My week with the Orions, or 'why do we bother'

[cuibono]

cuibono

>
It would depend on how extended your upper range hearing is.

I don't know if it is just a matter of possible hearing loss - I'm guessing that there is something in the electronics reducing the quality of detail, particularly in the highs. 22 opamps in the signal path? Pioneer cd player? We'll just have to see...

 

[Eric Weitzman]

One of the unexpected surprises of my Orions is that the treble *does not* stand out and scream at you like many hifi tweeters do. You know, those metal domes that can be heard when walking into a room when no music is playing, resonating brightly to system noise.

You mentioned in (15) that you miss something in the Orion's treble that you hear when performing, cuibono. I wonder if this is something that really makes it onto recordings very often? The only recording that I have that might capture what you're talking about is Nickel Creek's eponymous album, recorded very close up AFAICT. As for the Plutos not sounding as good as the Orions: there's only so much you can do with inexpensive drivers and their inherent limitations. SL squeezed a lot out of them for sure.

- Eric

 

[pacificblue]

14) Absolutely quiet - particularly at seat - with ear to midrange/tweeter, I can hear tiny hiss - strange, as active circuitry is unshielded, and the same circuits in my Plutos had a large hiss problem - no 60Hz hum at all [Later I found I could detect a tiny hiss at the listening seat, but the Orions still seem especially quiet - I think this impression was due to how very quickly they could become loud. There was something special about this I can't quiet describe.]

How does shielding help against hiss?

Hiss might just as well come from one of the sources and is not necessarily part of the Orions active circuitry.

Hum is a design flaw that has become rare even in cheap equipment. I haven't come across it in years except for a few cheapo musicians or PC active speakers and badly done DIY equipment. Why would you even mention hum at that quality level? Is that the same situation like with car electronics that work reliably in cheap Japanese and Korean cars, but always seem to fail in the world's best and most expensive ones?

 

[bzfcocon]

Zaphs site is great - open up a couple of these and do a little comparison of midrange drivers. Linkwitz first brought the Orions into this world circa 2002, I believe, and a lot of the work he put into them was an extension of his work on the Phonenix, in the 90's. So it is possible, there are newer drivers, particularly drivers with lower distortion. The mid in the orions is the Seas W22EX001, and he uses it from 120 to 1440 Hz, and it costs about $200 each. In Zaphs applet, compare it to say, the Usher 8945P (at $110 each) - the Usher has about the same 2nd and 5th harmonic levels, but the 3rd and 4th are dramatically reduced! That seem golden to me, particularly at half the cost. [/B]

I am not sure your comparison of Zaphs 6.5-7" with W22EX001 are appropriate, as the latter is a significantly larger midwoofer: you're going to need this in a Orion-like OB, otherwise you might want to crossover higher in frequency to avoid exscessive excursion. This does not invalidate your idea of an alternative midwoofer, of course.

Still a larger midwoofer seems to be a better choice: even if it forces a low crossover point for the tweeter - this, in turn, ensures less forward/backward radiation assymetry due to the woofer's basket and magnet (which worsens as frequency increases)

Maybe one day Zaph is going to test larger-than-7" woofers.

 

[Eva]

Controlled directivity (by means of dipoles or horns), phase/group-delay matching in multi-way systems and equalization of driver/enclosure/ear abnormalities are the main requirements for natural sound reproduction.

The lack of bass "impact" in most systems is due to room reflections resulting in gentle mid-bass cancellation at the listening position. This has nothing to do with F3, most cancellation arises in the 50Hz to 500Hz range.

BTW: Swapping exotic capacitors, resistors, op-amps and wires is a big waste of money and time. Building speakers is much better

 

[critofur]

...The plutos are special speakers - they are very very smooth sounding. SL has changed the woofer driver since I built mine, and moved the f3 from 60hz to 40hz, which is a big improvement, in my opinion. I'd postulate that compared to any other 2-way speaker, the Plutos would hold their own. I have reservations about them, but that is only comparing the to other larger, more complex and expensive speakers...

I'm looking for information about building a passive Pluto - I'll look more on the Pluto User's Group...

Where did you see the Aurum Cantis on Zaphs site?

Here: http://www.zaphaudio.com/5.5test/

What I find exciting about it is it's combination of very smooth FR, FS 35, and sensitivity of 90 db. +/- 5 mm xmax is decent, and I like the 7.0 Re also.

