Danny Richie "fixes" the Linkwitz Arion loudspeaker
For some time now I have been directing those interested in loudspeaker design to Danny Richie’s GR Research Tech Talk Tuesday videos on YouTube. Here is his latest: an examination of the Linkwitz Arion loudspeaker. You may be asking yourself: if Siegfried Linkwitz is the genius he is touted to be, how is it Danny found the Orion to be lacking, and was able to find solutions for it’s failings? I’ll leave that to you to answer. In the meantime, after watching and listening to this video, you may want to watch all the Tech Talk Tuesday videos. They may just make you a more informed loudspeaker consumer.
For whatever reason, your link would not open. I was able to find it from the GR Research site. Oddly that had the same link name.
More than 10 years ago I became interested in the Orion speaker system after reading the Linkwitz site. I was then able to hear the system in a private owner's home but came away disappointed. Some time after that I planned to visit the Bay Area and contacted Mr. Linkwitz about an audition. He graciously agreed. He and his wife were very welcoming and he took as much time with me as I'd hoped. I brought a few familiar recordings for my frame of reference. Unfortunately I was again disappointed in the performance compared to my expectations from reading his description of the system. That was long ago enough that I can't remember exactly the points of my dissatisfaction but I had to eliminate them from consideration based upon my own tastes. That was somewhat disappointing in part because he was so nice and such a gentleman, and I know he is admired as a designer. I wrote it off as simply a difference in personal preferences.
Now I've only had limited experience with Danny but I found it very interesting to hear his description of these speakers. I understand the Orions generally have a positive following, but once again in this hobby, one size does not fit all.
I’ll tell you why. It’s EASY to take apart someone else’s work. Danny has been doing that since he started, repairing other peoples speakers, years ago. He was a VERY harsh critic, of the late Brian C. of VMPS.
They use to go at it, because the fix, was usually, someone else put the speaker kit together incorrectly, or it was the cheapest kit VMPS sold and a few mods, tightened them up..
I saw a 35 lb speaker, come out weighing 60 plus lbs.. AND a big article on how it was fixed... I laughed about the BIG pat on the back about a speaker that was one of Brian’s earliest kits, and upgrades that had not been installed. The 3.00 dollar fix turned out to weigh in at close to double the weight. When a piece of light or expanding foam was the answer, and a different cap, installed in the XO. Late 80s and 90s I knew Brian C. very well. He was a really good guy. I personally like his speakers above ALL others. STILL do.
I’ve had text exchanges with Danny. He is an easy going guy for sure. The crew he works with are, over the top (Jay) cabinet guy. I’ve owned the 123 LS6 and own his servo bass units, currently.
Now ask me about the TEC in the plate amps he uses for the servo system, and I’ll tell you another clever tale, about the guy that modifies them. How the servo REALLY works.. How good are your programming skills, because that is what it boils down to... Mine.. ok at best or use to be, C, C++, Basic, Visual Basic, heck even a little assemble code. a master batch file writer. :-)
I have NEVER done a job, that I didn’t think a little change might not hurt. When folks say "it went perfect", I always say "wish that would happen to me". I’m my own harshest critic.
I wish I had an Orion to measure, but DR accuses Linkwitz of a number of bone-head mistakes, which I doubt, not because I’m a huge fan boy but because the late Dr. Linkwitz was one of the most meticulous speaker designers I’ve ever ever seen. Without measurements I can’t prove it, but there are not a lot of speaker designers I know who took as much care in every aspect of their design as Dr. Linkwitz.
One thing I find kind of curious is his discussion of compensating for the rising impedance of a tweeter: In real life it’s almost never done nor is it needed.
You compensate for the rising impedance of a woofer because not doing so can throw off your low pass filter design. It’s written about here:
However, since tweeters have no low pass filter, just a high pass, it’s a moot point, unless you have a truly high output impedance amp (i.e. tube) which can make it seem brighter, but just a tad.
