More from Enjoy the Music reviews
"As dipoles, the Omegas produce an equal amount of output firing to both front and rear. One effect of dipole design is that the Omegas play louder than box speakers rated at the same sensitivity. That was confirmed in the first few days, when the only amplifiers I had on hand were the 55-watt Wavac MD-805 SET monoblocks. That combination produced a lovely, beautifully detailed and spacious sound, with surprisingly robust volume levels (and, truth be told, a bit of clippings to keep me in line). Of course I had more fun with the 700 and 800 watts per side respectively from the Spectron and VTL amplifiers. The Omegas play very loudly without strain or distortion."
"The rated sensitivity of all Analysis speakers is 86dB/W/m — on the face of it, hardly a high-efficiency number. That being so, how can they play so loudly with medium-powered tube amplifiers? Because attenuation of the sound wave traveling through the air is reduced due to the much larger dimensions of the planar membranes and ribbons. Theory stipulates that with the exception of a small area close to the sound source ("nearfield"), the sound wave experiences an amplitude drop of 6dB for each doubling of distance to the listener. Within the nearfield the attenuation is only 3dB. The nearfield extends to roughly three times the dimension of the driver. Although this is negligible for an ordinary tweeter (a few centimeters), the nearfield for a 2-meter-tall ribbon tweeter reaches about 6 meters. The following table compares loudness for two different drivers of the same rated sensitivity, according to the distance from a listener:
Distance: 1m 2m 4m
Ordinary tweeter: 86dB 80dB 74dB
2 meter ribbon: 86dB 83dB 80dB
This means that at a one-meter distance both drivers' outputs are about the same, but at four meters the planar loudspeaker sounds twice as loud. "
"As dipoles, the Omegas produce an equal amount of output firing to both front and rear. One effect of dipole design is that the Omegas play louder than box speakers rated at the same sensitivity. That was confirmed in the first few days, when the only amplifiers I had on hand were the 55-watt Wavac MD-805 SET monoblocks. That combination produced a lovely, beautifully detailed and spacious sound, with surprisingly robust volume levels (and, truth be told, a bit of clippings to keep me in line). Of course I had more fun with the 700 and 800 watts per side respectively from the Spectron and VTL amplifiers. The Omegas play very loudly without strain or distortion."
"The rated sensitivity of all Analysis speakers is 86dB/W/m — on the face of it, hardly a high-efficiency number. That being so, how can they play so loudly with medium-powered tube amplifiers? Because attenuation of the sound wave traveling through the air is reduced due to the much larger dimensions of the planar membranes and ribbons. Theory stipulates that with the exception of a small area close to the sound source ("nearfield"), the sound wave experiences an amplitude drop of 6dB for each doubling of distance to the listener. Within the nearfield the attenuation is only 3dB. The nearfield extends to roughly three times the dimension of the driver. Although this is negligible for an ordinary tweeter (a few centimeters), the nearfield for a 2-meter-tall ribbon tweeter reaches about 6 meters. The following table compares loudness for two different drivers of the same rated sensitivity, according to the distance from a listener:
Distance: 1m 2m 4m
Ordinary tweeter: 86dB 80dB 74dB
2 meter ribbon: 86dB 83dB 80dB
This means that at a one-meter distance both drivers' outputs are about the same, but at four meters the planar loudspeaker sounds twice as loud. "
