Bloated speakers/weight wise

I've a pair of Paragon Jubilee/Jems, a two piece three way speaker. 150lb's. Lead lined to reduce cabinet resonances. They produce a very clean signal (Dynaudio drivers) so I imagine the lead lining must work (in conjunction with thier potted in epoxy cross overs) but I've never measured them other than by ear.

My mains tip the scales at 142 LBS for each speaker. Weight wise this is rather ungainly. Heavy speaker usually equals bigger box, bigger magnets and heavier braced damped cabinets. This is all good but I think you hit diminishing returns after about 100 LBS as the audible benefits become smaller but the weight/size begins to affect placement and ease/cost of transport.

I sold something, and delivered it, to a guy who has a pair of these www.magico.net/product_reference.html he said they weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 lbs. I can't find any specs on their website.

The density & damping qualities of the cabinet material contribute to the weight. It seems to be the best way of eliminating cabinet resonances. Like in life, there`s no free lunch.

My speakers are over 300lbs each, but it isnt like you move them alot so its no big deal to me, I have serious doubts that any 70lb speaker can be as nuetral as a much heavier speaker.

In classical mechanics, acceleration (a) is related to force (F) and mass (m) by way of Newton's second law:

F = m * a
a = F/m

As you can see, if the mass [speaker weight] increases, than the acceleration or movement of the speaker DECREASES.

Chad, with a bigger heftier amp I can make my 70 lb speakers blow the roof off this place, 40X30 cathedral room. The only thing is the dual 7 inchers roll off the lower 20-40 hz/s. Which is why I may go to a 3 way with a 8 inch woofer/at 100 lbs each, will go down to 30hZ.
Someone mentioned 1000 lb pair!!!! Can anyone here lift a 500 lb speaker???!!! Even budging it would require 2 guys. I realize Tyler has some monsters, but I believe he sells those to studos/commercial. Or does anyone here have Tyler's Super Towers with dual 10's? I guess they weigh in at 600 lbs each. Honestly I wouldn;'t even want to own a pr that size. Not for any price. As the speaker has now taken dominance over the music, classical music that is.
Paul

Since when does speaker weight determine how low a speaker can go?

What about the event horizon? I heard that some speakers are so heavy that not even light can escape their gravitational pull let alone the poor audiophile who buys them....captivating sound no doubt!

Some butt busters:

Rockport Hyperions
Nearfield Acoustics Pipedreams

If someone ever gave me a pair of either, believe me, I would find a way to move 'em :-)

I might admire some bigger speakers, but I definitely limit myself to something I can move around on my own.

Fatparrot, yes mass does inhibit speaker movement in the "for every action, an equal and opposite reaction" way, which is to say that a woofer pumping back and forth won't move a speaker noticeably the other way. But you actually don't need a very heavy speaker to accomplish this task, especially if it's spiked to the floor, as evidenced by the fact that none of us are reporting our speakers 'walking' around the listening room (positioning the woofer low in the cabinet also helps reduce rocking motion, and of course positioning two woofers opposite each other and wired in the same phase can eliminate it). What sheer mass doesn't do is prevent the pressure waves from causing resonance -- think of the Liberty Bell. Some of the techniques and materials that are used to reduce resonance in speaker cabinets do add mass, but it's not necessarily the mass per se that prevents resonance (the more massive the thing that's set to vibrating, the longer it takes to damp), and lighter-weight designs employing clever forms and materials engineering can also be made low in resonance. I always thought it was a neat bit of iconoclastic thinking that Hsu made its subwoofers out of lightweight but rigid and nonresonant (as far as the material goes) cardboard tubes -- inexpensive, too.

How about the Montana WAS at 520 pounds each?

The approximate shipping weight for a pair of Wilson Alexandria X-2's is 2,286 pounds.

These are way too heavy for me. In fact, as I've gotten older, I've found myself gravitating towards lighter speakers (and amplifiers too). No more struggling with 100+ pound monsters for me.

Maybe it's because I don't listen to much heavy metal anymore. :-)

Cheers,
John

Zaikesman-
Wouldn't it make sense that shorter cone excursion is less apt to cause the rocking tendency you mention?

