Roger Russell's new loudspeakers

[highfihoney]

A bunch of 1 driver = gimmick.

SheepStar

The problem with reading vs 1st hand listening experience is that it creates a false air of knowlege,you have not one single clue as to what you spew.

Were not talking amplifier measurements,this is a speaker design that needs to be heard in person before ignorant comments are made,ive heard them twice & they are astounding.

 

[highfihoney]

That's not quite what I said is it? I said critique till you're blue in the face, but drawing conclusions or passing judgement without any direct experience is just foolish.

Exactly right,if i was not in love with my current speakers which are a Roger Russell design i'd seriously consider his new Array's for my main system,it's silly for internet wise audio buffs to ignorantly bash a speaker design without ever hearing it, let alone an Array design comming from one of the fore fathers of Line Array speakers.

 

[dorokusai]

I'd really like to hear them since line arrays have been hit or miss for me over the years. Roger is a very nice guy and his experience speaks volumes. I may not agree with some of his views but who cares....its just audio.

Mark

 

[fredk]

I may not agree with some of his views but who cares....its just audio.

Moderator!! Burn, I mean ban him!!

 

[cornelius]

Exactly right,if i was not in love with my current speakers which are a Roger Russell design i'd seriously consider his new Array's for my main system,it's silly for internet wise audio buffs to ignorantly bash a speaker design without ever hearing it, let alone an Array design comming from one of the fore fathers of Line Array speakers.

I'd really like to hear them since line arrays have been hit or miss for me over the years. Roger is a very nice guy and his experience speaks volumes. I may not agree with some of his views but who cares....its just audio.

I think that sums it up...

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I think it's worth listening to because it looks very interesting.

But are they trying to be like DefTech and just quote a frequency response of 20Hz - 20kHz without a tolerance (like +/- 3dB)?

I just don't see how it could even come close to 30Hz without a single woofer like the Mac XRT2K.

Wait. McIntosh doesn't even list the tolerance either on their mighty speakers! They say the XRT2K (six 12" woofers) will go down to 10Hz, but what's the tolerance?

Is that +/-15dB, +/-10dB, +/-6dB, or +/-3dB?

Hey, Sheep, do you hate McIntosh and all companies (DefTech, etc.) that don't list the Tolerance of their speakers response?

 

[JerryLove]

Wait. McIntosh doesn't even list the tolerance either on their mighty speakers! They say the XRT2K (six 12" woofers) will go down to 10Hz, but what's the tolerance?

Is that +/-15dB, +/-10dB, +/-6dB, or +/-3dB?

Hey, Sheep, do you hate McIntosh and all companies (DefTech, etc.) that don't list the Tolerance of their speakers response?

Roger Russell, IIRC, actually mentions not likeing that reporting on his website. I forget if he offered a particular reason (and it's a big site, so I'm not going back to fact-check myself)

I do hope he comes to Orlando. I'm planning on attenting myself and would love for these speakers to perform as advertized.

 

[bandphan]

rogers reply

here is Rogers reply to an email exchange we had....

Hi Scott:

I enjoyed reading the forum and understand the doubts of some of the participants. I would recommend reading my page on my experience with column systems . In addition, I would recommend reading my articles in audioXpress magazine listed on the page shown below. That includes my first system using cheap 69 cent TV drivers and the second system using high quality drivers. An even later article on how we hear and how the ear works is also listed there and might be of interest..

http://www.roger-russell.com/columns/columns.htm

http://www.roger-russell.com/articles.htm

I think the hardest part is getting over the bias of using lots of small drivers to get any bass. However, it is easy to verify using a real time analyzer. I can play Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon with the 25 Hz heartbeats, pick up the sound with a microphone, and show there is really plenty of acoustic output in the 25 Hz band.

For some it is still "How can this be??" There is no magic--just acoustic principles.

.Kudos to the person who heard the system. This is the only way to know what the system sounds like and eliminate all the words that do not convey the sound very well. Words and meanings are a poor way to communicate.

You or anyone else are welcome to come and hear the systems either in the Orlando, FL area or in the Detroit, MI area. I have the prototypes in FL. My partner has the production systems in MI.

One final comment. I sold my triple column XR290s in favor of the IDS-25. Why? Because they are more accurate.

Roger
Longwood, FL

 

[dorokusai]

That's something cool I noticed about Roger....he's very approachable and he definitly reads his email. I had some pleasant exchanges with him some time ago regarding cables and cable theory and it couldn't have been better.

Mark
Polk Audio CS

 

[highfihoney]

That's something cool I noticed about Roger....he's very approachable and he definitly reads his email. I had some pleasant exchanges with him some time ago regarding cables and cable theory and it couldn't have been better.

Mark
Polk Audio CS

Agreed,you can look high & low but you'll not find a more down to earth & generally friendly person on this planet of ours,Ive spoken via email exchange with Roger several times over the years about a few of the speakers i own that were his design while he was at Mcintosh & each time he helped me,pretty dammed nice for a guy who has not made one red cent from Mcintosh related sales in many years but i guess that what guy's with gimmicks are all about.

I'll have to dissagree with Roger on choice of reference speakers,the IDS may be more accurate but the 290's have an in your face presentation that has yet to be matched by any speaker ive ever heard,including the new Mac speaker line.

People should show some common decency when refering to a man who has proven for many decades that he is not a gimmicky designer.

 

[R-Carpenter]

Sheep is right. The thread is two years old. This is the driver. Since Tymphany bought Vifa, the driver in question has been in short supply. It is a most unimpressive driver.

http://www.tymphany.com/files/products/pdf/TG9FD-10-04.pdf

When available it can be bought for $29 each full retail. I would bet they can be had in quantity at about $20 or less. So there is about $800 worth of drivers in a pair of speakers. Those speakers will be quite impossible to EQ in the bass. You can drive them as hard as you want, all you will get will be distortion.

Either way you can't possibly justify a price of $17,000!

Basically you could go out and buy 48 car or TV speakers of the same size, build the cabinets and have the same result.

Unfortunately there have been few decent full range drivers. The best have been designed by Ted Jordan. He was responsible at least for the genesis of the Jordan Watts module, his drivers produced by EJ Jordan designs, and the Bandor range.
........................................................................................................
Agreed, however, I've measured some Jordans and Bandors. Less then impressive I must say.

Let's ask ourself a question: Why are line array speakers out there? What are the benefits?
Polar response and low distortion at a high SPL are the 2 things that come to my mind.
In this particular case if you inspect each individual driver's FR and X-max, claims of a low bass become somewhat nuisance. If each individual driver has , hmmm say a 6 db deep at 3khz for example, summing up a 8 of this drivers, will not make the deep disappear. It's true that 8 or 16 3.5inch drivers can reproduce 25hz tone but at -? db to the rest of FR? EQ the speaker can make sense to some extend, however, non linear and intermodulation distortion will become more problematic with the higher amount of EQ applied.
I am sure this speakers sound nice. This many drivers, applied properly should do some magic but at 17k there's a stiff competition out there. I'd take MG20 or Audio Physics over R's any day, but I am biased I don't like line array and I build my own.

 

[itschris]

btw - I'm almost angry with envy. I've been going back and forth on the Tosh for awhile. I think at some point, I'll finally just pull the trigger. I just got back into the game and bought a bunch of stuff, so I'll wait awhile... but not too long.

Nice gear HighFi!!!

 

[krabapple]

That's not quite what I said is it? I said critique till you're blue in the face, but drawing conclusions or passing judgement without any direct experience is just foolish.

But all 'direct experience' is not trustworthy either, and we {I]can[/I] make predictions of perceived sound quality just from measurements. Olive and Toole's work on loudspeaker preference showed pretty well that when people 'know' the brand, price, finish, or reputation of what loudspeaker they're listening to, it influences how good they think it sounds. But when they don't have that information, and have to depend only on what they hear, they tend to prefer loudspeakers that share certain measurable qualities (e.g., good dispersion characteristics).

That means that we can predict, even without 'direct experience' ourselves, that if Russell's design doesn't 'measure well' in these areas, then listeners would tend to rate them less well than loudspeakers that do, in blind comparisons.

 

[Richard-TX]

Those speakers will be quite impossible to EQ in the bass. You can drive them as hard as you want, all you will get will be distortion.

You are wrong. Go measure them and listen to them.

...I am biased I don't like line array ...

hmmmm

 

[Matt34]