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

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.

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.

@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. 

@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.

@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 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.

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.

Yes. 
 

My own. Sometimes. 
 

See theaudioatticvinylsundays.com

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.

@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.  

     People have been fooled for for quite a few decades.

                                  Even by Edison!

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

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.

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.

@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 @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.

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.

 

@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.

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

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!

dogberry, No one, least of all me, is dismissing full range ESLs. That’s exactly what I listen to in one of my two systems, Sound Lab 845PXs, with no subwoofer. One reason for no subwoofer is my disinclination to clutter up the listening room any further, since it is also our living room where we entertain guests after dinner in the adjoining dining room. Three turntables, front end electronics, the huge 845PXs, and two large monoblock Atma-sphere chassis’ are enough. Other reasons for no subwoof, related to the first, are my own cheapskate nature, the wonderful deep bass I get from the panels with no augmentation, and the fact that I believe I would have to spend quite a lot of money to find a subwoof that can keep up with and blend with an ESL. However, I do not argue with those two guys who describe the putative benefits of a subwoof. In principle, they are correct.  However, I take exception to Mijo's endorsing Doppler Distortion as a compelling mechanism for crossing over at a relatively high frequency (100Hz or higher).  Because I doubt "Doppler Distortion", which is a real thing but not really due to the Doppler Effect, is much of a factor with a huge planar speaker that has a much shorter excursion than does a dynamic speaker and spreads the frequencies among a myriad of unitary panels of different sizes so as to distribute resonance.

 

Jonwolf, I heard the Volti Audio Rivals at the Capital Audiofest. I thought they were excellent, far better than many much more expensive speakers that I heard at the show. In fact, in many ways I thought they were better than the older big brother Volti speakers at $20K, which were owned by my neighbor and which I heard at length at his house. Good choice.

Dear @hifidream  : Thank's to share that experience.

 

I know think you Own Magnepan 20 along those Kinergetic subs that I knew and listened many times paired with ML electrostatic because the distributor in México was who brougth both names here. Even with the Kinergetics ML never like me. As I told best planar speaker design for me Magnepan and with limited FR the Quad.

R.

Dear @mijostyn : First those UDL by Velodyne came from 1989 and yes that surround foam was terrible for say the least.

You live in your " small world " of your subwoofers and nothing can touch it when the real world has several alternatives even better than Magico as Evolution Acoustics :

 

M.Lavigne owns the MM 7.

 

In the other side I owned the Scintilla mated with Entec subs and running with monobloks that puts enough current to handled and amps with over 6db headroom. I never had any troble about and I can’t know for the Diva.

Electrostatic speaker designs is not the " ultimate " speakers as a fact I listened almost all from Stax/ EMT/ ML/ Beveridge , etc, etc and the only one that like me is SL that I listened several times for long time.

Magnepan planar design is really better than your SL paired or not with subs.

Btw, my Velodyne is a way difefrent model ( no foam surrounded the woofers. ) and as I told you are heavy modified including internal bracing but I don’t " care " all those when the reality is that its measured THD is 0.5% that only the Titan is comparable.

Each designer " kills flea in his own way " be Magico, Evolution, Velodyne, HSU, Paradigm, Thiel, ML, , etc, etc.

Btw,, I agree with @lewm transmission line woofer ( everything the same ) can’t be outperformed not even by your four subs or Magico or what ever you could think. Come on mijos youa are better than that.

 

Your theory about my ADS ( that you never listened in the modified way in my samples. ) are just theory and you can be sure that your SL can’t puts you nearer to the recording than my L2030. Btw, I never said my speakers has no fail or are perfect and I know for sure are not perfect. Period.

 

Now, you can follow with lewm, don’t you think?

 

R.

I didn’t read all the responses but here’s my $.02. Of course nothing compares to good quality live music. There are too many steps along the way to reproducing music in our home w/ varying degrees of sound degradation. 
 