John says:"Ck out Wilson AlexandriaX2, @ 1100 pounds each!!!!!! WHAAAAAAAAA. Calling on Hercules. Man I have trouble bench pressing 150. Of course we knows its a studio speaker. I guess the Wilson line gets first place in the Big Fats category.
Prpixel, you are correct, you don't need a big fat speaker to get the 20hz's. Thats a myth.
Anyone know the exact weight of Tyler's Big Boys, the Super Towers with the dual 10's, Can't recall the name. I think I saw like 250 each, but that tower looks more than 250 each. I could be wrong.
Paul

I finally found a weight on the Magico's, sort of. The website says, "they weigh nearly half a ton".

By itself a speaker's weight means little, but in the context of an overall design it can quite useful. The problem involves lowering the sonic contribution of the speaker cabinet, which at some frequencies can amount to 40% of the overall sound emitted by the speaker (I saw that measurement in an old Stereophile). The easiest way to limit the cabinet's output is to make it massive and less likely to be sympathetically excited. There are other ways to make the cabinet highly rigid and inflexible, but they are expensive (contrained layer, exotic materials, etc.). As a practical matter if you want low distortion, high volume and deep bass your speaker will have to be solidly built which equates to high mass. That could mean 30 to 50 pounds for some speakers and 200 to 500 for others.

I do not understand anything of your post. Sorry.

[QUOTE]..."The problem involves lowering the sonic contribution of the speaker cabinet, which at some frequencies can amount to 40% of the overall sound emitted by the speaker"...[END QUOTE]

Try this some time...Next time your listening to music, press one ear tightly to the cabinet and plug the other ear. When I did this, what I heard was not good. If I could magically turn of the cabinet, I wonder how much better it would sound, you know, like an A, B comparison.

Easy now Paul. That 2286 lbs/pair is shipping weight. I'm sure they are absolutely svelte when you take the X-2's out of their crates. :-)

John

Macrojack: What you're essentially saying is that if you turn down the volume, the cabinet will move less. D'oh! :-)

Seriously though, if you want to achieve the same lower-frequency SPL in-room, you have to move the same amount of air. Can be done through either larger driver area or greater driver excursion. Both have engineering challenges if you want to reduce distortions of the driver (and therefore of the reproduced signal) in several forms. So some designs involve using many LF drivers, which can reduce both area and excursion on a per-driver basis, at the expense of increased cost for the multiple drive units and larger cabinets to house them all (which, to the topic at hand, obviously makes for heavier speakers). But the other trend in the industry has been toward EQ'ed subwoofers with small, inconspicuous cabinets, and these drivers have some amazing levels of peak excursion, at the expense of accepting increased distortion in an area where the ear is less sensitive to it, and targeted primarily toward end users who care more about movie soundtrack FX than music quality. Some of these little monsters can move around the floor under high SPLs if not spiked.

My speaker has 3/4 inch fab board, they stand 4 ft tall, good depth, narrow though, and weigh in at 70 lbs each. I'm only missing the lower 20-40 hz's. Heres a story that shows how a light speaker can be a benifit. When katrina was on the way I moved them upstairs on sat night, just to be safe, in case the streets flooded, as happens now and then, though my first floor is 4 feet above street level. When I saw the first wave of flood water comming from the 17th street break, 20 minutes after I heard the levee go "boom...booom" the water then rose a foot/every 30 minutes. Now how in the world could I alone could move a speaker more than 150 lbs up a awkward staircase. 70 lbs was fairly easy, but not something I'd like to do often. Lets say you decide to sell a speaker that weighs in at more than 150 lbs. Its a real issue.
Lets get real about weight. Fat is not good for us, nor for speakers :-)

Did I just see Ecruz mention a speaker at 1/2 ton. Well of course its not home model, which we need to limit this contest to. So far the Wilson's X2's 1100 lbs, of course minus crate weight!!!

Onhwy61 wrote:

"The easiest way to limit the cabinet's output is to make it massive and less likely to be sympathetically excited. There are other ways to make the cabinet highly rigid and inflexible, but they are expensive (contrained layer, exotic materials, etc.)."

