Earl
This is good stuff! I think I'd go for a pair of complete baffles, 2 sets of drivers, and crossover instructions (I'd supply those parts).
Can you give us a sense for how complicating the crossovers are (# of parts, etc.)?
Thanks,
Jim
This is good stuff! I think I'd go for a pair of complete baffles, 2 sets of drivers, and crossover instructions (I'd supply those parts).
Can you give us a sense for how complicating the crossovers are (# of parts, etc.)?
Thanks,
Jim
Jim,
The crossovers are not complicated at all. When I was at Earl's place, he had one set out for a pair of the Nathan 10's he's working on. Very easy. Knowing your angle for DIY, you would have no problems. Not many parts either. Earl does stick to the KISS principle. I should have pictures loaded up in Audiocircle sometime later today.
Best,
Anand.
The crossovers are not complicated at all. When I was at Earl's place, he had one set out for a pair of the Nathan 10's he's working on. Very easy. Knowing your angle for DIY, you would have no problems. Not many parts either. Earl does stick to the KISS principle. I should have pictures loaded up in Audiocircle sometime later today.
Best,
Anand.
Nice, thanks Anand. Good to hear they are on the simple / few parts side. I can (maybe) afford some boutique parts then!
-Jim
-Jim
Just got my Summas today. Here's some (brief) observations on the sound. Will post more later, have to get to work early.
The first thing I noticed was that they image well outside of the enclosures dimensions. Most speakers I've owned have a good center image, but the sound seems to stop at the edge of the speakers. With the Summas, it's very difficult to pinpoint where they're located. And the walls seem to disappear.
Another thing I noticed was that it's easy to hear distortion on the original recording. For example, I was listening to "Hurt" by Johnny Cash at obscenely loud levels, and you could clearly hear that the vocals are distorted in the original mix. I've listened to this one a hundred times, and up until now I couldn't sort out how much of the distortion was in the mix, and how much was being generated by the speakers.
Last but not least, don't buy a pair of Summas unless you know someone who can help you move them. These things are RIDICULOUSLY heavy.
More to come later...
The first thing I noticed was that they image well outside of the enclosures dimensions. Most speakers I've owned have a good center image, but the sound seems to stop at the edge of the speakers. With the Summas, it's very difficult to pinpoint where they're located. And the walls seem to disappear.
Another thing I noticed was that it's easy to hear distortion on the original recording. For example, I was listening to "Hurt" by Johnny Cash at obscenely loud levels, and you could clearly hear that the vocals are distorted in the original mix. I've listened to this one a hundred times, and up until now I couldn't sort out how much of the distortion was in the mix, and how much was being generated by the speakers.
Last but not least, don't buy a pair of Summas unless you know someone who can help you move them. These things are RIDICULOUSLY heavy.
More to come later...
Patrick Bateman said:
I too have found that recordings that used to sound fine all of a sudden don't on the Summas. This is a double edge sword. You hear everything thats on the recording - everything, the good and the bad.
You have a set that was exceptionally heavy, but yes, they are very heavy, about 100 lbs each.
tinitus said:
These are the original Summas in fiberglass cabinets with 15" woofer and 15" waveguide. There is only one set of these left.
Another Summa Review
This past weekend, a friend and myself took a trip up to the Detroit area to audition the Summa’s at the Gedlee household. I have been on many audio trips and have learned to prepare myself for any situation that I might encounter. Most of this ‘preparation’ has been developed through the listening to poor systems in even worse environments. I have come to the point where listening to systems wedged into corners with a with a big screen TV and bookshelves closely flanking each side is not appealing. I am looking for a truly great system in which all variables have been considered and addressed.
I am currently a Linkwitz Orion++ owner. I have had them setup in three different environments with varying degrees of success. They have sounded the best in the current room which has them 6ft from the front wall. I made the decision years ago to purchase the Orion plans because of the science and history of SL’s work. I have been reasonably happy with my decision over the years but have always been looking for the ultimate. I have told many listeners at my place that the Orion’s don’t do anything wrong. With that said, I have never felt that they do everything right. So, for me the search has half-heartedly continued.
My ideal system would have to do a couple important things well. Music is my main priority but I would also like a system to do double duties for movies on occasion. My feeling has always been that if it can do music well then HT should be a breeze. Until this past weekend, I have not been able to find an affordable solution to conclude this seemingly impossible search. I am not the type of person that likes to mess with the details; cables, amps, IC’s, DAC’s….we all know the typical list which many people go through. Money, patience, time and science have all been standing in the way of ‘tweaking’ every little last detail. The system through which the Summa’s are played would greatly downsize the majority of audio guys. The power, digital conversion of audio and volume control are all done by a Pioneer receiver. At the end of the session I was astonished, amazed and very glad that this was the case.
