Beyond the Ariel

[Lynn Olson]

Been struggling all day with the audio part of the HT upgrade, replacing the obsolete Denon 2805 with Marantz AV8003 pre/pro and MM8003 eight-channel amplifier. Not that I'm using eight channels; it's a conventional 5.1 setup, with the Ariels providing Left and Right, Dynaudio CS X center, a pair of very mediocre Tannoy M1's for the rears, and a REL Strata II subwoofer. (No good location for surround rears, otherwise I'd be using them.)

No problem with the wiring per se, just the immense weight of the 60" wide Salamander rack with the Panasonic P58VT25 mounted on the rear frame. With the 95 lb. plasma TV, who knows how much for the rack, and the combined 77 lb. weight of the two Marantz's, this sucker must weigh 300 lbs. Yes, it has wheels, but getting them going on thick carpet is a bear.

Since the rack - for WAF reasons - is only 8" out from the wall, the whole shebang has to be wheeled out for access. And I'm not that petite at 6' 2", so it has to wheeled way out into the room to give enough space to access the zillions of wires connecting all this stuff together. Sigh, it would be nice to have a media closet where all the wiring would be oh-so-easy, just like rewiring rack-mount equipment. Open the door and there all the connections are, just waiting for the plug-and-play experience.

After the Big Pull - grunt - let's see what goes where: HDMI 1.4 from the Blu-Ray player to the TV, HDMI 1.3a from the secondary-audio output of the player to the Marantz, HDMI 1.3a from the Comcast DVR to the TV, and HDMI 1.3a from the Marantz to the TV (so I can set it up on the TV screen). Optical S/PDIF from the Comcast DVR to the Marantz, another optical from the TV to the Marantz (so I can listen to Pandora on the hifi system). Ethernet to the TV and Blu-Ray player (firmware updates, doncha know). The Marantz has Ethernet too, but it's only for for DLNA, which doesn't work that great with Macintosh computers (no AIFF support). Five XLRs from the AV8003 to the MM8003, along with a single RCA-to-RCA to synchronize on-off powering of both units. Another single RCA to the subwoofer. Oh yes, the five sets of speaker wires too, bi-wired for the Ariels. Lotsa wires.

The MM8003 has those very annoying EU-compliant speaker jacks which only accept bare wire or banana jacks - how on Earth could anyone ever harm themselves with speaker-level voltages - by sucking on the wires maybe? Also annoying that some of the speaker jacks on the Marantz MM8003 bend a little when I slide in the heavy Blue Jeans Cable locking banana plugs - don't like that. Also got crosswise of the locking banana plugs - not enough room to work, put some in the wrong channel, try and remove them, some get stuck, some spin around and still stay stuck, grrr, this is frustrating! Why O why did the EU condemn millions of people to using with these dreadful banana jacks. Are speakers and power amps really that unsafe? Has anyone in the whole wide world ever been injured or killed by a loudspeaker or power amp connection? Thousands die on the highways all over the world, maybe we should stop driving, too? And bicycles, just think how dangerous they are!

Aside from being tired and not in the best mood (as you can probably tell), all went well until the very slow roll-back, moving only a few inches at a time, sweeping and clearing the wires as I go, when I discovered to my dismay one of the rear wheels crushed a wire I somehow missed. At first I thought it was one of the brand-new HDMI 1.4 wires. Argh! Those aren't cheap, and don't tolerate that kind of abuse. But fortunately it was merely a cheap RCA coax for the subwoofer - I have lots of those, so I replaced it in a jiffy. (Never a good idea to leave an abused wire in-circuit, it could fail at any time, with unpleasant results for the electronics.) Next time I do this I'm going to hang all of these silly wires from some kind of hanger off the rear of the Salamander rack, so they don't lay on the floor, asking for trouble.

Too physically tired, mind-fogged, and cranky to finish the install tonight - the screwup with the wire was a good warning to stop before I did any more damage. Tomorrow, thoroughly double-check everything before powering up, and run the Audyssey auto-install (modern HT receivers insist on running Audyssey or equivalent on initial setup), so I want to be fresh as I step through measuring the speakers. Not all that impressed with Audyssey equalization, but the pre/pro will insist, so I'll give it what it wants. Maybe for movies, or setting it so the other speakers mirror the balance of the Ariels.

Gary managed to divert me with a great phone call about his progress on the HF crossover. No pix to show you guys, but it's looking good, particularly for a large-format compression driver with a 3" aluminum diaphragm. 3rd-order highpass crossover, Dave Slagle autoformer attenuator, and Zobel corrector are working as expected. From what I see, it will be a low-coloration high-efficiency (97~98 dB/meter/watt) system with generous dynamic range.