I don't agree that it's as simple as saying that making something massive makes it "less likely to be sympathetically excited". What that does, all other things being equal (which they're often not), is lower the frequency at which sympathetic vibration occurs. I don't pretend to have anything like a comprehensive grasp of the subject (and seriously doubt that even many speaker designers do), but do feel it's a lot more complicated than just adding mass to deal with the problem. Shape, size, density, points of contact (for both damping and exciting elements), materials' intrinsic damping and rigidity properties, all go into the mix. If you add mass in the wrong shape or the wrong location or use the wrong material, resonance will worsen instead of improve, only shifted in frequency. Mass in and of itself isn't the answer to anything in this area, it seems to me, and if you can achieve the same intended result while using less mass I think it's always better, and not necessarily more expensive all things factored in (weight has its own costs).

Zaikesman, I agree that it is more complicated than my earlier post presented, but I don't think I'm incorrect in stating that adding mass is the easiest and cheapest way to deal with cabinet vibration. It's not a perfect solution, but it does work fairly well. Going from 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch MDF or doubling up layers of MDF (or plywood) is a tried and true method to increase cabinet rigidity. There are better ways to achieve the same end like CNC milled aluminum, carbon fiber layers, concrete over wood, or even the interlocking jigsaw pieces as used by Sonus Faber. You could also take a completely different course and go for a cabinet thats extremely light yet sufficiently rigid with the goal being a very quick dissipation of the drivers' backwave energy. Any of the alternative methods is more costly than the somewhat unsophisticated approach of adding mass. It's a brute force approach to solving a problem, but that doesn't mean it's ineffective. Again, as I stated earlier, adding mass has to be part of an overall speaker design concept. Used in an non-optimal context adding mass has little positive impact.

At the very moderate listening volume I hear my music, it would make very little difference if the cabinet were 1/2 inch or this 3/4 fab wood. I guess if I had the bigger 8 inch, or 10 inch Seas, then maybe a mid SPL there would be at least some advanatge. If I A/B at low low/mid volume, its doubtful anyone here could definetly say this is 1/2, this is the 3/4 unless by lucky guess. Feel free to disagree. I think some labs make big and/or heavy speakers just to try to impress and feel like you are getting your moneys worth.
Since we are on the subject of over fatty speakers, sorry if some are insulted, is the lab that loads in more than 3 drivers per cabinet. Like some sort of 4 , 5, EVEN 6way!! :-0. I recall going to the New Orleans audio meeting at a local audio shop, there they were, the big funky Legacy Towers. Took me back to the early 70's. Man, what a speaker, what a 'sound". Price was at some odd thousands of $'s. duh

Did I just see Ecruz mention a speaker at 1/2 ton. Well of course its not home model

Actually they are home speakers, Magico Reference. I saw, and heard them in an A'gon member AudioEzra's listening room.

I guess I look at going from 1/2" to 1" or 3/4" to 1 1/2" MDF a little differently than simply saying it's adding mass. Yes, of course it is adding mass. But more to the point, I think, is that it's changing the ratio of dimensions by doubling the front to back wall thickness (plus it also often entails combining two layers with a an adhesive in between, a form of constrained-layer damping). This is primarily where the extra rigidity comes from. (Think of an I-beam -- it can nearly as rigid as the same dimensions of a solid bar, but is obviously much less massive, which can actually make for a stronger structure for practical purposes.)

And achieving higher rigidity itself is also not always the same thing as reducing resonance. Very non-rigid objects can be the most non-resonant objects -- think of a down pillow -- depending on their form and density. Increasing rigidity raises the resonant frequency (again, all other things being equal, which they likely won't be). Of course higher rigidity in a speaker cabinet is a good thing from a wavelaunch perspective. But without proper attention paid to shapes, sizes, damping, points of contact, etc., higher rigidity in itself might not reduce resonance but only change its character. Overall, to my mind both higher mass and rigidity are probably somewhat overrated compared with self-damping as means to achieve the design goal of a quieter cabinet, and probably more expensive as well, but for the fact that most manufacturers are already set up to deal primarily with MDF.

