HFJuly12_020 Test Usher.indd

ON TEST
Usher Audio
S-520 LOUDSPEAKERS
W
hen you’re on a good thing,
stick to it! It’s a slogan that’s
been used by advertisers for
decades; here in Australia
it’s most popularly associated with Reckitt
Benckiser and its Mortein brand of fly-spray.
I don’t know how popular the slogan might
be in Taiwan, where Usher Audio Technology,
or Usher Audio, but generally known as just
‘Usher’, is that country’s biggest and most
famous loudspeaker manufacturer, but the
company’s founder and chief designer Tsai
Lien-Shui has certainly embraced the philosophy of the slogan when it comes to Usher’s
diminutive S-520 loudspeakers. According to
all reports, the S-520’s are not only by far and
away Usher’s best-selling model but also the
model that has attracted the most reviews
right around the world… and continues to
attract them, as this one attests… so Tsai
Lien-Shui has been keeping them in his range
for a good many years. In fact I’m not exactly
20
sure how many years they’ve actually been
around, but you can follow the tracks the
little S-520s have made across the Internet
back more than seven years, so I would not
at all be surprised if they have been around
since the turn of the century. Usher itself was
founded ‘way back in 1972.
THE EQUIPMENT
Usher is fairly unusual amongst loudspeaker
manufacturers in that it actually makes
all the drivers it uses in its speakers in the
same factory (now a brand-new factory in
Taichung) as the speakers themselves. So in
the S-520, which is a two-way design, both
the 127mm bass/midrange driver (KSW25029B) and the 25mm silk dome tweeter
(UA025-10) are made by Usher itself. Usher
also sells drivers to other manufacturers, but
neither of these models is listed in its OEM
driver catalogue, so presumably Usher is very
sensibly making sure that no-one has access
to the drivers it uses in its own finished
loudspeaker models, which seems like good
business to me.
Although it’s listed as a 127mm model
(though Usher seems to work in the old imperial system, so it actually puts the diameter
at ‘5-inches’) this dimension is actually the
overall diameter of the soft parts rather than
that of the chassis itself. One look at the
chassis reveals one reason Usher might have
chosen this option: the driver chassis is not
circular, but has ‘squared off’ sides. In fact
the driver chassis measures 147mm corner
to corner and 132mm across the ‘flats’. You
don’t get too many speaker manufacturers
understating the size of their drivers, so chalk
one up for Usher! But the really important
measurement to make on a bass driver is of
its Thiele/Small diameter, and on the S-520’s
driver, this comes in at 104mm, which gives
an effective cone area (Sd) of 85cm². Like
many modern drivers, the cone is made
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Usher S-520 Loudspeakers
from polypropylene but unlike most, it’s
not coloured, but is instead almost perfectly
transparent, so you can see right through it.
Not many manufacturers are game enough to
do this, because it means you can see directly
inside the speaker cabinet and look at the
quality of the driver chassis, the length and
placement of the lead-out wires (tinsels) not
to mention the cleanliness of the interior of
the cabinet and the arrangement of the internal fill. None of this worries Usher, because
the inside of the cabinet is spotlessly clean,
the driver chassis is an impressively solid and
beautifully finished casting and the tinsels are
very high-quality and well-dressed. The large
magnet on the driver is not shielded.
The 25mm silk dome tweeter is all but
invisible on the front panel, as it’s protected
by a dome of metal mesh that presumably
also serves some acoustic purpose.
The crossover network in the S-520 is
constructed on a standard PCB that is elastomerically attached to the inside wall of the
cabinet, immediately above the rear terminal
plate. It has two air-cored machine-wound
inductors that are not cross-mounted, four
15W wirewound cermet resistors and two
Rapport metallised polypropylene film (MPF)
capacitors. It appears that Usher has changed
the components (and possibly the values of
them) that it has used in the S-520’s crossover
over the years, having in the past used plastic
bobbins as coil formers (not present on our
review sample) and bipolar electrolytics (also
not present on our review sample).
Unusually for a budget design, Usher
provides the S-520s in mirror-imaged pairs,
something I normally expect to find only in
high-end, hand-made speaker designs, due
to the added cost of manufacturing mirrorimaged pairs. So chalk up yet another one for
Usher!