Siegfried Linkwitz certainly appeared to me to be a genius. However, he designed the Orion with a required digital active crossover, and needing 8 channels of amplification. Not a loudspeaker I would want to own.
SL had his design priorities, as did/do Paul Klipsch, Peter Walker, Arnie Nudell, Richard Vandersteen, Jim Winey, Bruce Thigpen, Roger Sanders, Dave Wilson, Eric Alexander, and (shudder) Amar Bose.
Danny Richie has his, and his customers and clients (including companies making loudspeakers designed by him) seem to be amongst the most satisfied I know of (yes, myself included). To each his own!
I have learned that even the best hi-fi designers may have a blind spot. I think very highly of Roger Modjeski (Music Reference, RAM Tubes), yet discovered his in a blog he posted on his MR AudioCircle Forum. He questioned the rationale for bass traps, saying we pay more for loudspeakers that reproduce the lowest frequencies, then install bass traps to absorb the low frequencies those loudspeakers are reproducing? That statement/question revealed to me that as good an electronic engineer/amplifier designer as he was, he was not aware of room modes.
I'm of the same opinion. If you don't make it everywhere, you don't have to control it everywhere. Rule number 1. controlling the bass, is 90% of the answer, when it comes to distortion... in ALL 7 of the frequencies ranges I address. sub, bass, MB, Low mids, mids, highs and UHF.
They are addressed normally by room treatment, with the exception of 100hz and below.. Traps kill what you really don't need to be making, to begin with...
Good to hear @clio09. May I ask what that way is? One way to make bass more uniform throughout the room is by way of the DBA: Distributed Bass Array. But regardless, in rooms having dimensions shorter than the longest wavelength being produced, there are going to be standing waves, areas of high and low pressure. It is the room "ringing."
True, bass traps are very inefficient, but I got lucky and found a bunch of ASC Tube Traps for ten bucks apiece, including a pair of 16"!
Another thing, I’ve worked with a few sound engineers, quite a few. Of the 30 or so I’ve met on job sites, only one had any desire to build or have anything to so with speakers. WHY? There is no money in it. Every one of those engineers were working on sound walls, or how to move that noise, from that valley, to that forest. NOT SPEAKERS, or room designers, ZERO money in it..
SO WE as audio buffs, really don’t get the best when it comes to speaker design...Kinda bottom of the bucket if you want to know the truth.
I also like the guy that says he’s a speaker makers, at least to be able to carry a tune in a sing along, or pick up a pair of spoons, a wash board or something and PLAY... NOT grab the MIC and away we go... YUK!!! Anyone can be taught to have a trained ear.
But to have MOJO in a speaker when they are done.. RARE!!! VERY rare...
How can the LInkwitz be the perfect speaker, when the Vandersteen (time aligned) is, er... the Magnepan (panel) is, er... the (insert favorite value speaker here) is! ;)
It's very important for the audiophile to think they have found the perfect speaker.
@bdp24 While Roger did not like to use bass traps or other acoustic treatments he did understand the benefit of and how to get multiple subs to work well in a room. I had heard of the concept of the distributed bass array through Duke Lejuene of AudioKinesis, but it wasn't until I started working with Roger that I became more familiar with it. Roger read Toole and Geddes. He really liked Geddes' speaker design principles and adopted a three sub set up for his system which used an active crossover with active EQ and biamping. That is where the similarities end though. Roger's woofers that he ended up using in his DBA are low mass (achieving the same benefit as what Richie says his servo woofers do) and are in very small sealed boxes which he preferred for what he termed the "airspring" effect.