I thought the Sterophile measurements of the new Mordaunt-Short Performance 6 speaker, that's made of a combination of molded structural foam of varying shapes, thicknesses and densities plus reinforcing metal elements, was fascinating. The result (achieved at the initial cost of a reported 10,000 hours of design time and who what tooling costs) is a 48" tall, 18" deep at the base speaker weighing only 66 lbs., and yielding some very impressive accelerometer results in JA's cabinet resonance tests, with low amplitudes, no dominant frequencies and extremely short die-away. They cost $6,500, not really an outrageous price for an imported, high-tech, nearly full-range 4-driver floorstanding flagship, and the molded-contoured form probably means it has better diffraction properties than most MDF boxes to boot. Of course all that doesn't necessarily mean they sound great, but I do want to hear them if I can.

Vmps RM 40's at 260lbs each. They are not too heavy. I'm not even sure what too heavy for a speaker is. I'd rather have a heavy speaker as they tend to be able to reproduce more life like realism. A smaller speaker usually won't handle as much power or throw as large a soundstage.

I have nothing against a small speaker and if someone never pushes it too hard then it's fine. If you like significant volume and at an at ease sound at these volumes then a larger heavier speaker may be what you need. It's all in your perspective.

I only weight 160 but if there were a flood I'd get those things up the stairs! Moving them around the room is actually very easy on my carpet.

My speakers are 50 inches tall and weigh in around 70 lbs. There is a 10.5 inch fullrange driver at the very top of the column firing forward. They sit on a plinth that is 12 inches square with a spike in each corner. They do not resonate. The box doesn't talk or rock. They play very loud. They are 101 db efficient. They seem to contradict much of what has been written here. I think the stability issue may be due to the fact that my driver cannot be seen to move, even at loud volumes because the excursion is very short. It seems logical to me that less pistonic excursion would be less apt to cause the box to move. As for resonance control, I don't know how they do it but there does not seem to be any cabinet activity at all.
All this leads me to conclude that mass is a substitute (and not necessarily an effective one)for innovative engineering.

Bartokfan, the front wave from your speaker drivers puts acoustic energy into the room and the rear wave puts an equal amount of energy into the speaker cabinet. Your room is measured in hundreds of cubic feet, but the speaker cabinet is typically measured in the single digit cubic feet. Even at non-loud volume the energy within the speaker cabinet is relatively high and it is this energy that is a major cause of cabinet vibration. The soundwaves bounce around within the cabinet are eventually dissipated, but a certain portion of the sound makes it through the enclosure, or back through the driver and results in a smearing of the original acoustic output. Most attempts to solve this problem involve techniques that will make the speaker heavier. Of course you could take a completely different approach and eliminate the cabinet altogether and let the back wave escape unimpeded into the listening room. This raises another set of problems, but it has been done successfully by several manufacturers.

I see no correlation with speaker weight and the size or quality of a soundstage.

Zaikesman, the M-S speaker has an incredible design for the cabinet. I don't know for a fact, but I suspect the cost of the cabinet relative to the total production cost of the speaker is quite high.

Aha! Onhwy61 has offered a good explanation as to the workings of my speaker. They have a downward firing bass tunnel running the full height of the cabinet and the size of the aperture facing the floor is quite large. The freedom of the backwave to escape and the direction it goes would perhaps explain why the cabinet neither rocks nor vibrates.
My first post was written before his explanation appeared.

Macrojack, my explanation applies to both sealed and non-sealed speakers. A port, if appropriately designed, offers a controlled path for pressure to escape the speaker cabinet. Ported speakers still have to address cabinet flex. If I got it right, doesn't your speaker have a very slick multi-layer cabinet design. And since when did 70 lbs. become a light weight speaker?

Hwy-

I think you are correct about the cabinet but I am not sure.
I think 70 lbs. is light in comparison to the behemoths being mentioned here. And the things are over 4 feet tall besides.

The aperture at the bottom is about 4 inches by 9 inches. I don't know how it is configured inside but I would imagine an opening that large would present little resistance and therefore minimal pressure. Is that correct?

Macrojack, How do you know that your cabinet does not produce any sound? How did you test for this?

