Dream Speakers Under $6,000 Retail

[Nuance AH]

I've personally yet to hear a ribbon that sounded like music. They all sound edgy and amusical to me, only marginally superior to domes flush-mounted on 180deg waveguides ("flat baffles"), which sound universally horrid.

(True, I never have heard the Raals, but have heard LCY, Raven, Expolinear, Aurum Cantus, Apogee, and Fountek, as well as the Eton AMT and planers by HiVi/Expolinear, BG, and Eminent Technology.)

It's all in the application. A driver is just a driver until applied correctly. It sounds like the application you heard the ribbons in was a poor design. Of course, you might just simply not like them, and to each their own. My reference for determining what sounds like music is live music, and ribbons come closer to anything I've heard. As I said, though, it's all in the application.

Not to mention the vertical-axis problems endemic to line sources. Then again, I can actually hear to 18kHz or higher..

Do you listen standing up? Less vertical dispersion can be a good thing at times depending on the acoustics of the listening room. Toole's studies have shown that the floor and ceiling reflections are much more offensive than the lateral boundaries, and a ribbon helps limit those.

FWIW, the finest treble I've heard came from the Acapella Violon 2000's plasma-ion horn. Other tweeters I've loved include the Philips [edit - or is it the Philips-based Romanian one?] spiral planar Genesis used to use, the BMS 4590 in a 90x60 horn, Tannoys with the Tulip phase plug, and KEFs with the Tangerine phase plug.

Thanks for sharing.

I heard the old Vandy Model 5 in the same room as the old Tannoy D700 (10" Dual Concentric, 10" helper woofer, DMT cabinet with a beautiful cherry finish) once. It was amazing to me how poor the Vandy sounded in comparison, even though the room was designed around them.

To each their own. You're obviously biased towards what you own.

 

[MinusTheBear]

Take a guess how much this Speaker costs per Pair?

Does its FR Plot look bad, ok, good, or great?

That graph is specmanship at its finest. It's bogus. The scaling used is massive and look how smoothed the graph is? It's got some serious smoothing applied to it. Who knows what else they are not telling you? It doesn't tell you even what the frequency response is in reference too. No qualified engineer would use graphs like that when designing a speaker.

It's disappointing considering how Axiom touts "research and engineering" and all their equipment.

In no way shape or form will that graph tell you anything about what those speakers will sound like.

 

[Nuance AH]

I like this on-axis graph much better:

And 30 degrees off-axis:

I heard these guys at RMAF:

Not too shabby, but they are no Vandersteen 7's or Salk SoundScapes.

 

[DS-21]

It's all in the application.

Not really. There are physical limitations, too.

Of course, you might just simply not like them, and to each their own. My reference for determining what sounds like music is live music, and ribbons come closer to anything I've heard. As I said, though, it's all in the application.

You must mean live amplified music, because ribbons don't sound like live unamplified music.

I've been to the Musikverein, Philharmonie, Royal Concertgebouw, Royal Albert Hall, and many others. I've heard Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Simon Rattle, Loren Maazel, Michael Tilson Thomas, Claudio Abbado, Robert Shaw, and even, when I was a kid, Leonard Bernstein and Herbert van Karajan conduct. Ribbons spit out all of them.

There are four things to me that scream "canned music" louder than any other sonic flaw.

1) Crappy upper bass because the system doesn't employ multiple subwoofers to average out room modes.
2) Midrange bloom from poor design (directivity mismatch due to lack of directivity control on the tweeter at the bottom of its pass
3) The edgy sound (HOMs?) of diffraction horns in bad PA systems
4) And the edgy sound of a ribbon, which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like #3. Which makes sense, when you think about it, because the area around a ribbon is diffraction city.

Sorry.

Do you listen standing up?

Yes, sometimes. Which is why vertical polar response is important to me. Otherwise, admittedly, I might prefer an approach using a separate waveguide-loaded tweeter and large woofer.

To each their own. You're obviously biased towards what you own.

You actually have the causation chain exactly wrong. I heard the Tannoy D700's, compared to Vandersteen's well-regarded flagship at the time...and then I started buying Dual Concentrics. To that point, I actually had a dim opinion of Duals, but I later learned that was formed because the old Golds I disliked had Alnico magnets that needed a recharge.

