Ambassador Jeroen

HOW IS YOUR ROOM SET UP?

I have a wide living room on the 1st floor, it is 9 x 5,5 x 2,6 meters. It’s outfitted with a stretched ceiling with foam under it, which brings the RT60 down to 300/400 ms. Listening position is on the couch, and although the focus is on movies, I also use sliders to reposition the fronts (optimising the stereo image) for serious hi-fi nights. To manage the bass, I use Dirac Live ART.

WHAT WAS YOUR GOAL WHEN LOOKING FOR NEW SPEAKERS AND SUBWOOFERS?

I’ve been in the audio video hobby for 20 years and am a sucker for great sound. The immersion you get with a great setup puts a smile on my face every time I watch a good movie or listen to my favorite bands.

Next to this, I’m also a perfectionist with a serious drive to optimize every aspect of my setup. Arendal ticks that box with the serious engineering they’ve put in the design of their speakers. They do this without misleading marketing or overpricing for mediocre quality, and that is what I love about the brand and the team behind it: serious performance with a trustworthy service and a great warranty.

WHERE DID YOU HEAR ABOUT US?

I first read about the performance of the 1723 S center speaker from somebody on AV forums. He said that a friend bought it and it blew his MA Silver center out of the water. Since I owned that same center, I just had to try… The rest is history.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE ARENDAL SOUND?

When I put the 1723 S center in my setup, it completely overshadowed the other speakers (also the front towers!), so this left me with only one challenge. I had to find a way to get it into my grandmother’s antique chest! ; ) The towers followed, than 1 s sub, a second 1s sub, and now the 1961 surrounds as well.

On why I went all in with Arendal rather than mixing brands: I tried mixing brands as I upgraded gradually, but that did not give me the complete timbre match needed for real immersion and solid panning of music and effects in home theater.

YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THE PRODUCTS?

The Arendal 1723s speakers are unbelievably good. So much dynamics, transparancy, scale, bass and more.. it’s all there. When people visit my home and I put on the racing scene of “Ready Player One” their just at a loss for words, get goose bumps, utter that the’ve never experienced anything like this before or as one of my mates did: just went out and bought a full 5.1 1723s system a week after the demo.

I recently changed my Monitor Audio Apex 10 surrounds to the Arendal 1961 with the goal of timbre matching the front and rear stage. I was curious if that would create better immersion? Well, it did. And much more. I got the following improvements:

1. Seamless bubble: I always thought that Dirac would match the speakers, but having real timbre matching creates one soundfield and total immersion. Seamless panning and much more believable echo and environment cues. So you’re in the forest, big room, or cockpit.
2. Similar quality as the front stage now. This amazed me as it is a “lower” speaker line. The 1723 S bookshelves are too big for my rear space behind the couch, so I thought this might be a compromise… With the Apex, the sound from the rear was always less impactful, less full, and just less in general than the front stage. Now when for instance the music pans in the church scene from Sinners, it sounds as good in the back as in the front.
3. Great dynamics. The 1961 can hold their own in the setup with their big brothers. Big blockbusters at near reference level in my living room set up: no problem.. I do sit quite close to them (1.5 to 2 meters) but even during the racing scene in Ready Player One, I’ve not felt them breaking a sweat…
4. The sealed design integrates much better with the subs. The bass in the back of the room is now believable and as it should be.
5. More micro details: I can hear more details in the back of the room. It’s probably a combination of the waveguide, sealed design/better bass control and maybe even less distortion, but little nuances stand out more, and as mentioned, ambient cues like echoes are much more believable. You now feel like you’re in that Church.

All in all, it is a pretty big step. I thought I knew what a bubble of sounds was, but now I know what it can be!

HIGHLY recommended, what a steal for the performance they bring. And what a great company and team out of Norway!

WHAT ELSE DOES YOUR SYSTEM CONSIST OF?

• Processor / AVR: Denon 3800H with Dirac Live ART
• Amplifier: Hypex Nilai power amps (front stage)
• Source devices: Nvidia Shield Pro (blu-rays and gaming)
• Subwoofer: 2x Arendal 1S subs
• Other: Height channels from “a brand who must not be named,” screwed into the stretched ceiling
• Display: 77 inch LG G5 OLED TV

HOW HAPPY ARE YOU WITH ARENDAL SOUND PRODUCTS?

All my boxes are ticked with Arendal: TOP sound quality, TOP build quality, great looks, honest and professional team, great people behind the brand, good pricing and…. I can go on. You satisfied this perfectionist, and that is not easy!

ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE?

I’ve loved movies all of my life. With regards to AV gear, I started quite modest. Right after college, I actually had a DVD player with integrated 5.1 satellite speakers. As budgets and knowledge about sound and the role it plays in the movie watching grew, I upgraded to a more serious 5.1 satellite system from Q Acoustics and later to a 5.1.4 Monitor Audio Silver set up. With Dirac Live came another step in fidelity, and in my quest to optimize my setup, I heard the name Arendal more and more often. Maybe the nicest thing about my setup now is that the urge to upgrade has stopped as well. I’m just enjoying the system (and this is how it should be after investing in a home theater speaker system, right?! ; )

I would like to quote Rocky: AMAZE, AMAZE, AMAZE!!!

Setup details