Each cabinet measures 180mm wide,
250mm deep and 300mm high and is made
from 19mm thick ‘soft’ MDF. The bases of
each cabinet are not threaded for spikes, as I
might have expected. Instead, Usher provides
small clear plastic stick-on dome-like feet as
a do-it-yourself solution. The weight of the
cabinets (6.3kg) gives an idea of the quality
of the components used inside them, as
well as the thickness of the cabinet walls.
I estimated the S-520’s internal volume at
around 7.5 litres. The pair local distributor
Westan Australia loaned me for this review
were finished in piano black, but the
speakers are also available in snow white and
‘violin’ wood veneer. (The S-520s were once
available in other high-gloss painted finishes,
including fire-engine red and Ferrari yellow
but to my disappointment, Westan told me
these finishes are no longer available.) The
wood-veneered version of the Usher S-520
sells for $435 per pair. The Piano Black/
White versions sell for $465 per pair. If you’re
already thinking that the S-520s would be
perfect for use in a home theatre system,
Usher is ahead of you, because there’s also a
centre-channel version of the S-520, called
the S-525. Also available is an Usher SW-520
passive superwoofer that essentially turns the
S-520 into a floor-standing three-way speaker
system and doubles as a speaker stand for the
S-520. Sold in pairs, the S-520 superwoofers
retail for $929 per pair.
IN USE AND LISTENING
SESSIONS
Initially, when I applied the small clear plastic dome stick-on feet, I was worried that the
feet would stick too firmly and would peel off
the painted surface when I removed them to
ship the review speakers back to Westan. In
practise, the opposite was the case! The glue
on the feet is so weak that the feet
were continually either coming off
or sliding whenever I repositioned
the speakers.
ON TEST
USHER AUDIO S-520
LOUDSPEAKERS
Usher Audio S-520 Loudspeakers
Brand: Usher Audio Technology
Model: S-520
Category: Bookshelf Loudspeakers
RRP: $435.00
Warranty: Five Years
Distributor: Westan Australia Pty Ltd
Address: 13 Bastow Place
Mulgrave VIC 3170
(03) 9541 8888
(03) 9544 0602
[email protected]
www.westan.com.au
• Very small
• Inexpensive
• High performance
• Relatively insensitive
• Low bass
• Stick-on feet
LAB REPORT
Readers interested in a full technical
appraisal of the performance of
the Usher Audio Technology S-520
Loudspeakers should continue on
and read the LABORATORY REPORT
published on page 90. Readers should
note that the results mentioned in
the report, tabulated in performance
charts and/or displayed using graphs
and/or photographs should
be construed as applying only
to the specific sample tested.
Lab Report on page 90
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ON TEST
Usher Audio S-520 Loudspeakers
Obviously, in a reviewing environment, the
speakers being reviewed are moved far more
often than they’ll ever be moved in real life,
but it means that if you are wanting to toe
these speakers in, don’t twist them while
they’re still sitting on a surface: first lift them
clear of whatever surface they’re sitting on,
twist them in the air, and then place them
back down.
When wiring up the speakers I found that
the speaker terminals were so close together
that it was a little difficult for me to tighten
them properly, so it might be better to use
banana connectors instead of bare wire.
When looking into this further, I realised
that the banana plugs were close together
because they’re on standard ‘dual banana’
19mm centres. So, if you buy a Pomona
dual banana plug, wiring the speakers will
be really easy.
The fact that the speakers are supplied
as mirror-image pairs gives you additional
flexibility when positioning the speakers, so that if you have them fairly close
together and you’re not getting quite the
level of imaging you’d like, you can swap
the ‘left’ and ‘right’ speakers around so
that the tweeter on each is on the ‘outside’, and thus further apart. Conversely,
if you have your speakers too far apart,
you can have the tweeters on the ‘insides’
and thus closer together to improve imaging at this spacing distance.
