Transcript
Morel fat lady And the “Fat Lady” really sang! First World Review by Jorge Goncalves, Audio & Cinema em Casa Magazine, Portugal (note 1) The Anglo-Saxons have an interesting phrase to describe an ongoing situation: “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings”. The idea it conveys is not far from the Portuguese saying “It is harvest until the baskets are washed”, meaning one should not take any certain fact as a done thing until it actually comes to pass. In the case of Morel’s new floorstander, I trust it would not inappropriate if I, in a loose translation, affirmed that audiophiles and builders are well advised not to think that all has already been invented and created, before listening to the fat lady. And while I cannot fail to acknowledge Morel’s point, I will refrain from putting the cart before the oxen, because there is still much to be said. It is said that behind a great man there is always a great woman. In the case of audio equipments however, I would adapt the phrase to “behind a great audio product there is always an exquisitely talented, highly sensible designer”. To look at the fat lady means to be instantly startled by a kind of odd feeling before its uncommon bodily proportions for a floorstander. Indeed, beyond what I said above regarding the speaker’s name and about whether the fat lady has or not sung, there is another aspect that comes immediately to mind: that the fat lady is indeed chubby and curvaceous, reminiscent of Ruben’s paintings, from a time when heavier bodies were synonymous to beauty. The composite cabinet of this speaker features a structure which, contrary to most cabinets that seek maximum rigidity, breathes with the music, relating to the higher or lower energy contained in the sounds reproduced by its loudspeakers. (See Note 4) From this point of view, it is very similar to a musical instrument, in which the body is a fundamental part of the whole instrument, and the material it is made of, as well as its exact physical shape, impart a definite influence on the quality (and timbre) of its sound. We all undoubtedly know about the violins made by famed master artisans such as Stradivari and Guarneri, the secret of which resided in the treatment of the woods used to make their bodies. Alas, little or nothing is known about how they did it to this day, a secret that allows them to reach ski-high prices. Well, the fat lady cabinet does not entail so many secrets, yet it equally represents a crucial factor in the speaker’s final performance. As Russell Kauffman confided me when we first met in Lisbon, the interior of the first fat lady development models included a considerable amount of damping material, which hindered the final sound quality. Russell’s first reaction was to remove portion after portion of this inner material, until a point when it was all gone, which was when the full sonic capacity of the floorstander came to fruition. This implied that the speaker would “breathe” with the speaker’s movements in a lifelike fashion (as the so called human “fat lady”), with every inhaling and exhaling modulating the sound produced.
Technical Description The fat lady is the brainchild of Oren Mordechai, the son of Meir Mordechai, founder of Morel 33 years ago, his accomplishment after realizing he wanted to do more than just to develop raw loudspeakers. To design a good floorstander was a much challenging effort, thence the idea of the fat lady. As it should, the fat lady utilizes Morel driver units, while the aesthetic design was assigned to Alain Foureaux and David Zuman (see note 3), with technical consultancy leaning heavily on Russell Kauffman, former Brand Manager with Classe. It was during his recent visit to Lisbon stay to attend the Audioshow (note 2) that Russell told me about all the fine details and technical intricacies of the fat lady. Morel’s expertise in the selection of the high-tech materials that go into their famed drivers was certainly useful in the project and design of the fat lady. Indeed we must agree that the composite material used in the cabinet has much to do with the materials used in Formula One racing cars and the aerospace industry. Its simplest description would be a balanced composition of carbon fibre wisely mixed with fibreglass and epoxy resin.
Although the rigidity is extremely high, as one can fathom when knuckling the cabinet as we traditionally do, the associated elasticity is such that the speaker alters its physical structure in a more or less evident way according to the energy applied to the floorstander, breathing according to it. (Note 4) The fat lady’s heart beats through several drivers. Both bass units, each 22 cm in diameter, derive from the SCW models of the Morel’s Supremo series, and are equipped with a cone comprising of two layers of carbon fibre sandwiching an internal layer of Rohacell, resulting in a very stiff and very well damped sound radiating structure. Their 75 mm External Voice Coils are wound on an aluminium former, for improved heat dissipation. The winding consists of aluminium wire that has a hexagonal cross-section, ensuring an almost complete filling of the winding area. The magnet has a hybrid structure, consisting of ferrite and neodymium. The mid frequencies driver is 16 cm in diameter, also derived from a Supremo series model, the SCM634. Its structure is not far from what I have just told you about the bass drivers, except for its pure neodymium magnet, its underhung voice coil – shorter than the aluminium former – and the use of an impedance normalization technology, that ensures it will not incur severe variations along the frequency range: the winding is involved by a copper film which, while travelling among the magnetic field, originates an induced current which “normalize’ the impedance variations of the winding itself. The tweeter is again a modified Supreme series unit, now the ST1108, with a 28 mm diameter soft dome free from ferrofluid, once it was determined, during the development of the floorstander, that the speaker sounded better this way. Russell is not fond of using loudspeakers wired with inverted phase, which evidently does not occur in the fat lady. His goal is to have each speaker sporting a perfectly stable behaviour across the frequency range, free from any phase rotation. Along the fat lady design process, much attention was always paid to the phase variation curve across the frequencies. The crossover does not have any resistors in series with the tweeter, which is Russell’s preference. Instead, we have a Zobel RC network controlling the attenuation and, in series with the tweeter, all we have is a high quality Mundorf condenser. The selection of an iron core inductor for the in-series connection to the woofers was made possible after Morel found a manufacturer able to produce this kind of inductor with a linear behaviour up to 400 Hz. The midrange attenuation slope is 12 dB/ Octave, while the higher frequencies have a 24 dB/Octave slope. The internal cabling is made with Nordost monofilament cables custom designed for this purpose. Despite its declared sensitivity of 86 dB/W/m, the fat lady is easy to drive, due to its very controlled impedance curve, which goes down to a minimum of 3.6 Ohm. Another aspect in which this floorstander stands out is its excellent control of the low frequencies, which are reinforced by a bass reflex port well hidden behind the speaker. They can be placed at just 0,5 m from the rear wall and achieve a great sound. This amount of technological content has earned the fat lady the 2009 CEA Design and Engineering Innovation Award at the last CES Las Vegas, a feat hard to achieve by one’s first incursion in a new area, as was Morel’s case with these speakers.