With all of these caveats listed I want to say that I am not a flavor of the week cheerleader. I like to make a sound investment based on science more than subjectivism. My many listening sessions in others environments has really given me an uneasy feeling as to others perceptions and reported findings. So, I was more than excited to arrive at situation which is based on more science than I can even start to understand. A sense of ease came over me while making the 6 hour drive as there has been more studies and research done to achieve this design and room than I can even begin to refute with my own thoughts.
I will focus this review on the system as a whole. This system is very attainable for the average home owner. Almost everything needed to achieve comparable results is listed in the HT book written by Geddes and Lee. I highly recommend getting this read as it contains a lot of outstanding information that will help anyone down a path of audio or video enlightenment. The HT room built has very little visible acoustics absorbers in place. The main focus is on low frequency attenuation but this achievement is not visible. The room, though well built, is not beyond what a good home builder might be able to with some time and effort.
The Summa’s are the best overall system that I have heard. The first thing that jumped out to me was the high end. It was different, the likes of which I had never heard before. There was more air, detail and naturalness than I had ever heard before. The music coming out was just completely effortless. The best description that I can think of is well, right.
Being very used to the Orion’s I was interested to hear the bass from the Summa setup as open baffle bass is supposed to be some of the very best, period. Well, I would replace that period with a semicolon. There was no region that jumped out over another. The impact that everyone likes was there in spades yet was never overpowering the music. Again, the descriptor that I would use is just, right.
The one region with which I was most concerned was the midrange. Come on, a 15” playing midrange?? The last few years I have scoured over all the driver tests in which keeping a driver as pistonic as possible throughout its pass band has been crucial. Now I am supposed to believe that a 15” driver can produce good much less great mids that would rival my orion’s or accuton systems which I have heard? Well…..Geddes and Lee’s views on distortion tests do not mimic all the latest rage but they do plenty of distortion tests and whatever they are doing works. I felt nothing was missing from the midrange at all. I was expecting lack of detail, nope, naturalness, nope, breakup at higher volumes, nope. That completely blew my major concern out of the water. Again, the best description that can describe it is, right.
After the start of the first song I could tell that I would like everything. The imaging was great. Placement and positioning was outstanding. I could tell more about the recordings than that of any other system I have heard before. The typical things of hearing items and instruments in the recordings which I didn’t know were there certainly applied on a couple different occasions. The musical selections which I listened to ranged from classical to vocal to rock. All were produced with equal correctness. If you want a reference for accurate recording reproduction then read on.
The only thing which I felt was not absolute top of the heap was the depth of image. The speakers were relatively close to the front wall. The image had depth and layering as good anything I have heard before but it was just compressed together closer than my Orion setup (6ft from front wall) or Avalon Sentinel (12ft from front wall). From my own experiences with speaker placement I have found that depth of image is only as great as the amount the speakers are pulled out into a room. In most listening environments, placing the speakers 3ft from the front wall is about average. I will only make the assumption that if the Summa’s are pulled further out into the room then the depth will improve accordingly.
Two other items were highly interesting to me. When setting in the sweet spot everything was glorious. Moving to the seats either left or right of center offered very little image shift. There was a change in imaging but nothing collapsed. There was still a very good center image, a better one than I have ever heard. I attribute this to the controlled directivity of the Summa’s. The great bass is one offered through design. Multiple subs are used in a three dimensional space. While other designs (OB) have attempted to say that fewer room modes are excited in reality it is better to excite as many as possible and to an even extent. Good bass is all about room pressurization. Pressurizing these modes in as even a fashion as possible is the best way to get good bass. Because of the nature of low frequencies, multiple sources spread throughout the room with emphasis placed on the suckout portions of the listening environment is the way to go. Do some research or better yet hear it for yourself and I bet you will be a believer.
If you doubt the ideas behind this design then I highly recommend you read the Summa design paper then spend the money to order the HT book offered on the gedlee website. This guy knows his stuff and reading some of his works will prove just that. He is a trained professional who has dedicated his life to this craft. The Geddes/Lee combination is one of a gift to us all. Having two doctors with ones emphasis being on the production of sound and the other being on the receiving of sound makes for a great marriage, pun or no-pun.
This past weekend, a friend and myself took a trip up to the Detroit area to audition the Summa’s at the Gedlee household. I have been on many audio trips and have learned to prepare myself for any situation that I might encounter. Most of this ‘preparation’ has been developed through the listening to poor systems in even worse environments. I have come to the point where listening to systems wedged into corners with a with a big screen TV and bookshelves closely flanking each side is not appealing. I am looking for a truly great system in which all variables have been considered and addressed.