After reading some of this thread I did a little experimenting. First I tried to feel vibration on the cabinet with my fingers and could not feel any, so I tried my lips and then my check (the one on my face), still nothing. Next I held a glass up against the cabinet, (you know, like holding a glass up to a door as to hear what is being said on the other side of the closed door), then I could hear something coming through the cabinet. But what worked even better is just to press your ear firmly up against the cabinet, by doing this I could hear even more. Don't forget to plug the other ear and cut the volume off on the other speaker.

Have you tried that? If not, how did you test?

Line-
I'll have to try your experiment later. I just took a break from painting the living room. The system is dismantled. What I've done so far was just feel it while it was playing. Didn't feel any resonance as I have in other products at times in the past. I concluded that if it wasn't obvious, it wasn't happening. Certainly if you must go to stethoscope extremes to detect resonance, it must be small enough to be overlooked, at least in post-amplification circumstances.

Macrojack: Naturally your speaker cabs do resonante -- all speaker cabs resonate. I'm surprised that you and Line say you can't feel any vibrations with your hand placed on the cabinet. This is true with any surface, at reasonably lifelike volumes, playing any music? As for rocking, most speakers won't do this to any detectable degree if well designed and anchored.

Even if they don't obviously vibrate a great amount, the large areas of the cabinet surfaces involved in making a 4 ft. high speaker means there will be sonically significant unwanted contributions from the cabinet. The effect is potentially worst with speaker constucted from flat panels (as most still are) -- speakers with curved cabinet surfaces have a theoretical leg up here, especially if we're also trying to keep weight down to sane levels.

No matter what you do with the bass, cabinet talk will exist if there's a cabinet involved, but obviously speakers that roll out on the bottom sooner than others will have lesss of a problem to deal with, and this I assume is a factor with your speakers. BTW, I agree that 70 lbs, which is what my own Thiels weigh (with their 1" panels, 2" baffle, and 5 internal cross-braces), is at most mid-weight for a 4 ft. floorstander.

I do have to admit to a lack of basic understanding in a technical aspect of what you're alluding to here though. John Atkinson has also commented in a few speaker reviews that higher sensivity should translate into less cabinet talk. I think I understand why this would be true with horns, because they work by concentrating the sound pressure in the direction of the listener, thus reducing the overall driver excursion needed to achieve equivalent perceived volume levels. What I don't understand is why this should hold true for direct-radiators like yours, because the amount of air that's required to be moved to achieve any given volume level is the same, no matter what the efficiency of this type of speaker. In other words, I understand that the required amount of watts of power needed to achieve that air movement will be less with a more efficient speaker, but not why, if it's making the same SPL in-room, there would be less excitation of the cabinet. Anybody enlighten me on this one?

Zaikesman, what you say about horn speakers makes to me in the same way it does to you and I cannot enlighten you on why efficiency should make any difference other then horns.

I tried to feel vibration again, this time at a louder level and had no trouble feeling it with my hand flat on the cabinet.

I have the larger Walsh Ohms (the older trapezoid style). The cabinets have generous cross bracing and some lead on the all 4 sides but not that much. Now what is different with these speakers is that the driver is not 'in' the cabinet, the driver is outside and on top of the cabinet facing down. This eliminates all chance of rocking the cabinets, but I don't know if this would also reduce cabinet talk. One of the things these speakers are known for, is there beep base (25hz) with authority. There is a port on the bottom of the cabinet.

I don't think I can really hear 25hz, I have this one cd that really goes low with electronic sound, but I don't no how low; I don't so much really hear it all that much but I can feel it and so does the floor. My ears are 63 years old and I know they don't perform like when they were 16.

Another advantage of having the full-range driver mounted to the cabinet top is that the "baffle" is thus made really small, while none of the larger-area cabinet surfaces are excited directly by a driver mounted in the middle of the panel. BTW, I thought Walsh Ohms had fairly low sensitivity, since their sound is radiated equally in all directions. Anyway, you can tell a lot about the cabinet sound of a speaker just by doing the knuckle-rap test at different spots on the various panels and listening critically to the results, no test equipment needed.

