to this thread, as the speaker breaks in and I get it set up to my complete satisfaction with the ancillaries that I think work best. (Russell Kauffman, the chief acoustic designer of The Fat Lady, is slated to visit me over this weekend—to help with setup and to give me the scoop on the speaker’s design and engineering. Any points of particular interest will be posted to this thread.) There’s no question this is an ambitious, fascinating, and (even at the very start) extremely promising loudspeaker that sounds a bit like a Magico Mini II albeit with considerable augmentation in the bass. Whether it coheres and disappears as well as, and is as neutral, finely detailed, dynamic, and transparent to sources as, that truly great Magico loudspeaker, I’m not yet able to say. But it certainly made a swell first impression on Da Boyz.
Comments
Oy! Where is the REF 40?
Robert's got it for awhile. Then it comes to me.
Since to some extent this early post revolves around the question of break-in, I'd be keenly interested to hear what Russell Kauffman himself might have to say about Morel's recommendations and about what factors will objectively and audibly change and adjust as a result of extended break-in. Does Morel do any break-in protocol before the speakers leave the factory? So much discussion of speaker break-in is contentious hearsay and secondhand surmise (not to mention flame-warrioresque cant); in this case you'll have an opportunity to hear about it from the horse's mouth, as it were—particularly since Morel itself manufacutures those parts that are said to non-trivially metamorphosize via break-in: the cones and drivers. What does Mr. Kauffman think about your assumption that the speaker's performance will change in perceptible ways over several weeks time? My own assumption here is that you're not talking about "breaking in" your own subjective response to speaker's sound, but the idea that the performance of speaker components will continually change in audible ways over many hours of playing. Or is it possible that your "swell first impression" is actually a steady-state reflection of the speaker's performance, and that it's your own deepening response to the subtleties of the Fat Lady that will evolve?
In its instruction manual for The Fat Lady, Morel says (and i quote) : "As in any high end speaker system, The Fat Lady must be used for a short period of time before it reaches peak performance. We recommend a 72 hour break-in period. Please keep this in mind when you initially set up the speakers."
It has been my experience that loudspeakers DO "break in" in an electromechanical sense and that (up to a point) their sound does tend to smooth out and gel with repeated use. This is not a question of a listener "getting more used to" the character of the speaker, although, of course, that happens too. Speakers genuinely change their sound with break-in--surrounds and diaphragms have to be "worked" to loosen up and function optimally, so do voice coil and crossover parts. In addition, when a speaker has been shipped across country (or, in The Fat Lady's case, across oceans and continents), it not only has to break in, it also has to "settle in." All that bouncing and jarring and jolting inevitably has an effect on the speaker's sound. Once the speaker is allowed to settle down and "rest," the sound improves. (Just listen to any speaker at RMAF or CES early on the first day of the show and then come back the next day or the day after to hear exactly what I'm talking about.)
Although The Fat Lady sounded pretty damn good right out of the shipping crates, I expect it will sound better still (as all speakers do) with settling-in and break-in time (and with optimal setup). Of course, I will report on anything Mr. Kauffman has to say about break-in and setup (and about the speaker's design and engineering).
Many thanks for the response and further details. Looking forward to hearing more about this speaker — even thought it's a little scary-looking, like something biomorphic that H.R, Giger would design for a listening room glistening with Alien goo.
Nice, I'll look forward to reading more on The Fat Lady JV.
JV no need to finish the review, those Morel drivers are the best sounding units I EVER listened to in the last 40 years...
Bloise,
Without a doubt, the Morel drivers, both in The Fat Ladies and also those modified for use in Magicos and other ultra-high-end speakers, are exceptional. In talking to Russell Kauffman—who is an extremely interesting, intelligent, experienced, and quite obviously gifted speaker-designer (and also a just plain nice guy)—I learned a good deal about the Morel drivers and the way he is using them. For one thing, Morel's midrange and tweeter drivers are not designed to behave in an entirely pistonic fashion; instead, they have been deliberately engineered to allow for a certain amount of controlled flexibility at various points so that their "break-up" modes, though potentially more audible in the passband, will in actuality be instantly "self-cancelling." What this means—if I have this right (and if I don't I'll get it right)--is that when one part of the driver's diaphragm “breaks up” by going out of phase and linearity at a certain frequency another part of the diaphragm is intentionally "doped" to counteract this phase/linearity shift by "breaking up" in the opposite phase-direction and to the same degree of non-linearity at the same frequency (or frequencies); thus, the sound of break-up is instantaneously cancelled out. The reason Morel does this (I am told that Focal and B&W, at least in their midrange drivers, do the same thing) is because it is impossible to created a perfectly pistonic driver in which break-up modes are so reduced in amplitude and so far removed out of the “passband" that they won't wreak small havoc with the signal of the other drivers, no matter what the hinge point or how steep the crossover.
