Generally, I agree with much of Richard's comments.
Also, no one has mentioned Ridge Street Audio Sassons driven by Ultra-Fi 845 SET amps. I thought these were clear and accurate, the speakers just disappeared... very nice.
I liked the Tidal Pianos w/ Lamm hybrid monoblocks too. This system had great detail, very neutral presentation, and were easy to listen to. The Merlins w/ Joule OTLs were almost as good, fairly similar presentation.
Oswald's Mill was had to take the prize for most realistic sax I've ever heard, really amazing. These monsters were squeezed into a small room, don't know how they got them in the door... they really needed a bigger space. I wouldn't judge them too harshly for hearing x-over artifacts sitting nearfied to such a big speaker.
Van Schweikert VR-9s were awesome too, made the big Focals next door sound bad, IMO...
Feastrex 9" drivers... well, I hate the cabinets they are in, and I hated them last year too. They are recessed into the baffle for some reason, and they tried to help it with felt around the edges...but sorry, this don't work too good.
You can hear cabinet reflections and the speakers are far to audible.
Feastrex 5" driver, Including Maxxhorns.... pretty awesome, Richards comments are spot on.
As far as single drivers... Omega wasn't at the show, but I think they are overall the best available. Feastrex will play some things better, but the Omegas can play everything. As an owner, I am prejudiced, but I don't think they would be embarrassed next to the $39k (w/cabinet) Feastrex 5" field coils in the 2nd room.
Dave
Also, no one has mentioned Ridge Street Audio Sassons driven by Ultra-Fi 845 SET amps. I thought these were clear and accurate, the speakers just disappeared... very nice.
I liked the Tidal Pianos w/ Lamm hybrid monoblocks too. This system had great detail, very neutral presentation, and were easy to listen to. The Merlins w/ Joule OTLs were almost as good, fairly similar presentation.
Oswald's Mill was had to take the prize for most realistic sax I've ever heard, really amazing. These monsters were squeezed into a small room, don't know how they got them in the door... they really needed a bigger space. I wouldn't judge them too harshly for hearing x-over artifacts sitting nearfied to such a big speaker.
Van Schweikert VR-9s were awesome too, made the big Focals next door sound bad, IMO...
Feastrex 9" drivers... well, I hate the cabinets they are in, and I hated them last year too. They are recessed into the baffle for some reason, and they tried to help it with felt around the edges...but sorry, this don't work too good.
You can hear cabinet reflections and the speakers are far to audible. Feastrex 5" driver, Including Maxxhorns.... pretty awesome, Richards comments are spot on.
As far as single drivers... Omega wasn't at the show, but I think they are overall the best available. Feastrex will play some things better, but the Omegas can play everything. As an owner, I am prejudiced, but I don't think they would be embarrassed next to the $39k (w/cabinet) Feastrex 5" field coils in the 2nd room.
Dave
Hello JoshK,
The Alpha module enclosure is barely deep enough to accomodate the woofer's magnet. The rear vertical "corners" are bevelled, which from some angles can make the cabinet appear shallower than it actually is. I think you can see what I'm talking about by looking at the top of the cabinet in the image at this link.
The 45-degree bevels give a visual reference for the recommended 45 degree toe-in, and also reduce the effective width of the cabinet when it is thusly toed in.
Duke
The Alpha module enclosure is barely deep enough to accomodate the woofer's magnet. The rear vertical "corners" are bevelled, which from some angles can make the cabinet appear shallower than it actually is. I think you can see what I'm talking about by looking at the top of the cabinet in the image at this link.
The 45-degree bevels give a visual reference for the recommended 45 degree toe-in, and also reduce the effective width of the cabinet when it is thusly toed in.
Duke
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Hi guys! Duke and JoshK
I just want ask you - if you have some measurement of 12M Lambdas?
There is still no measurement on AE site and rumors about this drivers is almost too good too be true
Im from Europe so there is no possibility for me to try one - me only clue is measurement.
So why do you choice this driver? I understand your choice about TAD because there is very little from PA - Studio range that fit into your TS requirements.
But in this application are so many drivers that measure great for example from 18 sound or from BMS.
