As a group of custom installers designing home cinemas we are always looking out for new and interesting products to improve the whole cinema experience for our clients. Lots of things have happened in the visual side over the past few years, new chipsets for projectors, better scaling within projectors and flat screens, native high resolution players such as Blu-ray, improved screen technology including 2.35:1 projection to name but a few. The audio side however has not moved forward at the same pace, if fact in many respects we have moved backwards, as we have been discovering during our recent research work.

We now have various uncompressed and lossless audio codecs on Blu-ray disc and this is one of the few audio related steps forward, but it is now showing up the deficiencies in many audio systems, including high-end systems. In summary, the direct radiator loudspeaker we all know and love cannot do the business anymore, especially in larger rooms; it does not have the necessary sensitivity required.

During our research into new audio systems we discovered many manufactures are using various technologies to improve sound levels with the same level of input power. We need improved loudspeaker sensitivity to help re-create the full cinema experience and to keep amplifier power at sensible levels; this improves transient response and dynamics. Compression drivers and line arrays appear to be coming back to domestic loudspeakers; these are totally unacceptable methods of improving the loudspeakers sensitivity. For instance line arrays cause detrimental effects on the time domain response at the listening position and unsuitable directivity; while using compression drivers causes unacceptable levels of distortion being introduced.

During the early 90’s I was involved with club and live sound and thus recently started to investigate pro-audio equipment to meet our larger cinema design needs, and I discovered Tony Andrews, the founder and designer of Funktion-One loudspeakers.

Funktion-One

I had a few concerns about using these speakers in the domestic setting so I went to their headquarters and spent a significant time working with Tony, John Newsham and David Bruml to see if their designs would be suitable for home cinema use.

When you walk into the demo area the first thing you notice is the shear scale and range of the loudspeakers they make, they start with a small 3kg device to devices over 130kg. These are professional loudspeakers used on tours and at festivals from the Beauty and the Beast stage show to KT Tunstall, The Zutons through to Classical and Rock events. If you like live music the chances are you will have seen the trademark Violet cabinets around the place with the characteristic axe-head sticking out.

So using some demo material with the smallest loudspeaker, the F88, it has twin 5” drivers in a small cabinet with wide dispersion and a very impressive sensitivity figure of 95dB/W/m, some 5 to 10dB better than most domestic equivalents. Superb imagery, vocal clarity and projection and on several occasions I walked over to the small device just to make sure I wasn’t being conned and was actually listening to something else!

The addition of the MB308 subwoofer enhanced and worked with the F55 superbly, after slight adjustments to the subwoofer delay the whole package was seamless, with punch that I just have not witnessed with domestic subs. The MB308 is an ultra compact subwoofer using triple 8” drivers measuring only 225mm tall so will fit under seats etc. As a little experiment I was interested to see when this package run out of oomph, bearing in mind the room was around 14m wide and 7m across with a pitched ceiling to around 5m with our listening position between 3m and 5m the system delivered distortion free sound at levels which prevented us from shouting at each other. I would strongly recommend this set up for domestic gyms and games rooms, connect up your decks for a really great sounding party! This set up with an additional 3 satellites for centre and rears would also work great in smaller cinema rooms (3 to 5 people) or as surrounds in larger ones.

Moving on to the F81, this is a little larger and combines an 8” and a 1” driver. It has near identical audio characteristics to the smaller F88 with a touch more top end to really involve you, especially useful for heavily absorbent rooms or for use behind acoustic screens. This loudspeaker again has a very impressive sensitivity figure of 98dB/W/m, almost unheard of in domestic products.

Again we tried the F81 with the MB308 subwoofer and as expected it worked fantastically well. In a move to add a little more ‘punch’ (I wasn’t sure if that was possible at this stage) we replaced the 308 with a MB212, an unbelievable 102dB/W/m between 40Hz and 150Hz. Fine tuning the cross over and delays led to a step improvement in the ‘punch’ over the 308, my chest was moving and the sound levels achieved were very impressive. I realised fairly quickly that these systems were like nothing I had listened to before, I could not gauge how load things were, only when talking to someone did you realise as you had to shout! This is a good sign of the low distortion present, my brain obviously uses distortion to gauge volume, and I think this must indicate that all my own loudspeakers distort! Just to make sure these systems can do quiet I ran some assessments with the volume at more ‘normal’ levels, I confirmed that they work, with great resolution and refinement…..

