Rmaf 2008

[anubisgrau]

Originally posted by nullspace
Horses for courses... There was a lot I liked about the Swing (I spent about 20-25 min in their room), but I thought they were reminiscent of listening to very large headphones and I found the imaging particularly problematic -- mouths four feet in diameter were a bit disconcerting. For me, it almost overwhelmed the many good qualities.

Regards,
John

could you pls elaborate your thoughts, i don't get what 'listening to very large headphones' mean.

as for imaging, it only depends how close you sit. if you were 1-2m from the mouth than i can understand the concern, otherwise i yet have to hear a horn speaker that dissappears like swings do. they are very unique speaker in that aspect, having speed and dynamics of the horns while imaging like the best mini monitor there. they actually just show what fake performance small dynamic speakers do.

[nullspace]

Well, I'm not sure that I can better explain the phenomina, but for me the experience of listening on axis to horns with increasing directivity was similar to listening to headphones. I just didn't get the more open, airy presentation that I'm used to from CD horns. I'm sorry if that's not any clearer.

My guess is that the back row of seats in the BD room were maybe 8-10 feet back. As with many of the speakers at the show, I can easily see that they would've done better in a larger room.

Regards,
John

[jeffbook]

Originally posted by Lynn Olson



As for the sound of the Orions, they are really good examples of "conventional" driver technology - no, they don't sound like horns or electrostats, but they certainly sound (and measure) better than the high-name-recognition speakers using the same drivers. They don't sound like the OMA's or CAR T-1's, nor do they sound like a Feastrex, AER, or Lowther. They do play louder than most 87~90 dB/meter speakers thanks to multi-amping and skillful crossover design, but that doesn't take them into 98~103 dB/meter territory, which is a world all its own. Put it this way: OMA was using a single stereo 2A3 SET and getting plenty of dynamic range, while I'm sure there are lots and lots of watts from the 12-channel ATI amplifier that Siegfried was using (the bass and mid channels were bridged for additional power).

From what I heard at the show, Siegfried Linkwitz, Jonathan Weiss, Duke, and Bruce Edgar appear to prefer the balance I do (a "traditional" balance), flat with a moderate tilt towards the bass - maybe 1 to 2 dB tilt between 100 Hz and 10 kHz, and no more.

This is a minority taste in the industry today. The high-name-recognition exhibitors (who could afford the largest rooms) were demoing speakers with obviously nonflat balances that reminded me of the TAD Reference Ones I heard a while ago; tipped-up, bright, with breakup artifacts in the 3~5 kHz region, the 100~160 Hz region depressed by several dB, and deep bass overemphasis. This is the sound that magazine and online reviewers seem to prefer, since it's the sound you get with the highly-reviewed name-recognition speakers - Wilson, JMLab, Magico Mini, et al.

Just a quick clarification on the use of the ATI amp on the Orions. Only 8 of the 12 channels are in use, 4 for each channel. The two Seas Millenium tweeters are driven by 1 channel, the Seas W22 is driven by one channel.. The two Peerless XLS 10" woofers are driven by 1 channel each for a total of 4 channels per side.

The woofer output of the Orion ASP is split through a simple cable splitter to get the woofer signal to the 2 amplifier channels, one for each woofer. No amplfier bridging ever occurs in order to drive the Orion.

Linkwitz does provide a method to use the 4 unused channels to drive two of his Thor subwoofers if those are used in addition to the Orions. The proper circuitry to do this is included on his W-asp board that he has available on his website.

[audiokinesis]

Thanks for the thumbs-up, Augerpro and Nullspace.

Since this is a DIY forum, for those who might be interested here's the rundown on what was in the systems I showed:

DDS ENG 1-90 Pro waveguide
Beyma CP-385Nd compression driver
Acoustic Elegance Lambda TD12M woofer
Tang Band W8-1363SB 8" subwoofer

Of course, the "special sauce" is the crossover.

The AE Lambda TD12M was more or less called upon to step into the shoes of the alnico-magnet TAD TL-1102 that was used in the speakers I showed the past couple of years, and I was very pleased with its liveliness and smoothness. It's more efficient than the TAD and thus calls for either bigger boxes or separate subs for the very bottom end, and I opted for the latter in a four-piece multisub configuration.

Thank you Nick McKinney and John Janowitz.

Duke

[augerpro]

Duke just so I'm clear-I was there on Sunday afternoon and listened to the Planetarium Beta I believe. This uses the Beyma CP-385ND? I was with ThomasW (I was the young punk), and I believe he asked which driver you were using, although I think you guys were standing next to the Alpha. You said BMS 4540Nd, which Tom is also using at home. Which one were we actually listening too?

