MEASUREMENTS

ecause of the Von Schweikert Ultra 55’s bulk and weight, I drove my measurement gear to Michael Fremer’s place in deepest, darkest New Jersey to perform the measurements. I chose a day that was forecast to be sunny with minimal wind, because I was going to measure the speaker in his driveway, so that the only source of reflections would be the ground. (Even so, the proximity of the ground necessarily led to aggressive windowing of the time-domain data, which reduced the measurements’ midrange resolution.) I first measured the speaker’s spatially averaged response in Mikey’s listening room, then we maneuvered one of the speakers onto a small dolly—easier to write than do, given the Ultra 55’s 190lb weight and its spikes—and wheeled it outside. To avoid heating up the drive-units, I positioned