 

[Nuance AH]

Not really. There are physical limitations, too.
You must mean live amplified music, because ribbons don't sound like live unamplified music.
.

Yes, yes they do (at least the quality ones in the proper application. You haven't heard the RAAL, so...). And yes, I meant live un-amplified music.

1) Crappy upper bass because the system doesn't employ multiple subwoofers to average out room modes.
2) Midrange bloom from poor design (directivity mismatch due to lack of directivity control on the tweeter at the bottom of its pass
3) The edgy sound (HOMs?) of diffraction horns in bad PA systems
4) And the edgy sound of a ribbon, which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like #3. Which makes sense, when you think about it, because the area around a ribbon is diffraction city.

Sorry.

Don't be sorry - you're just sharing your opinions based on your experiences. I actually agree with you on all points except the forth one. In fact, not even close on the forth one. You obviously hear very differently than I do (and many, many others). To each their own.

 

[DenPureSound]

Atlantic Technology AT-1: (No Go Here)...

Just finished the read on the AT-1 Loudspeaker .. the first thing that I like is the D'Appolito MTM design, and then the other nice factor is the cost at around $2500.00 per Pair.

OK so far, then comes the H-PAS Topology which facilitates using the smaller, quicker woofers w/o sacrificing the low-bass extension, as the F3 = 29 Hz. fine, actually pretty darn good for a pair of 5.25" cones.

Now, for the one downside that I was very recently caught upon when I had the Aperion VGT's here for their in-home Audition - that darn little Silk Dome Tweeter that they crossed over at 2kHz. and the VGT's crossed w/ their Silk ASR at 1.8kHz. -- again here w/ the review of the AT-1's they picked up on the same problem I experienced w/ the VGT's, and that is with this lower Xover frequency, the more energy that little small tweeter is asked to produce, and the greater chance (and they do) run out of excursion capability. They also picked apart the tweeter that it was not as airy or as extended as I'm used to hearing from his Revels, which just seemed like the exact definition of the VGT's problem that we just experienced here.

So, all is a no go here on the Atlantic Technology AT-1 Loudspeaker as well, in fact won't even be interested as it brought back last weeks terrible memory of what the Aperion VGT's sounded like on the higher end, and have no idea why a smoked glass panel was placed on the top inset of ea. speaker - we hate to clean glass (thanks again, but we have enough windows already to clean - and do not want that glass rattling on top of the enclosure either)!

 

[DenPureSound]

I like this on-axis graph much better:

And 30 degrees off-axis:

I heard these guys at RMAF:

Not too shabby, but they are no Vandersteen 7's or Salk SoundScapes.

Remember, we are in the LESS THAN $6K RETAIL Thread.

I don't think those are under $6K MSRP, are they, except the Phil 2/3's.

No doubt those graphs look lovely, but would like to see the Total Harmonic Distortion plots at reference levels? What are these specs = ? for the Phils, as I like to throw some serious power to mine once in a while also, and am certainly worried about Distortion Levels at higher dB SPL's.

Remember the KEF R900 is <0.4% at 90dB/1m from 80-20kHz.

 

[cschang]

Remember the KEF R900 is <0.4% at 90dB/1m from 80-20kHz.

Really? Where is the independent measurement on that?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Really? Where is the independent measurement on that?

That is a good point. I told DPS that as well. But where is the independent 3rd party measurements of the Ascend Sierra towers, Salk Soundscape, or Philharmonic speakers?

KEF, like Revel/Harman, have their own anechoic chambers. Not many people have anechoic chambers.

I bet it is very labor intensive and expensive to conduct all the THD, FR, & other speaker measurements, and most people don't have the resources or places to conduct all that.

Personally I'm not worried at all about THD on the Philharmonic, but DPS also has a valid point of wanting to know more information.

Personally, I care more about on-axis & off-axis FR & how the speakers sound.

DPS also asked me how do I even know how the Philharmonic sound?

Research, experience, and intuition is my answer.

