mz-L2 & mz-L2sw - 2010
mz-L2 - Acoustic Suspension Full-Range Loudspeaker [right]
音色絕美 定位精準 音場開闊 層次分明
低頻以 Scan-Speak 26W8861 延伸低於30Hz
高頻以 Scan-Speak R2904 延伸至40KHz
可以箱背端子微調高音與低音量感各 +- 0.7db
空氣懸吊密閉式架構 暫態反應快 低音細節清楚層次分明
mz-L2sw 分體式被動低音柱 將低頻輕鬆延伸至 20Hz
* 可配合裝璜空間, 客製箱體天然木皮
Equipment Review
By TAO, CHUNG-HAO, from Audio Art No. 264
To be honest, before I visited Doctor Chen from mini Zenith in Kaohsiung, I always couldn¡¦t believe completely that how a oculist could master such a professional job of sound equipment design? Although I had chatted with Doctor Chen for many times and also carefully studied mz-TA1 tone arm and mz-TT1 turntable which are full of originality and high completeness, and listened to the sound of the whole set of mini Zenith audio system in person at Kaohsiung Audio Expo, I still couldn¡¦t associate the two fields that greatly differ from each other anyway.
As I visit Doctor Chen¡¦s operating room, I find what he has to deal with every day is a set of precise diamond surgical knife whose price equals to that of a car, many other advanced professional instruments and equipments as well as the exquisite microsurgeries that must be done within 10 minutes. Trying to imagining that how precise the surgery should be to use knife on a fragile eyeball. So it¡¦s not strange that Doctor Chen¡¦s views of design are totally different with common audio engineers. Compared with the technological level and requirements to preciseness of ophthalmonogy, Hi End sound equipment can only be ranked as the traditional industry. However, Doctor Chen corrected me ¡V he thought it was not an easy job to design an ideal sound equipment.
From what he said, I can tell Doctor Chen has far exceeded the level of common DIY fans or electronic technicians, because designing audio equipment is not only drawing the circuit and playing with some fancy elements, but more of an abstract art of sound. I see huge volume of music collection in Doctor Chen¡¦s clinic ¡V the CDs are too many that Doctor Chen has to pile them up all the way to the hallway to stairs (that¡¦s way he transferred all the CDs to hard discs to research and develop stream bit source). I also see a rare wood piano made in Japan with auto-performance device. The sound of the piano is very noble and elegant, which allows Doctor Chen to compare the differences between broadcasting and real piano performance. Based on these observations, I believe Doctor Chen has quite an ear. Besides, he also knows many professional audiophiles (Don¡¦t forget Doctor Chen is the man group of Hi End sound equipment), whose valuable opinions are also of great help for Doctor Chen to do tuning.
So is Doctor Chen able to conquer these restrictions? Wandering to another studio of Doctor Chen, I find another shocking view ¡V there are whole set of professional woodcraft equipments, so all the R&D of loudspeaker is finished here in this studio. I suppose Doctor Chen himself is a carpenter. Only after he finishes the final design, he would let the professional plant to take charge of volume production. How a doctor knows so much about woodcraft? Doctor Chen tells me that he started to learn the woodcraft as early as when he was in middle school and he even represented the school to participate the Middle School Handcraft Competition and won the First Prize. His woodcraft teacher found he was a good students and even told him not to go on with school after graduation but open a wood plant to make lots of money which the teacher thought was more practical. Of course, Doctor Chen did not choose this road, otherwise he would not be a oculist but a furniture king in Taiwan.
However, ¡§Made In Taiwan¡¨ is indeed a bottleneck for Doctor Chen¡¦s own brand ¡§mini Zenith¡¨. Being so wise, Doctor Chen knows clearly that domestic brands cannot compete with imported brands in the eyes of audiophiles, so it would be extremely hard to be outstanding in the market if only walking along the same design directions as the imported brands. Therefore, early in his designing of mz-L2/mz-L2w loudspeakers, he has established three design policies: 1st, the loudspeakers he designs shall be unique and differ from any other products in the market; 2nd, his loudspeakers may not be able to compete with other products in broadcasting power, but the tone color should not lose to that of other products; 3rd, his loudspeakers should not only be unique but also faithful in regenerating the original view of music signals.
It¡¦s not easy to reach these 3 objectives, however, Doctor Chen made a wise decision that is using the Re-edition P-610S Full-range Speaker. Why? 1st, P-610 has been extremely famous in sound equipment industry, so audiophiles may show great interests in the loudspeaker; 2nd, the sound of P-610S is unique enough ¡V natural, impressive and quite real; 3rd, though loudspeaker equipped with full-range speaker is not the mainstream in market, it¡¦s one of the simplest design with lest distortion, which goes with Doctor Chen¡¦s objective of being faithful with music signal.
