Thank you very much James! Your deep passion for the how and why behind good sound comes though in your writing. It is an honor to have my speakers included in your Axpona 2016 show report.
You even remarked that “AudioKinesis gets it!” That is EXACTLY how I feel about you and about the Audioholics staff in general! What has struck me the most about the content produced by Audiohilics is that you guys really do get it. For instance, when I first discovered that you guys embrace the distributed multi-sub paradigm, I was so glad to see the idea legitimized ”out in the field”. I was of course aware of the work by Toole, Welti, and Geddes, the latter being my mentor. The first version of the Swarm came out in 2006 after Earl Geddes told me of his asymmetrical multisub concept and gave me permission to use his idea.
The variable-level rear-firing array of drivers owe much to the research of David Griesinger. Writing about what makes a good seat in a concert hall, he described the need for a foreground stream of direct sound, and a background stream of reverberation. He notes that the earlier the onset of reflections, the more they tend to mask the direct sound – so I would say that, in addition to the two streams, there is a third element needed: A time delay between the direct sound and the strong onset of reflections, which implies that aggressive radiation pattern control is called for to minimize those early reflections. I call this the “Two Streams Paradigm”, borrowing the wording from Griesinger because he articulated it so well, but the basic idea was known long ago and was behind the LEDE room concept from the 1980's. Note that the two energy streams are something that a well set-up pair of dipole speakers (like the Martin Logan Neolith) does well, and are something that a good multi-channel system inherently excels at.
Speaking of which, the aggressive pattern control of the Bienville Suite Main Modules arguably makes a center channel speaker optional for a home theater setup. A decent central image is maintained even for listeners well off to one side with proper set-up. I have customers who have sold their center-channel speakers because they liked multi-channel music and movies better in phantom center mode. (That being said, for anyone with asymmetrical hearing loss, phantom center mode fails to anchor the dialogue onscreen even with my speakers, so a dedicated center channel speaker would be needed.) I realize my claim of not needing a center channel speaker goes against what Audioholics has found to work well, but I don't think you guys have tried it yet with speakers having the degree of pattern control that mine do, and set up with the axes criss-crossing in front of the listening position. Correct me if I'm wrong!
Again thank you very much James for your interest in and thorough description of my speakers, and for including them here.
And thank you Gene for your kind and encouraging words. I didn't realize you were in the room or I'd have said something to the people there like, “This is Gene from Audioholics – go check out his videos and the Audioholics articles and website because this guy GETS IT!”
Duke LeJeune
AudioKinesis