 

[psbfan9]

DPS also asked me how do I even know how the Philharmonic sound?

Research, experience, and intuition is my answer.

Also knowing Dennis Murphy's background helps a little.

 

[cpp]

DPS also asked me how do I even know how the Philharmonic sound?

Research, experience, and intuition is my answer

That's pretty much how I think most view speakers, unless you got lots of money to throw at everything that comes along and then you wait for the NEXT best thing and then it starts all over again, and again.

 

[DS-21]

Yes, yes they do (at least the quality ones in the proper application. You haven't heard the RAAL, so...). And yes, I meant live un-amplified music.

No offense, but I think the chances that the RAAL is going to be heads and shoulders better than basically all the drivers are, though not quite nonzero, let's say far less than likely.

Remember, maybe about 5 years ago there was a giant internet hard-on for the LCY ribbons. Many people claimed they were just so much better than all the ones that came before. Well...those of us who listen to music rather than trends in audio parts found them to have the exact same flaws as the Ravens and Aurum Cantii and other such ribbons. (To be sure, others loved them, and likely still do. But given how many people do not seem to care about massive swings in the upper bass, or the inevitable midrange colorations from crossing a 6-7" mid woofer to a 1" tweeter mounted on a 180deg waveguide, that is not a persuasive argument to me. Low fidelity is, sadly, the overwhelming norm in "high end" audio.)

I actually agree with you on all points except the forth one. In fact, not even close on the forth one.

What's interesting, if you think about it - which I haven't until, well, yesterday, the most likely mechanism for the poor sound of diffraction horns - the use of diffraction to make the FR look prettier on paper* - is pequally present in ribbons.

Let's look at the latest fad ribbon, the RAAL.

Here, we see a ribbon radiating inside a chamber, and ahead of that, essentially, a sawtoothed diffraction slot leading to a waveguide (albeit a 180deg one that offers no meaningful control of the driver's directivity at the bottom of its passband).

In addition, there are other diffractive elements present close to the diaphragm, such as exposed and protruding screws.

*as a general rule, more modern waveguide designs that rely on conical or OS flares for directivity control, and also employ mechanisms to reduce diffraction such as large roundovers and foam in the mouth, lack the "horn sound" coloration so obvious in diffraction horns.

Remember, we are in the LESS THAN $6K RETAIL Thread.

I don't think those are under $6K MSRP, are they, except the Phil 2/3's.

Unless those are the Tannoy DC10T's, the Tannoys he showed were under 6k USD MSRP.

What are these specs = ? for the Phils, as I like to throw some serious power to mine once in a while also, and am certainly worried about Distortion Levels at higher dB SPL's.

Not only that, but also horizontal and vertical (the latter being less of an issue for some) polar response. As I wrote earlier, an on-axis measurement isn't terribly useful. One needs either more detailed polars, or a spatially-averaged sound power measurement. I suspect the horizontal polars will end up being as good as the driver configuration allows, because of Dr. Murphy's oft-demonstrated crossover design chops. The verticals will be lobey in the midrange and rolled off on top, but that's less important for many listeners. (And, with skill, lobes can be aimed to minimize their influence at the listening position.)

I also think your distortion concerns are warranted. I base that on listening to an earlier design with a planar that's perhaps cruder and probably crossed an octave lower but with easily 4x as much midrange radiating area, the Eminent Technology LFT-8. I thought at low volumes they sounded decent - better than most line arrays I've heard - but on a 250W/8Ω (I think - Bryston 4BST) amp the lower mids audibly compressed on dense fff Bruckner string assaults.

 

[lsiberian]

-Three subs of choice. One option, of course, would be to get cabinets to match one's new mains from the same artisan. Subwoofers are extremely easy to assemble. But I'm going to arbitrarily constrain the choice to currently-existing commercial products. To keep them looking the same, I'm going to go with one brand. That is, of course, totally unnecessary. The brand I picked is SVS, though others will do as well. For the main sub, one could look at the PB12-Plus. For the auxiliary subs, a pair of their Peerless XXLS12-based SB12NSD will be hard to top at $1360 shipped. (The main sub could be any number of things, but I know of no better current subwoofer value than the XXLS12-based SVS's.)
I've personally yet to hear a ribbon that sounded like music.

