Click pics to enlarge. Falcon Gold Badge on stands. On floor, AE2 SE, Anubis, Aosibao 6P1 amp and Chinese 300B monoblaocks. Preamp is Weiliang clone FM Acoustics next to the TT.
Review: Anubis “LS3/5A”, Part I, A Cautionary Tale
This is likely one of the hardest articles I have had to write. I stared at the blank page for quite a while, before deciding to just plunge on. There's no escape.
First, I had to own up to the fact that whatever good vibes I had initially did not withstand close scrutiny; second, this loudspeaker, as I gradually discovered, has one of the most peculiar responses I have ever encountered. It was not that I didn’t harbor any doubts early on, it was that I simply didn’t pay enough attention when I should have.
My Initial Reaction was documented here. See pics of the Taobao Page at bottom. It must be mentioned that, given my satisfaction with my heavily used main system in the study, the Anubis was only meant to serve just occasionally in the LR, in a more casual manner. I just placed them on top of a low TV cabinet, very close to the front wall. I picked it simply because it looks good and is the cheapest LS3/5A “clone” (little did I know how far it has strayed). It did completely trounce my leftover Sansui AV Rear Loudspeakers I was using before (easy feat really). However, in many ways, what I wrote about its balance still stands. Like the LS3/5A, it is quite pleasing and balanced in the vocal range and it does disperse widely, at least more than my previous Sansui (but more laterally than front to back, now I know). I wasn’t asking much of it.
I did feel, even from early on, that there is a somewhat congealed feeling about the sound 浓得化不开, and a certain lack of air. Changing loudspeaker cables and jumper wires did not significantly ameliorate that, but I wasn’t seriously concerned.
Meeting Falcon LS3/5A proved to be illuminating and perplexing (Top pic; I haven’t written this Home Visit up yet). About 3 months ago, my friend Honwo and I paid a rare visit to David (aka daiwok of Lencoheaven fame) in Dongguan. He was among the early adoptees of the Falcon. He built the (then available) kit himself (but did not apply the supplied bitumen) and upgraded to the Gold Badge Crossover. Now, this marked the first time I heard the Anubis in-room (in fact, half-way into the long axis), on proper stands. The host was using a Chinese 300B amp and I also brought my Aosibao 6P1 PSE amp (which I preferred on that occasion). The Anubis sounded better than in my LR, BUT whereas the Falcon threw a very deep soundstage behind, the Anubis was mostly confined to the loudspeaker plane/axis (the line linking the 2 loudspeakers), with not much behind. It was kinda like mono (but even good mono can go deeper)! No wonder the somewhat congealed feeling I had before! Very strange, an experience I have never had with any other loudspeaker. Honwo said the Anubis was forward, but I think that’s not quite the case - there is little real depth that the sound is mostly collapsed into a single vertical plane, so that the term forward even loses its meaning. The LS3/5A is famous for its imaging prowess, but the Anubis fails miserably in this department. That said, the perplexing part is that I did find the Gold Badge Falcon too lean in the midrange, and tonally (only) I preferred the Anubis. The contrast between the two was stark, to say the least!
Latest Incarnation of the Study. Sharp eyed readers will have noticed that I have now also the 11 ohm Beydas Stirling (on stands, with the 15 idle tot he fore). They are more similar than different, but the 11 is perhaps even closer to the LS3/5A. Article to come.
The Chinese “Stirling” 史特灵 (made by Beydas) then entered my life (here in Chinese; product unfortunately not available outside of Chinese speaking world; if u are in the west, don't even try, just to save your time), and it was a revelation. This is yet another LS3/5A clone I discovered recently but its performance completely destroyed the Anubis. Mind you, if I had not harbored doubts about the Anubis I’d not have taken another chance! It is not available outside China (including HK) and likely will end as a limited run with no future production in sight (this is inside news). The performance of the “Stirling” was so good that I finally bought a pair of stands for the study, which now permanently (if I can say that about my somewhat nomadic existence) includes a pair of the “Stirling” as reference! Of course, I did bring the Anubis in and it did throw a somewhat better soundstage than at daiwok’s, but let’s put it this way, the quasi-mono plane in front is still there and whatever there are in the soundstage behind are more dimly lit than should be. I then bought another pair of stands for the LR and the Anubis sounds better there too, but still not close to the “Stirling” (yes, I did bring the “Stirling’s” out to the LR too).