/I'm talking about advanced drivers with shorting rings or AIC in 18 sound case/
Thank you very much for you opinion i really appreciate it
I just want ask you - if you have some measurement of 12M Lambdas?
There is still no measurement on AE site and rumors about this drivers is almost too good too be true
Im from Europe so there is no possibility for me to try one - me only clue is measurement.
So why do you choice this driver? I understand your choice about TAD because there is very little from PA - Studio range that fit into your TS requirements.
But in this application are so many drivers that measure great for example from 18 sound or from BMS.
/I'm talking about advanced drivers with shorting rings or AIC in 18 sound case/
Thank you very much for you opinion i really appreciate it
salas said:
Hello,
I'll try to keep this short as possible.
The basic principles: equal sound pressure between each speaker creating single sound source.
Set speakers much like one focuses binoculars, set one speaker, then dial in the other to match focus. You focus binoculars with your eyes, you set speakers with your ears.
This must be done along long wall of room! It can be done with any speaker in any room.
1. This is all done by ear, no tape measure. Best disc to use is a Jennifer Warnes/Rob Wasserman recording of Ballad of the Runaway Horse. If that's not available, then a recording of solo double bass, and a recording of a voice that is perfectly centered and has very little, or no, accompaniment.
2. Starting setup: both speakers against the long wall of the room, listener at the point of triangle with speakers.
3. Start with setting the first speaker: With bass playing, move one speaker out in to the room toed in to listener position. Around a foot or so out from wall, sound will all move to this speaker. You can find position with best bass in window of next 5-6 inches out. Set speaker where you think it sounds best within this window. It doesn't matter where.
4. Move other speaker out to roughly same distance out from wall. Sound will begin to center itself. You will know when you find right position as center image will be very focused and stable. You can tune midrange, vocalist, by toeing this speaker slightly in or out and hearing any differences.
5. Move head from side to side checking if music stays in center or follows your head. IF music follows your head, move one speaker either towards the other or away from the other in small parallel to wall moves. When correct spacing is found, music stays in center when you move your head. Once good here, then move to another position in room and do same as previous sentence, and adjust speaker distance apart as needed.
6. When properly set, music always stays in center no matter where in room you listen and will be essentially the same no matter the listening position.
This is easiest accomplished with 2 people, one listening, one moving speaker. But one person can do it. Take your time, move slowly. After the show I reset my speakers and it took me 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
Be relaxed, allow for the proper amount of time. The focus window of the second speaker to the first is small, like around 1 to 1 1/2 inches. When getting close, move in very small increments and mark spots somehow. Small movements of 1/4 to 1/2 inch can sometimes make big differences, yet other times make no difference.
When done correctly, the music rewards are huge.
This speaker setup method is known as Master Set. I have given the basics as best as I understand them.
Hello tomtom,
I chose the TD12M because it has very good midrange performance. I compared it with several other 10" and 12" high efficiency woofers, mainly looking at performance between 80 and 3000 Hz. Below 80 Hz doesn't matter as much in this application because I am using subwoofers; otherwise, I may well have used the TD10X or TD12X.
I prefer not to post measurements at this time, but I'd characterize the TD12M as an easy driver to work with from a crossover standpoint.
Duke
I chose the TD12M because it has very good midrange performance. I compared it with several other 10" and 12" high efficiency woofers, mainly looking at performance between 80 and 3000 Hz. Below 80 Hz doesn't matter as much in this application because I am using subwoofers; otherwise, I may well have used the TD10X or TD12X.
I prefer not to post measurements at this time, but I'd characterize the TD12M as an easy driver to work with from a crossover standpoint.
Duke
Salas, if you're talking to me... well, thank you!
The speaker shown obviously owes a great deal to Geddes' work, but departs from his recommendations in several ways. The waveguide is smaller than he would use with a 12" woofer, and lacks his patent-pending foam insert.
The subwoofer enclosures are fairly small, fairly low-tuned reflex boxes - not bandpass. I was unable to come up with a practical compact bandpass design that would cover as wide a frequency range as I wanted.
