Rmaf 2008

[serenechaos]

Originally posted by angeloitacare
Yes , i heard MBL's at CES last year, and i thought their dynamics was remarkable, actually, even similar to horns. But the location of the instruments got somehow lost. It sounded strange to me.

Yes, this is how I found Raal's to be similar to MBL's--near horn dynamics (but needing a lot more power), but without the imaging and sound stage. Omni's, and more so, OBs, sound strange to me. Like reverb is added on top of the recording.
Or as my wife says, looking @ what is playing "it's another one of those bouncy speakers."
I ask her what she meant, and she said it sounded like the sound was bouncing off all the walls, and the details were getting lost, that it would drive her crazy.
This was in Linkwitz room...
I ask her to tell me if she heard anything that sounded like that again. Everytime we went in a room with an OB or Omni, she would say "it's another one of those bouncy speakers" which came to mean she didn't even want to go in.


Horns-- did you know about Red Rocks? Picts & details on:
http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2008//index1.html
Nice workmanship, the pic doesn't do it justice..

Originally posted by angeloitacare
saw them at stereophile the first time. Did you like the hornloaded ribbons for midrange ?

well... Ribbons are "fast" to begin with, the horns make them even "faster." To my ears the bass didn't keep up.
As the reviewer in the link I posted said, a 15" driven by really great 572 amp is great for bass solos, but combined, for something more complex?
I gave him a CD with the Durufle Requiem op 9, VIII (thinking it would be great, this much tube power into horns for the dynamics), but it became quite incoherent sounding.
You could really hear where the crossovers were, etc.


Or Oswalds Mill? With Ribbon waveguide/RCA horn/15" woofer.

Originally posted by angeloitacare
waiting to see some pictures. how did you like them ?
Angelo

hmmm... again, as above, not bad, ok, but not something I really liked either.
I find conical horns too colored sounding, have yet to hear a ribbon that delivers a textured sound, with harmonics intact, and seldom find BR bottoms to compliment horns.


Or (in my opinion) the best sounding of the above group, CARs T-1 with field coil drivers. Sounded much better than last year. Better integration, couldn't hear jumps at crossover points, instruments sounded like what they were, highs were clear, not shrill, good tight bass, very good for non-horn bass.

Originally posted by angeloitacare

don't know these. Did you make any pictures ?
Angelo

No; they look the same as on the website. They just have field coil drivers now. And are actually now designated T-1.3
I told him how I thought they sounded much better than last year, and he said it was a lot of work; time and money to develop drivers. He had one of each sitting out on the table; I didn't even get pictures of them; thought they'd be on the web site, but they're not yet. Just cylinders with the company name in the back; nice to look at, but nicer to listen to.

Originally posted by angeloitacare

do you know the name of the cd ?

Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell, Track 7; Down to You.
1974 Asylum Records

Originally posted by angeloitacare

there are some new entries at stereophile blog. What is remarkable is the charged prices for some components. For example:
not very large Kaiser Kawero 92dB-sensitive speakers ($50,000/pair)
we are talking here about a relatively small 2 way floorstander, with a small cone driver, and a ribbon above.
or
Everything was held together by PranaWire's Avatar speaker cable ($13,000 for 1.5m), Cosmos interconnect ($9450 for 3m RCA), MahaSamadhi power cable ($4600 for 1.5m)
i ask myself if these companies really are able to find customers, paying these prices ?!! this looks irrational ....
Angelo

Unreal.
Like already mentioned Feastrex; $40,000 drivers in $19,500 (laquered plywood) cabinets, (at least they sounded nice), or the $295, 000 Coltrane Supreme, $150k amp...
I was talking to a rep from Duelund about that this afternoon, who said something to the effect of he didn't understand it, even though he sold really hi-end exotic components.
Robert

[cdwitmer]

Originally posted by serenechaos

Unreal.
Like already mentioned Feastrex; $40,000 drivers in $19,500 (laquered plywood) cabinets, (at least they sounded nice) . . .
I was talking to a rep from Duelund about that this afternoon, who said something to the effect of he didn't understand it, even though he sold really hi-end exotic components.
Robert

Well, $19,500 enclosures are definitely not within my budget, but in view of the fact that they are coated with up to 40 layers of the best Japanese urushi lacquer inside and out, for enclosures of that size I would say the price is not on the high side, especially when you consider that there must be some markup in the distributiion channel. I think you could easily spend that much even going direct to any reputable Japanese urushi craftsman . . . that's just the way things are with high-quality Japanese urushi fabrications. Admittedly, whatever market exists for such top-of-the-line stuff must be small. I'll count myself fortunate if I can obtain a pair of even the entry-level drivers in DIYed enclosures. (Probably 1/10 the cost.)