This is likely one of the hardest articles I have had to write. I stared at the blank page for quite a while, before deciding to just plunge on. There's no escape.
First, I had to own up to the fact that whatever good vibes I had initially did not withstand close scrutiny; second, this loudspeaker, as I gradually discovered, has one of the most peculiar responses I have ever encountered. It was not that I didn’t harbor any doubts early on, it was that I simply didn’t pay enough attention when I should have.
My Initial Reaction was documented here. See pics of the Taobao Page at bottom. It must be mentioned that, given my satisfaction with my heavily used main system in the study, the Anubis was only meant to serve just occasionally in the LR, in a more casual manner. I just placed them on top of a low TV cabinet, very close to the front wall. I picked it simply because it looks good and is the cheapest LS3/5A “clone” (little did I know how far it has strayed). It did completely trounce my leftover Sansui AV Rear Loudspeakers I was using before (easy feat really). However, in many ways, what I wrote about its balance still stands. Like the LS3/5A, it is quite pleasing and balanced in the vocal range and it does disperse widely, at least more than my previous Sansui (but more laterally than front to back, now I know). I wasn’t asking much of it.
I did feel, even from early on, that there is a somewhat congealed feeling about the sound 浓得化不开, and a certain lack of air. Changing loudspeaker cables and jumper wires did not significantly ameliorate that, but I wasn’t seriously concerned.
Meeting Falcon LS3/5A proved to be illuminating and perplexing (Top pic; I haven’t written this Home Visit up yet). About 3 months ago, my friend Honwo and I paid a rare visit to David (aka daiwok of Lencoheaven fame) in Dongguan. He was among the early adoptees of the Falcon. He built the (then available) kit himself (but did not apply the supplied bitumen) and upgraded to the Gold Badge Crossover. Now, this marked the first time I heard the Anubis in-room (in fact, half-way into the long axis), on proper stands. The host was using a Chinese 300B amp and I also brought my Aosibao 6P1 PSE amp (which I preferred on that occasion). The Anubis sounded better than in my LR, BUT whereas the Falcon threw a very deep soundstage behind, the Anubis was mostly confined to the loudspeaker plane/axis (the line linking the 2 loudspeakers), with not much behind. It was kinda like mono (but even good mono can go deeper)! No wonder the somewhat congealed feeling I had before! Very strange, an experience I have never had with any other loudspeaker. Honwo said the Anubis was forward, but I think that’s not quite the case - there is little real depth that the sound is mostly collapsed into a single vertical plane, so that the term forward even loses its meaning. The LS3/5A is famous for its imaging prowess, but the Anubis fails miserably in this department. That said, the perplexing part is that I did find the Gold Badge Falcon too lean in the midrange, and tonally (only) I preferred the Anubis. The contrast between the two was stark, to say the least!
Latest Incarnation of the Study. Sharp eyed readers will have noticed that I have now also the 11 ohm Beydas Stirling (on stands, with the 15 idle tot he fore). They are more similar than different, but the 11 is perhaps even closer to the LS3/5A. Article to come.
The Chinese “Stirling” 史特灵 (made by Beydas) then entered my life (here in Chinese; product unfortunately not available outside of Chinese speaking world; if u are in the west, don't even try, just to save your time), and it was a revelation. This is yet another LS3/5A clone I discovered recently but its performance completely destroyed the Anubis. Mind you, if I had not harbored doubts about the Anubis I’d not have taken another chance! It is not available outside China (including HK) and likely will end as a limited run with no future production in sight (this is inside news). The performance of the “Stirling” was so good that I finally bought a pair of stands for the study, which now permanently (if I can say that about my somewhat nomadic existence) includes a pair of the “Stirling” as reference! Of course, I did bring the Anubis in and it did throw a somewhat better soundstage than at daiwok’s, but let’s put it this way, the quasi-mono plane in front is still there and whatever there are in the soundstage behind are more dimly lit than should be. I then bought another pair of stands for the LR and the Anubis sounds better there too, but still not close to the “Stirling” (yes, I did bring the “Stirling’s” out to the LR too).
Reader Shawn P Weighs In Shawn was kind enough to write a blip on his perceptions. So as you know I'm not alone in my findings:
"First off, thanks for John’s invaluable suggestion on the Anubis positioning. I had no experience with any version of LS3/5a and John’s suggestion improved the sound stage enormously. Just about all aspects of the Anubis improved with his suggestion.
