Avalon Osiris , my next project!

[MikeHorns]

Today, 4 strong guys have kindly come together to balance the Avalon Osiris on the Apex Spikes. Since the spikes have surprisingly long threads, the speakers had to be tilted further to the side than we had initially imagined. Accordingly, the upper parts of the Osiris had to be removed again so that they do not fall off when the speaker tilts.

2 hours later the crossover and loudspeakers are on spikes (and some Harmonix plates).

A first soundcheck confirms my fear that the speakers, which have now been lowered,
still want to be moved further than I would have liked.

If one imagines the listening distances of the individual chassis as circular orbits, one can imagine that the 15 cm lowering requires a corresponding shift that the speakers or the individual chassis comes back to the previous distance from the listening position. Accordingly, I have now moved the LS further apart. Unfortunately, pushing it back hadn't done the bass section any good. The Bass response was changed anyhow due to the lower distance of the bass drivers and the floor.

I would say, the difference of the changed speaker hight was bigger , than the effect of the Apex Spikes as such.
The Osiris speaker cabinet is that heavy, that the effect of the Apex spikes is minor. But audible...

Now I'm going to listen to some music, tomorrow is another day when I will continue to push the heavy speakers into the best position.

The intermediate result achieved is definitely quite good, so I will enjoy the day full of music


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Great job, Jûrgen!

Just a suggestion. Perhaps have your helpers place the speakers on a short dolly for now(height will be somewhat compromised) and take your time dialing them in until you reached your satisfaction. And since you just got these speakers, they might be going through the "rebreak-in" period, which means the sound will continue to change.

 

[shakti]

Great job, Jûrgen!

Just a suggestion. Perhaps have your helpers place the speakers on a short dolly for now(height will be somewhat compromised) and take your time dialing them in until you reached your satisfaction. And since you just got these speakers, they might be going through the "rebreak-in" period, which means the sound will continue to change.

thank you for your suggestions, the Osiris are currently placed on Harmonix spike bases, so I can move them on my wooden floor to make the final adjustments, as it seems to be important to have them fine tuned carrying the correct height.

The "rebreak-in" period actually happened, it took around 3 days of music until the Osiris finally woke up

 

[JackD201]

Looks like you are having a heck of a good time! Congratulations Jurgen and thank you for the really cool write up and lovely pictures!

 

[Walnut Horns]

Congrats Jurgen. They are impressive and beautiful. Enjoy in good health.

 

[shakti]

Searching for a second Rowland M825 was faster achieved, then I guessed.

Found a very nice one in the Dutch neighborhood and picked up on Friday morning.

My Critical Mass Systems Maxxum base is exactly 80cm wide, so that the 39.5cm wide M825 fit right next to each other on this base.

I will operate the two Jeff Rowland M825s in vertical bi-amping,
ie assign one power amplifier to the right and one to the left channel. So I hope for an optimal channel separation.

Between the power amplifiers and the CMS Maxxum base I use the Nordost / Aavik pulsar points in aluminum.
They work quite well for now, let's see, maybe I'll try the current versions in the future

I had to come up with something when connecting the speaker cables.
The upper crossover has 4 inputs and the crossover for the bass corresponds to 1 input.

If you have a triwiring and a biwiring cable, everything works quite well if you connect the speakers to one stereo power amplifier, or two mono amps . But with 4 power amplifier channels it becomes a bit more complex because the power amplifiers should see a suitable load and I want to separate the bass area from the mid-high range drivers.

Accordingly, I have now connected the bass channel in single wiring mode (and thus disconnected the high out of the MIT cable) and given the super tweeter a Silentwire cable bridge instead.

The upper loudspeaker module and the bass module now have separate power amplifier channels.

Thanks to this separation, it is now also feasible to take advantage of the possibilities of the JRDG Criterion prepress. The second output stage (in my case the mid-high range is connected here) can be set separately in Volume as a preset .

After the technical function check, I listened to a few well-known pieces.

With these I had adjusted the Osiris in advance in the room so that the sonic touch of the pieces were well in my ears.

