"it ain't bragging if you can actually do it."

i have been curious about their speakers since i first saw that add. doubtfull that they will ever be in my price range, but some of the ideas and technology may eventually trickle down to something i can aspire to.

interesting and enjoyable review.

One other thing is that he gets the amplitude and phase, and impulse response as best as he can. That has a lot to do with making a speaker system an accurate transducer. The step response shows that among other things indicate that. The rest is evident in the listening.

Yep. When we make a speaker, the final tuning is done by ear. And computers are BARELY used, as they don't do much beyond letting you know if you are in the ballpark or not.

The final arbiter is the ear, as he said in the article. As it should be.

Everyone has their methods. Every speaker has it's buyer.

(whew) I nearly made a comment, there! I had to bite my computer tongue and erase it.

Interesting that the woofers are scanspeak drivers that are small for more accurate bass and lower registers of piano (although a longer throw is necessary).

However, the 4th order crossovers immediately tell me there is a problem because of lots of inductors and capacitors. This is evidenced by no mention of hearing reflections off the recording studio walls. This is the usual case in most speakers, especially with 4th order crossovers, meaning some lack of true inner detail. In otherwards, some of the music and reflections are masked and not heard.

Take care.

I've done so much work on loudspeaker design... that when I go to an audio show..and the door to the given room is open..and I can hear the speaker from outside the room..I can tell that there is a 4th (or greater)order slope on the given speakers that are playing in that room.

They have a very specific characteristic sound.

I've spoken on the subject at the DIYAudio forum, but I won't get into it here. It was and is an 'opinion', and no matter what I said, someone always takes offense in some manner, no matter what was spoken on the subject;-good, bad, indifferent, whatever.

It tends to have a basis in radiated sound field or 'bubble' vs 'reflected cummulative room sound' as an overall coloration/mix (tonal total-over time) ratio and timing between the two.

As you are standing outside the door of the given room at the show, the direct sound is about 50% of what you hear and the reflection is the other 50%. The timing cues/tonality are very evident as a difference between the two, to someone who designs speakers and crossovers..as one has to learn how to listen for very minute phase differentials.

Thus, standing outside the door of the given room, I can, with some decent reliability, tell what kind of crossover design is in the given room. Generally, it's a high slope vs low slope recognition.

I try to strive for a design that sounds as much like real music with live musicians from OUTSIDE the room as is possible to achieve, with that-to me, a fundamental aspect that is on the list of design objectives. Most designers have some similar design objective on their list of "to do's" when designing a given speaker.

It is a neat speaker and a good review. For all the right reasons.

Quote:
Also interesting!

I believe JA has said that he finds that when a speaker sounds 'right' from outside the room, it is very frequently associated with an overly bright tonal balance inside the room.

(I will go try to find the quote.)

It would be neat to see you guys compare notes.

As I recall, B&W recently changed to a lower order crossover. 1st order I believe. They used to run 4th order, at least in some of their designs. Kinda shows how poor sounding parts can be. If it screws up the sound in speakers, imagine how parts can screw up the sound of electronics, regardless of the specs.

Quote:
Also interesting!

I believe JA has said that he finds that when a speaker sounds 'right' from outside the room, it is very frequently associated with an overly bright tonal balance inside the room.

(I will go try to find the quote.)

It would be neat to see you guys compare notes.

We do extreme grade acoustics work (near 60 feature films so far and then industrial-pro work) and we do all our own rooms, of course. So take it all with a grain of salt. The biggest complaint about my crossover designs is that they tend to sound a bit dark in balance! I hate bright-with a passion.

I'm trying to be careful. This is a proper thread about this new review, it is not a space for me to strut on stage in any capacity whatsoever. I'll have to get out of this discussion, unnerstand? (before it somehow goes sideways)

I will end in saying that I hope to hear this speaker some time, and that there is every indication that it is a great sounding speaker. I applaud and bow in the direction of any designer and any developed system that attempts to be in the group of 'the finest available'. Which there is every indication that this design and effort - is.

revel salons use 4th order crossovers and have the most inner detail of any speaker I have ever heard ,regardless of cost. so a blanket statement like all 4th order crossovers lose inner detail is complete nonsense. have a nice day ,

Quote:
revel salons use 4th order crossovers and have the most inner detail of any speaker I have ever heard ,regardless of cost. so a blanket statement like all 4th order crossovers lose inner detail is complete nonsense. have a nice day ,

I must disagree. Electronics can also be that way depending upon the quality of the parts. What happens is that one will find distortions added, especially higher orders, or passive parts that artificially create the perception of inner detail.

As a crude example of how sound can be artificially manipulated, there is one preamplifier that I know of that has a bass response of -3db at approx 17hz, yet the bass is considered strong, nearly heavy. In a near perfect preamp, with near perfect specs, the bass of course would be light. The problem in this example is that the parts actually accentuates the lower frequencies to produce heavier than accurate bass from the input signal, actually it is form of distortion. This is artificially inflated bass. Of course it also affects the midrange quality. There are parts that cause problems in the highs as well.

In a perfect component, the sound would be near perfect and the specs would also be near perfect.

Hope this helps.