I saw the video, too bad they didn’t actually let us hear the speakers. I’m very intrested in those when they do become avaible.
GR-Research Line Force First Transparent Speakers?
These speakers will be coming on the market soon and I can’t wait to hear them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgoR2PLEZsk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgoR2PLEZsk
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You can tell they're good by the tasteful drape of the blankets behind them in the studio. Pretentious YouTubers with their clothes and stuff always turn me off. There's no substitute for that slapped together we don't GAS vibe. The authenticity is simply off the charts. Sound quality? Sound quality??? Waste of time. Narrative. That's what sells. |
They look very cool and Danny Richie is a highly regarded loudspeaker designer. My question is are those planar drivers? Don’t they have dynamic limitations compared to dynamic speakers? How can they move air? I know they are much more efficient than Maggie’s and the like. Maybe they use neodymium magnets. That would help with efficiency but I don’t know if that helps dynamics. I have purchased a pair of Tri-Art open baffle speakers that I have not received yet. Making a move away from planar drivers to the impact of a dynamic driver. I currently have Eminent Tech planar speakers. IF the Line Force speakers are able to make dynamic driver like impact while still sounding detailed and coherent, I’m interested. I know there are always trade offs and no perfect speaker. Wish we could go out and listen to this stuff now. Everyone stay safe and healthy and don’t give into fear! |
The original piece LS9s were made from aluminum. Danny sent pics 2 plus years ago. It was a work of art. I think he still has those. I haven't heard the LS9s Line Force but I owned the AV123 LS6s... Very different, OB. The LS9s were all planars, the LS6s had round drivers, and planars in a two way, The planars served as mids and highs.... The reason I sold mine it took a BIG room for them to sound right... .. REALLY BIG...Dipole OB LS... sound is SO different than conventional Point source. speakers. Once you hear speakers like these, whether OB, LS, PS, there is NO going back...Planars (and ribbons) are the bomb... GRs servo bass systems, coupled with most any system ads a very high quality bass system. With the Line Force (LS9s), and planar based monitors, it needs to be heard. Words just won't do them justice, I suspect. DEADLY ACCURATE, super fast, detailed, very VERY efficient. It doesn't take ultra high dollar stuff to make planars sound good. Danny has it down pretty pat how to set up or FIX bad or poor designs. He is sharp.. AND aware of his customers.. He never gets wound up...Just cool as a could be...He has an almost cultish following. All earned because of his thoughtful demeanor, and approach to his customers and a great support staff too.. Thanks Jay... Yup.. I'd love a pair... I really wish I had the first pair...The CnC and build quality was "One of a kind" Hats off to GR.. Well done.. Regards |
Oh one other thing.. The cost of drivers, Neo 3, 8, 10s have DOUBLED. in the past 18 months or so... 32 neo 3s, 200. per driver. 6400.00 18 neo 10 @ 400.00 per driver. 7200.00 JUST DRIVERS...... !/2 the price 18 months ago.... same thing not a single difference. The manufacture went through ?????????? a doubling in price. Greedy bastards... DOUBLE.... Regards.. |
Danny Richie designed his own version of the NEO3, is having it manufactured to his specs, and using it in some of his designs. He is currently working on his own NEO10. The NEO3 magnetic-planar driver and all his kits are detailed (with prices) on the GR Research website. And for anyone who hasn't heard, DR has made a series of very informative videos on the subject of loudspeaker design, viewable on YouTube. Watching them will make you a smarter consumer! Also worth your time is to read through the GRR AudioCircle Forum. SO much info, a free education in loudspeaker design! |
Just heard that Parts Express maybe lowering the cost of the Neo 10's soon, which would be nice as Danny's having a tough time getting the results he's looking for on his. I've heard the original (aluminum) line Force speakers ~ 5 years ago, as well as the new composite version 3-4 months ago at Danny's,(my partner Jay and I make them with/for Danny) they are an amazing speaker for sure, the newer version did have a significantly upgraded x-over as well. I would say that they are very immediate and real as far as a signature goes and if you have the dough, a keeper!! they do need subs so you will need some space for them to really sing. Don |