Regarding how the Anubis sound, vocal was great with the Anubis and I picked a good “vocal” CD for the first run and that was the main reason for the initial good impression. I enjoyed the entire CD.
I then tried a few CDs which had good balance between vocal and background (based on my regular speakers). Problems emerged, the vocal was still there but the background became distanced and confined. It sounded odd, simply put.
Instruments sounded sort of glued together. There was no weight or texture, as if the only information I had was that there were guitar, piano and bass at the background but they were not contributing to the music. It sounded odd.
I was eventually able to find a few CDs which had good balanced sound stage with Anubis but why were they so rare with Anubis? The speaker positioning was good, and I had listened to those CDs for many years.
Anubis did have nice vocal which stood out and perhaps why Anubis was a 霎眼嬌 for me. "
The Postmortem There is nothing much left (of the Anubis) after the above encounters - except to open it up (as a reader, likely Malaysian, suggests), AND plan to modify it (which is why there shall be a Part II, not any time soon though). Wow! Look at the pics!
Unlike what my Malaysian (I presume) reader commented on, the cabinets appear to be plywood (the ads said Russian Ply). Note the tell-tale chipping of the edge of the top layer in one of the pics. Except around the area of the binding posts, the cabinet has been treated with Bitumen. It should be noted that bitumen treatment was used in the original LS3/5, but I’m not sure of all subsequent A versions (the Falcon uses them). The woofer is Chinese. The tweeter is unidentified (the Taobao page says imported silk dome parts). The wires I’m not happy about, stiff and ungainly. The Crossover is on a Circuit Board (the copper traces are not robust either), and only 5 components as opposed to the 10++ ones of the original 15 and 11ohms! Values are erased. Careful reading of the TB page indicates this is second-order, whereas the original is probably third-order. Just contrast that with Beydas’ “Stirling” and you shall see the divide. Yes, just like what they mentioned on the TB page, the product is “in the spirit” of LS3/5A, not an attempt at replica. It’s funny that it seems to disparage those who do! Problem is, their "spirit" seems far astray of the BBC intentions.
The Anubis seems to have been around a while. The TB page credits (which turns out to discredit) HK veteran Wilmer (威马, whom older HK audiophiles will remember, but he was never a person of particular import) and a certain Ouyang from China. Combing the Chinese net yielded very little, but it does seem early on there was another participant named 小刀 (Chinese for dagger). Unfortunately, blind men could not re-construct the elephant that is LS3/5A. 这一次，三个臭皮匠，凑不出一个诸葛亮， 远尓！The Beydas “Stirling” in details of execution (like the expensive Autoformer laden crossover) and in sonics just completely put the Anubis to shame, and I’d love to know who’s behind!
Anubis is sold by Union Audio 联盟音响 of Guangzhou, who does a brisk business with “own-design” loudspeakers that kinda look like large ATC’s, sporting Eton woofers. They also made clone electronics, ranging from “McIntosh” to “Pass Lab”. Yes, I’ll pass. FYI, I actually did contact them early on in the hope of obtaining more info on the Anubis but, no, requests for crossover pics and response curves were not fulfilled.
I decided to write this mainly in English because I know Anubis has a dealer in Singapore (whose website is stuffed with the same hyperbole) and an older KS version is still sold on Aliexpress (here). Buyers beware. My experience should serve as a cautionary tale for you! A misstep for sure, but one that indirectly generated a real find (Beydas).
寄语香港及其它东南亚地区华人朋友：如果想买老翻35，切记我的经验，把联盟 Anubis 忘得干干净净。光有长相没有用的，打肿脸子充胖子，只是一个扶不起的阿斗。12.10 晚 8 点 淘宝 12.12 活动就会提早展开，抢一对 史特灵 是上着。内幕消息是贝达斯不想后续，所以可能成为绝唱。智者先行动为妙。短期内，在 12.12 前，我会另外写一篇关于 11 ohm 的文章，会包含我香港朋友的经验，到时见！
Anubis TB Page says Russian Plywood
and Second Order Crossover
Claims about its Sonic Attributes, including imaging,
are at odds with the listening experience
Claims that it will trounce other loudpseakers
under 5K was repudiated by Beydas
Posts
Is your ear sensitivity normal? Please change the amplifier or CD player and listen again.
ReplyDeleteChina today is the world's parts warehouse.
It is also the manufacturing center of the world.
There's no reason why Chinese-made products can't improve.
You should use expensive western products.