Richard Gray (upon his advice, = as he was installing new outside cab xovers he measured the 17 yrs aged M’s, and suggested after replacing diaphrams/voice coils,,= just get new ones), so today Richard just installed new Millennium tweets in the Seas Tho WOW factor <<HIGH>> Perfect speaker? Let me say, employing speaker design lingo <,Near perfect> In ~~MY~~ mind,, (I’m going to carolina in my mind,,couldn;t resist JT lyrics here...So as we find new mods/upgrades , in our system, here a tweak, there a mod, here a upgrade, there a new component.. Like heaven which is a perfect place, we can only imagine in our minds, this is ~~as good as it gets~~,, even through I know with my superior 6922 tubes in the cayin Cd17, more adjustments to the new xovers (adding superior M caps than the ones madisound installed), Jadis DPL line stage about to add new Vishay 2575 Zfoils resistors So yeah, a speaker can eventually voice near perfection, provided the drivers hold a certain range of potential qualities of ~~Perfection~. Which is why I choose seas as my speaker of choice back 17 years ago, Perfection is both objective and subjective. Some folks actually find B&W, Wilson, Magneplanars, their ideal of a perfect speaker. The perfect speaker does exist, if only in ones frame of reference. You might just find the Seas Thors far from your ideal listening experience. Then i might say, the critic has biased ears. And/or lacks exp.
Just after posting above,, went back to my listening room, and the thought that richard planted in my brain,,came back as Faith Hill cd played on,,,**You have the wrong amp, or get new speakers.., mismatched***, Told Richard, can't part with either,,but now thinking what Richard ~bluntly~ said, perhaps, ,,((and after countless upgrades to the Defy7),, he ~~just might~~ have a valid opinion. Seems the Seas Thors do voice a tad bit murky mids,, whereas a high performance (if such actually exists = musical), might clean up the some mid range voicing.. Its possible, I just don't know. maybe we keep the Jadis DPL and employ a high perf soild state for the Thors to voice their full potential<,??>> anything is possible.. Let me write Richard and see if this is what his opinion is. He sort of <,smirtched>. his suggestion, knowing full well I ain't listening/taking HIS ideas all that serious.. Just saying,, might bea mismatch = Thors do have more potential in highs/mids, Bass is equal to any monsta ss amp. The Defy(new Mundorf Supreme Silvergold .47uf on each power tube = 12 caps + another 8 new F&T caps in the circuit) has the Thors sounding like a sub amp is employed. Be right back........ ..
After listening to your videos about the cables you recently purchased, it is obvious you seriously need to put some effort into your room acoustics. You may find that the problems you think you have are not from your components, but from your room. No amount of money thrown at caps, cables, amps, and mods will change the fact that your room itself is causing the issues.
@clio09, interesting that both Roger and Bruce Thigpen ended up going with an 8" woofer in a small sealed enclosure to mate with their respective planars, Roger’s ESL’s, Bruce’s magnetic-planars. I deeply regret having been unable to hear Roger’s ESL driven by his direct-drive OTL amp. Now THAT’S the way to make a loudspeaker!
Danny Richie uses a pair of OB/Dipole subs up front (each sub having a pair of 12" woofers), and a pair of 12" sealed subs in the rear, with the rears in polarity opposite that of the fronts.
Yes I have been watching some of the tech talk videos and decided to try using an OB sub but I decided against the GR model due to having to use the dedicated servo amps. I prefer to work with what I already have on hand and purchased the OB cabinets for the Linkwitz LX521 from Madisound. I will stuff them with some Dayton Audio drivers that will work well in them with little EQ. I do intend to use them with the sealed subs I made with Roger (he liked 8" to get the cabinet smaller, but pointed me to some nice 10" drivers as well that are higher in mass but still fast enough in a small enclosure) so will try reversing the polarity on the rear subs.
Great @clio09. The Madisound OB frames are real nice, made of Baltic Birch. Does Madisound sell the LX521 OB/Dipole woofer frame alone? I installed my OB/Dipole woofers in the same style frame (Danny refers to it as a "W", others an "M", and Madisound a "V". All the same thing ;-), not the more common H-frame.
One thing to consider is adding a second layer of BB or MDF to each side panel, to stiffen them up and lessen their resonance. And a sidewall-to-sidewall brace can be installed on the "open" (typically front) side of the frame, again to add cabinet stiffness and therefore reduced resonance. Another tweak is installing a layer of ASC WallDamp between doubled-up side walls, again to reduce resonance.