This is Morel's argument at least—and though it goes counter to that of, oh, Magico or Vandersteen—I can honestly say that in the listening you do not hear The Fat Lady's tweeter being very slightly roughed up by the midrange driver, as you did with the original Mini (and to a much lesser extent with that of the Mini II). Indeed, The Fat Lady has, thus far in my listening experience, a seemingly seamless blend between midrange and tweeter, OTOH, so did the Magico M5's midrange and tweeter—to the extent that I wasn't even aware of the tweet's presence until music with a goodly amount of high-frequency content came along—and, as far as I know and as noted, Magico does not subscribe to Morel's philosophy of artfully doping a more flexible diaphragm to "self-cancel" break up modes. (Once again, if I have this wrong I will correct it.)
You may wonder, as I did, why Kauffman removed all the stuffing from The Fat Lady's curvaceous enclosure. He has what I consider to be a very interesting answer to that question--which makes a curious but undeniable kind of common sense and is, in the case of The Fat Ladies (which might be more aptly named "The Clear Ladies"), substantiated by listening. In Russell's view, the damping material inside a speaker cabinet doesn't just "damp" the energy of the backwave, it muffles and distorts it, stores it, and then releases some of this muffled and stored energy back out through the enclosure and the diaphragm of the driver after a delay in time, messing up the clarity and alacrity of the signal.
To further explain what he meant, Russell used what I thought was a brilliant analogy. "Imagine," said he as we sat across a restaurant table from each other, "that you and I were simultaneously counting down the numbers from five to one. Together our voices would make a certain timbre at a certain intensity that would be different than just the sound of one of our voices but our voices would sound clear and what we were saying would be fully intelligible. Now imagine that the sound of our two voices was being augmented by a third voice that was slightly delayed in time--the sound of both of our voices muffled by damping materials and reflecting off the bitumen-coated surfaces of a small chamber. Whereas the sound of our two voices in tandem would be clear, the sound of the "three" voices (the two of us counting down simultaneously and that third "voice" which combines ours but muffles the combination via batting and roughs it up a bit via bitumen and then feeds it back to us not instantly but gradually over time) would be considerably more smeared and less intelligible. While the sound of our two voices--which stands in for the sound of music being played directly through the driver and the sound of the undamped cabinet "playing along" with the music—can be compensated by treating driver and enclosure as an undamped system and designing for the additional energy that system will be generating and releasing, the sound of a heavily damped enclosure--and the muffling, losses of intelligibility, energy-storage, and time-delays it will cause--is much more difficult to compensate for."
I'm not endorsing Russell's logic, as I've heard many traditionally damped speakers that sounded quite wonderfully clear and realistic, but I've also heard a certain—well, I wouldn't call it "muffling," exactly, but, for lack of a better word, a kind of hesitance or resistance to the free flow of musical energy that seems to make certain speakers sound as it were taking a bit of effort and, perhaps, a little added time to get the musical energy out of the box and into the room. This hesitance or resistance can make the presentation sound a bit "over-controlled" (or overdamped, when it comes down to it). It is a sound that I do not hear with dipoles or Radialstrahlers (which, of course, have neither boxes nor damping) and hear less of with the smaller enclosures of two-ways. Like I said, I'm not endorsing Russell's argument, I am merely noting that I have heard an effect like that which he is describing (without realizing that that was what I was hearing); I am also saying that, thus far, I hear less of this effect with The Fat Ladies (without hearing, as one might expect, any added harshness or echo-like resonances or comb-filtering). Indeed, one of the things that immediately so impressed Da Boyz was The Fat Lady’s outstanding clarity.
Jon
the ASI Tango R speakers also have no internal packing / wooliness...
I believe the YG speakers are also "unstuffed."