I am currently a Linkwitz Orion++ owner. I have had them setup in three different environments with varying degrees of success. They have sounded the best in the current room which has them 6ft from the front wall. I made the decision years ago to purchase the Orion plans because of the science and history of SL’s work. I have been reasonably happy with my decision over the years but have always been looking for the ultimate. I have told many listeners at my place that the Orion’s don’t do anything wrong. With that said, I have never felt that they do everything right. So, for me the search has half-heartedly continued.
My ideal system would have to do a couple important things well. Music is my main priority but I would also like a system to do double duties for movies on occasion. My feeling has always been that if it can do music well then HT should be a breeze. Until this past weekend, I have not been able to find an affordable solution to conclude this seemingly impossible search. I am not the type of person that likes to mess with the details; cables, amps, IC’s, DAC’s….we all know the typical list which many people go through. Money, patience, time and science have all been standing in the way of ‘tweaking’ every little last detail. The system through which the Summa’s are played would greatly downsize the majority of audio guys. The power, digital conversion of audio and volume control are all done by a Pioneer receiver. At the end of the session I was astonished, amazed and very glad that this was the case.
With all of these caveats listed I want to say that I am not a flavor of the week cheerleader. I like to make a sound investment based on science more than subjectivism. My many listening sessions in others environments has really given me an uneasy feeling as to others perceptions and reported findings. So, I was more than excited to arrive at situation which is based on more science than I can even start to understand. A sense of ease came over me while making the 6 hour drive as there has been more studies and research done to achieve this design and room than I can even begin to refute with my own thoughts.
I will focus this review on the system as a whole. This system is very attainable for the average home owner. Almost everything needed to achieve comparable results is listed in the HT book written by Geddes and Lee. I highly recommend getting this read as it contains a lot of outstanding information that will help anyone down a path of audio or video enlightenment. The HT room built has very little visible acoustics absorbers in place. The main focus is on low frequency attenuation but this achievement is not visible. The room, though well built, is not beyond what a good home builder might be able to with some time and effort.
The Summa’s are the best overall system that I have heard. The first thing that jumped out to me was the high end. It was different, the likes of which I had never heard before. There was more air, detail and naturalness than I had ever heard before. The music coming out was just completely effortless. The best description that I can think of is well, right.
Being very used to the Orion’s I was interested to hear the bass from the Summa setup as open baffle bass is supposed to be some of the very best, period. Well, I would replace that period with a semicolon. There was no region that jumped out over another. The impact that everyone likes was there in spades yet was never overpowering the music. Again, the descriptor that I would use is just, right.
The one region with which I was most concerned was the midrange. Come on, a 15” playing midrange?? The last few years I have scoured over all the driver tests in which keeping a driver as pistonic as possible throughout its pass band has been crucial. Now I am supposed to believe that a 15” driver can produce good much less great mids that would rival my orion’s or accuton systems which I have heard? Well…..Geddes and Lee’s views on distortion tests do not mimic all the latest rage but they do plenty of distortion tests and whatever they are doing works. I felt nothing was missing from the midrange at all. I was expecting lack of detail, nope, naturalness, nope, breakup at higher volumes, nope. That completely blew my major concern out of the water. Again, the best description that can describe it is, right.
After the start of the first song I could tell that I would like everything. The imaging was great. Placement and positioning was outstanding. I could tell more about the recordings than that of any other system I have heard before. The typical things of hearing items and instruments in the recordings which I didn’t know were there certainly applied on a couple different occasions. The musical selections which I listened to ranged from classical to vocal to rock. All were produced with equal correctness. If you want a reference for accurate recording reproduction then read on.
The only thing which I felt was not absolute top of the heap was the depth of image. The speakers were relatively close to the front wall. The image had depth and layering as good anything I have heard before but it was just compressed together closer than my Orion setup (6ft from front wall) or Avalon Sentinel (12ft from front wall). From my own experiences with speaker placement I have found that depth of image is only as great as the amount the speakers are pulled out into a room. In most listening environments, placing the speakers 3ft from the front wall is about average. I will only make the assumption that if the Summa’s are pulled further out into the room then the depth will improve accordingly.