As with all small stand-mount/bookshelf speakers, where you place the speakers in your room will have an enormous
effect on their performance. If you place
them on stands and put them out into
the room well away from walls, you’ll
maximise the stereo image and the depth
of the sound stage, but at the expense of
the low bass. If you put them close to a
wall (still on their stands) or on a bookshelf or other flat surface close to a wall,
you’ll maximise their bass output but at the
expense of the depth of the sound stage and,
possibly, some small degree of imaging.
I used the S-520s in all three positions
and am pleased to be able to report that
they sounded excellent in all three room
positions—or, for that matter, pretty much
anywhere else I placed them in my room. I
even used them for a while as the speakers for
my computer, propping them up either side
of the screen. (In fact they looked pretty good
either side of my computer screen, because
their black piano finish perfectly matched
the black gloss bezel of my monitor, and they
were also exactly the same height as it, so
they almost looked as if they were built into
the screen.)
On stands in my listening room, with the
tweeters at seated ear level, the S-520s sounded very impressive right from the outset and
continued to improve as I put more and more
hours on the speakers. My initial impression
of a linear, precise and very accurate midrange sound was confirmed as the days wore
on, but as the bass/mid driver’s suspensions
settled in I fancied a slight warmth tinging
the sound as well, so there was none of the
steeliness that can characterise the sound
from, say, a specialist studio monitor. Bass
extension was as I’d expect from such a small
driver/cabinet combination, but it rolled off
smoothly and there was none of that boomy
‘false bass’ that some manufacturers build in
to make their small speakers sound impres-
mounted, there are still plenty of positioning
cues even in close-to-wall and bookshelfmount positions.
One thing that concerned me was that I
thought the upper treble of the Usher S-520s
was a little laid-back, when every review I’d
ever read of them over the years pointed to
it being a little on the bright side. Maybe
Tsai Lien-Shui had taken notice of his critics
and padded down the tweeter a little on
more recently-produced models? I decided
to remove the grilles from the speakers and
found that the upper treble picked up to a
point where it was, to my mind, perfectly
balanced… certainly there was no way it was
‘bright’ so I suspect this 2012 version of the
long-running S-520 design sounds different
to earlier versions because it is, in fact, different to earlier versions, despite having the
same model number!
The sense of there
being a stage in front of
you is incredibly realistic
The S-520s were certainly power-hungry.
Where I normally listen with my pre-amp’s
volume control at the 9’o’clock position, I
found that with the S-520s I had to raise the
volume control to over the 10’o’clock position to get my preferred playback levels. The
S-520s sounded excellent at the listening level I found most comfortable in my room, but
if I turned up the volume beyond this level,
the speakers did not respond linearly, so if
you have a very large room and you intend to
listen at very loud levels, you’ll likely have to
look elsewhere, or look to adding a subwoofer
to relieve the speakers of the onerous task of
trying to reproduce very low bass.
CONCLUSION
sive in a showroom. I’d likely add a subwoofer in any room to ensure low-frequency
extension right down to 20Hz, but if you’re
in a small room, you may be well-satisfied
with the bass from the S-520s, even when
they’re mounted on stands, where the bass
won’t get any help from a near-by wall.
Push the Usher S-520s back against a wall
and not only will the level of the low bass
pick up, but you’ll get a better impression of
how tight and dynamic the bass they deliver
really is: Excellent performance. And if I was
expecting imaging to suffer when I moved
the speakers back against the wall, well I was
wrong…and boy can these speakers image!
Wow! The sense of there being a stage in
front of you is incredibly realistic, and I could
pick where performers are located quickly,
easily, and with pin-point precision. And
although stage depth and image height are
maximised when the speakers are stand-
These speakers sound very, very good, there’s
absolutely no doubt about that, and I am sure
that this is the major reason they’ve been so
successful in the past … and will continue to
be successful for Usher into the future. However, I think there are other very important
reasons for their popularity. The first of these
is undoubtedly the very reasonable (a.k.a.
low!) retail price, one that on a ‘sound-quality for your dollar’ basis, puts the Usher S-520s
right up there in the upper echelons of desirability. The second is the absolutely superb
build quality, which is rare to find in any
loudspeaker at this price-point. Finally there’s
their size or—rather—the lack of it. These
speakers are small. Tiny. Which means that
your other half will be delighted to have a
pair (or several pairs, if you want to use them
in several rooms, or all in the same room in a
home theatre set-up!) in your home. Heartily
greg borrowman
recommended!