For those of you interested in such things, here is an RTA of The Fat Lady, taken after Russell completed his setup tweaks. (I'll have more to say about this later on.)
Generally, RTAs have been pretty fair reflections of the way speakers sound--at least in overall balance--in my room. This one both is and isn't. It is in the sense that everything from the upper bass through the top treble does sound as razor-flat and seamless as it measures. It isn't in that the broad plateau from 200Hz (where the midrange crosses over to the woofer) all the way down to 20Hz is not an entirely accurate reflection of the speaker's sound in the bottom octaves. Unlike the Nola Baby Grands, this is not a speaker with forward or discontinuous bass. On the contrary, it is fast, clear, detailed, and clean in the bass, with excellent pitch definition way way down into the 20s. But it does have more bass than I would've expected. I assume some of this large plateau is a room-gain thing and virtually every speaker I've had in house has a little added thickness around 60Hz due to the dimensions and size of my room (and The Fat Ladies are not an exception). Even though it measured as if it were quite elevated, The Fat Lady's bass does not stick out or dominate the presentation. Though I can hear more weight and emphasis on, say, the bass lines in Alison Krauss "Ghost In This House" than what I'm used to hearing, that line isn't distorted or overbearing. It's just more audible (and, in fact, clearer). And even though there is, as noted, a bit of room-induced resonance around 60Hz (as there also was, BTW, with the Magico M5, the Nola Baby Grand, etc.), The Fat Lady is one of the very very few loudspeakers I've listened to in my system that can clearly and cleanly reproduce every pitch of the descending figures of the 16-foot pipes on Sheffield Labs' great recording of Mendelssohn's Organ Sonatas. At this point I'd say that save for there being a good deal more of it than I'm used to on certain recordings the bass seems quite consistent with the exemplary behavior of the rest of this speaker. (BTW the slight 2dB rise in the top treble is an anomaly of the measurement process. I took this RTA on axis, but The Fat Lady is designed to be listened to off-axis. Indeed, the extra 2dB of energy was deliberately designed into the speaker to "lift" its off-axis response to be flat out to 20kHz.
I will take other RTAs as I get more experience with the speaker and its interface with my room, but let it be noted that this is (the bass plateau nothwithstanding), already, one of the two or three flattest speakers I've measured.
I can't comment on controlled break-up mode - it might very well be true. No doubt that the thick Rohacell, along with large coil helps stop reflected energy from radiating back through the cone.
From my own measurements, the curve is smooth and flat up to 8k on the mid alone - which is very impressive and helps the tweeter with possible narrower bandwich duty.
I know the topic is about a complete system, and the excellent mid driver is only a - large - part of the picture, so disregard anything about the complete system because I haven't been lucky enough to hear it as a whole. On strict engineering terms, it seems to have the edge over other "flagships" like the Kef Muon for example
By the way, is this a sealed system or a bottom ported enclosure?
Bloise,
The Fat Lady is a ported speaker, though it took Russell to show me where that port is because it is so ingeniously concealed that I couldn't find it. The port is tuned to 24Hz according to Russell.
Jon
That break-up-reversal doping design, and the parable of the third off-sync countdown voice, are blowin my mind.
Amid such fascinating arcana, I hesitate to raise my earlier question, but I do wonder if Russell Kauffman offered any insight into the mechanics and acoustics of extended break-in re these Corpulent Mesdames?
HalSF,
As I noted when I quoted from the manual, this is apparently not a speaker that takes forever to break in. It is already sounding more relaxed and transparent and somewhat fuller in tone color than when I first uncrated it. After I've listened to it for awhile longer, I'll be better able to tell you whether the sound keeps changing or whether, over the past three days, I've achieved full break-in. By midday yesterday Russell seemed to think I was getting the kind of sound I ought to be getting from his speakers (via ARC 610Ts, ARC Reference 5, ARC Reference Phono 2, the Walker Black Diamond Mk II record player, the Oracle Delphi VI/SME V, and the Benz LP S-MR cartridge).
