Transcript
FUSION
ENCOUNTER EN-CM652 2-WAY COMPONENT SPEAKERS
AUDITION REVIEWER STEPHEN DAWSON
ENCOUNTERING VALUE AND PERFORMANCE. The Encounter EN-CM652 stereo car speakers are new to Fusion’s 2015 range. Boasting very moderate pricing and a shallow installation depth, they include separate dome tweeters with swivel mounts for best high frequency performance.
SHALLOW MOUNTS At $79 for a pair of 2-way speakers with separate tweeters we’re talking excellent value here. The 6-inch bass/midrange drivers are designed for installations where the mount depth is limited, requiring only 46mm. The polypropylene cones actually measure 115mm across their diameters and they are supported by rubber roll surrounds. Metal grilles are provided to cover them. Several sets of mounting screw holes provide a bit of installation flexibility. The tweeters were a bit hard to make out because they were covered by a perforated metal grille that was either fixed, or at least fixed well enough to deter from trying too hard to remove them. I could only estimate their diameter at 25mm. Their domes are made of PEI, or Polyetherimide, and they are Ferro
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fluid cooled for improved power handling. The diameter of the capsule holding each one is 47mm at the body, 53mm including the facing flange. They require only 20mm of depth behind the flange. They are provided with two flanges – one black and one gun metal grey – and two ball mounts to permit a certain amount of angling to best direct the high frequencies for proper dispersion. Close to two metres of wire protrudes from the rear of each of the tweeter capsules, ready for snaking behind the cabin trim to the left and right bass/midrange speakers. Fusion states that the speakers incorporate a “space saving internal crossover”. I can’t rule it out entirely, but as far as I could see there were no crossover components on the larger speakers. That would suggest that the crossover is principally a capacitor to stop lower frequency signals from reaching the tweeter. Fusion has issued some bold performance specifications. The headline power handling figure is 240 watts peak, which is about as meaningless in this case as it is when used by other manufacturers. More sensible is the ‘Rated Power’ claim of 40 watts which is, of
course, a nice match for many head units. Equally bold is the claimed frequency response of 35Hz to 26,000Hz. That bass end figure would be difficult to achieve even at low levels with very careful speaker enclosure designs, so in a typical car installation it seems highly optimistic. No decibel ranges are provided for this measure. The speaker impedance is put at a nominal 4-ohms, while the claimed sensitivity is 86dB (again, with no measurement criteria stated, so I’ll assume they mean measured at one metre for a 2.83 volt input). Wiring up was pretty simple. The larger drivers have two tabs for each pole so that the tweeter and amplifier cables can be attached using standard clips. The tabs were a touch flimsy and I came very close to bending one while trying to slide on a slightly misaligned clip. I’d suggest reasonable care be taken.
SENSIBLE ENCOUNTERS The Fusion Encounter EN-CM652 component speakers rapidly proved to confirm my suspicions in some respects, and pleasantly surprise me in others. I did my listening
AUDITION
with the speakers initially as a standalone installation, with their enclosures in both sealed and open-back configurations as discussed below in the measurements section. The confirmation: we did not expect much bass and there wasn’t much. Certainly not much of the deep stuff. Kick drums were hinted at by their upper harmonics, with virtually no actual thud. Bass guitar, again, was mostly first harmonic rather than fundamental, at least for the two lower strings, but that provided some useful musical information. The most pleasant surprise was the generally good balance between the upper bass, midrange and treble. Just as TVs are displayed in shops with a horrible, glary ‘Dynamic’ picture setting in an effort to outshine the competition, there must be a terrible temptation for car speaker makers to have their separate-tweeter models produce an attention-grabbing brashness. But Fusion has been kind to their customers, delivering a tweeter that’s quite smooth in delivery. It is nicely bright and lively without excessive emphasis, keeping things natural and realistic. Cymbals rang effectively, while female vocal sibilance was completely avoided. The tweeters also allowed surprisingly precise and rounded stereo images to be presented, suggesting good consistency between them. Kick drum aside, drum kits sounded rather good, with the individual strike emerging with little dynamic compression so long as the volume was not too high. When pushed hard the drum kit sunk a little into the mix as though cone excursion limits had been reached. Of course there were some imperfections, else why would anyone ever feel a need to spend more than $79? While there was no sibilance with the female voice, with Kate Bush on ‘The Kick Inside’ there was a reverberant emphasis on certain notes in her upper register, making them (and instruments in the same bands) ring out at times, especially
