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

Ron Resnick

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Come on guys!

. . .

Each audio gear has pros and cons.

Also they are heavily dependent on space and ancillary gears.

Both Alsyvox and Magico have excellent potential for good sound.

It is up to the users.


. . .

+1
 
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Ron Resnick

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It is the notorious sound of ribbons cavity resonance.

Now even I am confused, and I love ribbon speakers. See the new thread on "shimmer."
 

morricab

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Justin, this is interesting. Maybe you could please start a new thread describing your preference on this and why you prefer it and how you went about achieving it.

So you prefer a recessed midrange and a flat treble range?
3-8Khz is treble, not midrange.
 

morricab

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Many people report excellent sound in Magico setups in many rooms - we could think that if you missed them all it has some particular meaning - the more logical seems to be you probably do not enjoy the type of sound and magic Magico wants to transmit.
I guess I am in that category because my experience mirrors User211s...
 

morricab

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Been to Munich heard them both. People here seem to be discovering planars for the first time?? They have their strengths, they always did, but they have their weakness. None had changed with the Alsyvox. Perhaps the aging population of audiophiles can ignore the shimmering better, but I am not there yet, I can assure you that if measured, the top will be tilted big time (couldn’t stay in the room for more than 2 min – btw, I can hear that in the videos posted here by Rhapsody as well, not the way music sounds to me). Most of the Magico rooms in Munich were setup reasonably fine, the M6 in the Soulution was the best I have heard. Don’t see the point of arguing the setups; people have different priorities and can ignore major sound quality issues. I am on my 3rd pair of Magico, nothing complicated about setup, you just need to be precise.
Being tilted up can be remedied in the crossover and sometimes with the choice of electronics. I think what you mean by shimmer is what most would refer to as being "bright", no? I heard them and thought they sounded really excellent despite what I think is not the right electronics to allow the best from a ribbon speaker. I am not a newby to the ribbon/stat world as I have owned Apogees, Infinity IRS Betas, Bohlender Graebner planars, AudioStatic, Stax and Acoustat planar speakers. Had many friends with many Apogee models (from the smallest to the Grand). Ribbons sound a helluva lot like what you feed them. If they sound bright, then your electronics and/or your room need addressing. I would be surprised if the actual FR of the Alsyvox are heavily tilted to the highs but the transmission of distortions in the highs can definitely make something sound brighter.
 

morricab

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I play the classical guitar. Apogee, Alsyvox, and electrostats are the best in reproducing the classical guitar and vocals to my ear. I get it. You don't like ribbons. But being so dogmatic won't convince anyone, no matter how many times you repeat your views.

BTW, do you know of a ribbon driver that doesn't use metal?
Having owned a lot of planars types/models...I would agree...they get classical instruments right...but only when you put really great electronics on them...otherwise they can sound thin and weak.
 
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morricab

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Yes, Magico can be difficult to set up, and they are transparent to the source. In many cases alas this means crap in, crap out. I have recently heard Magico M Project speakers at a friend's house, and though he has had them for years they have never sounded so good, not even close. So it can take time. My recent encounter with those speakers impressed the hell out of me, and I found them musically incredibly engaging and enjoyable. Terrific, lifelike tonality, tremendous dynamics. Yes, many would find this unbelievable, but here it is.

But my own Reference 3A Reflector speakers also sound incomparably better in my system now than a year ago.

So no, I am not surprised at all that a bunch of hastily set-up Magico speakers in some suboptimal rooms in Munich failed to impress.
All systems at shows are hastily setup...what does this imply about Magico importers/dealers? You think 94db ribbons or 100+db horns are somehow LESS revealing to the source than 90db (or so) box speakers of the room/source etc.? I have heard too many demos of Magico to count (shows and the dealer in Zürich...who used to get great sound at shows with Odeon and Einstein or Living Voice and Einstein) that disappointed. The ones that didn't was the old Magico M1 (wooden box with the older drivers) and Spectral amps...that wasn't bad at all. It didn't feel so damped down. The other was their huge horn system...but this is something completely other than a Magico box...telling their absolute reference is a huge and massively expensive horn though...
 