Not to mention the vertical-axis problems endemic to line sources. Then again, I can actually hear to 18kHz or higher..

Insufficient data. One single axial point tells us almost nothing. One needs to see detailed polars, or at least a decent spatially-averaged sound power measurement.

I think in an ideal world you would have 4 subs well placed, but 3 is pretty tough to get right IMO. I disagree that you need more than one sub for good bass response. Certainly exceptional response would require more, but the average person would be fine with a single great sub. Few have the kind of cash or spouse to invest in a multi-sub system.

On-axis can tell you plenty about how bad a speakers is. Of course off-axis and waterfall plots help a ton, but a measurement does tell us some things.

It's all in the application. A driver is just a driver until applied correctly. It sounds like the application you heard the ribbons in was a poor design.

I doubt that. Tweeters are not super dependent on design. Assuming they are mounted properly and crossed over high enough there is not much else to worry about. It is important to note that QA seems to be an issue for many ribbon manufacturers. The HiVi RTI has a 1/3 good yield. Of course the faceplate needs to be removed for it to actually give it's best performance.

That graph is specmanship at its finest. It's bogus. The scaling used is massive and look how smoothed the graph is? It's got some serious smoothing applied to it. Who knows what else they are not telling you? It doesn't tell you even what the frequency response is in reference too. No qualified engineer would use graphs like that when designing a speaker. It's disappointing considering how Axiom touts "research and engineering" and all their equipment.

That looks like a marketing graph. I doubt the engineer's used it, but a lot of companies smooth graphs.

I like this on-axis graph much better:

And 30 degrees off-axis:

Very nice.

Not really. There are physical limitations, too.
You must mean live amplified music, because ribbons don't sound like live unamplified music.

I've been to the Musikverein, Philharmonie, Royal Concertgebouw, Royal Albert Hall, and many others. I've heard Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Simon Rattle, Loren Maazel, Michael Tilson Thomas, Claudio Abbado, Robert Shaw, and even, when I was a kid, Leonard Bernstein and Herbert van Karajan conduct. Ribbons spit out all of them.

There are four things to me that scream "canned music" louder than any other sonic flaw.

1) Crappy upper bass because the system doesn't employ multiple subwoofers to average out room modes.
2) Midrange bloom from poor design (directivity mismatch due to lack of directivity control on the tweeter at the bottom of its pass
3) The edgy sound (HOMs?) of diffraction horns in bad PA systems
4) And the edgy sound of a ribbon, which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like #3. Which makes sense, when you think about it, because the area around a ribbon is diffraction city.

You do seem to be strongly opposed to Ribbons. We all have preferences. Just realize it's likely your strong preference. I do wonder if a blind test might change the outcome of the tests. I'm sure you've given it a go.

 

[MinusTheBear]

How are those measurements taken. Since it cut's off at 200hz, it doesn't look like it is shot in an anechoic chamber (yes I know the room will really dominate below that and most chambers are not totally accurate below 100hz ).

Those measurements are also taken at 75db which is on the low end. It would be nice to see the frequency response and perhaps the THD plot at a higher sweep level.

I remember Gene mentioning a speaker that was bottoming out at 75db like at 12 feet away. So those measurements alone (not knowing the speaker)don't tell you the whole story either especially leaves questions if one is looking for some serious HT speakers.

 

[lsiberian]

How are those measurements taken. Since it cut's off at 200hz, it doesn't look like it is shot in an anechoic chamber (yes I know the room will really dominate below that and most chambers are not totally accurate below 100hz ).

Those measurements are also taken at 75db which is on the low end. It would be nice to see the frequency response and perhaps the THD plot at a higher sweep level.

I remember Gene mentioning a speaker that was bottoming out at 75db like at 12 feet away. So those measurements alone (not knowing the speaker)don't tell you the whole story either especially leaves questions if one is looking for some serious HT speakers.