LAB REPORT ON PAGE 90
22
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Usher Audio S-520 Loudspeakers
LAB REPORT
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20
TEST RESULTS
section via post-processing) is the result of
a single measurement using a gated measurement technique, with the microphone
acquiring the measurement three metres in
front of the baffle, directly on-axis with the
tweeter. An expanded view of this highfrequency measurement is shown in Graph 2.
As you can see, it’s very smooth, with only a
minor but fairly broadband suck-out between
2kHz and 6kHz. There’s a small glitch in the
response just above 16kHz, but it’s so narrowband that it would not be audible, especially
at this frequency, which is above most people’s ability to hear. The same is true for the
larger suck-out above 20kHz. What is interest-
Newport Test Labs measured the frequency
response of the Usher S-520 loudspeakers
as extending from around 60Hz to 20kHz
±3.5dB, which is an excellent result—particularly in the low frequencies—for such a
small loudspeaker. This response is shown
graphically in Graph 1, but the trace shown is
actually a composite, as you can see from the
caption below it. The section of the trace below 1kHz was acquired using pink noise as a
test stimulus, and was the result of averaging
nine different sweeps, using nine different
microphone positions in front of the speaker.
The trace above 1kHz (spliced to the lower
110
dBSPL
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Graph 1. Frequency response. Trace below 1kHz is the averaged result of nine individual
frequency sweeps measured at three metres, with the central grid point on-axis with the tweeter
using pink noise test stimulus with capture unsmoothed. This has been manually spliced (at
1kHz) to the gated high-frequency response, an expanded view of which is shown in Graph 2.
ing and apparent on this graph is that the
speaker grille has a significant effect on the
linearity of the frequency response across the
region between 6.5kHz and 9kHz. As you can
see, there are two traces on the graph with
the black one showing the response without
the grille in place, and the red trace showing
the response with the grille fitted. You can
see how the two traces diverge. Despite the
5dB difference between them, I really don’t
think the difference between ‘grille on’ and
‘grille off’ would be audible. Or, if it was, it
would only be so under carefully controlled
listening conditions, using material specifically selected to have musical information
1K
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Graph 2. High-frequency response, expanded view.
Test stimulus gated sine. Microphone placed
w. T
at three metres on-axis with dome tweeter. Lower measurement limit 500Hz. Black trace
measured without grille in place. Red trace shows response with grille fitted. [Usher S-520]
dBSPL
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Graph 3. Low frequency response of front-firing bass reflex port (red trace) and woofer. Nearfield
acquisition. Port/woofer levels not compensated for differences in radiating areas. [Usher S-520]
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Graph 5. Averaged frequency response using pink noise test stimulus with capture unsmoothed
(red trace) and smoothed to one-third octave (blue trace). Both traces are the averaged results
of nine individual frequency sweeps measured at three metres. [Usher S-520 Loudspeaker]
90
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Graph 4. Impedance modulus of left (red trace) and right (yellow trace) speakers plus phase
(blue trace). Blue trace shows l.f. section only
only, pink trace shows h.f. section only
only. Black trace
under is reference 6-ohm precision calibration resistor. [Usher S-520 Loudspeaker]
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Graph 6. Composite response plot. Red trace is output of bass reflex port. Dark blue trace is
anechoic response of bass driver. Pink trace is gated (simulated anechoic) response above
400Hz. Black trace is averaged in-room pink noise response limited to 20kHz. [Usher S-520]
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Usher Audio S-520 Loudspeakers
consistently in this frequency region, and
even then only in a direct A–B comparison.
Because of this, I would recommend leaving
the loudspeaker grilles in place at all times, to
prevent damage to the drivers (although the
tweeter is protected by a very sturdy metal
mesh, so there’s little chance it could ever be
damaged).
Graph 3 shows the near-field response of
the bass/midrange driver and the front-firing
bass reflex port. This near-field measuring technique doesn’t work well at higher
frequencies, hence the upper response of the
bass/mid driver appears to roll off earlier than
it would if the response was truly anechoic.