Two other items were highly interesting to me. When setting in the sweet spot everything was glorious. Moving to the seats either left or right of center offered very little image shift. There was a change in imaging but nothing collapsed. There was still a very good center image, a better one than I have ever heard. I attribute this to the controlled directivity of the Summa’s. The great bass is one offered through design. Multiple subs are used in a three dimensional space. While other designs (OB) have attempted to say that fewer room modes are excited in reality it is better to excite as many as possible and to an even extent. Good bass is all about room pressurization. Pressurizing these modes in as even a fashion as possible is the best way to get good bass. Because of the nature of low frequencies, multiple sources spread throughout the room with emphasis placed on the suckout portions of the listening environment is the way to go. Do some research or better yet hear it for yourself and I bet you will be a believer.
If you doubt the ideas behind this design then I highly recommend you read the Summa design paper then spend the money to order the HT book offered on the gedlee website. This guy knows his stuff and reading some of his works will prove just that. He is a trained professional who has dedicated his life to this craft. The Geddes/Lee combination is one of a gift to us all. Having two doctors with ones emphasis being on the production of sound and the other being on the receiving of sound makes for a great marriage, pun or no-pun.
Goskers,
Phenomenal review
. Trumps mine for sure. I agree with every one of your comments, except the depth of image. I too had thought that the depth was lacking somewhat, and then I found it was more my eyes getting in the way. Closing my eyes, the depth was all there. For what its worth, Earl has a lot of foam placed behind the speakers so this is the same situation as pulling the speakers out into the room.
I do respect your comments however.
All right fellas, there has not been just one enthusiast who told you that he (that is me) thought that the Summas were better than the Orions, but you got another one who is an Orion owner(!) who says the same. In addition, you've got another fella who owned the Emerald Physics CS2's (now sold) who thought the Summas were better still.
This is the giant killer to beat. And its cheaper than the other offerings if you note that you don't need an 8 channel amplifier like the Orions do. I listened to the Orions at Siegfried's home. They were great but very limited in output when compared to the Summas. Once you've heard something that sounds 'live' its very hard to go back.
I'm hoping the Abbie and Nathan are nearly as good. If they are, might as well have one set of each in 3 different rooms. Have your cake and eat it too 😀
Best,
Anand.
Phenomenal review
. Trumps mine for sure. I agree with every one of your comments, except the depth of image. I too had thought that the depth was lacking somewhat, and then I found it was more my eyes getting in the way. Closing my eyes, the depth was all there. For what its worth, Earl has a lot of foam placed behind the speakers so this is the same situation as pulling the speakers out into the room. I do respect your comments however.
All right fellas, there has not been just one enthusiast who told you that he (that is me) thought that the Summas were better than the Orions, but you got another one who is an Orion owner(!) who says the same. In addition, you've got another fella who owned the Emerald Physics CS2's (now sold) who thought the Summas were better still.
This is the giant killer to beat. And its cheaper than the other offerings if you note that you don't need an 8 channel amplifier like the Orions do. I listened to the Orions at Siegfried's home. They were great but very limited in output when compared to the Summas. Once you've heard something that sounds 'live' its very hard to go back.
I'm hoping the Abbie and Nathan are nearly as good. If they are, might as well have one set of each in 3 different rooms. Have your cake and eat it too 😀
Best,
Anand.
Patrick Bateman said:
Patrick,
Can you list your equipment just out of interest?
Thanks,
Anand.
Esp+ ?
Earl,
perhaps a silly question, but here goes.
What do you think about the idea of combining two bandpass subs below the Nathan/ESP10 type enclosures (one in each), making it into an effective three way floorstanders ? This way, adding just another sub (or two) elsewhere in the room we get the 'magic mix' for LF, but have built a bit (quite a bit!) more WAF friendly mains. I know I would have to dress and cover the front of those speakers as, although they are strangely pretty in their own ways, the look of large foam plugged waveguides and pro woofers will be too intimidating for many.
Bratislav
Earl,
perhaps a silly question, but here goes.
What do you think about the idea of combining two bandpass subs below the Nathan/ESP10 type enclosures (one in each), making it into an effective three way floorstanders ? This way, adding just another sub (or two) elsewhere in the room we get the 'magic mix' for LF, but have built a bit (quite a bit!) more WAF friendly mains. I know I would have to dress and cover the front of those speakers as, although they are strangely pretty in their own ways, the look of large foam plugged waveguides and pro woofers will be too intimidating for many.
Bratislav
Re: Esp+ ?
I prefer to get the subs away from the mains, not closer to them.
I hide my speakers too - whats the big deal? ALL good speakers are ugly IMO - there function in life isn't to be attractive. I just don't get "speakers as furniture". The front of the kits could easily be wrapped in a grille cloth if that does it for you. But by far the easiest thing is to just hide everything behind curtains.
Bratislav said:
I prefer to get the subs away from the mains, not closer to them.