The first tonal difference I noticed was a "softer" and "cleaner" sound, don't know exactly how to describe it, the music just sounds more relaxed and more "natural". Playback is more relaxed overall.

The Avalon Osiris seems to like the double power in terms of performance,
and the separation of the two loudspeaker areas probably also helps.

The separation of the right and left power amplifier channel (the vertical BiAmping) leads in any case to a somewhat more precise and sharper outline of vocals and instruments

But at this point there is less sound improvement happening than I have been able to get to know with other bi-amping approaches. Obviously, a single M825 is already playing close to what is technically possible, so a double M 825 does not mean a double effect in performance

Now it was time to use the possibilities of the Rowland Criterion Preamp. And so I turned the MHT module up and down. With these changes you can change the sound character of the Osiris in fine gradations, my current listening taste means that I can now hear the Osiris with about 1db raised Mid- High driver level.

It is quite possible that this is due to the transition from the Maxx 3 to the Avalon Osiris,
the Osiris has a slightly more sloping frequency response than the Maxx 3.
With + 1db I can minimize this difference a bit.

Time will tell in which direction I go, for now this sounds very promising with this attitude.

 

[Lagonda]

Searching for a second Rowland M825 was faster achieved, then I guessed.

Found a very nice one in the Dutch neighborhood and picked up on Friday morning.

My Critical Mass Systems Maxxum base is exactly 80cm wide, so that the 39.5cm wide M825 fit right next to each other on this base.

I will operate the two Jeff Rowland M825s in vertical bi-amping,
ie assign one power amplifier to the right and one to the left channel. So I hope for an optimal channel separation.

Between the power amplifiers and the CMS Maxxum base I use the Nordost / Aavik pulsar points in aluminum.
They work quite well for now, let's see, maybe I'll try the current versions in the future

I had to come up with something when connecting the speaker cables.
The upper crossover has 4 inputs and the crossover for the bass corresponds to 1 input.

If you have a triwiring and a biwiring cable, everything works quite well if you connect the speakers to one stereo power amplifier, or two mono amps . But with 4 power amplifier channels it becomes a bit more complex because the power amplifiers should see a suitable load and I want to separate the bass area from the mid-high range drivers.

Accordingly, I have now connected the bass channel in single wiring mode (and thus disconnected the high out of the MIT cable) and given the super tweeter a Silentwire cable bridge instead.

The upper loudspeaker module and the bass module now have separate power amplifier channels.

Thanks to this separation, it is now also feasible to take advantage of the possibilities of the JRDG Criterion prepress. The second output stage (in my case the mid-high range is connected here) can be set separately in Volume as a preset .

After the technical function check, I listened to a few well-known pieces.

With these I had adjusted the Osiris in advance in the room so that the sonic touch of the pieces were well in my ears.

The first tonal difference I noticed was a "softer" and "cleaner" sound, don't know exactly how to describe it, the music just sounds more relaxed and more "natural". Playback is more relaxed overall.

The Avalon Osiris seems to like the double power in terms of performance,
and the separation of the two loudspeaker areas probably also helps.

The separation of the right and left power amplifier channel (the vertical BiAmping) leads in any case to a somewhat more precise and sharper outline of vocals and instruments

But at this point there is less sound improvement happening than I have been able to get to know with other bi-amping approaches. Obviously, a single M825 is already playing close to what is technically possible, so a double M 825 does not mean a double effect in performance

Now it was time to use the possibilities of the Rowland Criterion Preamp. And so I turned the MHT module up and down. With these changes you can change the sound character of the Osiris in fine gradations, my current listening taste means that I can now hear the Osiris with about 1db raised Mid- High driver level.

It is quite possible that this is due to the transition from the Maxx 3 to the Avalon Osiris,
the Osiris has a slightly more sloping frequency response than the Maxx 3.
With + 1db I can minimize this difference a bit.

Time will tell in which direction I go, for now this sounds very promising with this attitude.


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Double trouble ! Very nice !
That is exactly how i have my system wired, until i find 2 more mono amps at the right price

 

[ddk]

... The first tonal difference I noticed was a "softer" and "cleaner" sound, don't know exactly how to describe it, the music just sounds more relaxed and more "natural". Playback is more relaxed overall.