Zaiksman: "sonically significant unwanted contributions from the cabinet"...."a 4 ft floorstander @70 lbs is almost midweight for this size cabinet"...
I think its fair to say 95%+ , honestly I'd put it at 90% of the audible sound comes from the drivers. Besides many speakers, B7W's have baffels, which release any excess energy, so the cabinet has minimal resonance.
70lbs "mid-weight" are you saying average for athat size cabinet ot mid weight in general terms?
Sure I guess B&W's and others with the dimensions of your Theils, Tylers, Zu's all average 70-90 4 ft floor stander. But there are 4 -6 ft floorstanders like Wilsons and others that go into the hundreds of lbs. I think people identify heavy with good. Gee if it weights this much, it must be worth the price. Anything I'm not comfortable moving by myself, I'm not interested. I'd did say 150 lbs was my top limit. I've just lower that to 125. btw Tyler offers on 2 of his models a dual cabinet/stack option for each cabinet. Which is unique and pretty cool. I bring up Tyler often here on the board not because I've heard them and know how they sound, but for his innovativness, look at his models, no lab even comes close to what he offers. and the fact he uses Seas' drivers. How he has the xovers will determine just how great a value they are. But just on my knowledge of his component costs, its the best bang for the buck in speakers. By far.

Bartokfan: I assume that what you're referring to in B&W speakers, which is shared with many other speakerers, must be their internal bracing? If so, yes, internal bracing is pretty much mandatory for any speaker that asipres to minimal resonance, but the need for it can be lessened by employing curved outer surfaces, an approach which reduces weight.

I don't know what the percentage range would be for typical audiophile box speakers in terms of cabinet contribution to their total output, but you have to remember that energy reradiated from the cabinet has been shifted in frequency and time -- in other words, it's heavily distorted in relation to the desired goal of the output signal closely matching the input signal. As we know from various kinds of distortion is our electronics, if the effect is musically unconsonant or obscuring, distortion can be audible at very low percentage levels. True, within the signal chain speakers in general have much higher overall distortion percentages than do electronics, but if you want to make a better-performing speaker, you need to address these limitations wherever you can.

I'm in agreement with you that for me, any speaker I can't hump around comfortably by myself is just something that I'm personally not interested in owning, but I do think imposing such a limit probably puts a ceiling on the performance that can attained with typical speaker designs if part of what you like to play is full-range, dynamic music at higher volume levels.

Zaikesman, true for those interested in high SPL listening, then cabinet resonance may be an issue. i rarely listen with my amp vol at more than 1/4 - 1/3. Plenty of muisc going on. These audio club meetings in New Orleans with high/super high SPL listening sessions make no sense to me. But the group seemed (past, not sure where the New Orleans club is now scattered to) to get a kick out of it.

Bartokfan: I was saying that for those who like to listen at higher volumes, the smaller size that usually goes along with lower weight may put a limit on performance. But I don't agree that cabinet resonance, as its own issue, is a problem only for listening at higher volumes. IMO cabinet talk makes its unwanted contribution at all volume levels, and minmizing it, whether through brute-force construction or something more weight-efficient, pays sonic dividends no matter how soft or loud you like to listen. (I also should mention though, that I'm one of those who feel listening at unnaturally low levels, while sometimes unavoidable, does constitute its own form of distortion that renders reproduction less lifelike. Of course the same thing goes for listening too loud as well.)

(I also should mention though, that I'm one of those who feel listening at unnaturally low levels, while sometimes unavoidable, does constitute its own form of distortion that renders reproduction less lifelike. Of course the same thing goes for listening too loud as well.)

I would think most speakers are designed for accuracy at the realistic listening volume. I remember talking to John at Ohm Acoustics many years ago about the different models he had back then and he said that he has this particular model that sounded really good a low listening volume. He also said that he did not understand why this was so, he not intentionally designed it to do that, but it also sounded good at realistic levels. I do not remember the model, but it was not a Walsh and I doubt if it's being made at this time.