As for low frequency performance, though I think this system trends to be soft and gentle, when listening to the electronic bass performance by Marcus Miller the sense of low frequency drilling down is very strong. The low frequency impact of bass drum is fast and convulsive. Let¡¦s try the original tape of ¡§Angels and Demons¡¨. Driven by the powerful 200W mz-P3 Apollo Pure Class A Power amplifier, the extremely low frequency extension is complete and full of flexibility. In this big space of about 12 square meters by eye estimate, the wide sound field goes beyond the boundaries of the right and left loudspeakers and the sufficient low frequency energy fills the entire space.
空氣懸吊密閉式 全音域揚聲器 [右]
mz-L2sw - Acoustic Suspension Passive Subwoofer [left]
空氣懸吊密閉式 分體式低音柱 [左]
175Hz~15KHz 之間由傳奇單體 Diatone-P610s發聲 無分音元件影響聲音的相位與音色
Unique Design Unites Full-range and Full-band Frequency Broadcasting
mini-Zenith mz-L2/mz-L2w
Four-piece Loudspeaker System
Three-way Four-speak Four-piece Enclosed Floor-stand Loudspeaker. Time to Market: 2010. Speakers Used: 1¡¨ Scan-speak R2904/70000 high driver X 1, 6.5¡¨ Orgue P-610S X 1, 10¡¨ Scan-speak 26W8861 Ti Framework Cone Low Driver X 2. Frequency Response: 28Hz ¡V 40kHz, Crossover: 175Hz¡B12.4kHz. Weight: 65KG (mz-L2), 55KG(mz-L2w). Reference Price: 370,000 NTD (mz-L2) ¡A245,000 NTD (mz-L2w). Manufacturer: mini Zenith (07-3987132).
Different View of Design
However, after visiting Doctor Chen in person, I have to believe what I saw and heard. I find Doctor Chen is not an ordinary oculist, because it¡¦s not possible for an ordinary oculist to have so many original inventions in medical science or have a well-equipped professional electronic studio on the upstairs of his clinic. From one of Doctor Chen¡¦s dissertations ¡§Application of Fourier Analysis in Ophthalmonogy Electrophysiological Examination¡¨ which was publicized early in 1991, I find that Doctor Chen knows quite a lot in electronics and the digital wave filtering analysis can be applied in audio field directly. It¡¦s not difficult at all for Doctor Chen to design a loudspeaker with the technology of digital electronic crossover that is applied in Meridian Loudspeaker, as long as he is willing to. Therefore it¡¦s not surprising that he has the ability to design digital signal source.
Proficient in Woodcraft
Let¡¦s turn the focus to the leading role of this catering listening ¡V main loudspeaker of mini Zenith mz-L2 and passive low frequency column. Though Doctor Chen is proficient in electronics and has a good ear, the design of loudspeaker are associated with many fields as mechanism, acoustics, material science etc., especially the match of speaker and cabinet, otherwise it¡¦s not possible to come out with the best design. It¡¦s not as easy as just nailing some pieces of wood to make a cabinet and then installing some speakers on. Therefore, for design of loudspeaker, I always believe that what can be done by DIY audiophiles or personal studio is quite limited and only the manufacturers that are large enough could make it as perfect as possible.
Using P-610S Full-range Speaker
By now, I¡¦m convinced wholeheartedly that there is such a person in this world who is not only proficient in medical science and sound equipment, but also knows a lot and thoroughly about music and woodcraft. I know many founders or bosses of the famous oversea Hi End plants are not majored in electronics or mechanism, but very few of them can do it all by themselves as Doctor Chen does. I¡¦m not flattering him - based on his creation, intelligence and skills, Doctor Chen might be another genius sound equipment designer if he were born oversea.
Extended Full-range Design
Of course, P-610S is just a standing point. Doctor Chen won¡¦t be content with this. First, he makes P-610S maintain in the state of full-range and work in the main broadcasting frequency range. For doing this, on one hand, the special sound characteristics of this magical speaker are maintained, and on the other hand, the phase distortion and sound coloration brought by crossover are eliminated. Then, in order to improve the extension of high and low frequency, he adds one high drive and low driver which are also the best of all ¡V the sharp-nose R2904/70000 high driver and 26W8861 low driver of Scan-speak. As for the setup of crossover points, the design is a little bit different with the 2009 version after endless tests and adjustments. The high driver works in the range of extremely high frequency between 12.4kHz and 40kHz; while the low driver at the bottom of the loudspeaker works in the range of low frequency below 175Hz. Both high-pass circuit and low-pass circuit use only one capacitor, which goes well the principle of simplicity to reduce the interference of crossover elements to the lowest.
