System that sounds so real it is easy to mistaken it is not live

Thanks Lewm. I heard the Voltis at last year’s Capitol Audiofest in MD & I bought the pair at the show! Don’t need a sub , nice looking, “normal”, well finished boxes that are easy to place & easy to drive. I’ve been very happy with them for a year now. So much fun!

I think Mr Volti was a furniture maker before he went into the loudspeaker business.  His cabinet work is certainly first rate.

@rauliruegas , That Evolution sub is absolutely nothing special and will resonate it's a-s off. The only subwoofers that have a prayer of performing at state of the art levels are those with a balanced force design. This is the only way to neutralize Newton's forces and keep the whole affair from shaking. After this subwoofer performance depends entirely on the construction of the enclosure which has to be absolutely stiff and non resonant. I have figured out how to do this in a small attractive package. Laugh all you want, the last laugh will be mine.

The physics of line source and point source speakers are well know and not a theory. Your system has a fractured radiation pattern and will sound correct and image properly at one single distance assuming no significant room interaction then they will not sound right or image at all. 

Scintillas are perhaps a little less fragile than Divas because they do not have a 1/4" tweeter. But the high frequency ribbon rapidly becomes loose and "flappy" The woofer can be dented with a light touch. They were also responsible for destroying more amplifiers than the Divas. The company did not last long because of these problems. Properly driven Acoustat 2+2's, where a much better speaker overall and virtually indestructible. 

The only SL speakers I fully support are the ones that are floor to ceiling. The shorter versions like the A1s have the same problem your speakers have. They are line sources at some frequencies and point sources at others fracturing the radiation pattern and causing room interaction at exactly the frequencies you do not want it, the mid bass and down. Floor to ceiling ESLs are way more powerful and no other speaker in existence can project a realistic life size and exquisitely detailed image. No point source speaker can this and the multiple driver line source speakers like the Near Field Pipe Dreams have uniformly been awful.

Dear @mijostyn  : I'm not laughin of you or any one else, that's is never my attitude.

Some of the subs I named comes with that balanced forces that you loved even one of them comes with four woofers.

My subs does not shake as you said and as my ADS are internally painted with the Acoustical Magic antivibration blend.

The internal bracing was not my original idea but I took when I had to ask advise to the ADS self designer on something about a little change I wanted to do, he told me that I can't do that change but ( he continue tell me. ) what you can do to improve the ADS whole performance is to bracing both woofer inside " boxes " and I did it and he was so rigth about and from here I did it in my " infamous " subs.

And you know what? My " infamous " point source ADS and subs performs awesome.

With all respect I don't want to follow talking with a gentleman  that is so " entitled " to subs but at the same time was unknow the main target to use subs in an home stereo system ( @lewm  , including your SL. ):

this is wat you posted and my answer to you:

"" When dealing with a dynamic speakers it will only be the range of the woofer that is cleaned up. ""

Not really because when you cleaned up the woofers and lowers its IMD then the mid-range and high frequencies really shines as never before due that the woofers " dirty/trash" harmonics already gone ! ! and this is the main issue/target about. Obviously with other additional advantages.

R.

Dear @lewm  : I had the opportunity to listened the IMF speakers that were transmission line design and I always ( even today ) remember that " dreaming " kind of bass range quality performance. Extraordinary.

R.

@rauliruegas just because a sub is a balanced force design does not necessarily mean it is going to be good. It depends on the quality of the drivers and the construction of the enclosure. All internal bracing does is change the frequency of the resonance. Play a 20 Hertz test tone at 90 dB and not only will your sub be shaking but so will the whole house. There is no coating you can put on a sub that will keep this from happening. There is no subwoofer enclosure made of MDF that can perform at the state of the art. 

Next using a subwoofer with a two way crossover under a 3 way dynamic system will relieve the system's woofer from taking long excursions which will keep it in a more linear zone of operation lowering distortion and Doppler effect of the woofer. If any of the woofer's "upper harmonics" are getting through to the rest of the loudspeaker someone really f-ed up on the design of the woofer to midrange crossover. In which case I would toss that loudspeaker and buy another one. 

The reason that using a subwoofer under an ESL is because there is only one driver thus, keeping it from taking long excursions cleans up everything and allows it to go VERY LOUD. And because it is a full range line source it sounds VERY BIG just like a real rock and roll concert. 

Raul, I have been building and designing subwoofers for 40 years. I think it is also pretty obvious that I am very talented cabinetmaker with enough equipment to open a commercial shop. I am building what I think will be the worlds finest subwoofer. You could at least wish me good luck.

