Nola Concert Grands

[Elliot G.]

Micro

Funny sometimes you just never know. In my last house I had built a separate little house specifically for my audio. I had the help of Jeff Rowland, carefully measured sound treated etc. It did sound very good.

When I moved I, no dedicated room just a big 24x30 room with 10 foot ceilings on my second floor with minimal sound treatment and I never expected much. It is one of the best rooms I have heard. I am tweaking it just a little but sometimes luck is great.

you have to admit the Nola's ( except for the weight) are much easier to set up than some of the other speakers. I find them very straight-forward in the ease of set up compared to many SOTA contenders. this is not to say one cant hear differences but rather to say its really easy to get them positioned in a good spot and if you try get them NAILED/LOCKED in dead nuts perfect.

 

[Priaptor]

you have to admit the Nola's ( except for the weight) are much easier to set up than some of the other speakers. I find them very straight-forward in the ease of set up compared to many SOTA contenders. this is not to say one cant hear differences but rather to say its really easy to get them positioned in a good spot and if you try get them NAILED/LOCKED in dead nuts perfect.

First I don't have "to admit" anything

But yes they are pretty easy to setup BUT if you want to move them to try different locations it is not an easy chore.

 

[Shaffer]

First I don't have "to admit" anything

But yes they are pretty easy to setup BUT if you want to move them to try different locations it is not an easy chore.

Out of curiosity, they don't respond well to being "walked," ie. shifting the center of gravity from corner to corner, as to make the process much easier? That's what I used to do with my old Dunlavy SCVs.

 

[jap]

NOLA Micro Grand Reference Gold Loudspeaker Review By Ron Nagle

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superi...a_gicro_grand_reference_gold _loudspeaker.htm

 

[Priaptor]

Out of curiosity, they don't respond well to being "walked," ie. shifting the center of gravity from corner to corner, as to make the process much easier? That's what I used to do with my old Dunlavy SCVs.

No.

Carl has an isolation platform with 4 ball bearings that the speaker sits on and the platform has 4 spikes so "nudging" is not going to work.

You could listen to find the closest location without the platform and then place the speaker on the platform in the location you find best but I like to hear the speaker at its designed height as it is an array.

What I found works best is a belt with two shoulder harnesses that you use to move furniture with and with two people you can move the speaker where it needs to go in either large or small increments. It works pretty good for a speaker of this size and weight

 

[Elliot G.]

First I don't have "to admit" anything

But yes they are pretty easy to setup BUT if you want to move them to try different locations it is not an easy chore.

Excuse me...... I forgot who I was talking too

 

[Carl]

Caesar,

The reasons we use enclosures for bass are many.
An open baffle woofer would have to be about 25 ft wide to radiate 20 Hz effectively. You could use Electronic EQ to boost the bass in order to compensate for the severe roll off of the dipole cancellation.
So if you were talking even a 15" width to the baffle, you may need 100 times the power at 20 Hz fed to the driver compared to its upper response. Remember woofers play a good part of the mid range , not just bass. In our case, up to 400 Hz. This is about 1 octave above middle C on a piano--hardly bass. So even if you have all this power and eq available, now you must use a large heavy duty bass drivers-say 15 " with a moving mass say 250 grams that can handle the power. The woofers in the Concert Grand have a moving mass of only 7 grams!
I for one do not care for mid range being reproduced by a large heavy, slow driver like this. Forget nuance and detail as the inertia of the driver is too much.
It is like bringing a Mac Fire Truck to an F1 race. So, this is not for me as we are all about capturing the "aliveness" of music and the emotional involvement that comes with it. So a carefully tweaked design of low mass woofers in an enclosure operating to 400 Hz is a much better path to our goals.
In the end it is all about the music.
Cheers
Cheers

 

[MylesBAstor]

 

[LL21]

Cool photo, Myles...thanks for posting. Any feedback on how this system sounds? Comparisons with Genesis are inevitable...and any comments to that end are also welcome.

 

[Elliot G.]

View attachment 14246

what are you trying to say there Myles its a little to obtuse for me to understand?

 

[MylesBAstor]

what are you trying to say there Myles its a little to obtuse for me to understand?

Nothing other than showing a pic of Carl's speakers in action.

 

[Elliot G.]

Nothing other than showing a pic of Carl's speakers in action.

thanks for the clarification, i thought the words beneath were part of the picture and it didn't make sense to me.
I only heard the four column speakers at Lyric many moons ago.

 

[LL21]

thanks for the clarification, i thought the words beneath were part of the picture and it didn't make sense to me.
I only heard the four column speakers at Lyric many moons ago.

