Can one find realism in box speakers that cost less than $150K after experiencing dynamics of horns and horn-type speakers?

[the sound of Tao]

As he so often does Tao makes eloquently a very thoughtful and intriguing point. Perhaps it is not musical genre preference which drives speaker preference (as I believe); perhaps it is the varying perceptual states different speaker topologies induce in the listener which drives speaker preference.

Dear Tao, would you kindly describe the different perceptual states you believe are induced by different speaker topologies?

Ron, many thanks for your kind words... epic question... I hope any of my responses in some way live up to even some modest hopes of any enlightenment in this area.

Hope you’ll also kindly be patient as today I’m currently mostly out enjoying the very last of our autumn here and out in the sun and ocean which also leads me to another altered perceptual state, that of the great peace of autumn (a big two thumbs up for my lucky world).

I will put together some thoughts to better flesh out what I am suggesting could be shared and essential ways that we can fundamentally be when we also listen.

Understanding how people are when they create and then learn is a central part of my work in terms of also modelling an understanding of the ways that learners are when they perceive information and digest experiences in the development of awareness and understanding (which I’ve been working on in my day gig training and assessing and developing programs and resources for teaching design).

I will likely start a separate thread soon on possible ways that we listen if one doesn’t already exist. We have a wonderfully aware data bank of very good communicators and listeners here so it will likely be a valuable and rich resource for further understanding in this... he says while making an espresso and looking at the sun prepare to set out over the lake just out front of home... yes, am very hard at it while I txt.

 

[manisandher]

Interesting; I came away with the opposite impression after my conversation with Manolis.

I'm sure Manolis is proud of all his creations, and rightly so. I own two of them and have heard the Avatons at length at Munich - he's obviously doing something very right IMO.

For me, the Animas are his most 'elegant' design - just thoroughly well thought through. But the bass horn should really be considered a mid-bass horn, as it's not going to be doing much below 50Hz or so. If one can live with this (I can), then great. If not, they're going to sound a little on the light side without some sort of LF reinforcement. I don't think any of the other speakers in the TA range have this 'issue' - my Marvels certainly don't, and can shake the room thoroughly down.

Mani.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I agree with much of this post, except I feel compelled to once again bang my drum about how I believe that musical genre preference drives speaker preference. Do horn devotees tend to focus on classical or jazz or classical and jazz, to the exclusion of vocals and rock/pop?

I agree completely that these wonderful attributes of horn speakers are displayed fully in the reproduction of classical and jazz. I feel these attributes are much less evident in the reproduction of vocals and rock/pop.

Putting it pointedly I, myself, have yet to hear a horn speaker that does not do something deleterious to the transparency and resolution of vocals.

If my primary musical interest were jazz I would have chosen Cessaro Zetas or Tune Audio Avatons. If my primary musical interest were classical I would have chosen Cessaro Zetas or a big dynamic driver box system (like Rockport Arrakis or VSA Ultra 11).

If I were interested in classical and jazz and rock/pop equally I would have chosen a big dynamic driver box system (like Rockport Arrakis or VSA Ultra 11). I think big dynamic driver box systems are the most general purpose loudspeakers.

If my primary musical interest were vocals I would have chosen a ribbon driver or an electrostatic driver system. Because my primary musical interest is vocals I chose a ribbon driver system.

I chose a wide frequency range ribbon driver system because the single driver or wide-band driver concept appeals to me. It is only a two-way speaker. That appeals to me because I think multi-driver systems tend to be complex and tend to have complex crossovers, increasing the potential for continuity and coherence issues and for dynamics-robbing lower-sensitivity or power requirements, or both.

The other driver besides the ribbon is a bass tower — which I like because I want oomph and impact on rock music and classical music.

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your interesting comments.