Brian Ding installs a 6dB/octave "shelving" circuit into his Rythmik A370 plate amp when used in an OB sub, to counteract the dipole cancellation inherent in OB woofers. That’s an easy filter to construct, just a couple of parts.
an 8" woofer is where its at- Apogee Slant 8 was a sweet speaker, as well as, my Thiel Audio CS 2.4 SE loudspeaker. Back in the 1990's Infinity made the CS 3008 floorstander that was pretty good.
What's ironic is all the hand wringing about design, then using the equivalent of lamp cord for the driver's, or worse, for speaker cables too. Talk about a losing proposition.
Doug, who is using lamp cord or worse? I don't know about Linkwitz, but Danny Richie has a line of 6 nines copper wire (Electra Cable) he includes in his kits as hook-up wire (for crossovers and drivers), and sells separately as speaker cable. He also has a great speaker cable/binding post termination system---the Electra Cable Tube Connector, an intimate connection, low mass design. Details on the GR Research website.
Danny is a genius and a God-send to this industry. He exposes the lack of engineering aptitude displayed in many speakers out there and offers a solution to the gullible masses who fall victim to marketing hype.
bdp24, no, not intended to be a comment in regard to Danny R. at all! I rather enjoy his creativity and prowess at speaker design.
I was commenting on the proclivity of some (which you will notice, if you observe) to go for the theorized "perfect" design, build it themself, then completely ignore the cabling. It's not the end of the world. :)
@bdp24 I’ve been running a set of custom built Linkwitz Orions for about 14 years now. They started out as version 3.1 and then did the update to version 3.3. I’m very much in love with them. Every so often I get the urge to do something different, but then I take a serious listen to my Orions and the urge goes away.
Most audiophile visitors leave with envy. They do sound good. But the real issue is that they sound good to me. Because this design calls for 8 channels at 60 wpc, there aren’t a lot of options in power amps. Fortunately because it doesn’t have a passive crossover, a lower cost amp does fine because it doesn’t have to cope with the massive distortion and inefficiencies of a passive crossover.
Passive crossovers do terrible things to an impedance curve, which is why so many people drop enormous amounts on beefy amps. When you use active crossovers to manage all of the drivers, an amp channel only has to deal with a single driver, which is a MUCH easier load. There’s a reason so many powered professional grade loudspeaker systems use active crossovers.
I run 8 channels of a 12 channel MOSFET B&K AV1260 "zone" amp and it sounds very good. Got it cheap too.
Today were you to build the current rev Linkwitz Orion, you’d probably spend about $6000 for everything - drivers, cabinets, active crossover and amplification. I can guarantee you that you’re not going to find any $6000 loudspeaker and amp combination that will come close to what the Orions can do.
The newer Linkwitz LX521 design addresses some of the things that Danny R. complained about with the Orion design. That’s what you’d expect from a designer as they sought to improve their system. The LX521 project pencils out at even less money than the Orion, which is why few Orion systems get built today.
Active crossovers are vastly superior to passive. The audio industry is built around selling you a speaker and an amp to drive it. Marketing just isn’t set up to treat you like a professional audio engineer. Nobody is selling one amp as a good "tweeter" amp and another for good bass reproduction. It’s much easier to tout some Focal or Magico loudspeaker as Audio Nirvana, and then expect you to go drop another $12k or more on the perfect amp to drive them. And let’s not forget the additional $6k you’re going to spend on loudspeaker cables.
Danny doesn’t use active crossovers because that would require you to buy two amps, not one, to drive his systems. And unless he spec’d the amps, you’d have to do your own matching and tweaking. Not a good move if he’s to sell loudspeakers. So he’s going to tell you that you have to have an expensive amp to drive his speakers, when the truth is that you can get BETTER results with active crossover and lower cost amps.
Sorry guys. Active crossovers in a loudspeaker system are just superior engineering. But you have to fully engineer the system together. No swapping out this amp for another, and where’s the fun in that?
My Orions leave me happy and that’s all that really matters.