For the type of music mentioned, amplified rock w/ guitar, drums, bass guitar , vocals etc, good quality horns powered by tubes is, imo, the way to go if you want close to live sound without spending a fortune on heroicly priced speakers & amps!  Unamplified  music might be better suited for paneled speakers like Magnapans or Martin Logan’s, both for reasonable $. 
 

I own & really enjoy Volti Audio Rivals. They may not be the last word in ultra fine details & crazy frequency extreme extension but for dynamics, big sound stage, very fast & open midrange,  & “live sound” in their price range, tough to beat. A good 20 watts w/ a good source is all they need to sound great. 

Mijostyn, I appreciate your unequivocal convictions on nearly all things audio, but don’t you think you’re a bit over the top or around the bend in subwoofers? The ONLY worthwhile design is the dipole??? Really? I do like the idea of the dipole though for its potentially compact form factor. What do you recommend? Have you ever heard a really correctly built full size transmission line woofer? For me that’s the fastest and lowest distortion bass for mating with an ESL. But can be very large. Also, if a subwoofer is palpably vibrating, could that possibly mean it’s playing bass tones, not distorting? Or do you think a sub should play bass without moving at all? I’d like to see that.

Amazing, isn't it, how we all are able to dismiss Peter Walker's FRED (full range electrostatic dipole)? There was some wishful thinking there, rather than marketing hype, given the era. The fact remains obvious to all fans of electrostatics - they need a little help in the bass. Not much, but just enough, like a sprinkle of salt on an omelette—just enough to emphasize the taste of the eggs, not so much that it tastes of salt.

@rauliruegas, Raul, we built our systems over many years guided by our own preferences which vary to a large degree even though we agree on many aspects. On these issues I can tell you that you need to alter your opinion. I owned Apogee Divas for 6 years. A very enticing speaker that was seriously fragile and unreliable. Magnepans are much better from a durability standpoint and I think the 20.7 is even better sounding. The Scintillas could never reach realistic volume levels even with subwoofers. Apogee was right down the road from me in Massachusetts and I was in the factory on numerous occasions.

The Velodynes I owned were UDL 15s7's. The surround was foam and they all disintegrated.  I have never heard a plate amp of any type perform anywhere near the level of a powerful class A or AB amp. These were the last active subs I ever and ever will use. Turn your system up to 90 dB playing any bass heavy number and put your hand on the subwoofer. That vibration you feel is distortion. In order for any subwoofer to be competitive it has to be a balanced force design, two identical drivers in phase directly opposed to each other.  A 100 lb plate on top will not achieve the same results. Just wishful thinking. There are many subwoofer drivers with very low distortion specs. Just go to Parts express and have a look. The problem with subs is not the driver, it is the enclosure. Your servo system corrects the driver but not the enclosure. Of the commercial subs I have heard the Magicos are handily the best. I have not heard all the subwoofers out there. I have heard enough to know what designs have a chance of performing well. The problem with the Magicos for me is their size. I need to use four subs to form a line source and the Magicos are way to big. Fortunately, with digital subwoofer management and modern drivers you can make larger drivers perform wonderfully in small enclosures as long as you have enough power. I would love to use 15" drivers but again due to size I am limited to eight 12" drivers in four very special enclosures that have never been seen before. They are balanced force and stiffer than any enclosure in existence. They do not resonate at all. They are also pretty cool looking. At my current shop rate a pair will cost $50,000. That is how much work goes into them and they are passive so one would need to by amps and crossovers.  

I think your speakers are a cool design that fails in two major ways. Dynamic drivers are much heavier that the air they move. It is like trying to run a motor without a load on it. It is very inefficient and due to their uncontrolled dispersion cause more difficulty with room acoustics. Your speakers have fractured dispersion. They are point source and omnidirectional in the bass and high frequencies and line source in the midrange which controls dispersion up and down but not to the sides. All this means that the amplitude response is going to vary with distance and you are still stuck with the acoustic problems of omnidirectional speakers. 