Zaph's comments:
"Comments: This mineral filled poly cone driver from Aurum Cantus has an extremely smooth response curve. While there is a breakup around 5kHz, it is smooth on both sides and easily controlled with a notch filter. Build quality is excellent. The voice coil has venting under the spider, something not quite common at this price point. There is a 3rd order peak in HD at 1.8kHz which will be audible on some content but probably not noticable most of the time. One negative for many DIY'ers is the squared off frame, near impossible to countersink with normal tools. Tested May 2006."

 

[tnargs]

Recently, I had the good fortune to both be wedded, and to spend a week long honeymoon at Siegfred Linkwitz's Honeymoon Cabin on the Sea Ranch....At said ranch ...there were a pair of his Orion+ speakers .... I kept a log of notes taken over the first couple of days of listening to the Orions.....<<big snip>>

Dude, are you still married??

P.S. I have auditioned the Orion+ and was somewhat underwhelmed. I think the whole "sprayorama" dipole/omni thing is inherently inaccurate, and it shows. But it is a very pleasant sound effect.

P.P.S. I still bother.

 

[cuibono]

How does shielding help against hiss?

For both the plutos and orions, the ASP circuit boards are not fully mounted in metal enclosures. In fact the pluto has no enclosure the way SL designed it. My plutos had noticable hiss and hum at the listening position, so I added a full metal enclosure, and the hiss went way down.

 

[cuibono]

I am not sure your comparison of Zaphs 6.5-7" with W22EX001 are appropriate <snip>

Maybe one day Zaph is going to test larger-than-7" woofers.

I totally agree with you, it had crossed my mind that the Seas is an 8" while the rest are 7" or smaller. Excursion and directivity would change. All things to consider...

I too hope Zaph will start working with larger drivers sometime.

 

[cuibono]

Re: Re: My week with the Orions, or 'why do we bother'

Dude, are you still married??

 

[bzfcocon]

I totally agree with you, it had crossed my mind that the Seas is an 8" while the rest are 7" or smaller. Excursion and directivity would change. All things to consider...

I too hope Zaph will start working with larger drivers sometime.

Yes, this might not always be so obvious, but the effective piston area of W22 vs. W18 (tested by Zaph) is 220cm2 vs. 126 cm2 = almost double ! It is exactly OB where size does matter.

Congrats on your wedding and hi-fi compatible SWMBO !

 

[cuibono]

Thanks for pointing that out - its all very true. I'm currently working on my own OB speakers, and the mid is a Visaton B200, which just happens to be an 8" driver too. I modified it by adding planet10s phase plugs and enabling the drivers, and it went from sounding good to great. The measurements I've done look good. Hmmm....

 

[KCHANG]

Tao

Hi cuibono,

Nothing to add here regarding OB or Orion, but I have a comment about your tag line about Tao. I think a more appropriate translation of that statement from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching would be:

The Tao (way) that can be expressed (or told of) is not the universal (or unvarying) Tao (way).

The main difference is between "called" or "named" and "expressed" or "told of." In the Chinese text these two verbs are two different characters.

Cheers,

Kurt

 

[pacificblue]

For both the plutos and orions, the ASP circuit boards are not fully mounted in metal enclosures. In fact the pluto has no enclosure the way SL designed it. My plutos had noticable hiss and hum at the listening position, so I added a full metal enclosure, and the hiss went way down.

Sorry, my question has double meaning. I was not wondering if and by how much shielding reduces hiss.

I wonder what kind of hiss could be coupled in from outside, thus being shieldable in the first place. Where does that hiss come from? Mains would produce hum at 50 or 60 Hz, depending on where you live. Switching power supplies, digital audio equipment and other electronic sources would only couple in signals at frequencies well above the hearing range. But hiss?

Considering that electromagnetic waves and fields lose strength by the square of distance, how strong must a distortion be to couple into an amplifier circuit from how far away? Given its size, how close to any distortion sources can an active loudspeaker be?

So you do have hum and hiss in equipment at that price and quality level? How creepy.

 

[josephpo]

I totally agree, if it is good sound you want, buy the Orions, Beolab,R909,..... It is much cheaper to work a few hours overtime and pay for the speakers than to try to save money and build it yourself. The probability of success is also much better that you will end up with good sound. For some reason most diy speaker builders think they can do a better job than professionals who does this for a living? The same mentallity exists in the stock markets, most amatuers think they can out smart the professionals and is very surprised when they've lost money.

You will of cource be excused if this is your hobby and you enjoy tinkering and don't mind learning from you mistakes. You will probably never have as good sound as the Orions...

I discovered this hobby 3 years ago and knew nothing about the topic discovered this forums. A big thank you to evereone sharing their knowledge. Against all odds I am busy building my own speaker!