I didn't know speaker performance is dependent upon the interview surroundings and attire. I suspect we have some defensiveness/arrogance in play. That is how some people judge speakers, by their arrogant opinion, watching videos, or taking the pulse of the community, versus actual listening. The scary part is that others listen to them! OH, NO! DID YOU HEAR WHAT THEY SAID? "We prefer the chip amp to the 300B!" Danny, too! OH, NO! THIS IS A DISASTER! LOL My, oh, my, can it be that class D is in process of steamrolling tube amps? Heheheheh.... As for the speaker, it's a magnetic planar smallish version of what was done a decade ago with the King Sound ESL line. I have the King III, which I called in the review the Line Source ESL (LSESL). Could it be better holistically than the much hyped Tekton? Of course. But, only direct comparison would tell, and it's a waste to time to listen to anyone who would pretend to know apart from direct comparison. I see it needs subs to reach down in terms of LF. Everyone wants their speaker (genre) to be the ultimate. It brings out the best and worst in the community, as so much pride is associated with it. We get some really stupid comments about mid-level speakers, and sometimes even budget speakers being all that. Foolish statements made by people with very little understanding of the spectrum of performance of speakers all inclusive. Have these guys not heard that many great/big speaker systems? Seriously, a new reference for what they thought HiFi is? Have they not been to shows? Have they not heard such as the King III, or the big names in towers? If a person has familiarity with such arrays, the characteristics of the sound and the extreme resolution would be expected. I have no doubt the GR Research speakers in the video are much more resolving than typical dipoles with big sheet diaphragms, and similar ESLs too. I am sure, too, that it would be quite a bit cleaner than the Tekton design models. But, of course, that is initial opinion, and would have to be compared to reach final conclusion. I would find it a very interesting comparison to hear this new model with the servo sub in comparison to the wonderfully fresh and scintillatingly beautiful new genre, the DLT (Disproportionately Large Tweeter; my phrase) of the Aspen Acoustics Lagrange L1 preproduction model. See my review of the smaller Lagrange L5 MkII at Dagogo.com. Disclosure: I own the L1 preproduction, and will own the production model of the L1, and will give it an owner's review. The L1 also has extreme precision; 3 hard core audiophile guests the other day all concluded the same about the L1, phenomenal precision, definition, etc. but tonally spot on. My guests were as blindsided by the abject beauty of the L1 as were these guys re: the GR Research. There are some cool new speakers out there. It's always a changing game, thanks to inventive designers! If you want to get up to speed on why a chip amp can be better than 300B, see my review of the Legacy Audio i.V4 Ultra Amplifier, also at Dagogo.com. The future will not be kind to tube amps. |
The drivers have gone up in price because of the cost of neodymium magnets (vast majority from china). They are what makes these little planar magnetics so efficient. To make a real line source with the Neo Tens, crossed at the 160 Hz he mentions, the speakers will need to be at least 8 feet tall. The tweeter section can be shorter but you would need enough of them to match output and impedance. I can imagine these being a great speaker. As compared to my favorite ESLs the only downside I can think of is having to use a crossover in the midrange. From what I have seen so far dispersion characteristics may not be as controlled as a Sound Lab style ESL. They would be a much easier load than ESLs and way more efficient. Doing them in kit form would be an easy build but you are looking at around $3000 in drivers alone and you have not gotten into the bass yet. 160 Hz is a bit high for a subwoofer crossover and these subwoofers need to be line source to match the rest of the loudspeaker. So, you would need to either build two floor to ceiling enclosures with four drivers in each or do what I do which is to arrange the subs along the base of the front wall making a horizontal line source. I would think a practiced DIYer could do the whole affair for $8000 which is not bad considering what you get. I would tri amp the whole affair and use digital crossovers. But, will they image? The big downside would be resale value. If you wind up not liking them you are going to lose a lot of money. I have no doubt that they can be made to sound excellent and probably made to image well but there is no way to know that for sure. |
I've been waiting to finish building these speakers for two years. I ordered enough Bohlender-Graebener NEO10 drivers from Parts Express before they became unavailable. But the company building the cabinets for me ran into Covid supply chain issues with the special composite material the cabinets are made from. I finally got the cabinets a few weeks ago and got them built up. They only have about 25 hours on them so far, but they sound glorious. I can't wait until the crossovers are fully broken in. The Line Forces are being driven by DIY 300B Parallel SET monoblocks with WE new-issue tubes. The servo-controlled open-baffle woofers (three 12" drivers/channel) handle from about 170Hz and are powered by Rythmik 370W class A/B amps.
