DBX Soundfield 1a Floorstanding Speakers Reviews

rjmanny

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I own a pair of soundfield 1As and every time I think its time for them to go i re evaluate and keep them. I would agree that the drivers are cheap--seriously cheap--if they were in any other type of speaker i am sure they would sound horrible. That said the crossover and eq turn these drivers from below ordinary to extra ordinary. If you have a big enough room--its got to be a big room because you want the speakers to be far enough apart and away from the back wall--if you can do this--have them sitting almost in the middle of a big room they are a no brainer--if you can find a pair. I have a pair of Infinity Betas preludes and a pair of reference kefs. All great speakers (speakers i would never part with not sure about the kefs yet) but if you want it to sound like you have a live band in your room the soundfields are better--I know it sounds crazy but i just did another side by side with the new kefs that i just got. The kefs are more accurate however they do not and cannot do what the sfs do. So it appears that the designers nailed their goal--create a non shifting soundfield. The only reason i think i frequently consider selling them is because it drives me nuts that the drivers are so cheap.
They are also great on the bottom end--they don[t add bass but if its on the album or cd its going to come through. The midrange can be harsh but you can tweak that. The high end is excellent but don't boost it with the eq or it will sound tinny. Leave it alone and they sound beautiful. Go get a brubeck cd sit back and listen and you will be amazed. This is the first time i have ever cared to give a review but i figure if someone finds them at a garage sale they should grab them before someone empties their trash in one--they are very challenged in that area--they really do look like a fast food trash can.

emaidel

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 2 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
2.14 of 5, 7.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00 from Freebies as "samples

Summary:
I worked for dbx and received a pair of the Soundfield 1a's free, as "samples." Even as freebies, I still wound up giving them away, once I had the woofers repaired in a different pair of speakers that I returned to listening to afterwards.


The 1a had many things going against it: for starters, it looked very much like a woodgrain version of a large, Sears trash can. Only the engineers at dbx thought othewise, until at a trade show, I, and another member of the sales department of the company, wound up running out of our booth to avoid laughing hysterically as someone acturally tried to "throw out" a styrofoam coffee cup into the top of the 1a! He just couldn't understand why the "door" on the top of the "trashcan" didn't swing open!

Next was the sound. Despite the plethora of drivers, and the exceedingly complex external control unit, without a separate EQ, I could never get these monsters to sound any good. Bass was exceptional, but that's about it. Midrange was distant, and horribly colored, and highs were clear and delinieated, but screechy and metalllic sounding. Hardly appropriate comments for a pair of speakers retailing for $3,300!

The 1a was the only speaker that all but necessitated an external equalizer, and the dbx EQ was a perfect match, but then that was an additional $1,200. After some very judicious "tweaking," I was finally able to get these speakers to sound reasonably good, but never as good as either the B&W 802's or the Dahlquist DQ-10's. Voices, in particular, sounded especially bad on the 1a's, even after supplementation with an EQ.

The term "Soundfield" referred to the stereo image created by these speakers, and in this respect, the speaker was unique. You could indeed sit right up, and next to the right speaker, for example, and still hear a normal stereo image, with the center image still in the center, and not from the speaker right in front of you. The same thing happened when you walked around the speakers, as the image was just as precisely located even from behind the speakers. All of that took years of extensive (and very expensive) research. The net result from most dbx retailers was a big, "So?" Does it really matter that you can get a good stereo image from behind a pair of speakers? Other than some mainstream reviewers ("Stereo Review," for example) few dbx dealers seemed to care much.

Whereas the stereo image was stable and precise from any listening position, it was also a very narrow image. That struck me immediately after connecting them, as the image seemed to have "shrunken" from a vast, wide soundstage, to one much, much narrower. And who listens seriously to a sound system, and sits to the right of the right speaker, or to the left of the left speaker, or BEHIND the speakers in the first place? Certainly no one I know.

All of the drivers used in the 1a were relatively cheap, and this was a major source of argument from dbx retailers. "How can you sell a speaker system for $3,000 with such cheap drivers in it?" was a question asked very frequently, and one which was rarely ever answered to the dealer's satisfaction. dbx engineers tried to use the Dahlquist analogy, since none of the drivers in that speaker are expensive, nor have cast frames, but then the Dahlquist DQ-10 retailed (at the time) for $500 each - a far cry from the price of a pair of Soundfield 1a's. Moreover, the DQ-10's sounded a whole helluva lot better too!