I too am very much hooked on listening to vocals - particularly jazz and classical vocals but sometimes other modern genre stuff too. For some reason, I am totally addicted to original Nina LPs at the moment. I have found that the horns I own and those I regularly listen to (Pnoe) really excel for this music. I find the vocals extremely real and palpable. I was thinking why this would be - in part it is due to the lifelike dynamic ability of the drivers making it sound lifelike, but it is also the micro resolution letting your gear literally everything in the voice from the tiniest breaths and vocal inflections. After more thought, I realised that the very full / locked central image was also really helping the realism. Now I am not saying the latter isn’t achievable with other speakers but the horn directionality certainly helps.

In terms of compares to stats and/or planars. I can certainly understand why you might prefer the see-through nature of their presentations. Where the ones I have heard fall short *for me* is vocal *dynamic* ability for things like opera.

In terms of rock music bass oomph and attack - I have tried to explain, perhaps badly, before so I will have another go. Bass reproduced via horn loading has more oomph than any other technology by the laws of physics. If you take the example to the extreme and look at the situation that requires the most oomph for bass of all - that is large nightclubs playing dance music - horn loaded bass bins & scoops with 105dB+ sensitivity and multiple 18” drivers (with a few thousand watts) are the only way to be able to do this. I think most folks actually like box bass cabinet distortion because they are used to hearing it.

 

[manisandher]

I will likely start a separate thread soon on possible ways that we listen if one doesn’t already exist.

I very much look forward to that.

On another site, I recently conducted a blind ABX test. I won't go into the details here, but will say that I was confident that I would sail through the test because the differences between A and B, although quite subtle, seemed audible to me... on casual listening. So confident was I that I suggested to the guy conducting the test that we should skip the normal procedure and just go for more simplified one. Here's what happened:

Test 1 (simplified procedure):

A, B, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X (here, X is either A or B, selected totally randomly, and totally blind to me)

Test 2 (simplified procedure):

A, B, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X

In both of these, I scored ~5/10. I was horrified. How could it be that A and B were audibily different during casual listening, but I couldn't do it in a formal test? (In hindsight, I suspect it was because after the first X, I no longer had an absolute reference and was then relying on differences between the current and previous X.)

Test 3 (correct procedure):

A/B/X, A/B/X, A/B/X, A/B/X, A/B/X, A/B/X, A/B/X, A/B/X, A/B/X, A/B/X

I scored 9/10 - there's a 1% probability of achieving this through guessing alone. Why did this work? Well, because I now had an absolute reference before each X. I scored 8 straight correct answers, got #9 wrong and then #10 correct. This third test took ~20 minutes to conduct. That's quite a long time to remain totally focused, especially seeing as I was already quite tired from the first two tests.

The differences between A and B, though quite subtle, are audible during casual listening. Formalising the listening seems makes everything far more difficult.

Perhaps 'over-formalising' learning has a similar effect?

Mani.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Mani,
Thinking is such a painfully slow process for me... feeling is immediate and obvious... access to understanding through emotional engagement is absolutely like quicksilver whereas conscious awareness for me is more like lead. I’m just burdened with an inappropriate thinking vessel methinks. But we make do with what we have been given.

 

[jeff1225]

But isn’t jump factor merely one of many sonic characteristics of a loudspeaker?

Agreed. I guess I seldom hear the jump factor that i covet from box speakers where I always hear it with horns. Two box speakers I would own that deliver the jump are the Harbeth 40's and Devore Orangutan.

 

[ddk]

Tonality may be my strongest characteristic for any speaker, with coherence and dynamic facility coming along. And whatever is the form factor, full range orchestral/symphonic is the gauge for me.

We don't have the array of native horn offerings in the US - at least to my knowledge - that is available elsewhere. And with that seems to come less information than is available for the likes of Wilson, YG, etc. Thus, less exposure. So I ask those more knowledgeable.

I can get a nice pair of box speakers here for under $100k. But a pair of horns that tick the boxes, sound natural and have the level of support I get from Wilson - I don't know what that would be. Maybe Oswald Mills? I'd like to know. Caeser's post poses a challenging question.

There seems to be plenty of new horn speakers at Munich that I'm mostly unfamiliar with but from the ones I have heard only Tang's Cessaro is worth considering as a serious speaker, but they're expensive and IMO still fall short of top vintage horns that kind of money can buy.