My experience with ESLs goes back to 1978. I have owned five different versions, three of them hopelessly flawed because of bad electronics and fractured dispersion characteristics like your speakers, point source at lower frequencies and line source in the upper octaves. In order for an ESL to perform at it's best it has to be a full range dipole line source. This solidifies the image and makes them much more powerful. In order to function as full range line sources they have to extend from the floor to the ceiling, within a couple of inches. In order to produce realistic volumes with the extremely low distortion they are capable of they have to be mated to subwoofers and cross with steep curves no lower than 100 Hz. This requires digital crossovers. It can not be done with analog crossovers without significant damage to the sound. The beauty of Line source dipoles is that they do not radiate at all to the sides, up or down. They only send sound in a figure 8 pattern front and back. This make room acoustics a much more trivial problem. You only need absorption behind the speakers. The result is a very solid well defined image at all distances. There is no dynamic speaker that can match the transient response and detail of a proper ESL. The only advantage Dynamic speakers can have is size. They can be made much smaller. That is about it. 

@rauliruegas

That is a great story! I heard them at an AXPONA show in Chicago. I brought my wife and dad to the show because they had never heard sound reproduction on that level and I wanted them to understand what I was trying to achieve. (This is when I bought my Kinergetic Subs and Pass Labs amp used and couldn’t play them for years.) I’ve built my whole system on the BACCH principles from the beginning. I can’t wait to get that final piece. You should have seen my dad’s eyes light up when he sat in the magical spot. He was like a little kid and couldn’t believe how 3-D spooky real they were but he broke the magic turning to tell me. It was a revelation though and both he and my wife understood why I wanted to do this. She used to sing in Jazz clubs in college to pay her way through. She loves it as much as I do. It’s great to have someone to share it with.

Dear @hifidream : Sadurni Acoustics Horns? what small is the world.

 

Things are that J.Sadurdi ( designer and manufacturer ) is a close friend of mine and he was living here in México for almost all his life till the last 4-5 years that he gone to USA and now ives in Austin, TX.

 

At the began of his " hron adventure " I was helping for months/years in the voicing of several prototypes. Today his designs are just great.

 

Btw, where do you experienced the Sadurni speakers?

 

Thank’s in advance.

 

R.

 

This could be a " way experience " to live it:

 

 

My system sounds live and spooky real depending on the recording. I think I can push it to live most of the time rather than some of the time with adding BACCH to my system this spring. I know live music, my dad practiced grand piano 3 hours a day as a kid and he put on a number of 2 hour concerts consisting of any classical artist you can think of. I also played bassoon second chair in the Wisconsin Youth Symphony. That’s why I pursued this hobby. As mentioned above I do run my mains full range and supplement with 4 subwoofers. The system is all active with no passive components. I have 12 biquad filters created with an Earthworks microphone measuring 30K-30KHz in conjunction with Room EQ Wizard and Multi Sub Optimizer. I’ve had more than one person brought to tears listening to their favorite piece. I’d say that is confirmation that it is a live like performance if it can elicit that kind of emotional response. I’ve heard this before on another system that was highly directional, Sadurni Acoustics Horns, but the image was only wide enough for one person and it was ruined if you moved your head more than a few inches. 
 

Thanks,

Steve

Dear @mijostyn  :  " The surrounds corroded and they literally fell apart. I can not quote you figures but I do know that given appropriately large drivers in well constructed sealed enclosures distortion levels are easily under 0.5%. It is only when using smaller drivers in flimsy enclosures that distortion becomes a problem.  An amplifier that has tight control over the driver like the JC 1s with their damping factor over 1000 will result in excellent performance far in excess of what any Class D plate amplifier can provide assuming a large driver in a well constructed enclosure of which there are very few. The Velodyns do not qualify as a well constructed enclosure. No commercial subwoofer excepting the Magico Q series qualifies.  "

 

Which Velodyne you own for 10 years?, mines I think has even more with no single problem " the surrounds corroded.