BTW I must say how much fun it is to finally match a name to face. Duke seemed to be a very genuine fellow and Aleks from RAAL just struck me as a craftsman that was totally in to the "art" of sound. I remember seeing Lynn just outside Linkwitz's room. In some rooms the people often struck me as hucksters.

[stvnharr]

Originally posted by serenechaos

I really find it amazing how we hear so differently.
How tastes are different, and there is no right or wrong in the subjective realm.
No one has mentioned the room I felt was well above the others, and for several reasons, either.
And praised rooms I remember for the problems, or hardly left an impression...
Robert

Hi,
As I've read comments by people about RMAF, it seems that quite a few rooms got the complete polar response. It does make you scratch your head a bit, but well, you only get to listen with your own ears, no one else's.

Reason I liked Soundings room so much more than any other is as follows:
Almost every single room at the show had the speakers put/placed in the room so that they were 2 independent sound sources throwing sound into the room which endlessly bounced off the walls, all much as Lynn has described. The better rooms at least had a small listening spot where the sound was somewhat coherent, at least with a good center image and everything else just vague and diffuse into the space behind the speakers. But the sound would change at every single listening position. Added to that, a lot of rooms this year played music quite loud. Earache headache........

Soundings uses a method of placing the speakers in the room so that each speaker equally pressurizes its own half of the room. When accomplished, this makes the two speakers sound as one sound source. It's a bit like focusing binoculars, taking two independent lens tubes and making them focus as one. Ever notice in nature, or anywhere else for that matter, that when a sound comes from a stationary place that that sound does NOT move with you as you move, it still stays in the same place. That's what happens here too. The sound from the speakers stays the same no matter where you sit and listen.

It's all quite easy to hear. There is no straining the powers of one's perceptions to hear this. I heard it for the first time at last years RMAF, and it transformed the way I set up my speakers. I gathered enough information to attempt this setup with a modicum of success. With additional information gathered at this years show, I have made some adjustments, and I now have sound nearly as good as I heard in this room. The basics are quite easy I have found.

[audiokinesis]

Augerpro, are you sure that I said "BMS 4540 Nd"? I've never used that driver.

Aside from some custom work I did for a band, the only compression driver I've used in a commercial product with my name attached to it is the Beyma CP-385Nd. So that is what we were listening to.

Duke

p.s. - I suspect that we're all hucksters... some of us are just more subtle than others!

[anubisgrau]

Originally posted by nullspace
Well, I'm not sure that I can better explain the phenomina, but for me the experience of listening on axis to horns with increasing directivity was similar to listening to headphones. I just didn't get the more open, airy presentation that I'm used to from CD horns. I'm sorry if that's not any clearer.

My guess is that the back row of seats in the BD room were maybe 8-10 feet back. As with many of the speakers at the show, I can easily see that they would've done better in a larger room.

yes, certainly, though bert from bd design knows very well what to do with his speakers both in big (toed out) or in small (toed in) rooms.

i agree that the directivity of the horns is certainly not very welcome when you are sitting on axis, however i'm confident that the solution for what you've experienced was very easy - just to find a correct position in the room. yes, they don't have a big sweet spot. but if you are in it, the swings are still one of the most complete speakers on the market.

[Salas]

Originally posted by stvnharr
The basics are quite easy I have found.

Hi, what are those basics?

[JoshK]

Originally posted by audiokinesis
Thanks for the thumbs-up, Augerpro and Nullspace.

Since this is a DIY forum, for those who might be interested here's the rundown on what was in the systems I showed:

DDS ENG 1-90 Pro waveguide
Beyma CP-385Nd compression driver
Acoustic Elegance Lambda TD12M woofer
Tang Band W8-1363SB 8" subwoofer

Of course, the "special sauce" is the crossover.

The AE Lambda TD12M was more or less called upon to step into the shoes of the alnico-magnet TAD TL-1102 that was used in the speakers I showed the past couple of years, and I was very pleased with its liveliness and smoothness. It's more efficient than the TAD and thus calls for either bigger boxes or separate subs for the very bottom end, and I opted for the latter in a four-piece multisub configuration.

Thank you Nick McKinney and John Janowitz.

Duke

Way cool!

I have Lambda TD12M apollo's and Geddes' 12" waveguides that I'm using in a project.

In your website picture it looks like the depth of the planetarium alphas is super shallow. Is that just the photo or are they really shallow?