I've got an active thread going about my Audire Andante preamp repair efforts
Need Your Assistance - Audire Andante
and was encouraged to share with the larger forum the following information:
My brother was an early client of Audire and Julius Siskinius, until the time of Julius' passing. At first, he owned various Audire amplifiers, with high-end components and speakers from other manufacturers. After trading up to better Audire products, Julius agreed to custom-build some very, very large full-range ribbon speakers for my brother.
His were the only example of the speakers ever made, and were originally fed with 2 Otez, but they were more efficient than expected, so Julius took back 1 of the amps. The Andante dual mono, full-feature preamp I'm trying to repair completed the set. The speakers basically consisted of an array of four ribbon sections from his then largest panel speakers. I've included a photo of the largest production speakers, and a photo of a single one of my brother's.
Julius had to make a special press table to assemble the frames and hundreds and hundreds of little magnets on either side of the mylar film panels, which he tuned for response by varying the doping along or across the mylar. Julius tuned these for mostly classical music, primarily piano as requested, and he had to got through a lot of trial and error to get the response right. Since each panel had to produce the full frequency spectrum, it's staggering to think of the time and effort this took. Jazz, of course, was also wonderfully presented. Listening to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue on these was a religious experience for me. I've listened to speakers costing up to $150,000, and have never heard anything like these. They became members of the family.
Julius later told him he would never make another of these, because it was too much work and he couldn't sell them to enough buyers for enough money.
After about 30 years when they needed repair, Julius was too old, and had gotten rid of the special press-table. When the foam tape between the frames and diaphragms started to decay, my brother thought he could just disassemble them and replace the foam, but the magnets, once released, instantly formed a huge pile of multi-segment magnet.
That Julius worked in the space program was never surprising, seeing the quality of the work on his gear and selection of components.
Cheers,
Greg
Need Your Assistance - Audire Andante
and was encouraged to share with the larger forum the following information:
My brother was an early client of Audire and Julius Siskinius, until the time of Julius' passing. At first, he owned various Audire amplifiers, with high-end components and speakers from other manufacturers. After trading up to better Audire products, Julius agreed to custom-build some very, very large full-range ribbon speakers for my brother.
His were the only example of the speakers ever made, and were originally fed with 2 Otez, but they were more efficient than expected, so Julius took back 1 of the amps. The Andante dual mono, full-feature preamp I'm trying to repair completed the set. The speakers basically consisted of an array of four ribbon sections from his then largest panel speakers. I've included a photo of the largest production speakers, and a photo of a single one of my brother's.
Julius had to make a special press table to assemble the frames and hundreds and hundreds of little magnets on either side of the mylar film panels, which he tuned for response by varying the doping along or across the mylar. Julius tuned these for mostly classical music, primarily piano as requested, and he had to got through a lot of trial and error to get the response right. Since each panel had to produce the full frequency spectrum, it's staggering to think of the time and effort this took. Jazz, of course, was also wonderfully presented. Listening to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue on these was a religious experience for me. I've listened to speakers costing up to $150,000, and have never heard anything like these. They became members of the family.
Julius later told him he would never make another of these, because it was too much work and he couldn't sell them to enough buyers for enough money.
After about 30 years when they needed repair, Julius was too old, and had gotten rid of the special press-table. When the foam tape between the frames and diaphragms started to decay, my brother thought he could just disassemble them and replace the foam, but the magnets, once released, instantly formed a huge pile of multi-segment magnet.
That Julius worked in the space program was never surprising, seeing the quality of the work on his gear and selection of components.
Cheers,
Greg
Attachments
Last edited:
I don’t remember the first set but the second one seems like what I remember he had playing in his shop. I do remember it seemed rather ponderous looking and not WAF acceptable as usual. That was a long time ago!
Definitely unique speakers to say the least.
I was having one his amps gone thru and he was very reasonable in price and had me take a listen to them.
They were a work in progress when he talked about them. Makes sense he didn’t push them as a production product.
It was playing with his vertical heat sink class A power amps that were about 3 feet tall as I recall. That was a different take on amplifier design and practical at the same time!
These are some of those moments you will never forget and he was a very nice talented
Individual to speak and deal with , sorely missed...,
Regards
David
Definitely unique speakers to say the least.
I was having one his amps gone thru and he was very reasonable in price and had me take a listen to them.
They were a work in progress when he talked about them. Makes sense he didn’t push them as a production product.
It was playing with his vertical heat sink class A power amps that were about 3 feet tall as I recall. That was a different take on amplifier design and practical at the same time!