 

"  I do know that given appropriately large drivers in well constructed sealed enclosures distortion levels are easily under 0.5%. "

 

I disagree with you till you,please , share 2-3 names where that is happening. In the case of my Velodyne what permits that the THD be as low as 0.5% is that as I posted Velodyne is monitoring the woofer excursions over 16K times each second. My velodyne is self powered by a class D amplifier, here some specs:

"""" 

• High quality crossover system
• High Gain Servo System
• Selectable subsonic filter (15/35Hz)
• Infrared remote control (optional)
• Adjustable low-pass filter
• Subwoofer Direct crossover by-pass
• Phase adjustment
• XLR-Connector
• Auto On/Off

Amplifier: Class D 1250 Wrms (3000 W peak)
Woofer: 15" forward-firing (12.7" piston diameter)
Voice Coil: 3" Dual Tandem push-pull
Excursion: 2" maximum
Magnet Structure: 380 oz  (24 lbs)
High Pass Crossover: passive 80/100Hz (6db/octave filter)
Low Pass Crossover: 40Hz-120Hz (12db/octave initial; 48dB/octave ultimate)
Crossover Bypass: Yes - subwoofer direct
Anti-clipping Circuit: Yes.

 

As I posted my units position are not firing directly to the seta position and not between the main speakers but  side firing in between seated at 15cm.-20cm. from the floor just in front of each speaker and have in the top plate a a 40kg. dead weigth.

The subwoofers were modified in its amps, input electronics and the woofers rewired with KK KCAG cable. I'm so demanding in my system that when we analized the input electronics not only modied but we took in count that the shortest signal path is not at its RCA input but to the balnace input and where are connected. By a " detail " on something similar my ML 20.6 modified monobloks are connected directly to the amps mother board inputs not in the balanced way but in the shortes path: single ended.

 

Btw, the Velodyne construction makes its job, at least my  now " vintage "units.

 

 

"" 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 ( as in my ADS high pass filter ) and lowers its IMD then the mid-range and high frequencies really shines as never before due that the woofers " dirty " harmonics already gone ! ! and this is the main issue about.

 

Only Magico, really? Today there are several good options and in the past I had the opportunity tolisten the Krells subs self powered by Krell special dedicated class A amps and listened to the Wilson Audio. Both great units.

Btw, thank's for your offer but rigth now I'm fine about.

 

I forgot to mention that with and with out subs the top SL are a little " short " in its overall quality lwevel than my ADS system

TYhe best planar speakers other than SL were the Apogge and inside its line the Scintilla,  Magnepan middle line with subs. For me Ribbon are a little better than electrostatic designs.

 

I return my subs to 80hz crossover, 95 hz just does not works for me.

 

R.

I remember a blind test in the 80s where blindfolded listeners compared live performances with recordings of the same music in the same space.  The results were strong; most listeners were able to distinguish easily and reliably.  Even $1,000,000 systems have a long way to go.

These tests should be repeated.

It is also easy to run blind tests of components.  Set up two identical complete systems in the same space.  Insert the two components to be tested in the systems.  Play the same recordings A B X, where blindfolded listeners are to identify X as A or B.  Repeat say 10 times.  Score the number of successes against the probability of the result being chance.   For sticklers re-run the test with the common system components swapped out.  Golden ears should be very afraid, but these tests should be run to establish whether they have any worthwhile credentials.

 

We once calculated that my speakers have about 400 in.² greater radiating area then do yours. Perhaps that’s where our results differ, because my speakers are not perceptibly distorting in anyway at 100 Hz. And there is the added value of coherence and continuity with higher frequency music. Now you are saying there is no point in reproducing music below 40 Hz, because there is not much information. Isn’t that contrary to your previous assertions about your system going down to 15 Hz or thereabouts? Why do you bother to be concerned about frequencies below 40 Hz, if they are irrelevant? I say this Not as someone who believes that frequencies below 40 Hz are irrelevant.

