Thanks, my hunch is that I'd love them. However, not sure how much better than my mirages they are, and they are almost as old/not made any more. I may call Carver to see the expected lifetime of the speakers. Ebay does have a coupla silvers and one not specified as to silver/platinum.
Are there any current high end dipole speakers (dynamic)?
Looking to upgrade my decades old system which includes Mirage M3si. No they ain't perfect, but the speakers disappear and that kind of sound is very appealing. Electrostatics (bipoles?)aren't the same (though when my mirage's die, I'll probably get maggies).
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for your time.
Showing 5 responses by berner99
Thank everyone for replying. Probably no more than $3-5K (but could spend $10k if I thought it was worth it). The Linkwitz Orions page says what has struck me in decades of listening to the Mirage M3s: 1. the speakers disappear and 2. you can walk around the room and they still sound great. Not that these are defining criteria per se, but this to me seems to go with the speaker doing somethings very right. I’ll never forget decades ago auditioning some apogees which were 30 seconds WRONG and the mirages which were almost as quickly RIGHT. Years of listening haven’t changed that basic impression. douglas_schroeder--thanks for your post and reminder about open baffle. I think my long gone and much loved Dahlquist DQ 10s were open baffle. Do you know any non-dipole speakers which meet the two criteria above? |
Thanks again for all the suggestions. The pure audio project speakers are being demoed at NY audio show in NYC next weekend and I'll have to see if I can track down some of the others to audition. Can't imagine buying speakers like this without. douglas_schroederrs 1. Which of your categories do my current mirage M3s fall under i.e. sealed box with dynamic drivers facing forward and backward? I believe these drivers produce forward and rear sound in phase vs open baffle which produces front and rear sound out of phase 2.If the goals is to simulate live music then a. speakers that disappear fits, since there are no speakers e.g. at a symphony or acoustic concert and b. the person in the coupla seats on either side of you probably hears something similar to what you do. So while sound walking around the room may or may not be a marketing gimmick, a 3" sweet spot means something fundamental is wrong. c. Also in any indoor concert some percentage of sound reaching you will be indirect. Are most speakers today direct radiators? I'm inclined toward dynamic speakers and dont care for electrostatics aside from maggies (not my first choice but they do something right that some dynamics dont). |
Douglas, I’m certainly open to improvements, and assume current products can do better than my over 20 year old speakers, and will investigate but at a minimum they have to produce this experience (sorry for repetition but as audiokinesis describes): A bipole or dipole speaker...With proper set-up...results in a warm, relaxing, rich timbre. They also do a good job of conveying a sense of immersion and of disappearing as the apparent sound source. And thanks for taking the time to describe details in different types of speaker above. audiokinesis, "Direct radiator" speakers still generate a lot of off-axis energy and therefore a lot of reflections...At most normal listening distances in most rooms, most of the sound that reaches your ears is reflected sound Wouldn’t the amount of reflected sound that reaches listener be very different from dipole/bipole vs any random ported box speaker? And which is one is closer to what person would hear in e.g. symphony hall? mijostyn. Thanks, I understand what dipoles and bipoles are and that they are very different, and yet if my decades old memories are correct, maggies (dipoles) and my mirages (bipoles) produce a similar reaction in me. |
Speakers have many qualities e.g. forward/laid back, how much bass, soundstage, etc, but I"m interested in one very appealing quality related to these designs Audiokinesis pointed out: --Both dipoles and bipoles result in higher reverberant-to-direct sound ratio [vs typical direct radiating speakers)]. --"at a good seat in a concert hall, the direct sound is strong and the reverberant sound is strong BUT (and here is what largely differentiates a good seat from a poor one), the early reflections are weak." mijostyn describes the advantages of dipoles [over bipoles] with respect to reducing early reflection and states "Getting a bipole to perform like this [reducing early reflections] is difficult, maybe even impossible." Perhaps the higher reverberant-to-direct sound ratio (over conventional direct radiating speakers) itself provides a large amount of the benefit (of dipoles/bipoles) and the added improvements of reducing early reflections beneficial, but lesser. Dolsey isn’t the only person to tell me that I might have trouble finding suitable replacement for the mirages, and maybe the Mirage folks have gotten other things very right, unrelated to this issue. |