You are right that they don't tell the whole story. A speaker bottoming out at 75 db is dreadful. I do wish we'd get 105 db plot with distortion, off-axis response and waterfall graphs. I just don't see companies doing it. I probably wouldn't do it. People would dismiss any measurements I put up anyway. claiming bias or doctoring. I'd rather send my speaker of to Gene.

 

[Nuance AH]

I doubt that. Tweeters are not super dependent on design. Assuming they are mounted properly and crossed over high enough there is not much else to worry about. It is important to note that QA seems to be an issue for many ribbon manufacturers. The HiVi RTI has a 1/3 good yield. Of course the faceplate needs to be removed for it to actually give it's best performance.

You probably understand more about this stuff than I, but doesn't the implementation effect diffraction and what not? I know the RAAL is also padded down in some applications, which I assume was done for reasons related to audible sound quality. Oh, and my comment was more general regarding all drivers when I said it's all in the implementation (especially the crossover). I should have clarified that, as we were talking about ribbons so it was probably confusing.

You do seem to be strongly opposed to Ribbons. We all have preferences. Just realize it's likely your strong preference. I do wonder if a blind test might change the outcome of the tests. I'm sure you've given it a go.

I agree. In my opinion his bias is influencing him; it's obvious he has an agenda because he clearly hates ribbons. I bet there's no way he hears "diffraction" off the mounting screws of the RAAL ribbon in a blind test.

 

[Nuance AH]

How are those measurements taken. Since it cut's off at 200hz, it doesn't look like it is shot in an anechoic chamber (yes I know the room will really dominate below that and most chambers are not totally accurate below 100hz ).

Those measurements are also taken at 75db which is on the low end. It would be nice to see the frequency response and perhaps the THD plot at a higher sweep level.

I remember Gene mentioning a speaker that was bottoming out at 75db like at 12 feet away. So those measurements alone (not knowing the speaker)don't tell you the whole story either especially leaves questions if one is looking for some serious HT speakers.

75dB seems to be the standard level for measuring; I don't know why. As for the 200Hz limit, it's because they are quasi-anechoic in-room measurements, so you pretty much answered your own question when you mentioned the room dominating the FR below the Schroeder Frequency range. You can find the rest of the measurements here.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

We may end up with a few dream speakers.

I will be more certain after I get my philharmonic 3.

But if I were to go out on a limb, I would dare say that all of the dream speakers sound really, really amazing. Crystal clear & detailed sound with lifelike resolution. Smooth, dynamic, yet not fatiguing. Extreme accuracy. And it would be very difficult to objectively say that only one is best above all.

So we really only need one pair of dream speakers. Other dream speakers are out there with different drivers, different cabinets, different crossovers, different technology, but they won't sound significantly better if they are actually objectively better at all.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

No offense, but I think the chances that the RAAL is going to be heads and shoulders better than basically all the drivers are, though not quite nonzero, let's say far less than likely.

I agree. There are more than one great driver out there. There are more than one great speaker out there. One thing is for certain is that all the great drivers, XO, speakers will sound absolutely fantastic; they will sound as close to real life sound as possible.

 

[Swerd]

How are those measurements taken. Since it cut's off at 200hz, it doesn't look like it is shot in an anechoic chamber (yes I know the room will really dominate below that and most chambers are not totally accurate below 100hz ).

Those measurements are also taken at 75db which is on the low end. It would be nice to see the frequency response and perhaps the THD plot at a higher sweep level.

Those measurements were taken in Dennis Murphy's basement, definitely not an anechoic chamber. The software he uses allows selecting a low cutoff to the graph at a few defined frequencies, such as 200 Hz.

Don't try to extract too much information from FR graphs as these. They are meant to show a smooth level of frequency response across the audible spectrum, with the exception of sound below 200 Hz. And it does that rather well. The absolute values of the vertical axis are less important than the relative response across the audio spectrum. It does not say anything about the sensitivity of the speakers, or THD, or anything else.

To properly determine a speaker's measured sensitivity, one would have to have a source of sound with a known loudness level. This might have to be certified by an outside authority if it would have any validity. What would that cost?

There are good reasons why a FR curve is measured somewhere in the middle of a speaker's loudness range, and not at one extreme or the other. It has as much to do with the measurement gear and the room as the speaker being tested.