-- Chris

[augerpro]

Just went to the show today. Didn't get to hear everything I wanted but oh well...What struck me most is just how average most of the speakers are. But the best speakers are REALLY GOOD. Comparisons between the best speakers is difficult-some rooms were well treated, others not, and the music was always different. But I think the Audiokinesis speaker, Roger Sanders' ESL, and the RAAL omni were all top of the class. Here is a little review of what I heard:

On the standout list were the following:
The Audiokinesis Planetarium was good. Very efficient and percussion was excellent. Every "thwack" on a snare drum smacked you in the chest. Very smooth, a bit laidback. You could probably play these all day long and not get tired. Solid stereo image.

The Viv Audio Evanui was just crazy. It uses a single 3" driver that drives the big horn thing. Everything from high hats to low bass. And it had a lot of bass! Actually the midbass/lower midrange was very strong overall, maybe a bit much, though it could have been the room too. Solid image and the speaker just disappeared. All from a tiny little driver. Strangest thing you've seen.

Roger Sanders, apparently the original brain behind Martin Logan had his ESL's there and they were excellent. All the magic of an ESL but with treble that doesn't sound "phasey" and seamless integration with woofers which gives a great midbass slam-something you don't usually get with ESL's. If you like ESL's you have to check these out.

ACI Sapphires were the best small speaker I heard. The midrange/midbass is superb and they just disappear into a big, deep image.

The Avalon Indra was impressive. Big soundstage, very clear.

The best of the show-especially if you like classical or opera-was an omni speaker that was developed with involvement of Aleksander of RAAL ribbons. Unfortunately I can't find any info on them and I forgot to grab a card. Think it was called the Eternity. The did have a little problem in the upper midrange that needs to get worked out. But otherwise the were very dynamic and powerful and clear. They were the only omni I heard that actually had a defined soundstage. And it was big and deep. You could almost see the different levels of instruments and chorus during the classical music that was played. Almost like being at the top row of a big amphitheater.

So what about the let downs? Well there is a high end speaker that uses all Accuton drivers in a tower speaker, coupled with another tower that has like five more 8" Accutons for bass. I can't remember the name, so if someone thinks they know post a pic and I'll see if that is it. Anyway, REALLY expensive and it sucked! Poor integration of the drivers with no real image. You always knew you were listening to a loudspeaker. A couple doors down was Avalon's Indra using nearly the same drivers-though not as many-and it absolutely upstaged this junk.

Another was Acoustic Zen's Maestro driven by crazy expensive Halcro amps. It was merely ok. Decent soundstage size with good bass but that was about it. Voices and instruments wandered up and down between drivers and never really formed a great stereo image. If these were $2k I'd say they were a steal...but they are MUCH more than $2k.

The MBL Referance omni speaker was the most incredible engineering at the show but mediocre sounding. Yeah the speakers disappeared like any good omni, but there was no defined soundstage and the treble made me want cringe. For the astronomical price these were a real letdown.