These are some of those moments you will never forget and he was a very nice talented
Individual to speak and deal with , sorely missed...,
Regards
David
Hi David,
The first photo is the largest production speaker he made, as far as I can tell. If you saw my brother's during their creation, that was good timing and a very cool thing to hear about. The WAF was moderated by the 15' ceilings and the baby grand piano in the same room - big speakers weren't too much of a problem. Also, having the piano in the room was the ultimate test of the speaker's ability to reproduce that sound.
My brother now has a pair of the other ones, which don't push out the same amount of air, but have most of the tonality and sound he spent 35 years hearing, so I am really happy he was able to find those. They are now powered by those same vertical mono block Class A amps - Noble 1 - but they aren't quite 3' tall.
The relationship between my brother and Julius was one where someone with a finely tuned sense of sound quality and music appreciation could communicate those things to a person with huge technical prowess and imagination, despite a complete lack of technical understanding by my brother. Julius used him to help with auditioning a number of his products for his input. Really wish I had known him, because I would be able to connect more on the technical level.
Here's a photo of his current amps. Only 75 WPC but they seem to power the Audires well. I'll post the brochure next week.
Thanks for your comments.
Cheers,
Greg
The first photo is the largest production speaker he made, as far as I can tell. If you saw my brother's during their creation, that was good timing and a very cool thing to hear about. The WAF was moderated by the 15' ceilings and the baby grand piano in the same room - big speakers weren't too much of a problem. Also, having the piano in the room was the ultimate test of the speaker's ability to reproduce that sound.
My brother now has a pair of the other ones, which don't push out the same amount of air, but have most of the tonality and sound he spent 35 years hearing, so I am really happy he was able to find those. They are now powered by those same vertical mono block Class A amps - Noble 1 - but they aren't quite 3' tall.
The relationship between my brother and Julius was one where someone with a finely tuned sense of sound quality and music appreciation could communicate those things to a person with huge technical prowess and imagination, despite a complete lack of technical understanding by my brother. Julius used him to help with auditioning a number of his products for his input. Really wish I had known him, because I would be able to connect more on the technical level.
Here's a photo of his current amps. Only 75 WPC but they seem to power the Audires well. I'll post the brochure next week.
Thanks for your comments.
Cheers,
Greg
Attachments
I remember this style amp he made but I believe the pair I saw was a prototype with ridiculous class A power. I would like to say he mentioned it wasn’t practical and a prototype only. I remember it leaning more than the ones shown and very hot
to boot
I recall it was way more than 75 class A though. There is such a thing as false memory’s and maybe I fall into this trying to recapture the long ago moment..,
but that lean and heat trigger my recollection , so I leave it to maybe being wrong in the way back time machine..
The speakers were a true ribbon then like the Eminent Technology designs with magnets on both sides.
Superior to Magnepans / Apogee single ended bass design that continue to ring extra cycles when the signal stops
I,ll see when I finish rebuilding my Divas bass panels but no way can the Apogee be in the same class as a true push pull design
Happy listening !
Regards
David
to boot
I recall it was way more than 75 class A though. There is such a thing as false memory’s and maybe I fall into this trying to recapture the long ago moment..,
but that lean and heat trigger my recollection , so I leave it to maybe being wrong in the way back time machine..
The speakers were a true ribbon then like the Eminent Technology designs with magnets on both sides.
Superior to Magnepans / Apogee single ended bass design that continue to ring extra cycles when the signal stops
I,ll see when I finish rebuilding my Divas bass panels but no way can the Apogee be in the same class as a true push pull design
Happy listening !
Regards
David
More details on the Audires:
Unlike with the Apogees, there was no means of tensioning the membranes once installed, as far as I remember. Brother always maintains the particular sound was due to the ribbons being tuned to produce full-range sound, and I think being push-pull was a part of that. However, for heavy rock, they didn't produce the deep, punchy bass, of course.
Regarding the membranes, I don't think the aluminum was etched; I reall it being 1/4" or maybe 3/8" side aluminum foil being applied to the mylar, then the clear doping coated the aluminum tape and the membranes. I live too far away from my brother to confirm or correct this with his current speakers.
The magnets on the Audires were behind the metal lattice (if you will) that is visible within the rectangular frames, with the membrane sandwiched between the front and back frames. Magnets were on both sides of the mylar membranes, and foam between the magnets and membrane. So; frame - magnet - foam - mylar - foam - magnet - frame.