Duke
The speaker shown obviously owes a great deal to Geddes' work, but departs from his recommendations in several ways. The waveguide is smaller than he would use with a 12" woofer, and lacks his patent-pending foam insert.
The subwoofer enclosures are fairly small, fairly low-tuned reflex boxes - not bandpass. I was unable to come up with a practical compact bandpass design that would cover as wide a frequency range as I wanted.
Duke
jeffbook said:
When I asked Siegfried at the show how the ATI amplifier was being used, he told me that all 12 channels were in use, and several were bridged for additional power. Maybe I didn't hear it correctly in the crowded and noisy hallway, but that's what I remember.
We went on to talk about other aspects of the Orions - that the overall balance was similar to the (excellent) Beethovens of days past, and he and his wife felt the Orions were better in every respect. I had to agree as well - the Orion is a sophisticated, highly developed system by an long-time industry professional.
Duke, I'm sorry I didn't get to hear your new system. If it was anything like what I heard last year, I'm sure it was really good - and it's good to hear your experience with the TD12M is so positive, since the AE Lambda Dipole15, IB15, or a minor variation is on the shortlist for the quartet of bass drivers I'm considering for my own system. (I'm looking for something like an Altec 515 variant with a Qts between 0.7~0.8 and an Fs between 25~37 Hz, or put another way, a Dipole15 with the 70-gram TD15M cone.)
Lynn Olson said:
Lynn,
Has your impression of the Orion changed your thinking with regard to your new effort in anyway? I say this because there are a number of design issues considered in the Orion which seem contrary to many of the issues you have raised in the "Beyond..." thread. Aside form the use of Hi Fi drivers, which I understand your desired to move away form, the Orion embraces the idea of uniformity of polar response, the use of high slope (4th order electrical) crossovers, no consideration of alignment for early arrivals (i.e. no alignment based on impulse response), use of a midrange driver with nasty, metal cone breakup,.... And yet it proves to be an excellent speaker.
I congratulate SL on his first public presentation and wish him continued success. IMO, the Orion development represents a different direction in speaker design than is typically found in the main stream, and one that I share: Start by defining a set of specifications and design objectives and then go about executing them to as high a degree as possible. I think that for the most part that represents, again IMO, a true engineering approach to speaker design.
I believe this type of an approach is in stark contrast to many of today’s designs which often seem to start in the art department or have progressed little from the cottage industry where they started in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
Engineering applied indeed.
- The chosen drivers have low stored energy and distortion and meet the excursion demands. The tradeoff is driver cost for performance and low crossover frequency to the tweeter.
- The drivers are time aligned by all-pass filters in the crossover. The tradeoff is increased crossover complexity for simplifying the still-complex baffle design.
- The midrange breakup frequency is nearly 2 octaves out of band and notched out in the crossover. The tradeoff is again crossover complexity and driver cost for performance.
- Eric
Lynn Olson said:
Eight channels of the 12 channel ATI6012 amp are used to drive two tweeters in parallel, one midrange, and two woofers per speaker as jeffbook wrote. If there was a pair of Thor subwoofers hooked up, SL would have been driving them by bridging the four unused 60 watt channels into two channels @ around 150 (IIRC) watts.
60 watts per woofer effectively limits their excursion at low frequencies so they don't self destruct from the dipole eq on high level/low frequency signals. But this limits VLF performance at very high SPL. Yet another simple engineering solution with a tradeoff.
- Eric
john k... said:
While a well engineered system, I have always wondered how one can claim the Orion to be constant directivity ("uniformity of polar response") or do I misunderstand your use of the term?
No direct radiator can have "uniformity of polar response", it just isn't allowed by physics. So how can this claim be true?
Given Tooles claim in his new book that the wall behind the speakers should be well damped (one which I wholeheartedly concur with), why would one want "front to back similarity"? I see this done a lot, ala Audiokinesis, etc. and I have to agree with Floyd here that this is not a good idea. And anyways "front to back similarity" is not "uniformity of polar response", at least not the way I understand the term. Frequency independent polar response, also supported by Toole, is the goal, I believe and piston sources cannot achieve that.
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