Jon
Hi Jon - appreciate your sharing with us your speaker discoveries--we're in a golden age of speaker design and its great to have someone who knows earlier milestones and can articulate new designs and how they sound. Regarding the Magico speakers and how they've evolved is it time for the Mini to be upgraded to a model III? Have you heard anything? Goodwins is selling their demo units. thanks!
pkunz1,
I've not heard about a Mini III, but I would be very surprised if one wasn't in the works given Magico's acquisition of its own CNC milling-machine shop to build aluminum enclosures (such as the one for the new Q5). BTW, as I said on another thread, the Magico Mini II remains the single best speaker I've reviewed (in spite of its frequency-response limitations and other little quirks). If Magico does develop a Mini III, I would love to be the first to review it.
Jon
I own the wonderful Mini II. I heard the Q5 demonstration with Alon Wolf at Goodwins in May and will go on a limb to predict that Magico will have an all aluminum mini-monitor (two-way) speaker on an all-aluminum stand with the new berylium tweeter from the Q5. I would think that it would have a "Q" designation (Q1) rather than a "III". They could swap the Q5 tweeter and a new crossover in the Mini II enclosure and call it the Mini III, but I doubt they would go in that direction and retain the wood.
Goodwins tried to sell a Mini II demo unit over a year ago. I don't think that is an indication of a new Mini model coming out.
peterayer - I agree, the Mini II is wonderful. As you suggest switching over to the Q line tweeter would be a logical improvement. But changing the cabinet is more of an open question: the wood finish in the Mini II gives a lot more visual appeal (particularly if WAF is an issue). Part of the V line's commercial success is due to their good (wood) looks IMO. Appreciate your comments!
I agree, the wood looks great and was one of the factors when I chose the speakers as they reside in my formal living room. I also like the look of the M5, but don't particularly like the V2, though it sounds great for the price. I should add to my earlier speculation about an all aluminum QMini: it would probably sell for well below the wooden $32K Mini II, say low to mid $20Ks. If it were to sound at least as good as the current Mini II, but cost 30% less, boy would that be a price/performance benchmark. It sure is fun to dream of the potential designs now that Magico has full in-house design/build capabilities.
Jon,
Quick question. Regarding the RTA, where was the microphone placed? At the listening position? 1 m? 2m? etc. Thanks
Marty
Marty,
The mike was 1m from the speakers, directly on axis with the tweeter. (I also took RTAs at 2m, which looked almost exactly the same.) The results were one-third-octave smoothed.
Jon
We are lucky enough to have a set of Fat Lady here in Australia.
Nir at Morel tells me the speakers have a run in period of around 40 hours at the factory, what I can tell you is that the longer we have had these babies running the more fluid and balanced they have become.
I believe they have now clocked some 600+ hours in our dealers sound lounge and the difference you would not believe!
Like the Fat Lady who sings at the opera a little vocal warm up is called for before the final performance, a performance I am sure you WILL enjoy!
A comfortable chair, some good wine, some pate, your favourite disc and the Fat Lady makes for a wonderful way to kill an evening.
Phil
I've never been one to comment on the appearance of audio equipment. I frankly don't care what something looks like, as long as it sounds great. HOWEVER, the first thing every single person I've shown a picture of this speaker to has said is: "It looks like a huge...." well, I can't use any of the nouns they use on a family forum.
There are any number of phallic designs in the public space, but this is really too much not to comment on. I guess I *do* care what audio equipment looks like because I don't think I could bring myself to put something like this in my living room, unless I was going for a "Clockwork Orange" approach. I'd love to hear a female reaction, but that's unlikely in this space.
vhiner
Remember, that in the bedroom as in the music room, looks aren't important when you operate in the dark!
Uh...
Marty817,
My wife likes all the lights on...in both places. lol. What this has to do with the speakers, I don't know. BTW, a better name for them would be the "Fat Lady's Friend."
Uh...
Jonathan,
Surely, given your reputation for incisive commentary, you would agree that because of the speaker's very "unique" appearance that the manufacturer merits at least a little teasing? I mean, this isn't even *subliminal* marketing. Or do they argue that a cigar just a cigar? Hee, hee.
vhiner,
I thought your comments were funny. Any hobby built around tonearms, towers, and tubes already has more than a bit of explaining to do. However, lights on or off, I don't think that Morel had the same thing in mind with this design that you have. Though I can see where you mighta got the idea from the lighting in that black-and-white photograph of a protoype that I got off the Morel Web site, the picture is misleading. In real life (take a look at the photo I took), nobody who's seen (and heard) The Girlz in my listening room has thought they looked remotely like "The Fat Ladies' Friend" (a hilarious line, BTW). I've heard the words "sculptural" and "android-like" bandied about, but not the words you're thinking of.