After a little lunch we started again, moving onto the Funktion-One Resolution loudspeakers. The Resolution 1 is a funny looking loudspeaker using a 12” bass driver and a 5” coupled to an Axe-head, the whole reason for this design is to ensure the 12” crosses over at a sensible point, in this case 520Hz, this means the 5” covers 520Hz to around 15kHz meaning we have a smooth mid and high frequency response with great coherency. Again the sensitivity figures are almost unbelievable, a massive 112dB/W/m. Now may be a good point to explain the significance of this figure:

If we take a good home cinema loudspeaker it will likely have a sensitivity figure around 89dB/W/m, this means to generate 105dB reference levels at 3m we need to use an amplifier with around 350W available.

If we take a Resolution 1 with its 112dB/W/m then in the same situation we only need around 2W.

Due to this lower power needed we get much faster transient response out of the system.

The resolution 1 was fired up and again it sounded very similar to the other loudspeakers so far tested. This is great news as it means we can mix and match various speakers from the Funktion-One range and we will not cause any tonal differences between the fronts and rears for example.

The first thing you notice about the Resolution 1 is the fact it’s so effortless, I have never felt so close and inside the music, it’s so involving. The advantages of the low crossover point are also clear, with my reference Edie Brickell recording her vocals are very solid and placed with no hint of confusion which I often get of more normal 2 way designs where the cross over point is slap-bang in the middle of her vocal frequency range. The low frequency driver also performs well and matches the 5” driver well, coherent and with good extension. To add the extension we added the MB212 to the system, a slight time delay and cross over adjustment was made and off we went. The sub again matches the Resolution 1 perfectly, winding up the volume was incredible, and it was like being at the gig, superb. Once again I also assessed the set up at lower levels, the R1 performed nicely with nothing untoward to report.

The axe-head device on the Resolution 1 has a very controlled dispersion, 50° horizontal and 25° vertical. Walking around the loudspeakers whist listening confirmed that the directivity is strong, get slightly off-axis and you loose a lot of information. This does not cause me any issues, but we have to be aware and design installs accordingly. This directivity will also keep wall, ceiling and floor reflections to a minimum improving the 1st arrival times with less acoustic treatments, a significant advantage.

Due to this narrow dispersion we thought it would be a good idea to try a 90° axe-head loaded loudspeaker, the Resolution 1.5 was connected up. This would likely form a front Left, Centre and Right arrangement with its wide dispersion for larger rooms.

The 5” axe-head device is paired with an 18” bass driver again with a low crossover point so that the 18” is not working in an area of its cone-break-up modes. The loudspeaker performed well, with the new wider dispersion confirmed. The axe-head device is very impressive maintaining very consistent tonal quality throughout its stated operating dispersion. The 18” adds another dimension extending the low frequency output by a noticeable amount when compared to the Resolution 1 and although it’s a large driver it is very well controlled and clean.

All the Resolution speakers so far tested use the 5” axe-head, the Resolution 2 we trialled next uses an 8” version along with a 1” horn and a horn loaded 15”. Again the tonal balance of this loudspeaker was similar the previous samples which means mixing and matching should be possible without any issues.

The sound from the Resolution 2 is a little more effortless, female vocal especially appear very clean and natural. The 8” axe-head appears to offer a little more in terms of projection, depth and detail over the 5”. Again the integration of the drivers is seamless and this has a lot to do with the sensible crossover points which would appear to have been set by analysing music rather than by following convention, critical areas such as vocals are handled by one drive unit. Again this loudspeaker can go quiet and loud, very loud indeed, but with so little distortion present you just do not realise it.

Moving to the final loudspeakers, the Resolution 4, this is a 3 way device combining a 1” horn, an 8” axe-head and a horn loaded 12” and is really designed for live sound, concerts and nightclubs. However, we thought it may have a home cinema market too! We tried both the Resolution 2 and the Resolution 4 with 2 pairs of 18” horn loaded subwoofers, not likely to fit in your average sized lounge admittedly! Somewhere near 15kW of power was available to give us incredible dynamics. Awesome, no other word for it, never heard anything like it in such a small place, detailed, refined, encased in the music, stunning. I want one now.

Before we get too carried away, I will come back to my original question, do Funktion-One loudspeakers have a place in the domestic environment?

The simple answer is yes, they do exactly what I hoped they would and something I didn’t expect, the experience is like nothing I have had before when listening to music, I have never floated within it before. I truly believe that this is how music should sound and I am little surprised that it’s taken me 15 years to find this out. I’m hooked and I am sure any one who has these in there gym, party room, serious listening space, cinema will never ever go back to ‘normal’ speakers again.

If you require more information on getting Funktion-One loudspeakers installed in a domestic environment then please get in contact with www.wired-life.co.uk. As they look rather industrial acoustic screens and walls would generally be used to hide them so don’t worry about the violet cabinets and funny axe-head bits pointing at you!