 

[gainphile]

I totally agree, if it is good sound you want, buy the Orions, Beolab,R909,..... It is much cheaper to work a few hours overtime

The middle of the road between design and implementation is 'cloning'. With DSP available I'm quite surprised no one had cloned the Physics CS2 or something alike. I mean how easy it is to have discussions by sending panel dimensions, few cheap drivers, and a DCX config file!

 

[RC23]

Thanks cuibono for his detailed and enthused report of SL Orion.

I am also working on a project called Andromeda which is deep inspired by the Orion open baffle concept. Cabinet will be very like as Orion with its H-frame for two 10" woofers. First modification is a changeable front baffle for use varying driver concepts.

concept 1 (crossovers at 120 Hz and 1600 Hz, both LR4):
Peerless XLS 10 woofers (830452), Seas W22EX001 bass-midrange and as modification Usher T 9950-20 tweeter

The Usher T 9950-20 has similiar good data of distortion, resonance frequency and frequence magnitude as Seas T25CF002 but for considerable less money. http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=276-608

concept 2 (crossovers at 250 Hz and 3000 Hz, both LR4):
Visaton GF250 woofers, Audax PR170Z0, Dynavox Neo Pro 3i ribbon tweeter

Dynavox Neo Pro 3i with 95dB is similar to Fountek Neo CD 2.0 and I got it pairwise selected and very low-priced by group buying of 8 pieces with my hobby friends.

Audax PR170Z0 comes as crossover of hifi and PA with 95dB. http://www.audax-speaker.de/content.php?seite=shop/produkte.php&hauptrubrik=8&details=93

concept 3 (crossovers at 250 Hz and 7000 Hz, both LR4):
Visaton GF250 woofers, Philips AD 9710 M8, optional Dynavox Neo Pro 3i

Philips AD 9710 M8 is a very good 8" vintage driver who needs some EQ to adjust the frequency 10dB step at 2 kHz.

http://www.hupse.eu/radio/speakers/9710.htm

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/philips9710.htm#February 2006, Chapter II

Mine is not the older model with ticonal (alnico) magnets but the model out of the 70s with ceramic magnets.



These concepts are asking for a flexible active crossover with possibilites of EQ. The tool for it will be Frequency Allocator which is well-known to cuibono. I have tested Frequency Allocator with a Lynx Two B as soundcard and it works very well for me. http://www.thuneau.com/allocator.htm

Music will be played by foobar2000 from hard disk and FofR as grahic user interface. Here comes a manual of mine for FofR (only in German) but with many screenshots which show the possibilities of foobar and FofR. http://foobar-users.de/index.php?topic=1128.0

Ruediger

 

[cuibono]

looks cool! keep us posted. I've got an OB system I've been working on for the last year or so, and another I might start, very much an orion clone. Allocator is a great program for developing crossovers and equalization, but I have gotten a little tired of having to use a computer every time I want music.

Good luck, and have fun with it!

 

[David Gatti]

If the complex amplification and mediocre top end turns you off, maybe you should consider cloning one of these :

Review :

http://6moons.com/audioreviews/jamo/909.html

 

[JPV]

amplifier for Orion system

I have designed an amplifier system dedicated to power the Orion.

The system altough compact is not integrated in an enclosed chassis. It is to be mounted on 4 steel plates that should be placed in a cabinet or mounted remotely against the wall or in the basement.
The objective is to make a state of the art system without any packaging constraint.

The power supplies for one channel are mounted on one plate. It consists of heavely filtered supplies for each amplifier, emi filter, fuses electronically monitored, and a special component actively controlling the operating point of the transformers at power on to avoid surge current.

The amplifiers ( 10 in total) are mounted two by two on heatsink blocks internally fan cooled ( very compact)
The amplifiers are designed for 150W continuous on 8 to 2 ohms with peak power of 1000W each.
The topology ( see attachment) is using the LME49810 with output Thermaltracks transistors in a triple T topology ( Leach amp) with DC servo. The bias for minimal crossover distortion is very stable thanks to the topology and the thermaltracks diodes.
Custom compensation ( dual pole, feedforward) is possible.
The Orion and Thor ( subwoofer) electronics ( ASP) is mounted on the same plate and powered by a Jung super regulator. Jensen transformers can be mounted in front of the ASP boards to break any ground loop.

The amplifiers and the system is controlled by a PIC controller;
each amplifier is FSOA ( dual slope limiter) protected, thermal protected and speakers are DC protected by a relay actively controlled to avoid contact spikes so contact distortion.
Signaling ( clipping, fuses, short circuit) is provided on led's in the speakers.

The system is in final PCB layout ( still some months).
I can mail a better description to people interested.
When finished, this will be a DIY project.

JPV