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morricab

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Unfortunately the tittle has poisoned the thread and has boosted personal attacks and comments on users and other brands, not on the speakers being considered. There is a lot that can be debated on planar speakers versus box speakers without denigrating specific brands, IMHO this thread is currently specializing in criticizing people preferences, not on the gear.

There is physics associated to a planar wave leaving a planar speaker and it always sound very different from a point like box speaker. Unfortunately we have very little technical details on the Alsyvox , we can not even compare it technically with other similar planars. All that is left is saying they are the "best" ...

BTW, I own and appreciate XLF's and Soundlab A1 Px's - very different sounding and both very enjoyable speakers. I could happily live with any one of them, but currently the Soundlab's are hibernating in a dark room ...

And you don't think about which one sounds more like the real thing? You just sometimes have the box speaker bug and sometimes the planar speaker bug...?? To me, one will clearly sound more realistic with live, unamplified music than the other...
 
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microstrip

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And you don't think about which one sounds more like the real thing? You just sometimes have the box speaker bug and sometimes the planar speaker bug...?? To me, one will clearly sound more realistic with live, unamplified music than the other...

IMHO differences from the real thing are one order of magnitude higher than the differences between types of speakers. The process of recording creates a different reality, mainly in order to compensate for the absence of real emotional and visual stimulus and the technical limitations of the stereo system. No speaker is perfect and I react differently to Soundlab's and XLF's - each has a different way of sounding real.

Considering top systems, in the end it is our experience with real, preference and mental capability of filling the gaps and "re-arranging" the recording that determines what we find more realistic.

Surely the WAMM sounded much more real than any other I have listened, but I have no experience with similar price horns or planars ... Will you consider I have the box speaker bug? ;)
 

gwalt

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And you don't think about which one sounds more like the real thing? You just sometimes have the box speaker bug and sometimes the planar speaker bug...?? To me, one will clearly sound more realistic with live, unamplified music than the other...

YEA something so simple that makes so much sense.
It's why I own the Alsyvox. More simple than all the technical details......and I can drive them with many different amplifiers. Choose the gear you think sounds more like the source you prefer......simple as that. No one but you knows that best.
 
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Zero000

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Justin, this is interesting. Maybe you could please start a new thread describing your preference on this and why you prefer it and how you went about achieving it.

So you prefer a recessed midrange and a flat treble range?

It simply became apparent to me that I didn't like the Apogee stock Duetta crossover because it did not compensate for a 3.2 KHz bump in the frequency response that occurs when you sit in the hotspot.

Pulling this out using digital PEQ improved the sound. So I decided to work out how to mod the circuit using a program called XSim to apply a notch.

I implemented that using cheap xover components and messed around with different values until I liked what I heard by ear. That's a really time consuming process as you have to listen to a lot of material to decide if on average you like the response.

The dip is really mild Ron only hitting a max of 2.5 DB the average is way less over the range I discussed.

But the stock response of the Duetta can be bloody hard work on the ear as you get bombarded with resolution that can be hard to cope with due to the 3.2KHz peak.

Once happy I reconstructed the crossover using better quality bits. Path Audio resistors, for instance.

The frequency response of speakers varies a lot Ron. I wouldn't say what I have is a recessed mid range compared to a lot of speakers. If you look at the plot it is very flat compared to many speakers.
 

Zero000

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Being tilted up can be remedied in the crossover and sometimes with the choice of electronics. I think what you mean by shimmer is what most would refer to as being "bright", no? I heard them and thought they sounded really excellent despite what I think is not the right electronics to allow the best from a ribbon speaker. I am not a newby to the ribbon/stat world as I have owned Apogees, Infinity IRS Betas, Bohlender Graebner planars, AudioStatic, Stax and Acoustat planar speakers. Had many friends with many Apogee models (from the smallest to the Grand). Ribbons sound a helluva lot like what you feed them. If they sound bright, then your electronics and/or your room need addressing. I would be surprised if the actual FR of the Alsyvox are heavily tilted to the highs but the transmission of distortions in the highs can definitely make something sound brighter.