However, you can see that in the low frequencies the small bass/midrange driver rolls
off quite early (starting at around 130Hz) at a
rate of around 12dB per octave, to a minima
at 42Hz. The port is not tuned to exactly
counterbalance this minima, but a little
above it, so the output of the bass reflex port
peaks at around 48Hz. The port does, however, usefully reinforce the bass right across
the region 28–130Hz. The only issue with the
port is that high-frequency peak in its output
at around 1.3kHz, which obviously impacts
on the bass/midrange driver’s response, as
you can see clearly by the ‘bump’ in the trace
above it at the corresponding frequency. If
you look at Graph 4, which shows the impedance of the speaker, you can see that this
point corresponds exactly with the electrical
crossover point between the bass/midrange
driver and the tweeter, and also puts a ‘glitch’
in the combined impedance trace. If you look
at Graph 6, you can see that there’s an effect
on the overall far-field response too, albeit
only a very small one. I’d say it’s the result of
one of the inevitable ‘trade-offs’ that speaker
designers make to ensure maximum performance at minimum cost.
Speaking of impedance, Newport Test Labs’
impedance runs (shown in Graph 4) show a
fairly typical bass reflex alignment for this design, with the two low-frequency resonances
at 30Hz and 81Hz and the minima at 48Hz,
as you’d expect from the frequency at which
the bass reflex port’s output is at its maximum. The overall impedance is mostly above
8Ω, dipping in the audio band only between
150–400Hz and between 3.2–7kHz. The
design’s minimum impedance is 6.5Ω, which
occurs at 233Hz, which means that under the
rules of the International Electrotechnical
Commission, the Usher easily qualifies as an
the frequency response extends from around
60Hz to 20kHz ±3.5dB, which is an excellent result!
LAB REPORT
‘8Ω’ loudspeaker. Designer Tsai Lien-Shui has
made his design even more amplifier-friendly
by ensuring that the impedance of the design
increases with increasing frequency, as you
can see on the graph by the rise in response
from 5kHz up to the graphing limit at 40kHz.
Usher’s factory also obviously has very good
quality control procedures in place, because
the matching between the left and right
speakers is excellent, with the impedances
almost overlaying each other, and only diverging very slightly below 30Hz. The phase
angles are also kept under control, staying
mostly within 30° except for a slightly larger
swing at 100Hz. There is absolutely no evidence on the traces of any panel resonances,
but this is hardly surprising given that the
cabinet is so small.
Graph 5 shows the averaged frequency
response of the Usher Audio S-520 both
unsmoothed (red trace) and smoothed via
post-processing to one-third octave (black
trace). The upper graphing limit for this
trace is 10kHz, but you can see that between
140Hz and 10kHz the response is essentially
within a 2.5dB envelope, or 140Hz to 10kHz
±1.25dB. Most of the 2.5dB difference is due
to the upper midrange being pushed upwards
a little, so there’s a gentle lift from 500Hz to
1.3kHz, followed by a gentle fall to ‘reference
level’ at 3kHz.
Newport Test Labs measured the output of
the Usher Audio S-520 at exactly 83.8dBSPL
at a distance of one metre,
using a 2.83Veq input signal
and its standard, stringent test
procedure. This test protocol
almost always results in
significantly lower figures than
those claimed by manufacturers,
but in the case of the S-520 it
fell short by quite a bit, as Usher
claims 86dBSPL. The lab’s result
indicates that the Usher is a
very low-efficiency design and
as such, it will most definitely
benefit from being connected to
higher-powered amplifiers: I’d
suggest an absolute minimum of
60-watts per channel. I was not
surprised at the low efficiency,
and neither should you be: ALL
small loudspeakers are relatively
inefficient… it’s an inescapable
law of physics.
I was very impressed with
the measured performance
of the Usher Audio S-520 in
every respect. It has a very flat,
extended response, a controlled
impedance and the pair matching is almost perfect. Overall, it’s
an excellent example of good
speaker design.
Steve Holding
avhub.com.au
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