$100k will buy you a lot of speaker in the vintage world Tim even $50k would get you an amazing pair of speakers but good examples have become very hard to find these days but worth the search, they have the magic everyone's looking for in this hobby.

david

 

[Tango]

There seems to be plenty of new horn speakers at Munich that I'm mostly unfamiliar with but from the ones I have heard only Tang's Cessaro is worth considering as a serious speaker, but they're expensive and IMO still fall short of top vintage horns that kind of money can buy.

$100k will buy you a lot of speaker in the vintage world Tim even $50k would get you an amazing pair of speakers but good examples have become very hard to find these days but worth the search, they have the magic everyone's looking for in this hobby.

david

I don't really know about how much my speakers fall short of the very top vintage. Maybe it does may be it does not to my ears if I have a chance to hear the holy grail vintage horns. But ddk is right that with mush much less money I spent on my Cessaro I could definitely get the horns in my radar that could have as excellent sound or better than my Cessaro. (Not the Living Voice because I don't think they sound better than my Cessaro.) The thing about big Cessaro is once you buy it you cannot sell it. It is too big, heavy, expensive, require large size room and Ralph to assemble and disassemble it. People who wants to buy a big Cessaro are well to do that dont buy used modern audio either. You buy big Cessaro you are stuck with it...luckily they come with excellent sound. Audioquattr understand what I am talking about.

If I want to construct another system from scratch right now, it will take no more than one fourth of what I have been spending in audio gears for the last three years. And the sound will be no less good than what I have right now. For less than $100,000 you can even get the vintage horns system with the required amplifications with potential to be one of the best if you know who to talk to.

Tang

 

[bonzo75]

Agreed. I guess I seldom hear the jump factor that i covet from box speakers where I always hear it with horns. Two box speakers I would own that deliver the jump are the Harbeth 40's and Devore Orangutan.

When I hear boxes I jump up and run

 

[bonzo75]

I don't really know about how much my speakers fall short of the very top vintage. Maybe it does may be it does not to my ears if I have a chance to hear the holy grail vintage horns. But ddk is right that the kind of money I spent on my Cessaro I could definitely get the horns in my radar that could have as excellent sound or better than my Cessaro. (Not the Living Voice because I don't think they sound better than my Cessaro.) The thing about big Cessaro is once you buy it you cannot sell it. It is too big, heavy, expensive, require large size room and Ralph to assemble and disassemble it. People who wants to buy a big Cessaro are well to do that dont buy used modern audio either. You buy big Cessaro you are stuck with it...luckily they come with excellent sound. Audioquattr understand what I am talking about.

If I want to construct another system from scratch right now, it will take no more than one fourth of what I have been spending in audio gears for the last three years. And the sound will be no less good than what I have right now.

Tang

Pnoe with Mayer 46 and some DIY are better than vintage speakers. Universum and Anima have some aspects better than vintage speakers and many Cessaros, though not better than the way you have set up the Cessaros. But even something as cheap as devores or vintage tannoys are better than Wagner or Liszt or Chopin. Those hybrid compromised ones are not as good as Wilson Sasha 2 or verity. Pietro's particular Yamamuras are better than all of them. If you want to buy my rating booklet you can do so on Amazon

 

[Tango]

When I hear boxes I jump up and run

Why do you have to be such an arse all the time.

Tang

 

[Al M.]

When I hear boxes I jump up and run

LOL

 

[bonzo75]

Why do you have to be such an arse all the time.

Tang

You should ask that to whoever coined the term jump factor in the first place. Still haven't figured it out

 

[caesar]

But isn’t jump factor merely one of many sonic characteristics of a loudspeaker?

Very true, Ron. But when hearing one technology after another at audio show, within 60 seconds of each other, the slower technologies sound like poor, counterfeit imitations.

 

[caesar]

I agree with much of this post, except I feel compelled to once again bang my drum about how I believe that musical genre preference drives speaker preference. Do horn devotees tend to focus on classical or jazz or classical and jazz, to the exclusion of vocals and rock/pop?