@lewm , thanks Lew. That is a common subwoofer mistake, crossing over too low. The makers of commercial subs using just a low pass filter suggest that but, it does not clean up the main speaker as much. Info below 40 Hz is relatively rare. If you can see the cones of the subwoofers moving then Doppler distortion is at play not to mention the non linearities you get into on far excursions. If you play test tones you can easily see the cones moving up to about 100 Hz. This is double important on ESLs because the driver is full range. When dealing with a dynamic speakers it will only be the range of the woofer that is cleaned up. This is still substantial in most instances. This mandates a complete two way crossover. I am also talking about digital crossovers which are a benefit as delays can be adjusted so that the signal arrives at the listening position at the same time in phase. The best location for dipoles in the room is never the best location for subwoofers. It is not easy to make subs blend in with 8 foot tall ESLs. It is not the dipole nature of ESL that creates the conflict but rather the line source characteristics. It requires a line source subwoofer especially if crossing up higher. As I previously mentioned Dr West is aware of all of this but he has to sell loudspeakers to survive and many people do not want to get involved in loudspeakers that require subs. Jim Strickland of Acoustat was the same way, maybe worse. He stubbornly refused to admit his speakers benefited from subwoofers. 

@esputnix my one jaw drop moment was taking a tour of Mechanics Ha in Worcester, MA. First we were in the hall itself, then we went upstairs to their highly customized remote listening area with B&W 801s just outside the mixing booth upstairs. The walls were specially treated and the room was packed with people. Because we had just left the hall our ears were accustomed to its acoustics, so when they played a live recording it seriously sounded like w and a requsst in right in front of the orchestra. It was magical. I've never heard anything like it since, but if you have the opportunity to travel, ask them if they can arrange for a tour so you can hear what I heard. 

 

They played 

@asctim my Dad was a trumpet player and I've been conjecturing for years why no recording of a trumpet (and worse, string sections) doesn't sound anything like live. 

My theories are:

1) Dispersion pattern, as you noted. 

2) Mismatch between speaker type and mic type

3) Trumpet has a DC component to the outflowing air column that may create complex phase variances microphones can't capture or speakers can't play

It is a constant annoyance when guitars sound 8 feet wide, violin sections sound like a bad synthesizer, pianos sound like they are mounted vertically on the front wall, etc. and I agree recording technique is largely to blame. 

 

I've considered building a pair of dodecahedron mics and matching speakers to see if that works. But 24 channel stereo just isn't something current media and gear can handle.

@lewm You're referring to the B1 subwoofer. One of our customers ran a pair of B1 subs between his A1s. It was helpful to get the bass excursion off of the main panels so it could be lower distortion.

 

My Quad 2905s have a pair of extra panels over the usual arrangement of the 63 and later models. They aren't bad at bass, but it is rather polite. Fine for classical music, but not really authentic for good recordings of small ensembles. My fix for it will horrify those with more money to throw at it: I have a powered subwoofer, made by Axiom in Canada, and bought very cheaply to go with a basement movie room in my old house. My pre-amp has two sets of outputs, one for my Quad II/forty amps, and the other goes to a Musical Fidelity X-Can V3 for headphones. The X-Can has a pass-through function, so I can use its output jacks to go to the powered subwoofer. It has its own volume control and crossover adjustment. I do use Y-connectors to make the X-Can work in mono (you'll see why below) and to feed a mono signal on to the subwoofer.

The subwoofer blends in nicely with the Quad ESLs and it doesn't seem at all disjointed to me. I may have two advantages here: the new house has a large open plan main floor, and in the centre of it is a fireplace and chimney breast which rises up to the post and beam rafters. My Quads sit on either side of the fireplace, the monoblocks are at the side of the fireplace, and the turntables etc sit on an old oak chest at the rear of the chimney breast. The subwoofer sits beside the chest. No one sitting on the sofas in front of the speakers has any idea where the bass is coming from, and it only sounds odd if you go back to the turntables and discover the bass is pretty strong back there. However, no one listens back there as the area is a large curved staircase well down into the basement. My secret weapon though, is that I have only one functional ear, so I just don't do directional hearing at all! I'd like to hear stereo, but never have since I lost my left ear aged eight, and I can't say I miss it as I have no memory of what it was like. That's why I make my headphones play in mono. So it all works for me and makes me happy. My old neighbour from the last house was a concert pianist and when she visits I play her all sorts of piano pieces, and she often comments on how it sounds like there is an actual piano in the room. She should know: she has a baby grand in her house!