Listening Tests Well protected inside their voluminous shipping case, and perhaps not only because of that, the fat lady is no sugar candy to move around, weighing in at 97 pounds each. Luckily I could count with the kind help of Antonio Almeida and Nuno Cristina from Morel’s Distributor Ajasom, who brought it to my place and installed in my listening room.
It was easy for me to conclude that the fat lady is not “weird” regarding its precise positioning in the room. As I have referred several times, my dedicated listening room measures about 18 sq.m. The fat lady fits this space in an astoundingly way, only requiring minor adjustments regarding their distance from the rear wall, and a slight tilt towards the listener, to make them virtually disappear from the scene, leaving only a beautiful and wide spatial image before me. My auditions included the Mark Levinson N – 27,2 power amplifier and my home built preamplifier. Sources were the Accuphase DP-85 and Marantz CD-12 CD players, and the SME V tone-arm and Van den Hul The Grasshopper cartridge equipped Basis Gold Debut record player, connected via Furutech AG-12-L cabling, with silver conductors. These will
soon be the subject of a review here at Audio & Cinema em Casa. The speaker cables were Kimber Select 3035. While my first audition, made along with Russell, did not get me totally convinced, this time I had barely to fire the system up to become immediately captivated by the qualities of these beautiful ladies. It was like having one of Renoir paintings before me, showing this painter’s preference for beautiful and ‘well-rounded’ models, and his ability to play really well with the colours, a harmonious play of fair and dark, light and shadow. The ladies under review were almost absent and, just like those in Renoir’s paintings which, when regarded for a while, cease to be perceived as chubby, would launch into the air such melodic sounds that I felt like under a spell. I opted for a subtle approach in this listening session, and placed the track Close your Eyes of ‘Belief’, a Columbia record of Leon Parker, on the DP-85. This track is not extremely complex in instrumental terms (upright bass, alto sax and drums), but this is precisely what allows us to verify how natural the reproduction of a good system can be. With the fat lady, it was really very easy not only to follow the well syncopated bass notes but also to detect, almost immediately, that special moment in which Leon Parker begins playing with his bare hands in his drums solo. By then the fat lady and I were dully introduced to each other, and this signalled the moment to play something more dynamic and demanding. Enter Rickie Lee Jones, with We Belong Together, a Warner record. And do we have dynamics at play here! The transition from softer to higher sounds can reach hallucinating levels, and pose a challenge to any floorstander. The drums intervention can be best described as explosive, with cymbal hits that demand an almost instantaneous response from the speakers. Once again the fat lady proved Morel’s mastery in manufacturing drivers while at the same time knowing how to integrate them in a floorstander. This is one of the most realistic percussion records that I know, and the fat lady was totally up to the task. I have recently acquired a double disk record of Joan Baez singing Bob Dylan songs, and the combination of these two names brings me very fond memories, so nothing better than to break the wrapping of this LP, something I consider akin to opening a bottle of a good wine, and put the fat lady to the test under a musical diet that my residing speakers, the Quad ESL63, are almost unbeatable masters. And what would you know; I managed to abstract myself almost completely from the fact that I had before me some floorstanders that I could label as more or less conventional! Joan Baez’s voice timbre sounded always almost perfect, ethereal enough, and more powerful whenever it was needed, and the resulting feeling of amplitude was so intense that I felt the emotional shivers commonly described as chicken skin. This is not something that comes up without reason, quite the contrary. It only happens when the systems under consideration, and most especially the speakers, are capable of presenting an ample set of emotional cues that stir our senses and involve us emotionally. Given the outstanding results with Joan Baez voice, I moved on to Taj Mahal’s LP ‘Recycling the Blues and Other Related Stuff’. Several tracks on this record feature a counterpoint between the Pointer Sisters and Taj, and only good speakers are able to keep a clear distinction between the several voices, and even give an almost perfect idea of the precise special position of each vocalist. The arrangements are quite simple, which makes it possible to listen, in floorstander speakers such as the fat lady, the great quality of the vocal and/ or instrumental performances. At the same time, it is something noteworthy to be able to follow, for instance, the reproduction of the upright bass without any hint of standing waves in the room. It would not be natural if I stopped here for, truth be told, the fat lady performance was