Control 5 – Step & Waterfall Measurements (Part 4)

The transient of the woofer in the Control 5 suggest it’s not very responsive. Bear in mind that there’s only a 0.6mH inductor in the woofer crossover and it takes 250 microsec to reach the apex.

HM130C0 CD3.5H STEP RESPONSE

The Green plot is from my Orion. See how fast the transient is. In less than 50 microsec, it hit the apex. As with the Control 5, the Orion also uses only one inductor in the crossover. That’s the difference between a top flight Audax HM130C0 and a low quality woofer used in the Control 5.

The Waterfall plot of the Control 5 shows long decays from 5kHz~9kHz. These decays are seen as light blue slices in the Toneburst Energy Storage measurement (below).

Control 5 Toneburst Energy Storage

What these plots are saying is that there are a lot of ringing in the treble. Compare it to the Orion plot below and you’ll see the difference in tweeter quality. The Control 5 uses their acclaimed titanium tweeter whereas the Orion has a Fountek CD3.5H ribbon.

Orion Toneburst Energy Storage

Part 1 – Thiele & Small Parameters
Part 2 – Woofer & Tweeter Measurements
Part 3 – Frequency Response
Part 4 – Step & Waterfall Measurements
Part 5 – Sound Quality
Part 6 – Upgrading the Crossover
Part 7 – Electronic Crossovers and Bi-amping

Note: Unless otherwise stated, all measurements were made with the mic at 36 ins, tweeter axis. Impulse Window=5ms. No smoothing applied.