Jughead, I'm betting you'll flip over Wavetouch. I certainly did! |
Ah, I see now, the Concert Grands should be great, too, and at a very nice price! Good luck! Let us know how that turns out. Regards. John |
Haven't heard the Beethovens myself. But, the reasons I think you'll love the GT's (Gen. 2 or SE) are because the entire presentation is uncommonly uncompromised, i.e. there seems to be no significant gaps or holes within it. (My quickie review here). They are neutrally transparent and will pass on whatever your components are doing exceptionally well.
The 2 drivers are well matched in that the woofer's phase response is mild and smooth and it hands over to a tweeter's phase response that is quite literally "ruler flat" over the entire operating range of the tweeter (you can find the response graphs of the tweeter at Dayton Audio's website). And some listening time will reveal that the very minimalist crossovers and the Mihorns are, in all likelihood, doing very little indeed to interfere with that unusually good, combined phase response. That results in a strikingly stable, complete, unperturbed and perfectly symmetrical soundstage. Simply not the norm, IME. The Mihorns can also easily be used to create a rather vividly 3D central image as well. Excellent spatial qualities.
I won't get into the details about "how" right now, but the Mihorns tend to "speed up" the sound of everything upstream from them. By that I mean that I'm using some amps at the moment that don't exactly have "HiFi pedigree" written all over them, yet the subjective sensation of system speed is as though I'd spent much more coin on them than I did...I'm still running some experiments along those lines, but I may be able to draw a conclusion or two about how they manage that trick a little later on. If your components are already top notch in that regard, then the Mihorns possibly may not accelerate much beyond a certain point, but, that they do so at all, I've found to be rather unique, so far, IME. Maybe other horns are known to do this??
But, tonally, harmonically and texturally revealing?? Oh yeah!! In spades. And very dynamic.
Look at it this way. They are very small and not only easy to place in the room, but easy and inexpensive to return if you don't like...but, I'll bet you won't return, at all.
Oh, I'll continue to listen to other speakers whenever I get the chance, just out of curiosity, but, even though I'm using a good pair of subs with them that only helps to seal it for me, I already know these are the last speakers I'll ever need to buy, period.
Can't really speak directly to the Beethovens (After_hrs may well be right about them), but I'll throw in my recommendation for the GT's, along with him, without reservation! |
After_hrs, Yes, you are quite correct, of course...did not mean to cloud the issue. The GT's are utterly tonally correct. I didn't mean to imply that the speed the GT's have was somehow less than ideal, or at the expense of something else (just that it was for me a unique experience) - they simply speed things up in the very best sense, there's just no downside to that at all, very natural and relaxed, like you say...z-e-r-o tonal emphasis, indeed, is what I'm hearing! |
Jughead, I think the Parasound would be a good match, since the GT's are so efficient it may seem like more power than you need, but it means you'll likely be doing much of your listening in class A territory...unless you really want to crank them...which they will easily do...! |
Looks very much like the same tweeter used in the Motion 20 and 40XT, but not the 60. The 60 tweeter looks like a larger version, possibly. The Wavetouch tweeter is the Dayton AMT2-4. You can look them up at Parts Express and also see the graphs at Dayton's website. |
After_hrs and Simao,
"Again, I imagine Wavetouch are quality products and that their designer is a passionate and devoted craftsman and technician, but the way these things are being trumpeted, you'd think they're the second coming of hi-end audio."
"That's funny, their definitely not the second coming...Yep, I agree it may be a bit over the top at times, but totally truthful! It's our way of giving back I suppose. Not a new story...small company, no advertising budget, growing track record, a kind, innovative, passionate owner, and an enthusiastic, growing gallery of BELIEVERS.... sorry S, there I go again"
"I mean, really? They best Avantegarde or Kharma Ceramique? They blow Wilsons out of the water?"
"Totally agree..."