But how to deal with it if you want more complete low frequency performance and broadcasting scale for larger listening space? Well, Doctor Chen has thought about this long time ago and made everything ready for you ¡V simply adding a pair of mz-L2w low frequency column will help achieve your expectations. The size and appearance of mz-L2w are the same as the main loudspeaker, so with mz-L2w, there are 4 10¡¨ low drivers working at the same time, the low frequency extend to 28Hz. Doctor Chen calls this system ¡§Extended Full-range Loudspeaker¡¨, because it completely breaks though the broadcasting frequency range and dynamic limitation, combined the advantages of both full-range loudspeaker and multi-way loudspeaker.
Special Internal Structure
Can this design be special? I know some people may think it not something rare, because lots of audiophiles of old loudspeakers have also tried this. But of course, Doctor Chen¡¦s design is not that simple. It takes some smart cabinet designs to make it happen, which cannot be done by ordinary audiophiles. Doctor Chen adopts the enclosed cabinet design, which has the advantages of flat frequency response linearity and fast transient responses, but Doctor Chen¡¦s design is smarter ¡V 1st the trapezoid unparallel structure can eliminate the stationary wave; 2nd, the 3 speakers of the main loudspeaker of mz-L2 have their own independent chambers, whose volume shall be precisely calculated to reach appropriate frequency responses ¡V that is to reach the purpose of mechanical partials with the help of cabinet design, so the partial circuits of high-pass and low-pass are greatly simplified. At last, those who are familiar with P-610 speaker should know that what matches this speaker is bass-reflex type cabinet from the very beginning. I¡¦m afraid Doctor Chen is the only person who installs it in enclosed cabinet, but there are indeed some reasons for him doing so. Because the P-610 speaker used in traditional way must take the burden of low frequency broadcasting, so the it must work in bass-reflex design to enhance the low frequency extension. But mz-L2 has a low driver to take charge of the bass broadcasting under the frequency below 175Hz, so it¡¦s actually a better practice to match P-610S with an enclosed cabinet. The only concern is that the efficiency of enclosed cabinet is relatively low, so it may decrease the high efficiency advantage of full-range speaker. Of course, Doctor Chen has worked out the way to deal with it. He designs chamber into a structure similar to bass channel that alternate the characteristics of enclosed cabinet. The actually inspected loudspeaker efficiency is 89dB, only 1dB lower than the original specification of P-610S. This design decrease the negative influence of enclosed cabinet to the minimum.
Pursuing Lowest Distortion
At last, I want to mention Doctor Chen¡¦s design concept, because I find from other designs of mz-L2/mz-L2w loudspeaker system that he always holds fast to his pursuit of lowest distortion. He never uses digital remastering for the digital signal sources he designed, because he knows that digital remastering will cause pre-echo thus destroying the phase consistence of music signal. His amplifiers stick to the pure class A amplification circuits, because there is no crossover distortion in pure class A amplification, and he doesn¡¦t set up crossover capacitors in signal path to eliminate phase bias distortion, only to amplify the music signals in the most faithful way. If looking at each individual product Doctor Chen designs, you will find some designs beyond all your expectation in each product; however, if you looking at the products in whole, you will find the design of each product is the most simplified to reach the goal of lowest distortion. It¡¦s not the unconstrained fantasy at all.
Keeping the Unique Charms of P-610S
As the old user of P-610, I know clearly its special characteristics as well as limitations, so I¡¦m very curious about what kind of sound Doctor Chen¡¦s design can bring out. Now I want to describe what I hear from the mz-L2/mz-L2w loudspeaker system in the four aspects of human voice, piano, strings and low frequency. For human voice, I try the album of ¡§Misa Criolla¡¨. Jose Carreras¡¦s voice is pure and natural. The sound quality is not so profound and strong, but kind of mellow and pretty. The loudest and most powerful voice can still be displayed with great ease; while the slightest trill at the end is extremely exquisite and complete. The outline of sound image is very clear, just like the singer is singing in front of you. The calm music background creates very intimate listening experiences. The above listening experiences are all the characteristics that make P-610 a classical speaker. Therefore, it is no doubt that mz-L2/mz-L2w maintains these characteristics completely.
Soft yet Lively
Then let¡¦s try the piano performance on mz-L2/mz-L2w. The transparent key-touching and clear soft end rhythm are the original characteristics of P-610S, but the powerful energy of strong hit exploded instantaneously is not something that can be achieved by P-610S itself. However, in general, the overall sound of this loudspeaker trends to be soft and gentle, without extreme excitement that makes people feel stressed. As for strings, Doctor Chen play the ¡§Chaconne¡¨ by Jascha Heifetz, which is a early monophonic recording, however, I feel no bluntness or stiffness at all when listening it with mz-L2/mz-L2w. The violin is a little bit deep and mild than the recordings I¡¦m familiar with, but the lines are very tight and the performance is also full of liveliness.