very enjoyable. Therefore I decided to go back to CDs, this time around using the Marantz CD12 as source, playing Alfred Schnittke’s Gogol, a Pope Records release not easily found nowadays. Russell Kauffman agreed with me that this record has a high level of complexity, so much that I call it the “system destroyer”, such is the level of difficulties it may pose to systems or components not up to the task. This results from the combination of barely audible pianissimos with truly energetic torrents that put the drivers in a really “jumpy” state. Despite the modest dimensions of my listening room, it has yielded several auditioning situations which “subjected” me to unforgettable experiences in the reproduction of this work. Such was the case with the fat lady. The dynamics achieved by the floorstander were truly
overwhelming, while keeping a low profile and almost invisible as always, without however missing any subtle, low level percussion or clavier sound. As a final note, I want to highlight the recent audition I made of one of the most beautiful recent jazz records. I refer to Dans Mon Jardin d’Hiver, sung by Henry Salvador in the album Chambre Avec Vue. Henri sings in a musical environment that mixes fusion jazz with Cuban influences, and this is, in my opinion, one of the most accomplished tracks in the album. Along the reproduction, several deeply involving musical situations come to pass, ranging from Henri Salvador’s warm voice to the hard to reproduce lows, liable even to mix with the voice and deprive it from clarity. The record’s second track, the album’s namesake, goes even further in the deeper, ground shaking bass realm, putting some systems and speakers to shame. Of course, this was not the case of the fat lady which, using a French term, behaved with aplomb, very at ease before a demanding situation both the speakers and to the rest of the system.
Conclusion The fat lady that I auditioned was a prototype, liable only to further cosmetic improvements, according to Russell. What I heard allowed me to conclude that these are indeed serious loudspeakers, a true affirmation of know-how on the part of Morel. What we have here is a high level high end design, a floorstander able to combine like just a few others the ability to reproduce the lowest level sounds, with the stamina called for to take us to the realm of overwhelming dynamics, involving us emotionally in a truly convincing way. Considering that this is Morel’s first foray in this area, this is still more reason to acclaim what has been achieved, in a not easily met conjugation of technology and acoustic performance. Anyone able to, should not miss the opportunity to audition the fat lady. fat lady price: €25,000 Portugal Distributor: Ajasom Phone 21 474 8709 - www.ajasom.net Note 1 - Jorge Goncalves is the Editor of Audio & Cinema em Casa, a high-end magazine published in Portugal. www.audio.online.pt Note 2 The AudioShow is a yearly event that gathers practically all the distributors of the best audio equipments distributed in Portugal in a magnificent venue (a high-class locale in Estoril, nearby Lisbon). It happens normally on the second weekend of March and has an attendance of around 7000 enthusiastic audio lovers. Footnote 3 - The Fat lady was designed in collaboration with Alain Fouraux and David Zuman. Through audio, video, painting, sculpture, animations and product design, Alain Fouraux channelled his interest in the field of architecture and urban planning, leading him to be senior in Office For Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.), where he participated in milestone designs of the past decade. David Zuman experienced Integrated Design for over two decades between Industrial & Consumer, Video & Multimedia Broadcast production, Branding and Advertisement, Interior & Architecture design. Throughout his carrier he collaborated with numerous multinational companies while building an academic experience as Professor in top Universities in Milan, Seoul and Hong Kong. Currently both are running the Urban Advertising Company “NERVECORP”. Note 4 – The concept developed by Russell Kauffman is better described as “Controlled Stiffness” – similar to the body of a violin, the fat lady’s cabinet is allowed to vibrate, but not excessively. When the musician applies the bow to it, the violin vibrates, thus creating the sound you hear. This sound is comprised of the sound of the strings plus that of the body. That’s how the fat lady cabinet works. Put in another way: suppose that the original sound of a guitar was classified as “5”. It is a known and accepted fact in the Industry that no cabinet is 100% devoid of coloration. This leads to the conclusion that the theoretically best driver (one that could achieve a grade of “5” in our guitar example) would end up sounding with that added coloration, resulting in a “grade 6” sound. So if a driver sounds 4 and the cabinet 1, the resulting sound will be true to reality – that’s how the fat lady was done! So, it is best to affirm that the fat lady all-carbon, dome/ staggered
side panels cabinet behaviour results from a “controlled stiffness”. That would describe what happens here.