 

SL used to make and sell a single huge ESL woofer panel to be placed in between a pair of their largest speakers, then called the A1. They also made add on wings for the A1, to attenuate the back wave and reduce cancellation. That becomes less necessary with their current curved arrays. I get wonderful chest thumping bass out of my 845PXs, and if I were to add subwoofers I would crossover way below 100Hz. But that’s just me. I am not offended if someone else wants to do differently.

@atmasphere ​​@rauliruegas , OK guys, I'm the one who owns the SLs. You are both right and both wrong. Asking Dipole ESLs to make bass causes a lot of trouble. They will do it but it knocks the wind out of them in regards to headroom and increases distortion very obviously unless you only listen to them whisper quiet. Ralph's amps do a better job of driving them but I am still going to cross out at 100 Hz to subwoofers. I am not crossing out of the SLs because I am using JC 1s and am worried about their ability to make bass into ESLs. I am doing it so I can get a clean 105 dB out of the SLs and not be slapping the stators with every drum beat. Roger West knows this and has actually made ESL subwoofers. Last we talked he was making a client subs using 30" woofers. 

I recently attended a Connie Han Trio concert in an intimate room and the drums were so over-miked that it was hard to hear the other players.  No idea why the drums were even amplified.  I need a reason to get out of the house these days and enjoy the atmosphere of live concerts, but overall prefer listening to my home system with a Don Sachs front end, an Aqua LaVoce DAC, and Spatial Audio speakers, where most everything is dialed in.  I control the volume, not the guy on the mixing board.  

@atmasphere  : I don't care about your M-2.

 

My friend never mentioned to the designer that he did not wants tubes ( as I posted he was a tube lover. Even designed  2-3 that he used with his Quad's. ). The SL designer was who gave him the JC recomendation.

 

I know very well all the facilities of the SL and I really know it. Already know about both transformers, even I mentioned here to mijos. So in what thread are you reading?

 

Useless your post, at least for me.

 

R.

Here we go. Another thread ruined by the usual culprit.

Please don’t try to state what you not0 even experienced because what you posted about is that you have not the experience to listen true bass down to at least 16hz with out almost distortion and at near 120dbs.

@rauliruegas That is so funny- ROTFLMAO!!

Its funny because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about, which in this case is what I might have done or experienced in my life!

Sheesh  🤣

Dr West often recommends the Atma-Sphere MA-2 for his products and so about 80% of our MA-2 production drives SL speakers. We've shown at CES and THE Show multiple times with Sound Lab (starting back when CES was still at the Sahara in the early 1990s), and gotten Best Sound at Show (Dick Olsher); I've heard Sound Labs with our gear a lot over the last 25 years and I'm on a first name basis with him and others there.

I'm not denigrating Parasound or any other solid state amp in my comments. Dr West did recommend Parasound to anyone who suggested that they don't want tubes. I get that. Of course you know that we have a class D amplifier we've been selling the last year and a half; we get asked if that amp will drive Sound Labs and my answer is the same as if it were any other amplifier:

'It will drive Sound Labs but will not make the power and might seem a bit bass shy simply due to the impedance of the speaker being 30 Ohms in the bass.' That statement applies to all solid state amps that operate as voltage source on Sound Labs and that includes the Parasound (FWIW when I've visited Sound Lab they had a Boulder amplifier).

Now the speaker allows you some adjustment of output levels- it has bass jumpers for changing that level a bit and a Brilliance control. So unlike a lot of ESLs its a bit more adjustable to the voltage response of the amplifier. But its going to be bass shy with solid state amps because solid state amps tend to act as a voltage source.