I was never enthusiastic about the 1a, even as I witnessed some of the efforts undertaken during its developmental stages. Aside from a deep, thundering bass, there was just about nothing about how everything else sounded on this speaker that impressed me at all.

One last comment: another reviewer has a great deal of praise for the Soundfield V speaker. That speaker wasn't made by dbx, but simply had the dbx nameplate on it, and was sold by the company's owner at the time (Carillon Technology Inc., or "CTI") to DAK. Much as I didn't like the "standard," dbx-manufactured and designed "Soundfield" loudspeakers, the "V" speaker was far, far worse in every respect, and in no way achieved the imaging of any of the other "Soundfield" speakers. In essense, it was an all-out fraudulent piece of equipment, masquerading as something else, done solely by the people at CTI to make a quick buck, and to allow DAK to cash in on the dbx namesake.

Strengths:
Power Handling.
"Soundfield" imaging

Weaknesses:
Price (original)
Size
Cosmetics
Overall sound

Similar Products Used:
B&W 802F Specials; Dahlquist DQ-10's

Comments

rjmanny (01/19/2011)

hi I was wondering why you didn't quit as soon as you realized the speakers were overpriced.

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Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
these are by far the hottest cookers that I've ever laid these eyes on. My Mom said that they were to loud, but I just had my Amp way to loud for the most excellent sensitivity that these cookers exibit. One time I made breakfast with real butter.

Strengths:
Huge effort to move these cookers

Weaknesses:
same as above

Similar Products Used:
where is the nearest hitachi magicwand?

Price Paid:  $3000.00 from Dallas Texas

Summary:
The soundfield 1a speaker system has got to be the best set of speakers ever produced. These speakers will stand up to anything made.

Strengths:
The omni-directional soundstage produced by the Soundfield 1 speaker is the best I've experienced.
In 1985 when I purchased these speakers, my intent was to set up a home theater, and have these
speakers produce the soundstage. I haven't been disapointed in the least.

Weaknesses:
Finding a matching 3rd speaker for the front center channel on newer equipment
has been a challange.

Similar Products Used:
I tried a pair of Klipsch corner horns first, then later some electrostatic
Magniplaners and Infinity brands... but keep returning to the accuracy of the Soundfields.
Put them behind a high current amp (Carver silver sevens are what I use) and you can't go wrong.

Summary:
*****THIS IS NOT FOR THE 1A, BUT FOR THE DBX SOUNDFIELD V*****
Also an omnidirectional speaker system, only smaller, and older, while still being quite impressive. There are five speakers per cabinet, a 15" woofer (forward facing), an 8" horn and ribbon tweeter (midway between forward and up facing) and a 4" mid and about 1.5" tweeter (upward-facing). The sound is true to the DBX name, U N B E L I E V A B L E. Big, meaty bass without being dull, muddled, or there just to make your neighbors angry. The mids are A class, and the highs are equally represented, way beyond both my ears' and cd deck's limits in both directions. They take between 25 and 250 watts into 8 ohms as input, but don't expect to have to go out and buy a 140-watt dedicated amp to drive them, I had them hooked up to a 60 watt Marantz at the store (excellent place for vintage audio, http://www.audioconsultants.com ), they were loud enough for us hard-of-hearing DJs. At home, they're jacked in to a NAD 316, 75 watts. My neighbors love me. Considering they're omnidirectional, they're more or less limited to stereo output, but really, humans have _two_ ears, not 5.1. I won't deny tho, they rock for just good old stereo video watching. I torture them with Industrial/Elektro music, but my fiance' usually gives the big fat magnets a break with some gothic, occasionally even stuff like REM and the Dead Milkmen. Everything is presented just as it should be, the DBXes don't have "issues" with certain kinds of music. They are, however, incredibly rare. But hey, they are only my second pair of home speakers _ever_, so if I can find them with my experience, you can too. Got mine for $275 (thanks, Todd!), albeit they had an MSRP of $1900 a pair when new. I compared them to speakers from B&O, Infinity, Bose, and even a pair of old McIntoshes, they won hands down both in spaciality and clarity. If I _have to_ come up with something bad about them it would be the flimsy cabs, with aplique' woodgrain (stickers) and weak cloth grilles, only a problem because I have cats (eek!). I plan on dousing them in lacquer and possibly putting them on stands, but it's how they _sound_ which sold me. 5.5 stars!