ron,
Thanks for contributing.
Wrt the radi, I was thinking along the same lines -- round the corners at the folds with either "plastic tree" (as they call it here, not so sure how you call it -- a paste that simply cures as "wood") or putty reisin.
The epoxy mortar (or white cement as an alternative ?) is heavier and should add to the weight on the bottom folds it can make the top fold heavier. And yes, laziness and unpatiences (I really want to glue these together and do some listening...).
Florian
P.S. Almost gelos on you for that NC trip. Me + better half had lunch together, just the two of us (by accident ...) and realized we haven't done this for more than a year...
Thanks for contributing.
Wrt the radi, I was thinking along the same lines -- round the corners at the folds with either "plastic tree" (as they call it here, not so sure how you call it -- a paste that simply cures as "wood") or putty reisin.
The epoxy mortar (or white cement as an alternative ?) is heavier and should add to the weight on the bottom folds it can make the top fold heavier. And yes, laziness and unpatiences (I really want to glue these together and do some listening...).
Florian
P.S. Almost gelos on you for that NC trip. Me + better half had lunch together, just the two of us (by accident ...) and realized we haven't done this for more than a year...
nice work - I wish I had the patience for dowels - the air powered brad nailer is just too convenient.
My attention span isn't what it used to be; are you planning on supra-baffles? For my taste, in concert with Ron's deflectors, they take this design "to another level" and squeeze possibly "the last drop" of performance from the FE126e
sorry, couldn't think of any more cliches for the moment
My attention span isn't what it used to be; are you planning on supra-baffles? For my taste, in concert with Ron's deflectors, they take this design "to another level" and squeeze possibly "the last drop" of performance from the FE126e
sorry, couldn't think of any more cliches for the moment
Banned
Joined 2002
First listening impressions (part 1)
Over here we call it fs"#!%!ing expensive birch ply
Joke aside it was 18mm birch ply, made in Findland, so I guess you can call it baltic too.
Costed around 180 USD per 1200 cm x 2400 cm sheet (yes, 180 USD / sheet!). And you have to buy them whole sheets, even if needed only one and a half (roughly).
Anyway. Back to the program.
Now both sides are cured, installed in my reference system, and gave them a serious listening and a first round of tweaks.
System:
CD player: Cayin CDT-17A heavily modded (tube buffer output bypass, upgraded O.As, improved power supply)
Pre-amp: Supratek Chardonnay
Power Amps:
EAR 890 (70 A Class A from 4 x KT90 pentodes per channel);
Audiodigit/Autoconstruire Class T 100 HCL digital amp ( TAA4100A Tripath chip) driven by 12 V 7Ah battery
Speakers: Gallo Reference 3A
Cables: Low level: Silver Siren; High Level: Xindak FS-1
Dedicated listening room rectangular 640x480x205cm (that's aprox 21 x 16 x 7 ft) in short wall setup. Damped back and side walls.
Attach is a picture of the setup. The panel was removed from the right corner to allow corner loading. As can be noted from the window positioning, this is in a cellar with side and back walls made of concrete.
Also on the floor one can note a mini OB I used for addiional break-in of the drivers I received from Dave and makeshift deflectors out of cardboard
Over here we call it fs"#!%!ing expensive birch ply
Joke aside it was 18mm birch ply, made in Findland, so I guess you can call it baltic too
. Costed around 180 USD per 1200 cm x 2400 cm sheet (yes, 180 USD / sheet!). And you have to buy them whole sheets, even if needed only one and a half (roughly).
Anyway. Back to the program.
Now both sides are cured, installed in my reference system, and gave them a serious listening and a first round of tweaks.
System:
CD player: Cayin CDT-17A heavily modded (tube buffer output bypass, upgraded O.As, improved power supply)
Pre-amp: Supratek Chardonnay
Power Amps:
EAR 890 (70 A Class A from 4 x KT90 pentodes per channel);
Audiodigit/Autoconstruire Class T 100 HCL digital amp ( TAA4100A Tripath chip) driven by 12 V 7Ah battery
Speakers: Gallo Reference 3A
Cables: Low level: Silver Siren; High Level: Xindak FS-1
Dedicated listening room rectangular 640x480x205cm (that's aprox 21 x 16 x 7 ft) in short wall setup. Damped back and side walls.
Attach is a picture of the setup. The panel was removed from the right corner to allow corner loading. As can be noted from the window positioning, this is in a cellar with side and back walls made of concrete.
Also on the floor one can note a mini OB I used for addiional break-in of the drivers I received from Dave and makeshift deflectors out of cardboard
Attachments
Listening impressions
So, how do the A126 compare with the Gallo Reference 3A (one of the best speakers I've heard, in my unbiased and very objective oppinion) ?