TECH SPECS
FUSION EN-CM652 2-WAY SPLIT SPEAKERS TYPE: 6-inch component speakers with polypropylene cone and 25mm PEI dome Power handling: 40 watts rated, 240 watts peak FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 35-26,000Hz IMPEDANCE: 4-ohms SENSITIVITY: 86dB COST: $79 CONTACT: Fusion Entertainment on 1300 736 012 WEB: www.fusionentertainment.com
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Excellent value for money
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Good overall tonal balance
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Limited bass
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MEASUREMENTS Fusion has extracted a surprising amount of volume out of these speakers. With them installed in our small boxes, supplied with 2.83 volts (average level, pink noise bandwidth limited to 500 to 2000Hz) we didn’t get the claimed 86dB, but 89dB. That 3dB increase has the same effect as doubling the input power (assuming, of course, that you could actually double the input power without destroying the speakers). We also ran a few measurements to check out the general frequency response. As always, we’d caution you that actual in-car performance will depend almost entirely upon the shape and volume of the car interior, its materials and the locations of the speakers. And how they will sound will vary, also, according to the amount of road and wind noise with which they are competing. All that said, it was clear that on-axis the tweeters reached out to a hair under 24,000Hz before dropping off sharply. In
when I had the volume advanced. But at the same time her piano sounded more lively, prettier even, than usual. That reverberance really was largely tied to the speakers being pushed too hard. It also appeared on the male vocals on The Who’s ‘Who’s Next’. But Keith Moon’s drumming managed to hold its place in the mix. The solution proved to be the obvious one: add a subwoofer to handle the bass and high-pass the rest of the music to the Fusion speakers. I used a 100Hz crossover and just the simple removal of a couple of octaves of energy – which the speakers couldn’t really use very productively anyway, remember – freed up the speakers to better deliver the midrange and lower treble, reducing that sense of volume limitation and softening the reverberance. Obviously Eminem became a lot more enjoyable with his bass line delivered in full by a subwoofer, and the control of the punchy rhythmic mix in the 100Hz-plus region was significantly increased. Not without limit. It’s quite possible to go overboard and induce a
other words, they won’t hide the upper frequencies from your CDs (21,000Hz), MP3s (16Hz typically), FM radio (15,000Hz) or AM radio (9000Hz). At the bass end, performance will, in addition to all the other things mentioned, depend upon the space of the enclosure. We measured it, for example, with the speakers installed in a two litre box, first sealed with fluffy stuff inside, and then with the back panel off and no fluffy stuff. Measured up close in the first state (that is, with the sealed box) the output was flat to 195Hz and then fell away below that as a straight line at 9dB per octave. With the rear panel removed from the box, they were dead flat to 105Hz and fell away below that, again on an even diagonal, at 12dB per octave. We can draw two conclusions from that. First, provide as much volume as possible behind the bass/midrange drivers. Second, there’s no way that you’re going to get the 35Hz mentioned in the specifications out of these loudspeakers.
significant incoherence to the music as the speakers’ limits are approached, but that proved to be at rather high levels. The speakers were able to peak beyond 100dBSPL at a couple of metres, and higher in a confined area. The speakers were also really quite good with some fine classical music. Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suite is the kind of thing that can be enjoyed in a car since for the most part it maintains a fairly consistent level. The woodwinds were a little honkier than ideal, but the strings were smooth and delivered with the same respectable imaging and a decent amount of air. Not that you’d notice much of that while driving along. Still, the rhythmic forcefulness of the various pieces will having you swinging.
CONCLUSION All that said, we’d suggest that the Fusion Encounter EN-CM652 would actually be a marked upgrade from the built-in factory speakers in many cars, and coupled with a subwoofer could provide remarkable performance for the money.