I hide my speakers too - whats the big deal? ALL good speakers are ugly IMO - there function in life isn't to be attractive. I just don't get "speakers as furniture". The front of the kits could easily be wrapped in a grille cloth if that does it for you. But by far the easiest thing is to just hide everything behind curtains.
Earl,
How much difference does "pulling the speakers out into the room" make with these speakers given their directivity? Is there an optimal distance from the front wall, or do they tolerate multiple depths equally well?
How much difference does "pulling the speakers out into the room" make with these speakers given their directivity? Is there an optimal distance from the front wall, or do they tolerate multiple depths equally well?
Re: Re: Esp+ ?
Well, once in the room, speakers do become part of the furniture whether one likes it or not. In my case they are siginficant part of the furniture as that is our main living area, and I'm not into HT. I simply can't hide them. I just wanted to avoid stands, in my experience they are just waste and detraction as speakers take the same floor space regardless if they use stands or are floorstanders.
So I guess the answer is 'no', that is, it would not be a good idea sound wise ? Is that just because LF 'spread' can't be as effective or you are afraid there would be too much interference with main panel (larger front baffle might change woofer's response too much) ?
Thanks,
Bratislav
gedlee said:
Well, once in the room, speakers do become part of the furniture whether one likes it or not. In my case they are siginficant part of the furniture as that is our main living area, and I'm not into HT. I simply can't hide them. I just wanted to avoid stands, in my experience they are just waste and detraction as speakers take the same floor space regardless if they use stands or are floorstanders.
So I guess the answer is 'no', that is, it would not be a good idea sound wise ? Is that just because LF 'spread' can't be as effective or you are afraid there would be too much interference with main panel (larger front baffle might change woofer's response too much) ?
Thanks,
Bratislav
MEH said:
I'm not clear on the "depth of image" comments as this is not something that is defined quantitatively nor something that I have noticed in my listening.
But I have noticed a strong effect on what I would call "image" and "coloration" by damping the front wall (behind the speakers), which is very closely related to the room depth. If the front wall is completely dead, then it is as if it were infinitly far back. So I have always done everything that I could to dampen the front wall. I have never had the opportunity to hear Summa's in a room so large that the speakers did not have to be back near a wall (3 ft in my listening room). This is because the listener definately needs to be far away from any nearby walls, i.e. near the center of the room - this is well know. Thus to have the speakers seperated by 7-9 feet, have them cross well in front of the listener, the listener needs to be back from the speakers by at least 10 feet. If the speakers to listener needs to be >10 ft. and the listener to back wall (behind the listener) needs to be greater than say > 10 ft we are dealing with a situation where the room dimension (speakers to listener) needs to be > 30 ft for the front wall to not be a factor. This is a room bigger than any room that I have used the speakers in for critical listening. Only a few clubs were this large, but the speakers were never setup for critical listening.
It seems to me that one is always going to detect the rooms size in the image. Only a completely dead room would not have this feature, and rooms like that have absolutely no envelopment or spaciousness. One virtually always has to deal with the room dimensions as given.
Hence when dealing with a small room you do need to listen along the largest dimension placing the listeners and speakers to yield the greatest distance from the walls along this dimension. Then damping as much as possible the wall behind the speakers. This has always been my layout of preference.
Near square rooms work well across the diagonal, but most rooms are not near enough to square to make this approach worthwhile.
Re: Re: Re: Esp+ ?
Placing the mains on top of the subs? No thats not a good idea. Use stands. Or make the cabinets taller, but I don't recommend that either as the box dimensions get bigger and the panels have lower resonances. Stands are not a "waste" if they improve the sound. Stands that are "minimal" in terms of their acoustic presnce are the best idea IMO.
If sound quality is a secondary issue then you can do anything that you want. You have to decide the priorities, but virtually always "appearances" are contrary to sound quality. People don't realize just how limiting the room situation can be. You can't have it both ways.
That said, the higher directivity will always be an asset in minimizing the room ineractions, its just that working with BOTH the speaker and the room gives a far far better optimization of the final result.
Bratislav said:
Placing the mains on top of the subs? No thats not a good idea. Use stands. Or make the cabinets taller, but I don't recommend that either as the box dimensions get bigger and the panels have lower resonances. Stands are not a "waste" if they improve the sound. Stands that are "minimal" in terms of their acoustic presnce are the best idea IMO.
If sound quality is a secondary issue then you can do anything that you want. You have to decide the priorities, but virtually always "appearances" are contrary to sound quality. People don't realize just how limiting the room situation can be. You can't have it both ways.
That said, the higher directivity will always be an asset in minimizing the room ineractions, its just that working with BOTH the speaker and the room gives a far far better optimization of the final result.
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