One a more serious note, I think the Gallos are very good -- especially that silver diaphragm tweeter with 300 degrees radiation. Makes jaw dropping wide and deep images, pinpoint accuracy; They are really, really fast. OTOH their drawbacks are 1) They do need to play loud and 2) The bass doesn't go very deep (60 ish) but what's there is very good -- accurate and fast.
So, how do the A126 fare against it ?
To make a long post very short: The A126 are nothing short of amazing, all things considered !!
The nitty-gritty details:
First, I tried to corner load the A126. Placed them on the room diagonals (well, roughly) at around 30 cm (1 ft) from the corner. Tried both no deflector and makeshift cardboard deflector (as the right corner in the pic above).
The results were frightening: The midrange was to die for. The treble is pretty good, but not much happening in the last octave (I'll get back to this). The only real problem was the bass: While more than aplenty -- "Output at 40 Hz (sine wave) ? Yesssir !!" -- it was booming.
In this setup the bass was simply too much. "Quick" bass notes got the transients mushed together. Large symphonic pieces (Mahler 5th symphony, "Trauermarsch") and dynamic piano solos (Beethoven pianosonata Nr 21) got (too) bass loud and muddied. Quite annoying.
Then I tried to move them a bit in the room, and even stuffed a pillow in the horn mouth. It helped, but not by much.
Eventually I put the corner panels back on, moved the horns inside the room about 1m and removed the stuffing from the horn mouth.
The bass settled down and boom is now non-existing (well, almost) . What I get now is cleaner, deep bass notes. While sometimes I feel that the bass is "lazy", I wouldn't call it either soft nor squishy. It just takes its time to catch up
So, while it might be that I am unused to the BLH bass, it might very well be that some roommodes get excited due to corner loading and makes the bass boom.
Again, midrange is excelent, with female voices (Diana Krall) being just in front of me. Ella is to die for.
Sounstange, imaging: Good. Very good. While not on par with the Gallos (that are champs in this area) the A126 really does hold its own.
Treble: While good, it does feel that this is something the 126s could use a bit of help. A supertweeter helping with the last octave should add both air & sparkle and maybr the last drop of detail / image precision.
As such smth I could very well contemplate is (eventually) getting a pair of T90A supertweeters, X0 them at 10 Khz first, maybe L-pad them, and drive them in parallel with the A126. What do you think ?
All in all, the A126 is truely an amazing speaker. In some respects (midrange presence) on par with my Gallos, maybe even better
The only reason I was maybe a bit harsh above is simply because the monster slaying potential: Getting this close to a speaker costing 10 times as much should simply be outlawed....
Once again, many, many thanks to Ron, Dave, Chris and all that contributed with their advice and input. Highly appreciated.
So, how do the A126 compare with the Gallo Reference 3A (one of the best speakers I've heard, in my unbiased and very objective oppinion
) ? One a more serious note, I think the Gallos are very good -- especially that silver diaphragm tweeter with 300 degrees radiation. Makes jaw dropping wide and deep images, pinpoint accuracy; They are really, really fast. OTOH their drawbacks are 1) They do need to play loud and 2) The bass doesn't go very deep (60 ish) but what's there is very good -- accurate and fast.
So, how do the A126 fare against it ?
To make a long post very short: The A126 are nothing short of amazing, all things considered !!
The nitty-gritty details:
First, I tried to corner load the A126. Placed them on the room diagonals (well, roughly) at around 30 cm (1 ft) from the corner. Tried both no deflector and makeshift cardboard deflector (as the right corner in the pic above).
The results were frightening: The midrange was to die for. The treble is pretty good, but not much happening in the last octave (I'll get back to this). The only real problem was the bass: While more than aplenty -- "Output at 40 Hz (sine wave) ? Yesssir !!" -- it was booming.
In this setup the bass was simply too much. "Quick" bass notes got the transients mushed together. Large symphonic pieces (Mahler 5th symphony, "Trauermarsch") and dynamic piano solos (Beethoven pianosonata Nr 21) got (too) bass loud and muddied. Quite annoying.
Then I tried to move them a bit in the room, and even stuffed a pillow in the horn mouth
. It helped, but not by much.Eventually I put the corner panels back on, moved the horns inside the room about 1m and removed the stuffing from the horn mouth.
The bass settled down and boom is now non-existing (well, almost) . What I get now is cleaner, deep bass notes. While sometimes I feel that the bass is "lazy", I wouldn't call it either soft nor squishy. It just takes its time to catch up
So, while it might be that I am unused to the BLH bass, it might very well be that some roommodes get excited due to corner loading and makes the bass boom.
Again, midrange is excelent, with female voices (Diana Krall) being just in front of me. Ella is to die for.
Sounstange, imaging: Good. Very good. While not on par with the Gallos (that are champs in this area) the A126 really does hold its own.
Treble: While good, it does feel that this is something the 126s could use a bit of help. A supertweeter helping with the last octave should add both air & sparkle and maybr the last drop of detail / image precision.
