Has anybody had experience with the Orions?

Thank you all for your interesting answers.

Regalma1, I hope somebody has them here in Mexico as well. I'll look into the forum.

Gregm, you're right. Live music was an overstatement, but being close to the source is my cup of tea. This implies neutrality, and dynamics ability with low distortion. If as you say, they remind you of horns, their dynamics have to be among the best for direct radiation speakers. After all, the cones are practically free to move in response to the coil's magnetic field! As for the bass, again you're right. Their -3 dB cut go down "only" to 30 Hz, which is more or less normal for their size. This is enough for me given my musical taste.

Glide3, you also seem impressed by them, specially for their accuracy. But what about the soundstage (width, depth, height), how good was it?

Ojgalli, adding the rear tweeters apparently it's a BIG improvement. It seems to be much more so than with conventional box speakers having rear tweeters. Could you please report us back when you test them?

Tarsando, could you be more specific? In what areas do you think the Magico's surpass the Orions?

Matt, thanks for the link. I'll read it thoroughly.

Regards,

Tim, thanks for the review. I have two questions:

1) Are you able to detect by ear any of the 2 (or 3) crossover regions? How well blended are they?
2) Is the crossover adjustable?

Regards,

Carlos, thank you so much for the offer. I might take it... ;). The Gradients are also very interesting with their bass radiation configurability and their coincident tweeters. And they only require a single amplifier. You must be very happy with them. Is good to know that somebody is having success in attacking a major problem for high-quality playback at home, namely the room acoustics.

Regards,

I have always tought that dipole speakers have an inherent advantage against conventional designs whose main priority is the supression of back radiation and box resonances "ad extreme". Mr. Linkwitz has observed that a good dipole, under the right conditions, is capable of fooling our ear-brain system into creating the illusion of solid objects in front of us. He says that something seems to just "snap in", at least more so than boxed speakers such as the Magicos.

GREGM: The drivers are about 1,5k altogether. The xover is very complex for a lame diyer -- but shouldn't be a problem for you.

Greg, in the past I had fun making mods to several crossovers, including the ADS C2000. That one was crazy. I believe we counted 43 or so modifications! It was fully op-amp based. Nowadays, there are very good sounding op-amp designs, but a discrete design still is a must for the highest quality. This would mean dedicating many hours of design time, which at this moment I can't afford. Another disadvantage the Orions have is their need for 6-8 channels of amplification. The cost of such pile of amps could easily top the speakers' price themselves.

JSADURNI: I lived for a while with Lowthers on open baffle on top of Altec 416, Bazzilla style (bought the plans but strayed from the original design) and realized open baffle is not my cup of tea, at least untill a get a bigger room!

Jorge, I had a similar experience when I heard the big Magnepans (Timpani's) at Heaven Sound. They were very fast and neutral, but seemed to enlarge everything including the human voice. This is no surprise, as big panel speakers produce planar frontwaves, totally different from the way instruments and humans radiate sound. OTOH remember that the Orions have conventional drivers (of the highest quality though), and that might give them advantages over panel type speakers, at least in small spaces.

FISHBOAT: One criticism I've heard is that they (any dipole type) sound "big" all the time...even when the music doesn't call for it.

Fishboat, I don't know about sounding big, but according to Mr. Linkwitz they are capable of conveying the full range of acoustical spaces, from dry to wet. Can anyone confirm this?

Regards,

Ojgalli, nice comments. I have 2 questions:

1) What is the distance from your rear wall to the Orions?
2) Is there anything between the speakers (audio rack, TV, etc)?

Regards,