@clio09 @russbutton Count me as another that finds fully active speakers to be the way to go. I have fully active Legacy Calibre with crossover duties handled by the Wavelet processor. 6 channels of amplification and lots of ability to adjust and tweak the sound. To me, they are way more versatile than any of the passive models I have used and sound better too.
+1 russbutton. I agree whole heartedly. I bought Orion 3.3’s and built LX521 baffles, LXmini’s and LXsubs. I use both active analog and digital crossovers, all ATI amplification, tube hybrid preamp, Yggdrasil and Berkeley Audio Alpha DAC’s, Synergistic Research interconnects, PS Audio power equipment, and DIY HFT’s (Ozzinators). It’s all configured in a way that I can mix and match components and speakers easily depending on what works best for the music I’m playing. I feel I am done with the equipment part of the problem (for my budget) and my limiting factors are now: #1 the recording engineer, and #2 the fixed dimensions of my room.
Life is too short to sit around and worry about what someone might say with regard to design problems or equipment measurements. Harvest and apply the knowledge as well as possible but then leave it behind and enjoy the music.
Rather than make a lengthy post on this topic, I finally got my act together and posted my system https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8930. In the notes you will find plenty of detail about the equipment and why I made the choices I did. Questions and comments welcome.
I was fortunate enough to hear the Orion's in the Linkwitz’s rental cabin in Sea Ranch and later the LX521.4 and LXmini in Linkwitz’s home in Corte Madera. Many people have tried to “improve” the Orion which is fine. Many submitted their design modifications to Linkwitz and he welcomed that; however, there was always a caveat. To paraphrase, ‘Do what you want but don’t call it an Orion unless you follow the plans exactly.’ In fact, if he saw my system (where I have the option of playing only the Orion or bringing in the other drivers, he would probably say ‘sometimes you have an Orion and sometimes you don’t’ or words to that effect. The meaning is clear. Don’t try to make the Orion into something that it isn’t. The sound (with all of its’ beauty and flaws) is baked in.
Orion and LX521.4 owners are sophisticated enough to have knowledge of all the following, but for others:
There are a few well known benefits to be had by using an outboard active line-level crossover in place of a passive speaker-level one. A main one is keeping the bass frequencies out of the amp that is driving the midrange and tweeter drivers. That is why bi-amping without inserting a line-level x/o before the two power amps doesn’t provide the same degree of improvement as does sending a filtered signal to each amp. Keeping the bass frequencies out of the amp reproducing the mids and highs allows the m/t amp to produce less distortion, and leaves much more available power for the midrange and tweeter drivers.
My Magneplanar Tympani T-IVa loudspeakers came with a pair of outboard passive speaker-level crossover boxes, each box placed inline between one channel of a single stereo (or dual mono) power amp(s) and it’s designated speaker. So even though the bass, midrange, and tweeter drivers are seeing filtered signals, the power amps are not. A single stereo amp driving all three drivers---woofers, midrange, and tweeter---reproduces all frequencies.
The Tympani crossover creates a 3rd-order (18dB/octave) high-pass filtered signal at 250Hz for the midrange/tweeter panel (the mid-tweeter x/o is located at 3kHz, the two drivers not worth separating), and a 2nd-order (12dB/octave) low-pass at 400Hz for the woofer panel. Those are referred to as textbook crossover filters: they create their assigned slopes only. To actively bi-amp a Tympani, the stock speaker-level crossover is simply replaced by a line-level x/o that can provide the same textbook filtering. Doing that allows the Tympani to achieve a higher level of sound quality, and Magnepan recommends it in the speaker owners manual. I purchased a First Watt B4 to use with my pair of Tympani T-IVa, the B4 being perfect for the job. Excellent design and build, and reasonably price ($1500 retail).
Linkwitz obviously believed in loudspeakers having an active line-level crossover. But his loudspeakers incorporate crossover filters far different from textbook filters. The filters he designed for the two above models do more than just create simple high-pass and low-pass slopes; they also include parts that provide tailoring of the response of the drivers within their respective bandpasses. Line-level textbook filters cannot provide that tailoring, and Linkwitz resorted to using digital processing to do his filtering on the two models being discussed.
