rebbi,
We just began shipping the new HX version in early Jan. The feedback has been very positive, agreeing with what we've experienced here. However, those clients already own other GMA speakers and don't really get onto the speaker forums anymore.
Best regards,
Roy
Green Mtn.
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I just upgraded from the chroma 2 to the HX version of the GMA RIO . The results were amazing!! much better cohesion across the frequency spectrum . The detail was also improved. I have owned many highly rated speakers and none of them come close to the overall musicality of the RIO HX.
Retired AT&T Senior engineer
Steven Cochran
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Yes I have owned chromas and I hated them. They are colored, have no bass or midbass and are harsh and unrefined.
I have also taken them apart so I know exactly why they sound like this.
They use a very cheap aurasound car woofer instead of a state of the art midwoofer from the likes of Scanspeak.
They use a very cheap Seas tweeter.
Now what's even worse is they use a single cap and coil as the crossover. Inexpensive ones at that, costing about $20 each.
The capacitor cannot prevent low frequencies from entering into the tweeter. Take a 10Uf cap and stick it on a woofer and see how far the woofer cone moves. This is the energy going into that SEAS tweeter. Put your finger on the tweeter of the Rio and you can even feel the energy! Do it on any other high quality speaker and you wont feel a thing because they use a sharper order crossover slops which are much more phase cohesive. All that distortion makes the sound very harsh and cold.
Now, similarly the woofer has too much highs going into it and also what you get is lobing. With the Rios you have to be sat on the exact spot. If you stand up or sit lower the sound balance changes.
The cabinet of the rio is much smaller than it looks because the walls are too thick. The woofer sits in a thick baffle with no chamfering and the woofer actually needs a bigger volume which is why there's no bass.
Overall it's very overpriced considering the parts they use. If you like their sound, great. If you want high quality neutral uncolored sound look elsewhere.
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I strongly disagree with the negative comments on the Chromas. Overall, these speakers have a very natural musical sound. They are for music lovers.
I recently had Gallo Strada 2s for a home trial. With a subwoofer they are comparable in price to the Chromas. The Gallos' are impressive speakers in terms of dynamics, resolution, and sound stage, but not even close to the musicality, imaging, and over all listenablity of the Chromas. I used the Gallo subwoofer with both the Chromas and the Strada 2s
As far as the parts, the Chromas use Seas 29TTFF/W tweeters. They are fine sounding 6 ohm tweeters. I have a pair of the Seas Excell Millennium tweeters, the companies finest from a speaker kit project. The specs are similiar. They cost about $305 each. I swaped the Millenniums in to the Chromas. Yes the sound did improve, but by a small margin. Arguably not worth the increased cost.
My conclusion is that the Chromas are brilliantly designed to get maximum bang for the parts used. Better parts yield only marginal improvement.
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@dbb
Interesting that your Green Mountain Audio Chromas use Seas 29TTFF/W tweeters.
Mine uses the seas H1462-06 27TDFNC/GW.
Have you tried swapping out the woofer or modifying the crossover?
Despite the usual rule that ferro fluid damped tweeters dont need impedance compensation I do not agree that it applies to this tweeter. You can hear and feel the amount of energy coming through by touching the tweeter dome.
The only way to improve this speaker is by replacing that woofer in there. It’s not just that it's low quality, it’s not designed to work in small boxes like the chroma.
That’s why youre not getting any decent bass weight out of these speakers.