But at this point there is less sound improvement happening than I have been able to get to know with other bi-amping approaches.

Congratulations Jurgen, you achieved the correct results from your bi-wiring. I don't know how you used to quantify multi-amping before but for me that goal and the best results I achieved is exactly what you describe, more relaxed and more natural sound.

david

 

[defride]

Congratulations!

That's quite a stack. A friend brought around a JRDG 301 a few years back, I'm fully aware the difficulty man handling those beasts

Hope they bring you years of enjoyment

 

[andromedaaudio]

Interesting story i m reading it from the beginning.

 

[andromedaaudio]

God knows how audiophiles proved their alpha status on the Savannah when social media was a tiny bit into the future.

Audiophiles would be the only ones to hear the animal herds before the animals heard them
Making them essential in the hunting process lol

 

[spiritofmusic]

Audiophiles would be the only ones to hear the animal herds before the animals heard them
Making them essential in the hunting process lol

Too late if the verdict was "they are here" Lol. Nothing like a bunch of sabre tooth tigers being too close.

 

[infinitely baffled]

Well done Shakti.
I'm hearing great things about the current PM range, i may have some coming up for a playdate when i finally close on my Fuuga, should be next month fingers crossed

 

[108CY]

Good luck with your search for Osiris, should be spectacular

One of the most memorable systems I've heard was put together by Audiofreaks the then Avalon distributor in the UK. Zanden trans/dac, Kuzma XL, CJ pre (most likely an ACT) and Karan KSA 1200 (poss 2000) driving Isis

Wow, just sounded like music one could lose oneself in, in medium sized room. Those guys really knew how to get the best from Avalon's. Not something the dealers seemed very good at, small sample but the dealer demo's I've heard were disappointing.

I nearly bought Ascendent, I'd heard them twice driven beautifully by Zanden amplification, again set up by Audiofreaks. The pair available at the time had a significant dent to the top rear edge so I passed and ended up going in a different direction. I'm sure I'd have been happy with them.

Look forward to hearing how you get on

Have to agree Branko knows how to set up a system unlike many others despite what I may think of any particular brand he was totally exemplary at getting the most out of each component. To think I remember his predecessor Jacob from automation sciences who was pretty good too back in the 80,s must be getting old.

 

[shakti]

Christmas time in Corona shut down is ending up with a lot of spare time to listen music, to enjoy the gear

I couple of weeks ago I had the chance to try out the

Audionet Heisenberg

mono Amplifiers on my Avalon Osiris speakers.

The Heisenberg has a lot of power and a huge damping factor, so can compete in this matters with my

2x Rowland M825

The Rowland, even in class D, do have the typical Rowland magic in the middle of the spectrum, giving voices a beautiful tone and color, if not knowing better, a tube amp could be playing.

The Heisenberg cannot give this magic, as they are more neutral in a positive way.
The differences between voices, recording by recording is increased instead.

Listening to some music with fun and rhythm the Heisenberg let you dance more easy, they let the Osiris swing in a way, that I am got remembered on my last Horn speakers.

I never had the idea, that an amp can drive the Osiris with such ease. This Amplifiers are definitely changing a little bit the character of the Osiris from a big majestic speaker into a vital and vibrant playing one.

After 2 weeks of listening, I decided to go for the Audionet Heisenberg instead of the JRDG M825

 

[infinitely baffled]

I'd love to know how a Boulder 2160 would compare.

 

[shakti]

I'd love to know how a Boulder 2160 would compare.

me too

 

[infinitely baffled]

*puts thinking cap on

Its a logistical challenge. But where there's a will, there's a way
earliest would be December 2022.....and 2160 won't have many miles on at that point

 

[spiritofmusic]

I thought you were gonna say it might take until the Year 2160 to sort the comparison Lol.

 

[infinitely baffled]

Relative to Shakti, i do move at a glacial pace

 

[Addicted to hifi]

Would love to hear the osiris speakers one day but I doubt anyone in Australia has a pair.