Emerald Physics CS-2, Opinions Please

Not to pile on here, facts are facts.. the Eminence Beta drivers used in these new open baffles are about 50 bucks, the waveguide is about 6 bucks.. And the DSP unit is about 199.00 online, and it is HORRIBLY cheap and not very good sound compared to the DBX P.A. speaker management unit for about 399.00 online, far higher grade..

That being said the design of these emeralds is very interesting.. Not bad, but so easy to copy and get these off the shelf parts and build an open baffle like this that it would cost anybody very little time or money..

Now the real issue comes in on the Multiple needed cables, amps.. and Room acoustics with this design and keying in on the DSP settings will not be for the novice.. So I mean its again interesting, but far over complicated if you ask me with the variety and quality of designs around..

Maybe at 3500 you can't do much better but again as mentioned above this simply looks like a system out of the norm and sorta advanced, but there is nothing magical or advanced done here, quite the opposite be exact, its just a very crude way to keep something very cheap to produce, yet have some advantages over conventional designs IF you can deal with properly tuning and implementing the design in your environment.

Matrix-

The proof of the DCX is in the listening..Clayton wouldnt choose to put a bad sounding unit in the mix..yes, there are better DSP's and one coming down the line from EP very soon/

Quite the opposite in fact re: room acoustics... The presets are very user friendly and you will find your usable preset almost immediately by ear depending on your distance from the front wall. Not a big project to get good sound. As for multiple cables, amps. What's so hard about hooking up another pair of IC's to another amp?

The CS-2's are designed so that the room has as little bearing as possible on the sound..Its why they sound so consistently good whether in a hotel at a show or in your basement listing room. You are majoring on a minor point with this speaker.

Oh...and the reason that the currently listed pair is up is because he's a dealer who was going to sell them as demo's.. but, since now there is only one authorized dealer in the US..he cant sell them as either new or demos.

Matrix-In my original post, I refrained from giving the exact breakdown on the parts used in this speaker. You didn't pull any punches here. I was a bit more gracious in the $1200 estimate. :-)

Kehut-My experience with the CS2's seem very different from yours. The reason my dealer friend called me for help was that none of the presets worked at all in his room with his electronics. I painstakingly created a new setting for his set-up from scratch and it was very different (almost opposite) of the factory presets. Everyone who heard the comparison between my program and the factory program thought the factory program was a non-starter. I found that very odd given the very positive comments at CES.

Perhaps my listening preferences are very different than Clayton's because I was hearing both digital artifacts from the Behringer and acoustic artifacts from the plastic waveguide. The waveguide artifacts are not due to the DSP but from the waveguide interactions.

I do agree the concept of the CS2 has merit. It would be intersting to DIY a similar speaker using bass drivers meant for open baffle operations (say two PHY-HP H30LB15), making the baffle a bit wider, adding sides and a top along the lines of the A23 Solovox (the Solovox cabinet uses a neat trick to deal with the rear wave cancellation problem), a damped metal horn, and a compression driver designed for audio. Or you could just stick an Altec 604 in an open baffle and call it a day.

Rchau,

Interesting...Your experience is I believe..quite rare. if everyone had these issues with their Behr ..EP would be out of bus by now. Dont know what "digital artifact" your hearing??hmmm. No waveguide issue here. They are as natural as my Quads were..cant get too much more natural. anyway...these float my boat. No more from me here..

I'd like to know who Rchau's "dealer friend" is since E-P speakers now have only ONE North American retailer and he absolutely LOVES the speaker.