In any event, the, uh, love affair my informal listening panel (all happily married men, I hasten to add) has had with The Girlz continues. Our TAS Music Editor came back again a few nights ago to listen and said he thought they might be "the best" speaker he's heard in my room since the M5s. Though I like them, too, I haven't completely made up my mind about The Ladies yet, because that elevated bass is clearly "wrong." The trouble is that, on most (not all) recordings, it's wrong in a very appealing and somehow realistic way, just as the Nola Baby Grand's somewhat overly prominent bass was, albeit in a different fashion. The Ladies are so clear and clean and musical--even in the bottom octaves--that it's hard to hold their inordinate low and mid bass entirely against them, although a 12dB plateau from about 150Hz to about 25Hz makes for an awful lot of extra low end, not to mention inviting (in fact, well nigh insisting on) room resonances. Since Morel crosses over to the woofers at 200Hz (which is where the steep rise begins) and the rest of the speaker sounds (and measures) flat and neutral, you'd almost have to think that the rise was intentionally built into the speaker.
Jon
Thanks, Jon. I look forward to hearing them someday...with my eyes closed. :-)
Now you have had this speaker for a few weeks do the fat ladys sing JV ?
john,
When all is said and done, not yet. Despite their considerable excellence in the midband and treble, I can't quite get past The Ladies' elevated low end. Their bass doesn't bother several of my friends, who think The Ladies are the best they've heard in my room. But it bothers me just enough to keep me from endorsing The Ladies without qualification. However, I'm happy to report that something is being done about this by Morel as I write. Russell feels that something has gone awry in the XO of my pair--a part may be out of spec or mis-spec'd is his guess. If that's the case, it's an easy fix. Once he brings the same exemplary quality (and quantity) to the bass that he has already brought to the rest of the frequency spectrum, I may, indeed, hear the fat lady sing after all. I'll let you know in a week or so.
Jon
Thank you Sir.
Jonathan,
I heard the Morels at CES 2010. A couple of people in the group I was with liked them quite a bit. I can't say I was quite as impressed. Not that I didn't like them however. I thought they were capable of producing huge dynamics and they had a good soundstage. I was less impressed by their soundfield front to back which struck me as being flat. Of course, "show" acoustics being what they are may have had everything to do with this aspect of performance. I'm not certain of their musicality which seemd a bit dry and uninvolving. Curious about your feelings regarding these issues.
Regards,
Analogman
analogman,
I'm actually waiting to comment in detail on The Girlz until the revised crossover has been installed, since, at the moment, there is simply too much bass for my taste (good bass but too much). I can say this, however. As they now stand The Fat Ladies are not "dryish" and "uninvolving." In fact, they are rich and gorgeous. But then I'm absolutely certain that the pair I've been listening to is substantially different (particularly in the bass and lower mids, due to the change in the crossover) than the pair you and I heard at CES, which was a bit on the lean side (though I still liked 'em). Stay tuned.
Jon
Thanks Jonathan! As I stated, at CES a few from my group loved them on Day 1. I sat on the side line unsure of their musicality and soundfield. Upon a revisit to that room some of my group still loved them, one left undecided. Regardless of that bit of listening, I have no doubt that hooked up to your fab electronics and in your space, they perform at a higher level.
Regards,
A-Man
regarding to our friend with his fallic visions. I would like to state that I truly apreciate the fact the fat lady seems to be designed based on the logics of acoustics, and not on the logics of logistics and ease of manufacturing, which the vast majority of the loud speaker designs out there unfortunately are.
Instead of whining about formal associations you may have, perhaps related to your sexual preference, I would rather celebrate the fact a couregeous company like Morel makes an effort like this to give you the best possible acoustics for your money.
Btw, I don't know if you have ever seen one, but they look more like a clitoris than a dildo to me.
Uh...
Audiojunkie,
Take humour too seriously much? No one's whining on this forum. We're just having a little fun and, up until now, no one's started attacking individuals for their opinions. Uh..... is right.
It appears that a new bass crossover is going to be installed in my Ladies late next week. I'll report on the changes.