few times , in fact :
old Voice of Theatre style Iskra cab , fed with proper amp ........ old Iskra 8" with whizzer ..... and most striking - when I first time heard my RCA LC1
i felt the same way for years as all I have heard them in were horns.. either front or back horns..
then I heard them OB and it was a revelation... then dipole and it was holy crap
Probably a matter of taste. It seems to have a little too much high-end brightness/tizziness to my ears.
John
Does an OB/dipole approach change the upper mids/treble response as that is what I hated about them?
Expoy resin on an x-over IMO is a no, no, degrades the sound tremendously....
could you explain to me the workings of this logic? i was planning on burying my external crossovers in sand but now that i read this i must reconsider.
There's a few bits and bats that I listened to in a hifi store, that was supposedly top of the range gear, won awards at WhatHiFi and stuff like that.
First up - Dali Lektor 2 bookshelf speakers, driven by a NAD CD player and amp, costing around £300 each, £400 on the speakers, bringing the system total to around £1000. The cables weren't cheap either.
Mediocre, but with too much midbass. As a friend put it - all today's market wants is bass that can hit you in the chest, from an invisible box. Oh, and the treble was just wrong (used YouTube - Rodrigo y Gabriela but on a CD). Not impressed.
Next up, some small floorstanders from the award winning Wharfedale 10.x range. (10.3s I believe). Can't remember what they were driven by, but it had also won awards at WHF). Again, pretty awful. The 4" midbass was moving 2mm p/p at low listening levels, the sort you use when there's others nearby that don't want to listen. Midbass was bloated, tweeter integration wasn't bood either.
Anyway, went on to some 2 star (out of 5) denon gear, nearer the £200 per piece gear. Blew the NAD out of the water, easily. In every way. Think they were playing through some Morduant-Short bookshelf things, but I'm not 100% sure on that. But yeah, each part was cheaper, received worse ratings, and comfortably beat the more expensive one.
Still, I'd take my £50 MP3 player, Tripath amp and budget floorstanders any day.
What's the world come to?
First up - Dali Lektor 2 bookshelf speakers, driven by a NAD CD player and amp, costing around £300 each, £400 on the speakers, bringing the system total to around £1000. The cables weren't cheap either.
Mediocre, but with too much midbass. As a friend put it - all today's market wants is bass that can hit you in the chest, from an invisible box. Oh, and the treble was just wrong (used YouTube - Rodrigo y Gabriela but on a CD). Not impressed.
Next up, some small floorstanders from the award winning Wharfedale 10.x range. (10.3s I believe). Can't remember what they were driven by, but it had also won awards at WHF). Again, pretty awful. The 4" midbass was moving 2mm p/p at low listening levels, the sort you use when there's others nearby that don't want to listen. Midbass was bloated, tweeter integration wasn't bood either.
Anyway, went on to some 2 star (out of 5) denon gear, nearer the £200 per piece gear. Blew the NAD out of the water, easily. In every way. Think they were playing through some Morduant-Short bookshelf things, but I'm not 100% sure on that. But yeah, each part was cheaper, received worse ratings, and comfortably beat the more expensive one.
Still, I'd take my £50 MP3 player, Tripath amp and budget floorstanders any day.
What's the world come to?
I would say the JMlabs are good speakers , far from mediocre.....
Huh.... ? .....
I cannot comment on sand , my experience was using epoxy type resins.. Best results was damping using a rubbery type 3m material that never got hard, stays soft and pliable , used here mostly as a weather sealer on trailers ..
sounds like all low level mid-fi stuff ..............
Yes and no ....
But not all dipoles are open baffle.
John
no baffle ? ....
Preliminary Measurements of the Lowther DX Series of Drivers
Those Lowthers are decidedly lumpy from 1.5-2k onwards with a 12dB hump between 6 and 11k. Not nice, particularly not for me as I had my hearing tested which revealed that mine is 6dB more sensitive around 8k (referenced to 1k).
To me they just sound harsh and shrill yet lacking in real treble. No deep bass either…
Those Lowthers are decidedly lumpy from 1.5-2k onwards with a 12dB hump between 6 and 11k. Not nice, particularly not for me as I had my hearing tested which revealed that mine is 6dB more sensitive around 8k (referenced to 1k).
To me they just sound harsh and shrill yet lacking in real treble. No deep bass either…
Dave ,
An OB with dynamic drivers is not considered a true dipole , because it does not have the same or similar figure 8 pattern exhibited by dipoles.
I do understand you can call then dipoles, as it can be expressed as such , we did when i was involved in the industry and started selling OB designed type speakers some 30 yrs ago, exception being we used a rear firing tweeter ...
Not surprised by your comments, strange how the current trend in audio seem to be going sideways/backwards as opposed to ahead ..
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These were exactly what I was thinking of when I mentioned synergy...
First time I heard Lowthers was in OBs, w/ Pass Amps.
I so wanted them to sound great, & went back multiple times.
Couldn't sit through an entire song.
Hurt my ears every time, gave me a headache.
Across the hall, were another pair of Lowthers, played through a SET & LeCleach horns. The front horns eq'ed the mids up enough to match the highs, and they didn't sound screechy. MUCH better. Great imaging, no delayed "echo" effect bouncing around the room from the OB.
Later, @ VSAC, I heard the same OB Lowthers, but w/ Jeffrey Jackson's 304TL tube amp. Night and day-- I could listen, still had the OB anomalies, but didn't give me headaches.
Last year @ RMAF. First day, stock Lowthers in OBs, usual problems.
Second day, Dave's field coil conversions- huge change.
Kept hearing people say how they "didn't sound like Lowthers." Mids and highs were so much smoother.
Later, heard these drivers in LeCleach horns, over Klipsch horns for bass, again w/ Jeffrey & Dave's electronics.
Another order of Magnitude of improvement.
My experience of Lowthers in OB, and especially when I've listened to them w/o baffles was a revelation, but I'm afraid it falls under the more common definition of crap...
Back to taste I guess--
Some like listening to the delayed back wave, and side wall reflections, and find the echo "spacious or open," & don't feel it blurs details.
yes and by allot IMO.. The PM2A's are a little more forward but has great articulation but does not have all the throaty nasty peaky mess that comes along with a horn
the PM6A which is what I have and love is less sensitive then the PM2A, a little more laid back and more forgiving.. and plays damn near all types of music you toss at it...
You can moderate {edit} this, no?OT, I know - but over-quoting drives me nutz! See, you did it above just to annoy me.
We can SEE the post just above, no need to repeat the whole darn thing. It's just thread clutter. And bad netiquette.
Be kind, click the reply button, not "quote". <rant off>
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