I agree completely that these wonderful attributes of horn speakers are displayed fully in the reproduction of classical and jazz. I feel these attributes are much less evident in the reproduction of vocals and rock/pop.

Putting it pointedly I, myself, have yet to hear a horn speaker that does not do something deleterious to the transparency and resolution of vocals.

If my primary musical interest were jazz I would have chosen Cessaro Zetas or Tune Audio Avatons. If my primary musical interest were classical I would have chosen Cessaro Zetas or a big dynamic driver box system (like Rockport Arrakis or VSA Ultra 11).

If I were interested in classical and jazz and rock/pop equally I would have chosen a big dynamic driver box system (like Rockport Arrakis or VSA Ultra 11). I think big dynamic driver box systems are the most general purpose loudspeakers.

If my primary musical interest were vocals I would have chosen a ribbon driver or an electrostatic driver system. Because my primary musical interest is vocals I chose a ribbon driver system.

I chose a wide frequency range ribbon driver system because the single driver or wide-band driver concept appeals to me. It is only a two-way speaker. That appeals to me because I think multi-driver systems tend to be complex and tend to have complex crossovers, increasing the potential for continuity and coherence issues and for dynamics-robbing lower-sensitivity or power requirements, or both.

The other driver besides the ribbon is a bass tower — which I like because I want oomph and impact on rock music and classical music.

Ron, if all one cares about is vocals it's kind of hard to beat stats. The best out there for that I've heard is Soundlab with Atmasphere MA2 OTLs. A cheaper alternative is to find an old martin logan aerius that retailed for under $2K with a tube amp, and combo would kill the vast majority of box speakers out there in current production.

 

[caesar]

When I hear boxes I jump up and run

I'm getting to be the same. But for the low efficiency models only.

But the Stenheims at last Axpona sounded awesome with Einstein OTL. So do DeVores.

And nothing I have ever heard beats Zu for pop, rock, soul, and blues.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Very true, Ron. But when hearing one technology after another at audio show, within 60 seconds of each other, the slower technologies sound like poor, counterfeit imitations.

I think you are overstating what is otherwise, especially in the context of jazz or jazz and classical, a valid point about horns. And I think you are painting with way too broad a brush.

Especially for diversified musical genre preferences, when properly driven, I don’t hear the Rockport Lyra or the Magico M6 or the YG Sonja 2.3 or the Evolution Acoustics MM7 or the Gryphon Kodo, or the Wilson Master Chronosonic, among other box speakers, sounding at all slow dynamically or being a poor, counterfeit imitation of anything.

 

[bonzo75]

I'm getting to be the same. But for the low efficiency models only.

But the Stenheims at last Axpona sounded awesome with Einstein OTL. So do DeVores.

And nothing I have ever heard beats Zu for pop, rock, soul, and blues.

Devores are great, as are vintage tannoys, and shame many big cones. Zellaton, Stenheim and YG are quite good but at that price point you do what Tang did. If you own one, sell it off, consider a Zellaton, and buy a horn. Well set up Avalon can be quite good as well. While the occasional cone can sound very good in a great room, the amount of people with unsuitable rooms buying them surprises me.

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . .

In terms of compares to stats and/or planars. . . . Where the ones I have heard fall short *for me* is vocal *dynamic* ability for things like opera.

. . .

I completely understand this. The loudspeaker selection decision is very much a close call of weighing the attributes and minimizing the compromises we hear from different types of speakers.

 

[spiritofmusic]

So Ked, when does your Zu Grand World Tour start? I mean, youve opened yself up to Devores and Tannoys that you would not have been that sympathetic to when I first met up w you. Zu is not a million miles away from Devores and maybe Tannoys. And our friend here w MBLs and a very loud voice loves them.
You could visit Phil w his multiple Zu and multiple multiple tubes amps, Caesar, some other hardy Zu souls.
Don't you fancy reappraising your lukewarm opinion of Zu? I remain unbiased in the matter LOL.