Gilmore Audio planars revealed

I'm still perplex.
And we ARE a civilised group here, I've been around long enough to know -- but I think the speaker presentation took a wrong turn s/where, despite Sellerwithintegrity's kind efforts:

Steved and Planar make excellent points about Qts and comb filter effects... and so have others.

I just still fail to see the "revolution"...
Not to say that this speaker will not sound spectacular; I LOVE dipoles, anyway. So does Steved, by the way:)

From the info gleamed from Sellerwithintegrity's posts and the pictures, and with all due respect, this *looks* like (no more than) a good passive dipole construction with a wide-band line source , & a point source array for the lower freq. -- passed @ the limit of 2pi radiation of the baffle??

However and IMO there is a lot of merit in designing a dipole with passive equalisation...

Also, designing a top-notch dipole to a cost level, has merit too.

10mm of Xmax is very good; the choice of four (parallel?) woofs explains the compromise of small magnets (woofers with big magnets like, say, the Supravox 400: Xmax: 8mm/qts ~0,4 /magnet +1,5T, cost over $600 EACH -- not the stuff for commercial offerings).

As to how they manage to have 4 high Q woofs outputting "clear" and fast sound to integrate with the low mass magnet ribbon, is a secret probably hidden in the xover Sellerwithintegrity refers to.

There's merit in that too.

The baffle shape is a quarter "heart" (hearts are reputedly excellent for dipole operation -- but think of universal waf with a heart-shaped speaker!)
So, that has been carefully thought out too.

What about the high frequencies -- over 18kHz (they're useful too)? I think that the addition of a tweet on that baffle would create, at least, phase and/or gp delay complications and filtering/equalisation difficulties. Also it wouldn't look as good (and deafen the beautifully engineered centre channel).

As Sean once wrote, I have trouble making my posts brief...

But here it is. What's the bottom line (i.e. the caboodle) for the B&G-like ribbon, the four woofs, the filter and, most of all, the hours and toil that went into finalising the design???

Gregm...If I remember correctly from Bob Carver's explanations of his speaker, the small (weak) magnets in the LF drivers are deliberate and necessary to produce dynamic characteristics needed for free air operation. (I have no idea why). So cost is not the deciding factor.

I agree with Albert.

Anyway, I prefer the center channel I got now, thank you very much...

:-)
-Mike.

One clarification: Total excursion is 2 inches or plus or minus 1 inch.

I don't know what to tell you and your friendly "expert" when you say that the cone doesn't go "in and out by 1 inch each way", except that you are wrong. Very simply, it does. How you can determine from a web-based pitcutre with resolution around 72dpi that "obviously it doesn't" is beyond me. The fact that you are so self-assured yet wrong should be embarrassing to both you and your "expert" friend. So I guess you are calling us a liar publicly. Then I expect a public apology from you personally and from you on behlaf of your "expert" when you see the physical proof that you are wrong.

You have an interesting strategy -- deny what we say is true as possible based on manufactured evidence and then use that newly acclaimed "fact" as refutation.

In terms of your other silly comment concerning the high QTS and weakness of the magnet, what does that have to do with anything? The magnet is exactly as strong as it needs to be given the open baffle design (no back pressure) and the responsiveness and compliance that is sought. This is called good engineering. Who cares that it doesn't match someone elses specs -- what does that have to do with anything? Heavy magnets require lots of power to make them responsive. Ours is as "heavy" as it needs to be given our design objectives.

Finally, our bass drivers on the model 2 operate from 200 Hz to 17Hz
(-3db at 17Hz, full output at 22Hz). And in terms of your claim that there is "no way 4 -12 inch dipole drivers will come close to (moving) the volume of air talked about" -- well congratulations, you are wrong again. At least you are consistent.

Your questions seem to be mostly in the form of statements, most of which are somewhat off the mark. Let me begin.

What makes you think that in order to be a "line source" that something needs to go from "floor to ceiling". What home speaker that claims to be a line source goes from floor to ceiling? If you want to see some examples of how folks create line sources in the pro audio world for live sound, go to www.meyersound.com. A line source in one sense is anything that is greater than a point source. But you are chastising us for something that we do better than any other ribbon based planar that we know of -- so your complaint is hard to answer. This is quite true of your other comments. But I will try to proceed one by one.

Vertical dispersion starts at 60 and 40 inches respectively and horizontal dispersion is 60 degrees.

If I am a reasonable distance back from the spekaer, I get a very full soundstage from the model 3. The sound doesn't truncate somehow above 40 inches --why would it?

We tilt the speakers back to increase disperson slightly but mainly so the speaker doesn't fall over -- and thus for aesthetics -- this way we can have a cute stand in the back instead of clunky feet on the front and back.

Whatever comb filtering effect is created by our topology, it is less than anyone elses -- not more because of it.

I want to clarify something with Mark concerning the doppler distortion and I will get back to you. I know that it is not a factor and I want to confirm that my understanding as to why is correct.

There are binding posts on the woofers (we are using Cardas) and if you are not seeing them, it is because of the perspective of the shot. The crossover is in a separate box that weighs sixty pounds and rests on the floor behind the speker. We are thinking about having a see through top so you can enjoy the view -- its quite impressive.

I agree with your statement that "I guess the proof will be in the listening."

Concerning the "center channel" and Mark's purported relationship to her:
No, its not Mrs. Gilmore. Mrs. Gilmore is 6'4" tall, weighs 300 pounds and has killed both of her former husbands with her bare hands for their indiscretions. Consequently, Mark has had incentive to concentrate on audio research and development and not stray or be distracted. As a result, marital bliss and his personal well-being have been sustained and therefore he has a lot to smile about. The woman in the picture is an alien from the planet Xenon. She is the latest version of their Humanoid Replications Program HRP. Given the advanced technological sophistication of her alien society, she has been an invaluable asset in helping Mark develop the special technology he is using in his speaker. As a token of appreciation, Mark has allowed her to participate in the photo shoot, thus helping her realize one of her lifetime dreams. It's nice to know that some alien societies share many of the same aspirations as us humans, thus providing a framework for cooperation and peace. These photos are as much a tribute to that cooperative spirit as they are a tribute to the fine example of advanced audio technology epitomized by the Gilmore Audio Model 2's and 3's.

Hope you found this helpful.