His friend and neighbor Nelson Pass (designer/maker of the First Watt B4, of course)---knowing that digital filtering was not going to be well received in Asia---asked Linkwitz if he wanted him to create an analog x/o for the LX541. Like the Asian’s, I do not want all my source material to go through digital processing.
Danny Richie is also against digital filtering, and that is one reason he eliminated the Orion’s complex stock digital x/o and created his own speaker-level one. The filtering required by the individual drivers could not be done at line-level in the analog domain, so Danny created speaker-level filters that not only replicated the stock digital filters, but also "corrected" what he considered to be imperfections in the speaker’s performance. Whether one prefers the stock performance of the Orion, or Danny Richie’s Modified one, is a matter of personal opinion.
I long ago realized planars are my preferred loudspeaker design, but at least the Linkwitz are open baffle dipoles ;-) . I much prefer large sheets of mylar over dynamic cones for my loudspeaker drivers. Danny uses cones, domes, and magnetic-planar drivers in his loudspeakers, and imo is a master designer. Don't let his good ol' boy demeanor fool you: he is very sophisticated and knowledgeable.
His friend and neighbor Nelson Pass (designer/maker of the First Watt
B4, of course)---knowing that digital filtering was not going to be well
received in Asia---asked Linkwitz if he wanted him to create an analog
x/o for the LX541.
As Nelson Pass told the story at a Burning Amp a couple years back in which they were honoring Siegfried Linkwitz who just passed away, it was Siegfried who pestered Nelson about building the ASP (they often spent time together in Sea Ranch talking audio and eating cookies as Nelson tells it). Nelson had to think it through a bit but came up with a design and in line with his generous nature and contributions to the DIY community had 100 stuffed boards he distributed at the event. I was lucky to get one and they are now available in a complete build kit including a very nice chassis at the DIY Audio store for a very reasonable price.
The really nice thing about it for Linkwitz owners is that you can run the various EQ simulations through the ASP just as you would in the miniDSP that comes with the speakers. Requires a bit more work but for an analog crossover it would be worth it in my opinion.
I’ve learned that a lot of Audiogoner’s aren’t much interested in DIY, but Linkwitz owners have already built the OB frames for their loudspeakers. Still, assembling crossovers is a more demanding task that glueing and painting an MDF flat pack.
There are a few guys building GR Research speaker kits for guys who either can’t or don’t want to do it. Maybe somebody on the DIY site is offering the same for Linkwitz customers.
One of the reasons I gravitate towards planars is that they provide a sound that is more "seamless", 20Hz to 20kHz not being broken up into as many segments, with the then requisite (often) complex crossover. Full range ESL’s and magnetic-planars reproduce instrumental and vocal timbres in a manner I’ve never heard from a dynamic speaker. I learned that lesson when I sold my Magneplanar Tympani I’s to get a pair of Fulton J’s. Yes, the latter’s RTR ESL tweeters provided greater transparency that did the original Maggie tweeter, and deeper bass from it’s transmissionline-loaded woofer, but at the cost of everything being "cut from the same cloth".
My Eminent Technology LFT-8b reproduce 180Hz to 10kHz from a pair of identical m-p drivers! An 8" woofer in a sealed enclosure for 180Hz down, a ribbon tweeter for 10k up, both with simple 1st-order filters. My ET LFT-4’s do all frequencies from it’s pair of segmented full range m-p drivers. If I was loaded I’d get myself a pair of big SoundLab ESL’s. For around $15k, one can get the Sanders ESL, which I have heard and love. Roger's Music Reference ESL's were on my "to hear" list, but I never managed to do that. @clio09, do you have a pair?