Unlike with the Apogees, there was no means of tensioning the membranes once installed, as far as I remember. Brother always maintains the particular sound was due to the ribbons being tuned to produce full-range sound, and I think being push-pull was a part of that. However, for heavy rock, they didn't produce the deep, punchy bass, of course.
Regarding the membranes, I don't think the aluminum was etched; I reall it being 1/4" or maybe 3/8" side aluminum foil being applied to the mylar, then the clear doping coated the aluminum tape and the membranes. I live too far away from my brother to confirm or correct this with his current speakers.
The magnets on the Audires were behind the metal lattice (if you will) that is visible within the rectangular frames, with the membrane sandwiched between the front and back frames. Magnets were on both sides of the mylar membranes, and foam between the magnets and membrane. So; frame - magnet - foam - mylar - foam - magnet - frame.
The force over area push pull ribbon or electrostatic designs maintain at least more control over the input signal than a single ended sheet.
And in the world of compromises low bass movement has limits on magnet or stator spacing
limiting efficiency
It could be argued the Apogee might benefit in the low bass transition since it looses strength at its limits and will not touch in the one direction, but a Q of .7 in this mess isnt going to happen, just compromise
Either design benefits greatly from subs and removing that low freq. movement of those foils.
And in the world of compromises low bass movement has limits on magnet or stator spacing
limiting efficiency
It could be argued the Apogee might benefit in the low bass transition since it looses strength at its limits and will not touch in the one direction, but a Q of .7 in this mess isnt going to happen, just compromise
Either design benefits greatly from subs and removing that low freq. movement of those foils.
Hi David,
No such luck. We were lucky to find that one fuzzy photo of the single speaker. The panels on his single-row speakers are covered with cloth, and my brother doesn't want to remove them to take photos. He no longer has the original speakers or parts, so can't photograph those.
Cheers,
Greg
No such luck. We were lucky to find that one fuzzy photo of the single speaker. The panels on his single-row speakers are covered with cloth, and my brother doesn't want to remove them to take photos. He no longer has the original speakers or parts, so can't photograph those.
Cheers,
Greg
It's been a very long time since I thought about Audire. I owned their Model One amplifier and Model One Di-Fet pre-amp. It was about 1981-2 ish or so. I had them for a couple of years, I think I sold the pre-amp and bought an Apt-Holman or something like that. Eventually I went to tube stuff. Anyway, for some reason I thought the volume control one Di-Fet One pre-amp was bad (rather statiicy or something, it's been a long time), so I called Julius. He had me come down to Fountain Valley, I lived within driving distance. It was actually in a regular ordinary home in that city, basically most of the house was taken over with test benches and racks of gear, we met in what was normally to be considered the living room. No furniture, just technology stuff, scopes, meters and lots of gear on shelves. He was nice enough, assured me after testing the volume control was normal, it was a characteristic of that potemiator and that the reason they prefered that particluar volume control was it had very tight tracking from channel to channel. I remember the sound of the Model One and and Pre-amp was very neutral, it really didn't have a sound. Back then I just never kept things more than a couple of years, I bought stuff used, and passed it on and bought something else used, over the over.
full range planars
Have designed and redesigned over 500 full range planars,over the last 20 years, don't use or need crossovers, resistors, just the diaphragm only one. Don't use Mylar anymore too fiddly. don't use neos either use ferrites instead just as good. Still building from the cut outs don't waste any MDF. Keeps me busy and interested at my age (81).
Have designed and redesigned over 500 full range planars,over the last 20 years, don't use or need crossovers, resistors, just the diaphragm only one. Don't use Mylar anymore too fiddly. don't use neos either use ferrites instead just as good. Still building from the cut outs don't waste any MDF. Keeps me busy and interested at my age (81).
Wow. Almost $12k back in 2001. Incredible amount of Class A power. I have to imagine they were so tall to help convection cool the heat generated - they drew 100w at idle.
Based on comments and reviews online, it sounds like they were put into production. Wonder how many were actually sold, and how many are still in operation.
Based on comments and reviews online, it sounds like they were put into production. Wonder how many were actually sold, and how many are still in operation.
I have some pictures of the image 1 speaker..I used to work for Julius..I will have to drag out my PC..but they are good in the living room!! I still have my DM 700.!! As Julius would say.. OMG... ******* heavy...and Get.preamp..and mdl one custom with VC..on front Panel..he was a Great guy.. he used normal 10 GG copper wire!! Nothing fancy.
He could go on about that BS.
Truly a Rocket Scientist...worked on Space stuff...it's late..but I'll find them tomorrow...