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"I just upgraded from the chroma 2 to the HX version of the GMA RIO . The results were amazing!! much better cohesion across the frequency spectrum . The detail was also improved. I have owned many highly rated speakers and none of them come close to the overall musicality of the RIO HX." - Steven Cochran "...these speakers have a very natural musical sound. They are for music lovers." - dbb "Yes I have owned chromas and I hated them." - kenjit Hmmm. Kenjit, can you describe your room and amplifier? Assuming dbb and Mr. Cochran are not deaf, it is possible that there is a serious problem elsewhere in your system that you are mistakenly attributing to the Chromas. "Do it on any other high quality speaker and you wont feel a thing because they use a sharper order crossover slops which are much more phase cohesive." Sharper crossover slopes are NOT "much more phase cohesive". The fact that a steeper crossover can be in-phase at the crossover point does not make the system itself more "phase cohesive" across its passband. And the "phase coherence" that is claimed by everyone and his brother originates in the marketing department: Almost always such designs have either 180 degrees of phase shift with the tweeter’s polarity inverted to put it back "in phase" at the crossover point (but not elsewhere), OR 360 degrees of phase shift which puts the drivers back "in phase" at the crossover point (but not elsewhere) while the woofer lags the tweeter by one cycle, which is hardly "phase coherence". Duke dealer/manufacturer/competes against Green Mountain Audio |
Kenjit, can you describe your room and amplifier? Assuming dbb and Mr. Cochran are not deaf, it is possible that there is a serious problem elsewhere in your system that you are mistakenly attributing to the Chromas. Audiokinesis, it's been a long time since I bought the chromas. It's beyond the point where I'm trying to figure out why they don't sound good. I have already discovered why they don't satisfy me. The main mistakes / reasons are : 1. Wrong box / woofer combination 2. The tweeter used in mine were not impedance corrected and not rolling off sufficiently. 3. Crossover was not optimised |
Kenjit, when you ignore reasonable requests for relevant information that could undermine your position, it starts to look like you have an agenda (aside from your pattern of attacking Green Mountain Audio on this site, as shown by a glance at your posting history). Your analysis of the phase characteristics of the Chroma is completely incorrect, demonstrating that you are not qualified to critique the design from a technical standpoint. (If anyone else is interested I can respond to kenjit's other "technical" criticisms.) Speakers + amp + room = a system within a system, and blaming one without looking at the other two and how they interact is incomplete at best. You have gone well beyond "I didn't like these speakers". You are clearly not qualified to critique them from a technical standpoint, you clearly have a agenda, and you are evidently averse to divulging information that would undermine your attacks on Green Mountain Audio. Duke |
Actually yes I am averse because I know what your motive is for asking me about my room which is to then blame the room and discredit me.
You have to remember that the green mountain audio distributor brought the speakers over and set them up himself for a demo.
He then stayed with me the whole time while I listened to them. He never mentioned anything about the room.
You also have to remember that I've had many other speakers in the same room. The problems with the room still did not prevent me from enjoying some of the sound.
I even took the speakers outdoors and tried another room. Neither changed the outcome.
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Kenjit said, "Actually yes I am averse because I know what your motive is for asking me about my room which is to then blame the room and discredit me." I think you just discredited yourself yet again. And how about the amp? Are you afraid to divulge that as well? You disparage Green Mountain Audio while refusing to divulge information that could undermine your claims. You have demonstrated that your "technical" analyses are incompetent. You were dishonest in another thread when you said that Green Mountain Audio did not use measurements. There is no way you could have known something like that, so to make the claim as if you did know is dishonest. And your claim is also untrue. This is not a court of law, but you have gone way beyond telling the truth (which is that you did not like the Chromas in your room with your amp). You have made statements that are not truthful, and here and now you are refusing to tell the whole truth. When a witness has been shown to be dishonest in any of these ways, a jury may and often does disregard all of their testimony. You do not need me to discredit you. Duke |
+1 to Duke on all counts. |
As the original poster on this thread, I just want to comment that both Duke of Audiokinesis and Roy of Green Mountain Audio are among the good people of this industry. I don’t currently own any of Roy’s speakers, but we have spoken on the phone at length on numerous occasions. I’ve never had the opportunity to hear any of Duke‘s creations, although we, too, have spoken on the phone a few times and I am impressed by his genuineness and desire to make a great product. Whether or not a speaker from either of these people floats your boat is a legitimate question, but in my experience, they are both very clever, qualified designers who pour themselves into their work. |
Wikipedia says "Ad hominem, short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument,"
That sounds like what you're doing Audiokinesis. You accuse me of dishonesty and question my motives all the while avoiding addressing any of the criticsms I've made to justify my belief that the product is flawed.
I've made my points in the other green mountain audio topic.
If you want to respond to the points feel free. |
@rebbi I don’t currently own any of Roy’s speakers, why not? What made you decide not to buy them? |
Kenjit: "That sounds like what you’re doing Audiokinesis. You accuse me of dishonesty and question my motives all the while avoiding addressing any of the criticsms I’ve made to justify my belief that the product is flawed." So now you accuse me of doing what you did (avoiding questions) when you NEVER directed a question at me until just now? Kinda hypocritical, don’t you think? I expect you to answer my questions about your room and amp in exchange for my responding to your criticisms. Quoting kenjit again: "1. Wrong box / woofer combination