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Awesome @jaytor! I’m green with envy :-( . And I’m only a half hour or so away from you ;-) . I know of a few guys who replaced the magnetic-planar midrange driver in their Tympani T-IVa loudspeakers (which I own) with six or seven NEO-8’s. The NEO-8’s fit right in the slot the stock Magnepan driver sits in, and the owners feel the NEO-8’s provide a significant improvement to the T-IVa. But 12 or 14 NEO-8’s (when available) cost more than I paid for my T-IVa’s! You still have your GR Research NX-Otica’s, I presume? With the OB/Dipole subs, of course. Glutton ;-) . I’ve been telling everyone about the sub for years, but you can only lead a horse to water. I suppose many are afraid of doing a simple DIY build of the H-frame the sub kit gets installed in, but anyone who did Jr. High or High School wood shop is up to the task. If I can do it, just about anyone can! I went with a W-frame (rather than an H-), and two of the 8 ohm drivers (rather than three of the 16 ohm). |
@bdp24 - Thanks. I might have mentioned that I owned Tympani IVs in the mid 80's. I used Entec subwoofers (one of the first servo controlled designs), but I was never able to get these to fully integrate. I imagine that your OB subs work MUCH better. I'd be happy to have you over for an audition once my Line Forces are broken-in (probably a couple months for these crossover caps). I've always been intrigued by the Infinity IRS and Genesis One, but didn't have the budget or space for them. When I heard about the Line Forces, the idea of building a modern (and more compact) interpretation of these designs with more advanced and efficient drivers was exciting. It took a while to work out the details since these speakers weren't in production, but I've finally been able to complete them. Unlike the IRS and Genesis One, these are quite efficient at 98db/w, and easy to drive (impedance never drops below 5ohms), so they are a good match for low-power SET amps. These drivers are very clean and dynamic. The well-reviewed PS-Audio FR-30 uses similar planar drivers, but using a large number of them all but eliminates thermal compression, improves efficiency, and further reduces distortion. It also allows the drivers to play lower. |
For those who don’t know, the discontinuation of the original B-G NEO drivers (the NEO 3, 8, and 10) put an end to the availability of the GR Research full line-source magnetic-planar model kit (which @jaytor has just completed building), as well as the factory-built version of same by another company (whose name escapes me at the moment). Danny Richie was therefore forced to design line source open baffle models using only a single NEO 3 tweeter (which Danny has made for him) and multiple 6.5" dynamic drivers (optimized for open baffle use) for midrange and bass: the NX-Treme and the NX-Otica. Open baffle subs are used to make the models full-range ob loudspeakers. As Wendell Diller of Magnepan has for years been insisting, monopole woofers just don’t work with open baffle and planar loudspeakers (as @jaytor found with this Tympani/Entec pairing, and as did I when I had a pair of Infinity RS-1b’s) While I have no doubt the NX-Treme and NX-Otica sound fantastic, I’m a hard core planar purist, and dynamic ("cone") drivers just don’t do it for me (though I admit I’ve never heard a line source employing them). Danny is very complimentary of the open baffle designs of Clayton Shaw of Spatial Audio, though he isn’t a fan of wide, flat baffles, choosing to go with "folded" baffles (watch the GR Research YouTube videos to learn why that is). With the NEO drivers no longer available, I chose to stick with my planars (Tympani T-IVa, Eminent Technology LFT-4 and LFT-8b, and QUAD ESL), mated with the GR Research/Rythmik Servo-Feedback OB/Dipole Sub, a 2-woofer version of the 3-woofer sub seen in @jaytor’s pics above. One of the LFT models mated with the ob/dipole sub is in a way a modern version of the Infinity RS-1b, but without the problems of the Infinity EMIT and EMIM drivers (the ET LFT magnetic-planar drivers are far better built than were those Infinity’s, as well as the Magnepans for that matter), and with the far superior ob/dipole subs in place of the Infinity monopole woofers. If you already own a planar or open baffle loudspeaker you love, but want or need more or better bass, do yourself a huge favour and look into the ob/dipole sub. By the way, Magnepan is hard at work preparing a new model that is to include dipole subs, and the sub will be made available separately for use with their other models. And Eminent Technology has just introduced the LFT-8c, which uses a dipole (though NOT open baffle) woofer in place of the omnipole woofer of the LFT-8b. The dipole woofer is available to current 8b owners, who can simply remove the LFT panel from the "b" woofer enclosure and bolt it on the new "c" dipole, for full range dipole music reproduction. A new crossover is included, which includes DSP and EQ, and a power amp for the woofer. $1500/pr. Imagine how much Wilson and/or Magico would charge for them ;-) . |
@jerryg123 - Thanks. I haven't had a chance to work on optimizing position or sub settings yet, but just plopped down they sound stunning. The detail is better than my Audeze LCD-2 headphones and vocals sound like the singer is right there in front of you. It will be interesting to hear how the sound progresses as they break-in, but I'm already thrilled. I decided to make the investment to build these having never heard them, based only on my satisfaction with the NX-Oticas and comments from the few people that heard the early prototypes. so I am glad they are living up to the hype. @bdp24 - Thanks for your summary. I forgot to answer your question regarding my NX-Oticas. I've actually passed these on to my son, so he and his wife are enjoying them down in San Diego. Danny is still working to bring the Line Forces (and other designs based on the NEO10) back to market. He is working with his NEO3 supplier to come up with a viable NEO10 replacement - so far, he hasn't been satisfied with the prototypes he's received, and Covid supply chain issues have really impeded progress. He is also working on a Line Force crossover using the GRS 10" planar drivers available from Parts Express. This driver does not measure nearly as well as the BG NEO 10, but with the appropriate crossover filters, Danny should be able to come up with a fairly flat response although probably not with the same efficiency. |