[bvan]

Originally Posted by Lynn Olson

Gary managed to divert me with a great phone call about his progress on the HF crossover. No pix to show you guys, but it's looking good, particularly for a large-format compression driver with a 3" aluminum diaphragm. 3rd-order highpass crossover, Dave Slagle autoformer attenuator, and Zobel corrector are working as expected. From what I see, it will be a low-coloration high-efficiency (97~98 dB/meter/watt) system with generous dynamic range.

What you think would be the difference in usable extension on the bottom and top end between a 1.4" and a bigger 2" throat? I ask because I've got a AH425 and a 2" Radian 850PB on the way.

I'm debating crossover points to a TD15M bellow and a 465PB supertweeter above and this thread had been very useful - thanks guys.

[john k...]

Originally Posted by Lynn Olson

how on Earth could anyone ever harm themselves with speaker-level voltages - by sucking on the wires maybe?

A) Be glad you have HDMI and don't have to use component Video with separate stereo audio cables.

B) Ever put you finger across a 10,000uf cap charged to 50 volts?

[soongsc]

50 volts no, 500 volts yes. Stayed away from tube amps after that. Mainly it's the current I suspect. I recall that 3mA leakage is cosidered harmfull

[studiotech]

Lynn, whatever happened with the LO15's? I'm working with the Dipole 15's right now and am impressed with the low end output on my small, simple baffle, but am wondering if the LO15 would possibly sound cleaner on the low end due to lower QTS. Anything you can report?

Edit: My mistake, looking back to the specs, they seem to share the same QTS, so there goes that line of reasoning. Still curious though Lynn.

See here for the current prototype:

Lambda Dipole 15" measurements - Techtalk at Parts-Express.com

Greg Begland - technician - Phat Planet Recording Studios - Orlando Florida - Audiophile Quality Recording, Mixing, Mastering, Production

[bleu34]

Hi All,

I am following this post since years but still no successor to the Ariel ;-)
I built my Ariels 2 years ago and now my father wants the same (guess why).
Unfortunately the VIFA P13WH-00-08 are no more produced nor sold.
That's why I am asking to the community if someone have 4 of them available ?

Lynn I send you a PM asking for an alternative but I guess there is no chance to have a perfect match with another reference.

So if somebody can help, feel free to PM me.
Thanks

[Lynn Olson]

First Question: I've sold my first pair of LO15's, and will sell the second pair as well. I custom-ordered four of them, and the project has taken a turn away from the OB concept due to my unwillingness to go down the path of active equalization.

The change in direction of the project is not a reflection on the drivers; from the feedback I've gotten, the drivers are sonically outstanding, with the hallmark TD15M sound in an OB driver. Many people like OB's, and I'm pleased that AESpeakers is offering these drivers as part of their product line. The attitude I have against equalization is my problem; many people are happy with digital or analog equalized OB systems.

Second question: The Ariel was a good design for its day, and I waited patiently for Scan-Speak/Vifa/Seas drivers that were more efficient and just as flat as the 5.5" Vifas that were an essential part of the Ariels. Well, that day never came.

The drivers that followed were no more efficient, and were less flat thanks to the fad of more rigid but also more resonant cone materials - which in turn demanded much more complex crossovers to remove the artifacts of the breakup region. The key concept in the Ariel - which is applied in the new project - are wideband drivers with well-controlled rolloff regions, thus simplifying the crossover and also allowing a higher level of parts quality. Bass and midbass drivers with well-controlled rolloff regions are still pretty rare, and more rare in the high-efficiency realm.

As for drivers that are closest in spirit to the 5.5" Vifas, and at a higher level of quality, I'd look at the Skaaning Flex-Units. I've heard these, and they are very, very good, although not as cheap as the original Vifas. But Skaaning has the right idea; drivers with very good self-damping that don't require elaborate crossovers.

The initial listening session of the Marantz AV8003 and MM8003 was underwhelming; plenty of power to be sure, and smooth with little evidence of transistor grain, but rather smudged and constrained-sounding. At four to five times the price of the Denon 2805, I was having mixed feelings about the purchase. But Karna and I kept listening in the small hours of the morning, and it very gradually started sounding better - more dynamic, more open, and quicker-sounding.

The next day, when twiddling around with the assorted surround settings, I noticed that even at very quiet levels, it was sounding much clearer and more open than the previous night. Karna and I listened at more length the following night, and the sound was much better all around. The most noticeable quality is the way the soundfield extends well into the room - with a lot of surround gear, the sound is pasted against the wall, with very little sense of depth. The subtleties of timbre are pretty good for solid-state gear, and there's oodles of power at a measured 170 watts per channel. This is more to my taste than the Anthem gear, which I didn't warm up to.