Finding a speaker that sounds 'good' at low levels is notoriously tough, but it is also rarer to find a speaker that can play at truly lifelike levels on large-scale material without seriously faltering than most audiophiles seem to assume. (My own speaker accomplish neither.) Either that, or probably most of us almost never listen at truly lifelike levels, but speakers that aren't large, driven by amps that aren't high-powered -- both of which are common in this hobby -- can't really get that done for the most part. Which is okay, because most listening rooms can't support that kind of volume anyway. Of course, if you mainly listen to a guy singing and playing an acoustic guitar, or string trios, the lifelike volume factor doesn't present as much of a problem. I coined a term I use to describe this theoretical factor (to myself, 'til now), "absolute amplitude distortion". But this concept really only applies to acoustic material, since there is no truly 'correct' volume setting for multitracked studio rock/pop, music which always depends upon electronic sound reinforcement in live performance. Still, no matter what kind of material you're playing, if you listen too low you'll miss musical detail and impact, and if you listen too loud you'll hear non-musical detail that's not an intended part of the performance, and most systems will throw the tonal balance off-kilter in either case.

speakers that aren't large, driven by amps that aren't high-powered -- both of which are common in this hobby -- can't really get that done for the most part.

I once owned full range electrostatics's (acoustat 2+2's), I did not keep them long. Did not like that small sweet spot and missed the dynamics. So I got my first pr. of Ohms, they are very easy to live with cause to me they sound like a hybrid, near electrostatic sounding with dynamics plus a very large listening area. I am a Ohm fan now.

Now to the quote above. I came across this particular Blue Circles amp. review, and after reading it I called John at Ohm's again and flat out asked him what amp. he would recommend for the Walsh's I have to get the most out of them. Now mind you; I have been using a ss 200 wpc at 8 ohms, 375 at 4 ohms and when I played music at higher volumes, the sound became fatiguing and earitating so I thought the amp. may be clipping. Well anyway John recommended the Sunfire Signature, and he said, make sure it's the Signature. What a difference this kind of power makes on these speakers. There just a clear and keep there composure at higher very high volumes, so high I can't here myself take (like I take to someone in a quiet room).
It was reading this review that prompted me to call John.

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/bluecircle_bc8.htm

You may be interested in what is said when lots of power is fed to Walsh speakers.

I haven't heard a Walsh Ohm in years and don't know much about them, but maybe the unique traveling-wave vs. traditional pistonic principle of driver operation works well at high SPLs?

I would like to shear one more thing. Unlike most setups, the Walsh sound much better to me on the long. The room is 24'x 14.5', ceiling height is 8.5' and the speakers are 12' apart (center to center). If I sit center stage, I am 12' from each speaker, (great sound stage). Now if I listen 5' off center to my right, the same sound stage remains, but shifts to the lift.

Now here's the real "kicker"; I have another pr. of Walsh, the smallest ones they make; I think there call the 'mini shorts', they are used as the rears. To explain what the rear speaker do, there are two links below that explain this.

Here is my personal experience of the difference the rear speaker make...Without the rears, there is a great sound stage in front of me. With the rear speakers, there is a great sound stage in front of me, PLUS the room is FILLED with music and I am not aware of the rear speakers playing, but when I shut them off, all the music shifts in front of me; there is overwhelming difference and this is done with no extra electronics; one, two ch. amp. is all that's needed.

Sorry about talking so much about my system, but I wanted to shear this with with all that may read this.

Here are the two links that explain this.

http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/fass/index_htm2.html

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4569074.html

My last post nor does the link I posted explain how to wire the rear speakers, so here is how it's done.

Leave the front speakers wired as they are now. Now run another wire from the 'positive' on left ch. front speaker too the 'positive' on the left ch. rear speaker. Do the same with another wire with right ch. front and rear speakers. Now run a wire from 'negative' too 'negative' on the two rear speakers. YOUR DONE.

I do not understand why it works the way it does, but it works. In the first link I posted, they call this Hafler Stereo.

I am not sure the second link I posted talks about this. To much to read. I did not go through it.

Line you are on the wrong topic, you should be continuing your saga over at the OHM thread. Keep on going on about the Walsh's, we're listening.

Sorry Bart, got carried away, did mean to do that. Funny how one thing leads to another.