As such smth I could very well contemplate is (eventually) getting a pair of T90A supertweeters, X0 them at 10 Khz first, maybe L-pad them, and drive them in parallel with the A126. What do you think ?
All in all, the A126 is truely an amazing speaker. In some respects (midrange presence) on par with my Gallos, maybe even better
The only reason I was maybe a bit harsh above is simply because the monster slaying potential: Getting this close to a speaker costing 10 times as much should simply be outlawed....
Once again, many, many thanks to Ron, Dave, Chris and all that contributed with their advice and input. Highly appreciated.
Re: Listening impressions
How many hrs did you get on them in the little baffles?
One of the compromises of a BLH is that the stuff coming out of the horn mouth is delayed by a few wavelengths....
You will also likely find that the distance from the back wall can be used to tune the bass ... and not just back & forward but finding the sweetspot
dave
FlorianO said:The bass settled down and boom is now non-existing (well, almost) . What I get now is cleaner, deep bass notes. While sometimes I feel that the bass is "lazy", I wouldn't call it either soft nor squishy. It just takes its time to catch up
How many hrs did you get on them in the little baffles?
One of the compromises of a BLH is that the stuff coming out of the horn mouth is delayed by a few wavelengths....
You will also likely find that the distance from the back wall can be used to tune the bass ... and not just back & forward but finding the sweetspot
dave
OK, i did a small study on the operating principal of the Gallo 3.
Sounstange, imaging: Good. Very good. While not on par with the Gallos (that are champs in this area) the
I assume ( i hate that) its a basic 2 way with a more or less sealed enclosure (whatever S2 technology is?). This would give a tight bass line but be limited in LF response.
They mention a tweeter but both upper drivers appear to be the same? Now the ingenious part! If both upper HF drivers are the same you might expect comb effect. But with the narrow curved face the wave launch at a higher frequency is focused at a point away from the box. The point ,being further away, from the baffle would give the combined in-phase signal a larger efective beam spread (hence the 300 degree thing).
Just look at it as a focused collimation with two drivers(actually the baffle launch shape) focused at a point away from the speaker. The actual physical point would be the center of the radius of the baffle and be angled at the line mid tangent point to the center. The end result is like a focused line array with the baffle launch being the focus element.
I believe i am correct in my theory, but i may be wrong .
ron
Sounstange, imaging: Good. Very good. While not on par with the Gallos (that are champs in this area) the
I assume ( i hate that) its a basic 2 way with a more or less sealed enclosure (whatever S2 technology is?). This would give a tight bass line but be limited in LF response.
They mention a tweeter but both upper drivers appear to be the same? Now the ingenious part! If both upper HF drivers are the same you might expect comb effect. But with the narrow curved face the wave launch at a higher frequency is focused at a point away from the box. The point ,being further away, from the baffle would give the combined in-phase signal a larger efective beam spread (hence the 300 degree thing).
Just look at it as a focused collimation with two drivers(actually the baffle launch shape) focused at a point away from the speaker. The actual physical point would be the center of the radius of the baffle and be angled at the line mid tangent point to the center. The end result is like a focused line array with the baffle launch being the focus element.
I believe i am correct in my theory, but i may be wrong .
ron
ronc said:
Ron,
While I have to admit I didn't exactly follow your analysis, in my understanding the Gallos are a 3-way. Well, sort of...
On the LF side of things they have series crossover at 150 Hz to a sealed, double coil, side firing woofer.
Above that they have an MTM arrangement with twin 4-inch hyperbolic carbon-fiber mids that are "mechanically" rolled off at 3 kHz (not so sure how that works. Apparently that is equiv with a first order....).
Above 3 kHz is the cylindrical tweeter (or CDT -- Cylindrical Diaphragm Tweeter as Gallo calls it), a silver-clad Kynar (some sort of plastic ?!?) foil diaphragm. That tweeter is the true star of the Gallo line. And it sure works: Wide/deep soundstage, pinpoint image accuracy, you name it. The drawback is -- as very correctly identified by a reviewer on positive feedback -- it really must be kept away from room boundaries. It took me almost a year of tweaking the speaker position, my listening position and heavily damp my listening room to get them "cleaned up". But boy, it truely does fireworks
Anyway, back to the A126: I had them playing at my daughter's party today in my living room and they did sweet music. I love them more and more. Of course, some more serious listening is still to come. Maybe after the drivers break-in more, add the SB, build a proper deflector and maybe add a supertweeter.
I can definitively see myself growing into the A126, and forgive them their small shortcomings -- like the fact that they seem to bust at the seams when faced with large (and I do mean LARGE) scale music (say symphonic works like Mahler 5th, Tchaikovsky and the like). OTOH I am not so sure _if_ a single driver setup (or variant thereof) can handle that without finching. If yes, I would be more than curious which...
IOW I can definitively live with the A126 ... Until I'll get that itch again, that is
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