How did they sound? Any comparison to any of the other SOTA speakers out there? Most curious.

 

[Elliot G.]

How did they sound? Any comparison to any of the other SOTA speakers out there? Most curious.

I have not heard the newest version of the 4 piece system however I have heard the Concert Grand Golds at length a few times at a friends home. The system is just glorious! this speaker has a level of transparency that runs the entire spectrum of the music. Most speakers do it in certain areas but fail at one or both of the extremes. The bass is never fast and clear enough to make a seamless envelope for the music to be there. The CCG are as good or better at this than anything else I have heard. I dont say this lightly. I think that there are three speaker systems I ahve heard at length and in good spaces that have blown me away. This speaker is the first one I have heard in a "normal" room that that makes me want to forget about everything but listening to the music. I have heard great sound at HP's, I have heard great sound in the Transparent rooms and I think I have produced some great sound in my ex store's from time to time however my impressions of the CGG are they are truly something really special and at my friends they are special and on the way to becoming magical when we get he time to make a few minor adjustment to the seating space and placement. They are at this time really wonderful to immerse yourself in and they play everything, large scale classical and rock and small groups and solo instruments are are never out of line in size or scope.
I wish i could afford them!

 

[LL21]

Well...that certainly is a strong endorsement! Now guess I gotta find a way to hear them...exactly what are the proportions of the ones in the speakers? about 6 feet tall each tower? If so, at least they are shorter than a lot of 4-tower speakers which can be as tall as 7'2" or more...

 

[MylesBAstor]

I have not heard the newest version of the 4 piece system however I have heard the Concert Grand Golds at length a few times at a friends home. The system is just glorious! this speaker has a level of transparency that runs the entire spectrum of the music. Most speakers do it in certain areas but fail at one or both of the extremes. The bass is never fast and clear enough to make a seamless envelope for the music to be there. The CCG are as good or better at this than anything else I have heard. I dont say this lightly. I think that there are three speaker systems I ahve heard at length and in good spaces that have blown me away. This speaker is the first one I have heard in a "normal" room that that makes me want to forget about everything but listening to the music. I have heard great sound at HP's, I have heard great sound in the Transparent rooms and I think I have produced some great sound in my ex store's from time to time however my impressions of the CGG are they are truly something really special and at my friends they are special and on the way to becoming magical when we get he time to make a few minor adjustment to the seating space and placement. They are at this time really wonderful to immerse yourself in and they play everything, large scale classical and rock and small groups and solo instruments are are never out of line in size or scope.
I wish i could afford them!

Quit wasting time on here and get to work!

 

[Elliot G.]

Quit wasting time on here and get to work!

wrong industry to make that kind of scratch

 

[Elliot G.]

the dimensions are on the Nola site I dont know them other than they are heavy and reasonably large

 

[Priaptor]

Well...that certainly is a strong endorsement! Now guess I gotta find a way to hear them...exactly what are the proportions of the ones in the speakers? about 6 feet tall each tower? If so, at least they are shorter than a lot of 4-tower speakers which can be as tall as 7'2" or more...

LL21

They are "big" physically but not like other speakers in sonically. The speakers literally disappear. I have let many neophytes listen and not one believe the music is coming from the speakers. They point to the traps, etc.

Those who are audiophiles and come to listen are astounded that these "huge" speakers can disappear as they do and present the image they do and I like a relative nearfield so even though physically large listening to them is a much different experience than most other large speakers.

My X1s never gave me this intimacy or came close to the transparency and full range coherence.

 

[LL21]

LL21

They are "big" physically but not like other speakers in sonically. The speakers literally disappear. I have let many neophytes listen and not one believe the music is coming from the speakers. They point to the traps, etc.

Those who are audiophiles and come to listen are astounded that these "huge" speakers can disappear as they do and present the image they do and I like a relative nearfield so even though physically large listening to them is a much different experience than most other large speakers.

My X1s never gave me this intimacy or came close to the transparency and full range coherence.

Thank you! Very very interesting. In terms of scale...when playing a 20-piece ensemble or even a 4-piece band...what would you say the differences in life-life effortlessness and scale are between your X1s and these Nolas?

When hearing Genesis 1.1s...my immediate reaction was that I felt like my X1s would be Sashas to Alexias in comparison. Similar reaction for Arrakis 2...obviously a direct shootout would be required with a long audition period to be sure, but in all the years, times and rooms I have heard X1/X2/XLF, I have never anything remotely like the big Genesis 1s or even the Arrakis 2.