KeithR's "Dream Speaker" Search

morricab

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and of the 8 people I was touring with yesterday afternoon at its peak (so great to see a lot of friends and family in the spirit of music), all 8 preferred the Altecs to the Tunes.
Doesn’t surprise me. They can sound great and there is a reason the old VOTT speakers are legends. They also have bass and integration closer to box guys expectations...the Tunes may also not be well setup...
 

morricab

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Could one of you folks who attended compare and contrast the Stenheim with YG? I can't find any information about the Stenheim drivers on the website (i.e. no mention of them being an in-house design). But the MSRP of the Alumine Five seems to be in the $85k USD ballpark. The aluminum cabinet is obviously custom-built, but does the overall design stand up to YG's?
I know the small Alumine was using a moderately priced SEAS tweeter and a fairly high sensitivity cone. Nothing real exotic beyond the cabinets.
 

bazelio

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I know the small Alumine was using a moderately priced SEAS tweeter and a fairly high sensitivity cone. Nothing real exotic beyond the cabinets.
As I was looking at the website, things got interesting with the Reference Ultime model - a 4-way design and available passive or active woofers with the latter quoted as 15 Hz to 100 kHz FR. And a sealed cabinet with 96dB sensitivity. Even the passive version at 25-100k Hz and 91dB with a sealed cabinet seems really interesting.
 
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jeff1225

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I like the way they modernized them with the colorful horns and natural wood finish, wonder how stock are the crossovers. Which company was this?
david

David,
He takes the horn from the VOTT and matches it with a Baltic Burch reproduction of the Model 19 cabinet. He reconditions the bass driver, leaves the compression driver stock and reconditions the crossover only if it needs it.

Very successful presentation. And this is with digital only as his turntable broke.

I'm happy that multiple people that like very "high-fi" sounding systems really enjoyed this system. And all for the cost of some RCA's
 
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KeithR

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As I was looking at the website, things got interesting with the Reference Ultime model - a 4-way design and available passive or active woofers with the latter quoted as 15 Hz to 100 kHz FR. And a sealed cabinet with 96dB sensitivity. Even the passive version at 25-100k Hz and 91dB with a sealed cabinet seems really interesting.

Roy Gregory’s review of the Five talks about the drivers iirc. Non-SE version costs $60k here- double the Three at the show.
 

bazelio

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Ah here we go, for anyone else of curious mind... "...while Stenheim doesn’t build its own drivers, the company works closely with its chosen supplier (PHL, definitely not one of the usual suspects)..." Customization must be fairly significant, given the off-the-shelf specs of the 10" PHL woofers: http://www.phlaudio.com/products/?no_cache=1
 
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thomask

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Dec 9, 2018
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Branko Audio. He sells on eBay as well I believe. Jeff can give you the crossover particulars- they are redone iirc
I saw this speaker at around 5K$ on Ebay.

Although I got temptation to buy it, I need to set up second listening space on the second floor which stop me buying it.

It would be nice to listen to it over there.
 

ddk

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He seems to have a nice inventory of original Model 19’s, for those interested you should compare them to the reconstructed ones before buying. Though simple in construction woofer boxes made with modern techniques and so called better materials do not always sound better. Also be aware that you can’t drive those 15” drivers with flea sized SETs, you need current and at least a quality 50watt push/pull tube amp to make them come to life and control the woofers so they don’t sound muddy.
david
 

Folsom

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The old boxes were leaky, and the new boxes are not. That's a big difference. If they were smart they'd make the new ones "leaky" with an aperiodic vent.
 

bonzo75

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He seems to have a nice inventory of original Model 19’s, for those interested you should compare them to the reconstructed ones before buying. Though simple in construction woofer boxes made with modern techniques and so called better materials do not always sound better. Also be aware that you can’t drive those 15” drivers with flea sized SETs, you need current and at least a quality 50watt push/pull tube amp to make them come to life and control the woofers so they don’t sound muddy.
david

How do these compare to 15 inch tannoy golds?
 

bonzo75

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In what way, they're such different animals? They're totally different sonically too.
david

Ok... Haven't heard altecs yet but many owners seem to prefer both
 

bonzo75

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I like both too, along with at least a dozen other ones :)!

david

How many of those dozen are near these price points?
 
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