How this works is the impedance curve of the speaker varies by a factor of about 10:1 from the bass to 20KHz. So its about 3 Ohms at 20KHz (somewhat dependent on the position of the Brilliance control) and 30 Ohms in the bass. It is a little different from other ESLs in that it employs a crossover for two transformers used to interface between the amp and the speaker panel- one for highs and one for lows. So the impedance curve has a bump in it that corresponds to the crossover to the HF transformer. ESLs don't follow the same speaker design rules that box speakers do, starting for the most obvious reason that there's no box with its accompanying resonance.

 

 

PERIOD.

@atmasphere : Please don’t try to state what you not0 even experienced because what you posted about is that you have not the experience to listen true bass down to at least 16hz with out almost distortion and at near 120dbs. Something that no single SL can do it by it self.

 

Read this review where the reviewer mated with Bricasti and Pass monoblokks:

 

With the SL friend was the SL designer/owner who gave him the recomendation of the JC monoblocks to mates his design. Not atmasphere but the self designer: got it?

Here the Majestic specs from the SL site:

 

https://www.soundlabspeakers.com/majestic/

R.

After 4 months I suggested my friend try subs to look for an improvement and before that nothing was wrong with the bass but true self powered subs goes lower than what is need and SL can't goes down there.

Latter on he changed the Majestic line for the top Ultimate that sounds alittle better but with almost same problem in the low bass.

@rauliruegas In this statement you are again confirming our experience. The large Sound Labs like the A1 and Majestic have no trouble whatsoever playing the deepest bass effortlessly. They go right down to 20Hz. But if the amplifier used to drive them behaves as a voltage source (for example, but not limited to the Parasound) it will be found to be bass shy. This is simply because the amp can't make power into such a high impedance in the bass as occurs in the Sound Lab.

So it is common with Sound Lab owners who use solid state amps to look to subwoofers to get the bass right.

 

Dear @atmasphere  : After 4 months I suggested my friend try subs to look for an improvement and before that nothing was wrong with the bass but true self powered subs goes lower than what is need and SL can't goes down there.

Latter on he changed the Majestic line for the top Ultimate that sounds alittle better but with almost same problem in the low bass.

JC 1+ has no problem to handled at any SPL the Ultimate SL or any other speaker out there, problem is the SL low bass overall performance.

R.

till that day we try to improve the SL quality room levels performance ( obviously with subs. ).

@rauliruegas If you were running an amp like that, I would expect that you might want to use subs. That is a very common experience people have with ESLs and solid state in general. If you have the right amp those speakers have excellent bass on their own! To be clear I was not making an indictment on the Parasound in any way other than what you seem to be corroborating here. 

Dear @atmasphere  : I know that very weel and knowing the JC 1+ design I posted about.

 

Look, a really whealty friend of mine was and is in " love " with my quality level speakers so he took around 10 days of his time and fligth to Utha where he was with Wilson and Sound Labs and cost no object for him he decided  to come back México bringing with him the top of the line Sound Labs and the pair of Parasound monobloks that were recomended by the desigbner him self.

 

He did not comment with me nothing about but around 3 weeks with the speaker/amp in his big dedicated room invited me to listen his system ( before the Sound Labs he owned Raidho beautiful DK speakers ) and was a surprise to me to found out the SL down there and till that day we try to improve the SL quality room levels performance ( obviously with subs. ).

Well even all those he told me months latter at my place: " I really like my SL/JC but still prefers your vinatge system ".

 

In the other side he was a tube lover till SL designer gave the advice for the Parasound.

You already know that after owned for 10 years tubes and from some time now I'm allergic to tubes ( any ) for my system no matters what.

 

R.

@jetter , they will be exactly where the JC 1 are. There are two cooling fans for each amp. I will know right away when a tube fails as the power in that channel will drop enough to skewer channel balance. It only takes a dB or two to change balance enough to alert me to a problem. I am not at all worried about it.