2. The tweeter used in mine were not impedance corrected and not rolling off sufficiently.
3. Crossover was not optimized" Here are my responses: 1. All box/woofer combinations involve tradeoffs. You may disagree with Roy’s choice of tradeoffs, but that does not make them “wrong”. A bigger box might go lower at the expensive of pitch definition. A different woofer might have more bass but not meet the requirements for a time-coherent two-way speaker. Did you try positioning the speakers to take full advantage of boundary reinforcement? The speaker/room interaction dominates the bottom few octaves. 2. A tweeter does not necessarily need to be impedance corrected; competent designers aren’t limited to cookbook approaches. And a first-order filter (essential for a time-coherent design) inherently has a gentle rolloff slope, so you have confirmed that Roy was doing that right. Some tweeters can handle it and some cannot, it all depends on the specifics, but Roy is plenty smart enough to choose one that can. I bet you could too if you had the right test equipment and used it properly. 3. How in the world do you know that the crossover is not optimized? Have you seen the measurements? Were you there when Roy presumably said, “It’s been a long day, I’m not going to optimize this crossover”? What in the world basis do you have for making this kind of statement? You don’t like the speaker, that’s one thing, but don’t start making things up. There’s a word for that. And aside from an incredible stroke of good luck, it is impossible to even approach time coherence without a LOT of optimization. Now it’s your turn. Show us that you’re not a hypocrite. Tell us about your room and your amp. Duke |
Have you seen the measurements? I asked green mountain but they refused. Tell us about your room and your amp. That would be off topic. This is about the green mountain chroma speakers. Not rooms or amps. I tried different rooms and had the same problem. How do you explain that? How do you explain that the green mountain authorized dealership came round and set them up using the same room and amp and made no comments about them? Where is the proof that the green mountain chroma speakers are time and phase coherent? Where is the proof it's response is flat? Where is the proof the cabinet is inert and free of resonances? Where is the proof that using a smaller box for that woofer brings any advantages? have you heard the speakers? Taken them apart? Modified them? I've done all those things. I know what I'm talking about. Putting a woofer into a cabinet changes it's response in the upper range. Do you agree? Therefore a 0.21mh coil will not automatically result in perfect first order acoustic roll off. That inductance is arrived at for an electrical 4 ohm load at 3khz crossover point. To get a first order roll off, you'd need to measure the raw woofer in the cabinet. Then you'd need to do a series of simulations to get the desired acoustic slope. Where is the proof this has been done? It obviously doesn't look like it has. So why is it wrong for me to state that no measurements were made? |
"That would be off topic." You made your room and your amp "on topic" when you attacked Roy and his speakers based on how they sounded in your room and with your amp. "[unreasonable and unfounded attack... unreasonable and unfounded attack... unreasonable and unfounded attack]...So why is it wrong for me to state that no measurements were made?" Because it is wrong to lie. Duke |
I think Kenjit should share HIS measurements that back his claims. What did you use to take your measurements? Why not show your proof of your claims? Surely all of your measurements and the method you used would be of some importance in this discussion.
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I have been listing to my GMA RIO hxs that received the GMA new burn in treatment for the crossovers. This treatment is even more of an improvement in the sound than the chroma hx upgrade was. They now blow away any of the many good speakers I nave owned over the past 40 years. The improved detail and musicality result in far more enjoyment in listing to my cds and vinal. They are more musical than any of the systems I heard at the Oakland hi fi show recently. Everyone who hears them is blown away by their sound. Many thanks to Roy Johnson and his expertise in speaker building.
Thnnks again !
Steve Cochran |
Thank you Steve, for your kind support and to the others as well!
To be clear: Your Chroma II’s were upgraded to Chroma HX-- the differences described on our website. And now your HX circuits and wires, and solder, and binding posts have received a special burn-in process.
While I cannot elaborate on the nature of the burn-in, it is the result of years of lengthy experiments based upon physics discussions of the ’nature of flaws in man-made devices’ with the designers of crossover parts, including wires, solder, and binding posts, and with the designers of drivers.
Steve, your speakers are still labeled "Chroma HX" on their backsides, but marked as ’burned in" in our logs. I don’t yet have a name for ’the process’.
Dave, who just posted his HX review here, also received this burn-in. It was put into production for all products earlier this year, and everyone has had the same reactions. I am probably the most surprised at the difference it made in the sound. I’m certainly glad you are pleased!
Hey, rebbi !
Best regards,
Roy Johnson
Designer
Green Mountain Audio
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I apologize for not proof reading my last article I inadvertently used listing for listening in my text twice. Steve Cochran. |
@golferscochran
what are their weaknesses? they can’t be perfect surely.
No matter how good you think they sound now, do you not think they would sound even better if those weaknesses were put right?
What green mountain audio is doing with these HX versions of their rios is they’re selling the same product with minor alterations under a different name.
This is nothing new. Many products that are sold, have packaging that changes over time even if the product remains the same.
The original Rio speakers suffered from a mid forwardness due to a improperly tuned crossover causing lobing.
This was subsequently addressed in their newer models that they called RIO II.
The HX versions are just for marketing reasons. There are no double blind tests to prove their claim that there’s any audible difference from better quality wires and components.
The other major problem with these speakers is the bass response. This has not been addressed in any of the various versions of the Rio
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