John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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I never really understand why he makes that statement. Implied insult, I presume.

You presume incorrectly. :D

wayne, I'm not super familiar with current "high end" speakers, so hesitate to give brands. I can say that my current speakers (modified and multiamped NHT M3.3, described on my website), which use LR4 between woofer and midbass and an acoustic 4th (not exactly on any standard alignment) between midbass and midrange sound to my ears quite coherent and dynamic, with excellent soundstaging and imaging precision. I had a friend who owns crossoverless ESLs here for a few weeks, and on extended listening, he remarked on this. The stock versions are no slouches in that department, either.

I've also used acoustic LR4s on various MTM systems I've designed and built, and coherence was not a shortcoming- the key was to handle the transfer so that there were no discontinuities in the polar pattern, a common problem with speakers having low order crossovers, and to take into account the Allison Effect, very underlooked by most designers (IMO). If I can find a kind soul who would trade woodworking for drivers and design, I have a nice 3 way system in mind which you could try to build for yourself and decide.
 
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Back in the late '70s, I was working with Murray Zeligman on a Dynaudio (at that time called SEN Labs) design which used first order electrical and actually wasn't too far from a first order acoustic. It took a five way system and some real crossover complexity to pull it off, but it sounded superb.

After screwing around with this sort of thing for 40 years, this parallels my experience.

:cool:
 
Gents, where does the old Dahlquist DQ-10 stand in this discussion. I still have 3 or 4 LP's that just don't sound right except in my memories of them.

BTW listening now to hhoyt's web feed from WXYC in my lab on the MET7's and a 20W Chinese TAMP. Not music for everyone, wonderfully uncensored college radio. Nelson your dog and I were instant friends but my dog is deaf. :D

EDIT - The TAMP is powered off of a cheezy old 1A switching wall wart. All sounds perfectly enjoyable.
 
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This is the third millenium, isn't it? No more need to design analog transient-perfect XO with all their compromises when phase linearisation (by pre-processing the source in the digital domain) can be had for zero $ and without significant drawbacks.. Ok, not feasible for all-analog systems...
 
You presume incorrectly. :D

wayne, I'm not super familiar with current "high end" speakers, so hesitate to give brands. I can say that my current speakers (modified and multiamped NHT M3.3, described on my website), which use LR4 between woofer and midbass and an acoustic 4th (not exactly on any standard alignment) between midbass and midrange sound to my ears quite coherent and dynamic, with excellent soundstaging and imaging precision. I had a friend who owns crossoverless ESLs here for a few weeks, and on extended listening, he remarked on this. The stock versions are no slouches in that department, either.

I've also used acoustic LR4s on various MTM systems I've designed and built, and coherence was not a shortcoming- the key was to handle the transfer so that there were no discontinuities in the polar pattern, a common problem with speakers having low order crossovers, and to take into account the Allison Effect, very underlooked by most designers (IMO). If I can find a kind soul who would trade woodworking for drivers and design, I have a nice 3 way system in mind which you could try to build for yourself and decide.

I'm into my Linesource era now ......... :)

Sounds interesting Sy, that has not been my experience with 4th order stuff, So I'm with Nelson on this and prefer 1st order stuff on the midrange driver for sure. If you get yours built, they will come ...


PS: MTM 1st order is pretty difficult, Dunleavy was the best at it IMO...
 
Dave Wilson did a 'dog and pony' show at RMAF, just 1 week ago. He mentioned that he REALLY LIKED THE DALQUIST DQ10. I once heard Saul Marantz's DQ-10's in his living room in 1986 (he used to be president of the company) that sounded especially good, driven by Marantz 9's.
 
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