Dear @mijostyn  : "  90 dB and not only will your sub be shaking but so will the whole house.  " , not in my place.

" If any of the woofer's "upper harmonics" are getting through to the rest of the loudspeaker someone really f-ed up on the design of the woofer to midrange crossover.  ", that's not what I said.

" dynamic system will relieve the system's woofer from taking long excursions which will keep it in a more linear zone of operation lowering distortion and Doppler effect of the woofer. "  this is what I'm saying and this effect means the  IMD goes lower and that permits the mdYhi frequencies been listened with new clarity/transparency and the like.

Good luck. When will be in the market?

R.

Mijo, In a distant way, there is a relationship between a transmission line and a dipole design, or whatever you call the type where two woofers are working in or out of phase, back to front or front to front. The transmission line is akin to an open baffle where the rear radiation is used to augment the very low frequency bass output by undergoing a phase change in the course of passing through the transmission line and out through the port at the base. But the cabinet does not damp the motion of the woofer, as in open baffle.

Raul, I was a lowly intern when I first heard the IMF Monitor at Lyric Hi-Fi in NYC. I wanted that speaker very badly but could not afford what seemed to be the stupendous price at the time, $1000 I think. I had a patient who offered me the use of his bench saw, so I bought the HDF, clamps, glue, drill, etc, and built the transmission line exactly according to the IMF Monitor, which was based on a published paper in a British journal called "Wireless World". A guy named Bailey described the TL in one issue of the journal and gave all information needed to make the cabinet using a KEF B139 woofer. Then my home-made version used a KEF B100 midrange, as in the Monitor, and RTR Electrostatic tweeters, 4 per side, that I bought from a guy in CA who was associated with Infinity, which was then making the Servo-Statik 1. The problem then was that I knew nothing about crossover design. I got some help with that from an MIT-trained engineer who worked for NSA here in the DC area. I eventually sold the speakers to my cousin, and then bought them back from him about 20 years later. I cut off the midrange and tweeters and saved the TL woofer cabinet, which I now use along with the Beveridge 2SW, as the outboard woofers.

     People have been fooled for for quite a few decades.

                                  Even by Edison!

ie:  https://phonographia.com/Factola/Edison%20Tone%20Tests.htm

@lewm , transmission lines are arguably the hardest type of enclosure to design. Yes, you can effectively double the size/efficiency of the driver at some frequencies. The problem is that the front and rear waves are only exactly in phase at certain frequencies. Then there is the problem of the construct. The enclosure is composed of a number of dividers and pathways. It becomes much harder to control all the panel resonances that develop and to make sure every panel is locked down solid. Subwoofers, by nature shake the hell out of everything. It is what they do for a living. I lean towards small enclosures because it is much easier to make them stiff and solid (the soap bubble rule). The lower efficiency is now easily covered by the powerful amps we have and amplitude errors can be corrected in room digitally. Setting them up as a line array and placing them directly against a wall then minimizes room interaction.

@rauliruegas , Is less distortion in the woofer's frequency range going to make the rest of the loudspeaker sound better? Since the loudspeaker as a whole will sound better I suppose you could say that is true. It will in no any way effect the actual performance of the higher frequency drivers. 

Raul, do you live in a bomb shelter? Put on a 20 Hz test tone, crank it to 90 dB and I absolutely guarantee you that your house will become a symphony of rattles. 

When are the final versions of the subwoofers going to be ready? About two months after my wife stops handing me stuff to do. The prototype has been made and it works as advertised but it is nothing special to look at. It is used more or less to develop construction methods and procedures that will work and minimize waste.  

The TL is not a “sub”woofer. Nor did I want it to be. I’ve built two pair, so I’m well aware of the complexity, but I beg to differ on the woofer shaking the cabinet. Not much of that happens because the driver is very lightly loaded. Anyway, one inch thick HDF makes my cabinets very solid. Formica over that for a rosewood appearance. Nor did I need the lesson on TL design but thanks anyway.

Yes. 
 

My own. Sometimes. 
 

See theaudioatticvinylsundays.com

Dear @mijostyn  "  It will in no any way effect the actual performance of the higher frequency drivers.  "

I never posted that. Do you think I'm so stupid to post that?.. Come on mijos.

This comes from 2005 ( 17 year ago ) and I learned way before:

Audiogon Discussion Forum

R.

@lewm There was a time when I had a subscription to Wireless World. Shiny cover, but everything inside was pretty rough black and white print on cheap paper. The small ads were the very best - all those 'guaranteed' tiny things to build. It was what the subscribers to Popular Electronics moved onto when they went hardcore, just as a few years later I moved from Populat Photography to Amateur Photographer.

