Linkwitz Orions beaten by Behringer.... what!!?

[jamikl]

There are a couple of things about this thread which interest me. (a) The Behringer has a polypropylene cone. These are often, lets say, rubbished
in the forums. (b) the woofer was only 83/4 inches. I did note that the sound levels were not overly loud but the room was quite large for a home.
(c)The Behringer was two way with a CD waveguide.

Perhaps it shows that relatively simple is capable of good presentation in the
domestic situation. As a lot of people seem to favour using 10 inch woofers I wonder if this would be a most practical setup for a lot of us, and in particular for people just starting out. Perhaps even 21/2 way with two 10s or 8s to get some low grunt as they say. I think sensitivity or, what ever it is, into the low-mid 90s would be a good thing too.

If I had a job or a pension I would be looking at this format, but that's a whole other story. There have been DIY reference builds before with contributions to the design from members. Would this format be worthy of
such development with a kit available at the end so that it did not become
yet another theoretical thread?
jamikl

[analog_sa]

Originally Posted by bruceperry

One thing the Orion does allow you to hear is that many "exotic" preamps aren't better than cheaper versions. Different, but not better.

The Orions contain a much longer and less transparent signal chain than most preamps, especially minimalist designs. Your observation merely states their excellence at masking.

[boconnor]

Originally Posted by analog_sa

The Orions contain a much longer and less transparent signal chain than most preamps, especially minimalist designs. Your observation merely states their excellence at masking.

Surely that's a statement that is true for all loudspeakers compared with (well designed) preamps and power amps. I wouldn't single out the Orions in that respect.

The more interesting question is do the Orions transmit the input signal to the room with more accuracy and tangible sonic impact than other loudspeaker designs?

[planet10]

Originally Posted by boconnor

Surely that's a statement that is true for all loudspeakers compared with (well designed) preamps and power amps. I wouldn't single out the Orions in that respect.

No.

Most loudspeakers don't have that huge train of electronics in front of them. Every stage (and there are a lot of them), every op-amp, will add another layer of not quite transparent (some would say i'm being charitable) film between the preamp & the speaker, burying any of the subtle nuance.

dave

[Davey]

There's a large train of electronics in front of the music on the source material you're playing on your system right now. Most likely many more op-amps, capacitive DC blockers, etc, etc, than is contained in the Orion ASP.

Also remember the Orion ASP is an entirely analog unit and doesn't have any of those horrible ADC's and DAC's that bury the subtle nuance in DSP units.

Let's consider the whole picture.

Cheers,

Dave.

[boconnor]

Originally Posted by planet10

No. Most loudspeakers don't have that huge train of electronics in front of them. Every stage (and there are a lot of them), every op-amp, will add another layer of not quite transparent (some would say i'm being charitable) film between the preamp & the speaker, burying any of the subtle nuance. dave

The active crossover design of the Orions is likely to be much more accurate, transparent and benign to the amps then a similar transfer function implemented as a passive design - that's just well established engineering knowledge.

Originally Posted by Davey

There's a large train of electronics in front of the music on the source material you're playing on your system right now. Most likely many more op-amps, capacitive DC blockers, etc, etc, than is contained in the Orion ASP.Dave.

Thoroughly agree.

[planet10]

Originally Posted by boconnor

The active crossover design of the Orions is likely to be much more accurate, transparent and benign to the amps then a similar transfer function implemented as a passive design

More accurate i'll give you. Not necessarily as benign. A passive XO & loudspeaker don't produce the 4th, 5th, 6th .... order distortion products of a piece of electronics, especially one with lots of feedback.

dave

[Pano]

It all seems a "Tempest in a Teapot" to me.

Have you ever heard the Orion? Nice speaker, but not an imaging monster. Rather flat from my listening experience.

Oddly, only I seem to be the only one to have commented on what should be a very important point.
"The core group found that AS could not be judged without EQ-ing the speakers"

The Behringer and the Eickmeier had to be EQ'd to match the Orion. Even then:
"Matching was not perfect even after EQ"

Important?

The Behringer and the Eickmeier also had subwoofer support. That is going to change things. The test results are not surprising to me. It was only a test of "AS", nothing more. For that the Orion is not the best I've ever heard, not by a long shot. Something more mundane or more bizarre just might do better. Seems they did - a little.

[MarkT]

Originally Posted by planet10

A passive XO & loudspeaker don't produce the 4th, 5th, 6th .... order distortion products of a piece of electronics, especially one with lots of feedback.

dave

I wonder whether this is the case. As an example, look at the Zaphaudio harmonic distortion measurements on some of the more upmarket woofers (eg. the scanspeak 18WU8741T00 or the seas W18EX001; if we look at woofers rather than tweeters the 5th harmonic has more chance of being in the audible range). I see that the 5th harmonic is mostly around 70 decibels down from the fundamental, or about 0.03%. I would be surprised if the total harmonic distortion, let alone just the 5th harmonic, of the opamp circuits in the orion crossover was much higher than this, assuming reasonably competent design!

[Davey]

Originally Posted by MarkT

I wonder whether this is the case. As an example, look at the Zaphaudio harmonic distortion measurements on some of the more upmarket woofers (eg. the scanspeak 18WU8741T00 or the seas W18EX001; if we look at woofers rather than tweeters the 5th harmonic has more chance of being in the audible range). I see that the 5th harmonic is mostly around 70 decibels down from the fundamental, or about 0.03%. I would be surprised if the total harmonic distortion, let alone just the 5th harmonic, of the opamp circuits in the orion crossover was much higher than this, assuming reasonably competent design!

Yeah, I would agree with that. On my Orion ASP distortion products above third-order are unmeasurable. At least with my measuring system.

Cheers,

Dave.