Beyond the Ariel

[nullspace]

Originally posted by Lynn Olson


I'm not expecting any free loans from 18Sound, JBL, or Fertin.

Hey Lynn --

Once you get down to brass tacks, shoot me an email and quite possibly I'll be able to loan you my pair of Fertin 20EX. Shipping from NJ to CO won't be cheap, but we should be able to work something out.

Regards,
John

[badman]

Originally posted by nullspace


Hey Lynn --

Once you get down to brass tacks, shoot me an email and quite possibly I'll be able to loan you my pair of Fertin 20EX. Shipping from NJ to CO won't be cheap, but we should be able to work something out.

Regards,
John

Well, if that's the problem, you can always have me pick them up, saves you the problem. Lynn would be able to work with my second-hand impressions I'm sure)

[jzagaja]

This is the main reason alluminum is better in revealing detail.

Here you are Vifa 10 BGS.

It looks like we cannot judge by using CSD which driver is more detailed or we should measure at -60dB? For example an old Audiovector M1S which is a typical polypropylene minimonitor based on Vifa drivers.

I've found Manger very natural, Alexandar from RAAL ribbons thin and without body. That's a mystery for me. Without any doubt his ribbons has the cleanest impulses so far.

[nullspace]

Originally posted by badman


Well, if that's the problem, you can always have me pick them up, saves you the problem. Lynn would be able to work with my second-hand impressions I'm sure)

As though I would hand them over to someone with the moniker 'badman', who's from NJ no less. I'm still waiting on the large sum of money a nice man from Nigeria promised me, but I'm no one's fool...

Regards,
John

[chrismercurio]

I used these for a few years. They sound far better than the Jordans, but have their own issues. Low SPL capability, high frequency extension that is seriously lacking, beaming, POOR off axis response, and ultimate difficulty mating ANY cone driver to them for low frequency extension.

This was my experience,

C

[jzagaja]

When I was at Herr Manger house in June he used holoprofile reflectors and bipolar firing - no problem with high frequencies and beaming. Everywhere the picture was the same and very good, natural (he is active in recording field as well). The sound was quiet indeed even at max volume possible on modified Sony XA-50ES and class A power amplifiers with 500KHz bandwidth. Maybe it is a lack of "transient noise"?

I don't understand low frequencies - many people complains that Manger is hard to mate on bass, others says that low mass rigid aluminium drivers like Bandor 150 are imprecise in low frequencies. What we are looking for?

[chrismercurio]

I had the money at the time to use multiples of the Manger like in some of their designs it would have improved. The drivers are very expensive though.

C

[Lynn Olson]

Originally posted by thomaseliot


Maybe this is not true for 18Sound. Their headquarter is in Italy and I've seen Giacomo Previ answering kindly to an italian diy forum member. The company is 8 years old, I think a link to this thread would be enough for a loan request.

Hmm, I'd like to take you up on that. I don't know anyone in Italy, and unfortunately, I haven't gotten any phone call or or e-mail responses from a US importer, Loudspeakers Plus. More than a week has gone by - either they're on vacation or ... ?

I'd particularly like the know the suitability for the highest-quality midbass application of the 12ND710, the 12NDA520, or the 8NMB420. Smooth time-decay characteristics in the 1~5 kHz range and low IM distortion in the 200 Hz ~2 kHz range are a priority.

I'm also curious which of the 15" drivers would have the lowest distortion in the 80~400 Hz region while avoiding severe resonances in 1~3 kHz region. Lots of questions here, and not all the answers are on the 18Sound website.

Hi nullspace, I might be contacting you some time in the fall, after the RMAF, especially if there aren't any Fertins to audition at the show. I'm OK with paying shipping, it's a lot cheaper than buying them outright - what kind of price do the drivers go for in the USA, anyway? Haven't seen much info on this. I'm guessing Lowther or AER prices.

[Lynn Olson]

Sorry about the cranky tone of postings about the mainstream audiophile driver vendors. When I designed the Ariel in the 1991-94 timeframe, I was content to think that drivers would gradually improve in efficiency, have better time-decay characteristics, and sound better as the decades rolled on. Based on that expectation, I thought it would simple to one day upgrade to a "Super Ariel" with better, more efficient drivers. That had been the pattern over the past decades, and I expected it to continue.

Quite a lot of time has gone by - the same as between the inefficient old-school KEF and Audax Bextrene drivers and the best of the late-Eighties polypropylene drivers - and I have frankly been very disappointed. There's only been a trivial gain in efficiency despite more than a decade of "please please please" from many loudspeaker manufacturers, the founders of the old-line Scandinavian manufacturers have all left, and worst of all, a lot of the drivers are now made in China, with typical Chinese quality control, while keeping European prices! I'm not at all surprised the Chinese have figured out the smart thing to do is bypass the "talent" of the European design houses and sell directly to OEMs and hobbyists.

Imagine what would happen if Mercedes-Benz and BMW started to outsource both design and manufacturing to China - how long would they stay in business before the Chinese did the smart thing and undercut them in their own market? Same for boutique drivers. The founders, their children, and the old engineers have left, the new owners and new engineers are still finding their way, and manufacturing is moving overseas. If all that's left of Scan-Speak, Vifa, Seas, et al is a name and a logo, why bother?

If I liked the sound of modern audiophile speakers, well, I could overlook all that. But I don't - and the low efficiency and consequent need for a 200-watt transistor amp rules them out of consideration anyway. Thus, the move to prosound, and more esoteric "studio-monitor" driver market.

[nullspace]

Originally posted by Lynn Olson


Hi nullspace, I might be contacting you some time in the fall, after the RMAF, especially if there aren't any Fertins to audition at the show. I'm OK with paying shipping, it's a lot cheaper than buying them outright - what kind of price do the drivers go for in the USA, anyway? Haven't seen much info on this. I'm guessing Lowther or AER prices.

Last time I saw, they were upwards of $2k per pair with options like silver voice coils pushing them over $3k. The NA distributer, Gilles Gagne, posts on diyAudio as 'lrntglls', so perhaps he'll enlighten as to the latest pricing. I lucked out and snagged a 'gently used' pair a couple of years ago at a substantial discount.

I will add that I have an earlier pair and that supposedly the vintage they're selling now is different, so if you're looking for strictly current production mine might not be the best proxy but the offer stands in any case.

Regards,
John