This is a good post. Some solid state amplification really does sound shrill through Apogees and I am sure will do through the Alsyvox. In fact a lot does. Not many solid state amps do well but the Luxman M-800A I am currently using is a superstar at sounding fine in the treble with a valve DAC and valve preamp. I fact it's a superstar at any frequency. By far the best power amp tried yet.
 

morricab

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IMHO differences from the real thing are one order of magnitude higher than the differences between types of speakers. The process of recording creates a different reality, mainly in order to compensate for the absence of real emotional and visual stimulus and the technical limitations of the stereo system. No speaker is perfect and I react differently to Soundlab's and XLF's - each has a different way of sounding real.

Considering top systems, in the end it is our experience with real, preference and mental capability of filling the gaps and "re-arranging" the recording that determines what we find more realistic.

Surely the WAMM sounded much more real than any other I have listened, but I have no experience with similar price horns or planars ... Will you consider I have the box speaker bug? ;)

IMO, it is not by degrees it is a fundamental difference in the kind of distortion. Electronics also play a big role in this as does noise. Elimination of the "synthetic" gets closer to real and I think you can make a value judgement on this (well at least you should be able to with enough experience). You are right that all have flaws but the type of flaw matters and will have a different perceptual impact on the outcome in equating something with real or not real.
 

Ron Resnick

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3-8Khz is treble, not midrange.

Of course - for some reason I read it as 300 to 800 (Hz)! I like a slightly recessed treble too!
 

microstrip

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IMO, it is not by degrees it is a fundamental difference in the kind of distortion. Electronics also play a big role in this as does noise. Elimination of the "synthetic" gets closer to real and I think you can make a value judgement on this (well at least you should be able to with enough experience). You are right that all have flaws but the type of flaw matters and will have a different perceptual impact on the outcome in equating something with real or not real.

As many times before, when there is nothing really substantial to support a view, comes the famous and insidious insinuation - if you have enough experience , suggesting that the source of disagreemnt is simply the opponent lack of experience. Should we rename WBF to WBEEF - Whasbestifyouhaveenoughexperienceforum?

As far as I know the only person who published scientific studies on types of listener abilities to discern sound quality was Floyd Toole. He also addressed what you call Elimination of the "synthetic" and distortions - he wrote in his book:

Fortunately, it turns out that when given the opportunity to judge without bias, human listeners are excellent detectors of artifacts and distortions; they are remarkably trustworthy guardians of what is good. Having only a vague concept of what might be correct, listeners recognize what is wrong.


Surely he also clearly explains why audiophiles are biased listeners. :)

Anyway, the main question is that each of us has a view of what he finds "real", as "real" is not only a physical objective aspect, but mainly a subjective one. Do we agree on this one?
 

Ron Resnick

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As many times before, when there is nothing really substantial to support a view, comes the famous and insidious insinuation - if you have enough experience , suggesting that the source of disagreemnt is simply the opponent lack of experience.

. . .

. . .

+1
 

morricab

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As many times before, when there is nothing really substantial to support a view, comes the famous and insidious insinuation - if you have enough experience , suggesting that the source of disagreemnt is simply the opponent lack of experience. Should we rename WBF to WBEEF - Whasbestifyouhaveenoughexperienceforum?

As far as I know the only person who published scientific studies on types of listener abilities to discern sound quality was Floyd Toole. He also addressed what you call Elimination of the "synthetic" and distortions - he wrote in his book:

Fortunately, it turns out that when given the opportunity to judge without bias, human listeners are excellent detectors of artifacts and distortions; they are remarkably trustworthy guardians of what is good. Having only a vague concept of what might be correct, listeners recognize what is wrong.

Surely he also clearly explains why audiophiles are biased listeners. :)

Anyway, the main question is that each of us has a view of what he finds "real", as "real" is not only a physical objective aspect, but mainly a subjective one. Do we agree on this one?

I was actually being more specific...I was saying that YOU should have enough experience...not a generic "you".
 

Zero000

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Rock Mountain will have Boticelli X, an upgraded version of the Boticelli. That's all I know.
 

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