The fact of the matter for me is that, to all that, I say +1 |
Simao, Yep, I know, I may well sound a little Too enthusiastic at times, and I apologize if I come off as schill (not really my intention though). But, I've been as motivated to find end-game speakers as some of the others here, it's just that I haven't had $10k to throw at these days. Because of that I've had to be willing to do some things I might not otherwise would've considered doing before. Spending more, buying used I had pretty much exhausted beforehand. So I looked at trying to identify up-and-coming trends or "breakthrough" products before everyone else did...even though that plainly meant I would just have to roll the dice and see for myself. But, in this case it worked out better than I was hoping for...just nothing at all to give buyer's remorse (or buyer's remorse return in the case of the GT's). That I suspect may not be the usual result for this kind of strategy, but, as I say, this is a case where the risk was justified for me. That may make me one of the few who have tried it and realized for themselves what the value of the GT's are...and it's quite high, higher, I believe, than most of the "excellent values" out there. What can I say? Value is value and when I see something in audio that stands head and shoulders above the rest I say something about it..even when the track record is not there. If you want a big gain for little money in this hobby you very often have to be prepared to not do the traditional things. |
After_hrs and Simao,
Although, with regard to my post just above and in the interest of fairness, I suppose I should point out that the quote about the Wilsons I believe you're referring to, Simao, was not that they "blow the Wilsons out of the water", but if you reread that I think you'll see that, bass differences aside, the GT's were effectively equally as good as the Wilsons (for that owner), but at a tenth of the cost...if my memory serves. |
Ok, I see lots of folks here are striking out here on the 'what-the-heck-are-we-even-looking-at' element of the Wavetouch technology and how it may relate to maker claims, hype, what have you. Having lived with the GT's now since June I'm sure I've had the advantage over you guys of being able to audition them under controlled enough conditions. When you do that you realize right away that something about the technology is in fact uniquely special, but it still may be a trick identifying from there exactly how they do what they do. Only recently I think I've begun to confidently get a handle on what I suspect is at work.
I know the diagrams on his website look pretty confusing, or pretty confused, if that's your take. But, if you look at his descriptions you can begin to tell that all he's really describing in the area immediately in front of each driver (say, the first 6-8" out or possibly a little farther) is the phenomenon of air turbulence. This is what you want to focus on. It is really the key to unlocking everything about the design. Yes, the numbers do at first appear to be too good to be true. But, if you can wrap your mind around this one phenomenon he is trying to describe, then the numbers do in fact add up very well, indeed. But, it will help a great deal with your understanding if you do your best to visualize in 3D what is really going on with turbulence. Think of turbulence as wave cancellation, which it is, but it just may not be as orderly or symmetrical as we may typically think of it in regard to, say, the front-to-back wave cancellation of a bass driver on an open baffle. Turbulence in this case is responsible for degrading the integrity of the newly launched sound wave from the driver. In every speaker design. Normally the turbulence is caused by the very act of the diaphragm launching the waveform...creation and destruction at the same moment. The more turbulence the more degradation of the waveform and therefore of the sound quality in all sonic categories. This is the problem that the Mihorns solve. It isn't that the GT's are creating sensitivity where there was none before. It's that the Mihorns are allowing very much more of the Inherent sensitivity of each driver to pass through them minus that level of degradation. IOW, the inherent sensitivity is being preserved. So, no, the laws of physics have neither been broken nor reinvented. The Iron Law is still very much in effect. The only things that have been removed from the equation are these purely physical (not electro-mechanical) losses that traditionally we have always had to put up with. It may not be so easy to grasp this from the numbers because we are so accustomed to seeing the rules, like the Iron Law, dictate less impressive performance compromises for cabinets of this size, but overcoming turbulence in this way can evidently be quite the game changer. Realize that the implication is that essentially our traditional measurements of driver or speaker sensitivity can now be thought of, in a rather real sense, as 'skewed' in light of this new information. Make no mistake, this is by definition altogether something new in the world. To my knowledge nothing like it has ever been done before. This is a genuinely innovative approach and I believe (at whatever point it begins to happen) that other companies and other audiophiles or reviewers are going to be talking about this technology...and probably for a long time to come.
But, this effect of smoothing out the airflow so that it both speeds up (apparently) the wave launch into the room while allowing those waves to be more intact and coherent upon reaching the lp, is evidently a significantly large one, large enough to do a number of things here all at once. Note that the radically improved Efficiency (not sensitivity) of this speaker system, the noticeably improved sound quality (again, waveforms that are more stable, accelerated and more coherent which in turn is improving the sound quality across the board) and the bass extension and dynamics in such a small cabinet (and yes, BTW, I can in fact confirm for you that the rolloff point for the GT is between 40-45Hz and no higher) are actually all directly related to each other...! It may be a bit of a Rubik's cube to think of it that way, but that appears to me to be what Alex has done. The entire design and all the innovation that goes with it hinges on the successful amelioration of the problem of air turbulence in front of the drivers. And there are no noticeable drawbacks with the sound to speak of, with the Mihorns installed.
If you've been to the website, you've probably seen the videos there of the GT's that have been set up and are playing outdoors. This is not to demonstrate that GT's make swell poolside speakers, but that they can do something pretty remarkable - they can actually sound pretty decent in a nearly anechoic environment. This is where perhaps every other design will fall flat on its face. It is the Mihorn's ability to deliver a fully fleshed out, fast, clean, dynamic, coherent, direct sound that is what is being displayed here.
Whether or not the GT's are your cuppa is up to you, of course, but I'm just outlaying here what I think may be going on with them. |
I think you've got the right attitude, Jughead. Keep right on truckin'... |