I have Roger's personal ESLs and direct drive amp and they are quite good, but I think the ESLs fall off a bit due to their size. It suited Roger's tastes and mine for the most part, but they don't sound as big as my Acoustat Model 2 or Analysis Audio Omega. They remind me of the Quad 57, what they lacked they made up for and then some in many other areas. Roger told me many times if he decided to make more ESLs he would double the width and add a bit more height to the panel.
I never liked SoundLabs and would venture to say your ETs would sound better. I would someday like to have Sanders ESLs and see if I can find a way to modify them to use a direct drive amp. To me they are a great "personal" speaker because of the narrow sweet spot.
Few know how maximize dispersion in a panel. The curved panel is a method, although I once read that Roger Sanders may have been onto the curved panel first, but decided against producing them. Jim Strickland was on to something special before Acoustat blew up, and Roger Modjeski kind of stumbled onto the same track and developed a few tricks to get wider dispersion from a flat panel.
The lx521 design address all of these concerns. For the record, I own both the Orion and lx521. There in only a fleeting comparison between the two in that one is clearly a stepping stone to the next. As are all of Siegfried's designs. The lx521 is a true magnum opus. Soundstage can only be compared to the MBL Radialstrahler design but at a non-mortgage investment. Just my opinion.
@riverdinaudiojust heard these a short while ago as part of an SFAS event in NorCal. An amazing speaker indeed. There are a couple of Linkwitz speaker owners near me and I have enjoyed listening to them. With all due respect to Danny Richie I think he came up well short on his analysis of Linkwitz speakers. The man was an incredible designer and it's good to know his legacy will continue to live on through the efforts of Frank Brenner.
"Count me as another that finds fully active speakers to be the way to go. I have fully active Legacy Calibre with crossover duties handled by the Wavelet processor. 6 channels of amplification and lots of ability to adjust and tweak the sound."
As noted I'm a big fan of the Linkwitz Orion - enjoying them as I write this. I've got all kinds of speakers from Harbeth 40.2's to Magnestand 1.6's (modified Maggies), to many others. And... I must say the Orion's are "at the top of the heap" in their performance.
But, I've developed an interest in the Legacy speakers for a lake house I've built about 75 miles from Legacy's operations in Springfield. I've ordered the Aeris, but I'm reconsidering, because of it's massive size and weight, which I will not be able to manage. As a close alternative, I've been considering the Calibre - which seems to me to sound very, very close.
@csmgolf - do you still have your Calibre's and what do you think about this direction?
You mean Ritchie rips apart another classic speaker without ever hearing it, replaces a bunch of parts with different parts and gets it to measure….. flat?
Another day another dollar another speaker neutered.
Not "just" flatter frequency response (so that’s now a bad thing? ;-), but also improved spectral decay (aka waterfall plot) response, phase coherency between drivers, lower baffle panel and enclosure resonance (Linkwitz specified un-braced .75" MDF, Richie braced 1.5" MDF) , and a few other loudspeaker performance characteristics. Plus air core inductors in place of iron core, film capacitors in place of electrolytic, and good resistors in place of sand cast. For those who consider such matters important. I personally wouldn’t even consider a loudspeaker that digitizes the signal in its x/o.
First time I'm hearing of this mr. Danny Ritchie. Everything he says is correct. Orion was a continuation of the Audio Artistry line of speakers, using better drivers and thus smaller cabinet & fewer drivers for home use.
Problems:
- Cabinet vibration coupling to Mid/high driver.
- Edge diffraction
- HF scattering due to wide baffle design
- Dipole pattern up to HF aso...were known to the late SL (rip), thereof the new LX521 design were all these issues were addressed.
ASP/Multiple amp issue:
SL was a speaker designer, and thus cared less about peripheral circuitry. He firmly believed "electronics sonic signature" did not exist, only THD figures were of relevance. Just look at the nr of OP amps in the ASP...my goodness gracious.
Well, we know better.
Orion vs LX521:
"Unfortunately" soundwize - Orion is the winner. Dont ask me why. Might be due to very expensive drivers used in the Orion, or maybe fewer nr of drivers allowing fewer crossover points.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