So I guess there's something to break-in after all. My only guess is the dielectrics - in the new cabling and speaker wire, the circuit boards, and the electrolytics in the power supply and coupling caps (in the preamp) - are subtly altering with applied voltage over time. The units do emit that distinctive Chinese circuit board smell, so something is happening to the passivation layer of the circuit board.

The Audyssey auto-equalization was a big flop; I'll be trying it again, but measuring from three different points along the front of the couch produced results much inferior to the five-year-old Denon with its single-point equalization. Auditioning with surround material that used smooth circular pan revealed the rear speakers were too hot by 3 to 4 dB, a terrible result, and it attempted to add a shocking 5 dB or more of treble boost to rear speakers that were already thin and tinny-sounding.

I was gratified that the Dynaudio CS X center speaker measured within a dB or so of the Ariels, making EQ across the front largely unnecessary. More important, it sounded much better with the EQ off, and more surprisingly, with distance compensation for the center speaker turned off as well. So aside from distance-compensating the rears (which needed it), I bypassed the equalizer.

I suspect the equalization is not smart enough to measure the first-arrival sound by itself, and is simply doing a crude overall room correction, lumping the first-arrival and later sounds together, like a real-time analyzer. It also tries to "fill in" nulls, which I don't appreciate. Left to its own devices, it produces far too much rear energy - quite audibly so on front-to-rear pans - and wants to crank up the treble of the whole system, converting the flat response of the Ariels to the thin, bright sound of modern theaters. No thanks.

Maybe the latest-and-greatest Audyssey system is better; I don't know. But the underlying assumption of measuring a zillion different points seems wrong in principle, and seems to strongly imply the system is indeed aimed at room correction, and takes no account at all of the spectral response of the first-arrival signal. So you can start with speakers that are quite flat and end up with massive boosting after the auto-equalizer gets through with it.

With ordinary speakers that have increasing directivity at higher frequencies, if you attempt to flatten out the overall room energy, the first-arrival (on-axis) sound will be heavily overboosted at high frequencies, and will sound shrill and bright. Some reviewers seem to have the impression that this kind of sound is "accurate" - well, maybe if your standard of comparison is a PA system. But acoustic music, sans amplification, is very rarely shrill and bright - it sounds shockingly dull compared to the sound of the typical hifi show.

My ideal version of an equalizer would confine its room equalization to the region below 300 Hz, would only equalize first-arrival sounds above that frequency, and would not attempt to equalize narrowband nulls, but simply gracefully ignore them. Even nicer would be FIR time correction for the above-300 Hz region, allowing passive crossovers to be "unwrapped" in the phase domain. But from what I see in the HT arena, the auto-equalizers are nowhere close to this degree of sophistication, and are probably best avoided in systems that have speakers with flat responses.

But then again, looking at the appalling measurements of expensive high-end speakers reviewed in $tereophile magazine, maybe these gizmos are needed, at least for the HT market, where many Center and surround speakers have grossly nonflat responses.

[Lynn Olson]

As for HDMI versus the prior generation of Component-color cables, yes, I've paid my dues there. The previous Proscan/RCA/Thomson multisync 36" TV only had one set of component inputs, so I had to mess around with an awkward component switcher to accommodate the various HD sources, not to mention the five-cable bundles. No SCART connections in NTSC-land. It was a long march from composite/RCA to S-Video to Component to HDMI.

HDMI is kind of a mixed blessing. The HDCP authentication procedure takes a long time - several seconds, so switching between sources involves what seems like a very long blackout period on the television. Karna has asked if something is wrong with the TV when I switch sources. I know the HDCP authentication procedure involves a lot of handshaking between devices to prevent us evil consumers from pirating Michael Bay's little art productions, but why does it takes so long with processors operating in the GHz region and cabling capable of gigabit speeds? Where's the holdup, guys? Is there a software process that's timing-out somewhere? Why can't authentication happen in one video frame? This seems like mighty poor design.

I do like that we finally have an industry-standard connection and protocol that supports high-resolution digital audio as well as DSD. It could have been Firewire/IEEE1394, but that was not to be. During the long wait, DVD-A and SACD gradually weakened, and it's an open question if audio-only Blu-ray discs will make it in a marketplace dominated by ever-lower quality formats. Still, for all its faults, HDMI is finally here.

[ScottG]

I found this interesting: Haigner Alpha.

haigner.com

http://home.tele2.at/haigner/downloa...alpha_horn.pdf

I think we've seen similar mid-treble horns before, but the mid-bass horn is a bit different.

While it is rather large, it's also quite aesthetically pleasing IMO.

Here is another mid-bass horn from Haigner (gamma) (..3 pic.s, the last pic on the page is one of them with their soon-to-be owner):

The Audio Eagle - The Vienna Vibes Audio Fest

[ScottG]

Here is a better view of the Gamma's mid-bass horn: