Alsyvox planars...prepare to sell your Magico's, YG's, Wilson's, Cessaro's. Maggie's, and all others!!

[DaveyF]

Alsyvox planars...prepare to sell your Magico's, YG's, Wilson's, Cessaro's. Maggie's, and all others!!

Maybe Cessaro should not be on the heading of this thread. It is already a non contender crappy sounding horn by most .

Tang

LOL.

 

[Zero000]

I e-mailed them last night.

There is no US dealer/distributor. If you want to hear them, then you can in Valencia, Spain, in their showrooms.

Another option is next years Hi-Fi Deluxe in Munich.

So pretty limited options for someone in the UK or the US.

Enigmatically limited at present, then. Easy to make a legend of. Will they survive at those prices, though, with such limited marketing?

 

[Gregadd]

Planars are just so much better than boxes. Did I read someone was complaining about an $80k price tag?

 

[Al M.]

Planars are just so much better than boxes.

Depends.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Planars are just so much better than boxes. Did I read someone was complaining about an $80k price tag?

what I said was "missing weight of images for $80k"........as the ante increases so does expectations. I also said "but i'd need to spend more time to get a better handle".

hey, it sounds 'like a planar'. that's my perception of how they sound based on my limited exposure. my experience is that 'musical magic for the dollar' a planar is hard to beat. but there are certainly 'but's'.

 

[Jazzhead]

what I said was "missing weight of images for $80k"........as the ante increases so does expectations. I also said "but i'd need to spend more time to get a better handle".

hey, it sounds 'like a planar'. that's my perception of how they sound based on my limited exposure. my experience is that 'musical magic for the dollar' a planar is hard to beat. but there are certainly 'but's'.

Sense as always , as they say here .. Guru !

 

[Ki Choi]

One of the challenges I had when I had the Maggies, was the 7" tall cellos and violins... How did the size of the instrument imaging work on then?

 

[Gregadd]

Sounding like a planar, without getting into semantics, is a compliment. Sounding like a box...that could go either way.

 

[DonH50]

Don, I believe that the Alsyvox’s are true ribbons.

Thanks, that is what I thought from the pictures but it's hard (for me,anyway) to tell.

 

[gshelley]

This room was the only room that drew me back for additional listening. They really sounded quite nice.

 

[jeff1225]

Alsyvox planars...prepare to sell your Magico's, YG's, Wilson's, Cessaro's. Maggie's, and all others!!

Maybe Cessaro should not be on the heading of this thread. It is already a non contender crappy sounding horn by most .

Tang

I wouldn't worry too much about the list Tang, Sonus Faber was left conspicuously off it.

 

[Gregadd]

Mike-I hope it was obvious I am conducting I campaign in favor of planars. That is as oppsed to stating any absolute doctrine. The costf of making an inert box can represent a very steep curve. In respect to the claim planars make "seven" foot voices, I find a line source does an excellent job of constructing images and soundstage. BTW it has been argued that cone speakers cannot recreate height. Nothing is perfect.

 

[PeterA]

One of the challenges I had when I had the Maggies, was the 7" tall cellos and violins... How did the size of the instrument imaging work on then?

That would be a deal breaker for me.

 

[Al M.]

That would be a deal breaker for me.

For me too.

 

[microstrip]

Well, cellos and violins are not 7" tall in Soundlab's ... They are not pinpoint like mini monitors, and if poorly set-up can easily sound bigger than life, but they sound great in chamber music.

 

[microstrip]

Mike-I hope it was obvious I am conducting I campaign in favor of planars. That is as oppsed to stating any absolute doctrine. The costf of making an inert box can represent a very steep curve. In respect to the claim planars make "seven" foot voices, I find a line source does an excellent job of constructing images and soundstage. BTW it has been argued that cone speakers cannot recreate height. Nothing is perfect.

Height is as add on in stereo reproduction. Although we can easily manipulate the perceived height of the sound image, differential height (instruments and voices having different height is a very polemic subject) . Many people associate these differences to the heights of different units in speakers - this only happens when there is a poor integration due to bad design or set-up. In order to debate height we have first to analyze how humans perceive height of a sound source.

I remember we had a great thread on this subject some years ago!

 

[Al M.]

Well, cellos and violins are not 7" tall in Soundlab's ... They are not pinpoint like mini monitors, and if poorly set-up can easily sound bigger than life, but they sound great in chamber music.

They shouldn't be pinpoint.

 

[the sound of Tao]

For me too.

For me three... if mine did this I’d not accept it... but I’ve still got them. Over the years I’ve heard such large variability in setups between Maggie systems. A good friend who has had virtually every iteration since well forever often likens them to scalpels the way they cut through to what’s happening in your system and reveal the smallest of changes in setup.

For guys like you Al and Peter that enjoy optimising they would respond exactly as you set them up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not claiming they are perfect but the mentioned issue of overscale images is a problem of system rather than inherent in the speakers... mine scale and image beautifully, and in terms of sonics are very faithful. They certainly won’t hide problems though so the issue for me is that unlike my Harbeth 40.2s they don’t really show their best unless you’ve set them up exactly.

 

[DonH50]

The only time I've had 7' violins was with Bose 901's and their ilk... Impressive-sounding, but the image was a disaster.

Panels act like line sources above their bass transition frequency, thus over most of the upper bass/lower midrange and up, so imaging should be fine. Arguably better than boxes since vertical dispersion is not such a problem, and they radiate little from the sides and top/bottom so are less sensitive to sidewall and floor/ceiling reflections. If not, I would suspect the room and speaker placement. One point where I diverge from many is that I tend to heavily dampen the wall behind planer dipoles. That sacrifices some "spaciousness" by killing the back wave but provides much more precise imaging. Space then comes more from the recording than the room. It's a personal thing. The few times I have had a nice large room from my Maggies, and could them them well away from the wall behind, I found much less if any rear treatment was needed. Alas, that has not been the case for a while (and I am not running Maggies now but conventional boxy boxes but they still sound OK to me).

 

[Gregadd]

(") denotes inches. (') denotes feet.
IMO poor height was the the result of poor dispersion tweeters and mid range drivers. As speeakers improved so did their ability to "produce height.