I passed some other rooms with some mediocre yet generally expensive speakers. I missed a lot of stuff like the BPT and Salk room (thanks for the veneer tips Jim!), but did get to hear some Linkwitz Orions finally and man, for the $2.3k or so to build these they are nearly unbeatable. Smooth and coherent with good driver integration. Big, enveloping soundstage. And the bass was superb, tight and tuneful. A "walking" bassline was perfectly clear. I didn't hear many line arrays/sources that I liked-other than Roger Sanders ESL. I did hear the av123 LS9 which of course threw a large soundstage with a big floating head doing vocals. Pretty neat, although the upper midrange/treble needs some work. All in all a super cool show, and a great way to see what the real state of the art is

[Taco]

Originally posted by augerpro


The best of the show-especially if you like classical or opera-was an omni speaker that was developed with involvement of Aleksander of RAAL ribbons. Unfortunately I can't find any info on them and I forgot to grab a card. Think it was called the Eternity. The did have a little problem in the upper midrange that needs to get worked out. But otherwise the were very dynamic and powerful and clear. They were the only omni I heard that actually had a defined soundstage. And it was big and deep. You could almost see the different levels of instruments and chorus during the classical music that was played. Almost like being at the top row of a big amphitheater.


So what about the let downs? Well there is a high end speaker that uses all Accuton drivers in a tower speaker, coupled with another tower that has like five more 8" Accutons for bass. I can't remember the name, so if someone thinks they know post a pic and I'll see if that is it. Anyway, REALLY expensive and it sucked! Poor integration of the drivers with no real image. You always knew you were listening to a loudspeaker. A couple doors down was Avalon's Indra using nearly the same drivers-though not as many-and it absolutely upstaged this junk.

First of all, thanks for your impressions, the raal speakers are elaborated on the 6moons factor visit.

The accuton speaker is most probably the Marten Design Coltrane Supreme

[Lynn Olson]

Here are some pix with brief impressions of the systems. Sorry about the color in some of them, I don't like using flash, and the lighting had a strange and hard-to-correct color balance.

The top part of Alexander of RAAL's new omnidirectional speakers - crossover on top (that's the removable top hat), array of ribbons with foam directional shaping, a hexagonal array of 2~3" aluminum cone midranges (3 x 6 array), and the cast-bronze bass sphere with 5 woofers working in parallel.

[Lynn Olson]

Close-up of the midrange array.

[Lynn Olson]

Alexander (on the right) demonstrating the interior view of the bass sphere - this is not a closed-box system, so one of the 15-inch "holes" is left open and is a de facto vent. The bass-midrange crossover needed a bit of trimming for the bass-heavy hotel room, I brought over my collection of crossover parts, and Alexander dialled-in the system on Saturday morning.

[Lynn Olson]

The Oswald's Mill Audio horn system. This and the new Classic Audio Research T-1's (which have nothing in common with the previous T-1's) are the two best horn systems I've heard to date.

The driver lineup, according to Jonathan Weiss, is a GPA 803 (Altec 515 cone with a lighter magnet), his new phenolic-diaphragm compression driver mounted on a wood conical horn, and a RAAL supertweeter with an Alexander-designed short horn. Superb crossover integration - absolutely seamless and natural-sounding, and wonderful bass and upper-bass from the big Altec/GPA driver. More than one person remarked it was the best they've ever heard a piano sound, and I had to agree.

[Lynn Olson]

Jonathan Weiss looking thoughtful during one of the demos.

[Lynn Olson]

The new Classic Audio Reproduction T-1's (on the right). Despite the name, the only thing they have in common with the previous CAR T-1's is the hole size for the drivers. Everything else - the drivers, the manufacturer of the drivers, the horn profile, the horn builder, and the speaker designer are all different. Yes, it's a completely different - and much better - speaker with the same name.

This is also Bruce Edgar's finest system to date, and an impressive demonstration of what he can do with a clean-slate design. All three of the drivers are field-coil modifications of JBL frames (I think the 2"-exit midrange is a 2440 or 2441, but that's only the starting point), and sound is much better than the TAD equivalents. Bruce also designed and built the Tractrix-profile radial midrange horn.

There was an amusing moment when I was sitting on one side of Bruce Edgar and Jonathan Valin of Absolute Sound magazine sat on the other side. I overheard Mr. Valin say that this was the most-improved speaker he'd ever heard and I added (in a loud stage whisper) that it because it was a completely different speaker with a different designer - Bruce Edgar.

Both the OMA's and the new field-coil line of speakers from CAR created a sensation at the show, and drew big crowds. It's not exaggerating to say they re-define horn speakers, at least in the commercial sector. I haven't heard Hiraga's new 604 Duplex system, but I imagine it is in the same league as these systems.