Jim Griffin's Needles

[mazeroth]

Just got back from the Dayton Ohio DIY speaker meet and was blown away by Jim Griffin's "Needles" line array he had set up in his hotel room. Just thought I'd post a picture of how beautiful these speakers are. I'm 100% sold on line arrays now and don't think I can go back to conventional speakers

[Jim Griffin]

Thanks for the good words and excellent photo. I'm glad that you enjoyed the Needles. Good to meet you as well.

Jim

[TheoM]

LA's sound fab. Add Ribbon's to the reason's why those sound amazing.

While people can explain why they sound good in conventional terms, there's no spec I know of that adequately captures the experience.

I just finished a project based on Jim's papers and personal advice (although I didn't take ALL of it, for cost reasons) and I was stunned by the results - having built a lot of speakers in the past. I'm sorry I missed the Dayton Show too - I live in Cinci - so it was close by and I've been wanting to hear Jim's designs.

Click here to see details of my LA project including measurements, photos etc.

[chipco3434]

I agree. I'll never go back to point source. Just listened to the 25k$ McIntosh LA's.

Excellent, but I'm sure some of our LA projects are up to the pepsi challenge.

[wigginjs]

What drivers are used? Enclosure/crossover details?

[Timn8ter]

Originally posted by m0tion
What drivers are used? Enclosure/crossover details?

http://www.creativesound.ca/details.php?model=NEEDLES

[MEXXX]

Grrrrrrrrrr......... Now I'm really confused. I cant decide if I want to use a line of tweets to match up with my line of NSB's, or go with a single point source tweeter like these tall dark and handsome fellas.

BTW, the array is going to be Bi-amped and XO'd by a SB Audigy and KX drivers so it will be easy integrating either option with the NSB's. I would really like to go with a single driver for the highs to keep cost and labor down to a minimum, but I just cant make up my mind.

Mr. Griffin, please help me before I go insane .


TIA,

MEXXX

[OilStain]

Odd, those McIntosh arrays look like an array of horizontal MTM's
Anyone care to venture a guess as to why they would do that?

(Here's my guess: Look at all the drivers you get with ours! )

[Jim Griffin]

I recently answered an e-mail on the Needles which deals with your question so here are my thoughts from that message:

The Needles uses a single ribbon tweeter so they operate in both near field for the small woofers and in the far field for the tweeter. In regard to the ribbon tweeter operating in the far field:

Technically, that is correct but remember that a ribbon tweeter like the Aurum-Cantus G3 has limited vertical dispersion so it functions as a mini-line source within its vertical dimension. The Needles would work the best wherein your listening distance is in the 8-16 feet distance range which is where the power radiated by the line of woofers best balance with the ribbon tweeter. The Needles would not be the best solution if you have a large room and listeners are distributed both close and far distances from the sources. This is in contrast to line arrays that operate entirely within the near field for both their woofer and tweeter arrays. In the full range near field design you would have good balance throughput the entire room.

Bottom line the Needles have excellent performance but you have to merge what they do best with your listening room and musical taste. In reality most speakers have you consider many of these same tradeoffs.

The Needles would work great in a situtation such as with a projection screen between them. If you are implementing home theater with multiple channels, I would suggest that you try a phantom center channel approach. A line array--especially
in the near field--will generate a wider coverage for the image between the two speakers so you likely could live with the no center channel tradeoff.

Jim

[chipco3434]

Jim...

I would be interested in your thoughts on the McIntosh XRT series... especially from the standpoint of the physics/combing and other shortcomings (that I can't ever seem to notice). The drivers are about 4" or slightly less and close to ~4-1/2~4-3/4 centers. I would estimate that the columns are 10 or 11 inches.