I'm afraid the whole world of hobby magazines at a well-stocked newsagents is now a thing of the past. For those that remember such times, the hi-fi equivalents would be going from Stereophile to Glass Audio or Positive Feedback.

@rauliruegas , sorry if I F-ed that up. I don't always read things right. Your a little more difficult for me to understand sometimes.  You are one of a few that I have some confidence in their hearing and technological shrewdness. I know for a fact you have not heard 8 foot ESLs at their best just because our opinions do not line up. It may not be your Absolute Sound but you should understand how they could easily be a contender for some people. 

@dogberry , Do you remember what the Absolute Sound looked like in the beginning?  It was a cheesy little digest book without advertising . I loved it that way. Some how it had more importance back then. Harry Pearson was the first journalist that understood us. It was that search for the ultimate performance based on the sonic presentation of a system. Harry knew what he wanted to hear even if he had difficulty describing it like the rest of us. More difficult is, how do you get there?  This is the eternal curse of the audiophile and the source of much argument. The problem is, our experience varies so much based on what we have heard, that our opinions are skewed. If we all had the same experience of the very best systems in the very best rooms our opinion would probably be very much the same. This might make life boring. 

@lewm Back when it was a tiny paperback sized magazine? Of course. You have awoken a strange memory. One Saturday I drove to Halifax, NS, to pick up a $2k set of Monster speaker cables (still have them, half as thick as my wrist and sound no better than 14G wire....) and for some reason I decided to go to a food court under a no longer existing mall and try the poutine I'd been hearing about. I don't remember the poutine, which I have never eaten since, but I do remember the pink cover of the issue of TAS I read as I wielded my plastic fork. Maybe some things are best forgotten.

@lewm , I was not trying to give you a lesson on TL design, Just my opinion. I have heard some excellent TLs from Celestion back in the day and more currently Sanders also under an ESLs!   MDf is OK for a woofer, but not for a subwoofer actually plywood used intelligently is stiffer just a lot more expensive. My balanced force subs use 1.5 inch cabinet grade maple plywood.  IMHO it takes an entirely different approach designing a speaker that can punch out the appropriate energy from 18 Hz to 125 Hz. It is not my opinion that speakers that can do so will get your entire house shaking. This is a matter of fact. Turn it up to 90 dB and and play pure sine wave test tones from 20 to 40 Hz and walk outside and you will hear, at many frequencies, your house rattle and buzz. I have a brick house with some Hardy Plank siding in the rear and it rattles and buzzes, not to mention everything in the house like plates and wine glasses. It took me a month of playing around to stop all the sonic anomalies coming from a Stewart theater screen and they reputedly make some of the best. I had to silicone all the air vents in the house to get then to stop. At least in my media room I can not hear any of the symphony the subs are making in the rest of the house with the volume up. I think this is the best one can expect with subs that have that kind of energy. Balanced force subs may not shake themselves but this says nothing of the rest of the house and it's contents. My only possible thoughts in situations where someone is telling me their environment does not rattle are, the person has no idea what they are listening to, the person is very clever and managed to control their environment via various techniques and finally, their system does not produce realistic sub bass. The specifications of the vast majority of speakers means absolutely nothing. The speaker's ability to make sub bass at one meter says absolutely nothing in regards to the speaker's capability to make realistic levels in a normally sized room. It is the main reason we resort to subwoofers. The problem for most manufacturers is that making an ultra high performance subwoofer requires a level of construction insanity and equipment support that the sub becomes very uncompetitive from a cost and complexity standpoint. They want to sell subs to as many people as they can. Us truly discriminating audiophiles are not a very large target audience. As I have said in other posts, the only sub I have heard make great sub bass in a normal room environment  is the smaller Magico Q sub and for some reason they do not make it any more. I also think their Q sub were not the absolute sound. I still think the basic design can be better, even less cost effective but better. 

I have a Lenco L78 with an Ortofon AS-212 tonearm. It has an SAE 1000LT cartridge that is comparable to a $1K cartridge. It is a HOMC. I use Revel Performa M22 speakers with a tweeter upgrade. I use a rebuilt and upgraded Pioneer SX-34 with best tubes. It does sound live to me.

I fully agree that TL bass is not suitable for your particular goal unless you have room for truly massive cabinetry. I’m getting what bass  I want with what I have. You ignore the fact that I used HDF, not MDF, and that the cabinets are further damped and weigh about 120 lbs each. Beyond that a TL design does not absorb much amplifier energy in the first place.  But again, your after something I don’t care to pursue.