Magico M9

[Alrainbow]

While there are definitely benefits to the relatively small excursions required of compression driver diaphragms, inherent pistonic behavior is not one of them.

Few compression driver diaphragms that I am aware of are pistonic across their passbands. True Beryllium diaphragms usually are.

At the risk of over-simplifying, other compression driver diaphragm materials juggle stiffness vs damping. Some manufacturers are working with innovative materials (or combinations of materials), and some are working with unorthodox computer-optimized geometries, to improve diaphragm behavior at lower cost than Beryllium.

Down in the midrange and woofer region, there are tradeoffs between rigid cones and well-damped cones. Intuition might tell us that we're better off with a cone sufficiently rigid to behave pistonically across the driver's passband, but what happens above the passband can still be an issue. Stiff cones usually ring severely when they do go into breakup. Normally that ringing is suppressed by a steep crossover, but it can still be excited to an audible (and objectionable) level if the driver generates much in the way of harmonic distortion, as this distortion occurs AFTER the crossover so it is not suppressed by it. Thus in my opinion the requirements for the motor system itself may become more stringent if a rigid diaphragm is used.

That being said I don't know enough about the behavior of Alon Wolf's diaphragms to know whether they have successfully avoided the ringing issue which most rigid diaphragms have. My guess is that they have addressed it, as imo that would be an area where improvement can be made over other very rigid diaphragms.

Ringing is arguably not a significant issue with true Beryllium diaphragms, as it typically occurs above the range of human hearing. The Radian compression drivers with Beryllium diaphragms that I have worked with have sounded very smooth to my ears, subject to the "voicing" of the crossover. But this does not apply to pseudo-Beryllium diaphragms which may find their way into the dome tweeters of fairly inexpensive speakers (those diaphragms containing a very low percentage of Beryllium).

Basically how i saw it ...

 

[Alrainbow]

Well my favorite drivers for midrange and highs are beryllium like Radian and TAD, and doped paper Lowther variants like AER, Stamm, yamamura

What were the OMA drivers we heard using KED ...?

 

[Audiophile Bill]

What were the OMA drivers we heard using KED ...?

There are various but Cogent is their compression driver on the Imperia

 

[Alrainbow]

Hi Ked,

The AER cone whilst doped (in some varnish) is pretty flexy. It isn’t rigid at all. Stamm is more so but also flexy. I haven’t got my hands on Yamamura Lowther yet. The Radian and TAD Be will be very rigid indeed. Therefore I am not sure that the concept of “pistonic” is necessarily what is defining your love for the mid range drivers here.

Maybe very light mass coupled to high motor force and extreme efficiency.

Could it be the SET amp attached to them instead of the diaphragm material of the drivers.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Could it be the SET amp attached to them instead of the diaphragm material of the drivers.

You mean the SET amp attached to them is what Ked likes in these drivers?

 

[bonzo75]

There are various but Cogent is their compression driver on the Imperia

Thr Cogent is the replica of the RCA phenolic. The JBL and RCA phenolic also might be equally good. There isn't a rule really. The imperia was quite poor but that must be the horn design. The monarch I liked, not sure what driver it had but most of their stuff was based on RCA

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Thr Cogent is the replica of the RCA phenolic. The JBL and RCA phenolic also might be equally good. There isn't a rule really. The imperia was quite poor but that must be the horn design. The monarch I liked, not sure what driver it had but most of their stuff was based on RCA

Ked - Al’s question is what drivers are they using? They are using a Cogent on the mid range of the Imperia but don’t seem to say much about the rest.

Based on RCA in what sense?

 

[bonzo75]

Ked - Al’s question is what drivers are they using? They are using a Cogent on the mid range of the Imperia but don’t seem to say much about the rest.

Based on RCA in what sense?

Cogent is a RCA replica

 

[bonzo75]

Guys I don't want to chat about this on this thread, Cannata will come after me

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Cogent is a RCA replica

“Most of their stuff was based on RCA” - what did you mean here sorry?

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Guys I don't want to chat about this on this thread, Cannata will come after me

Lol.

 

[Alrainbow]

You mean the SET amp attached to them is what Ked likes in these drivers?

Yes ..

 

[Alrainbow]

Thr Cogent is the replica of the RCA phenolic. The JBL and RCA phenolic also might be equally good. There isn't a rule really. The imperia was quite poor but that must be the horn design. The monarch I liked, not sure what driver it had but most of their stuff was based on RCA

His conical Horns were field Coils Altec

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Yes ..

Al I think the answer is somewhere in between and my evidence is as follows:

> Ked has mainly enjoyed the AER drivers on the end of the really low power Mayer SET (the 1.25 watt 46 in particular). He was absolutely not in favour of that sound on the end of some higher power SET and solid state amps.
>> Ked adores Leif’s horns using TADs with SETs.
>> The Yamamura Dionisio back loaded horn that he loves so much (once in Italy but now elsewhere) had custom amps by Yamamura that are solid state current drive designs not SET. It must be acknowledged that the Dionisio is much less efficient than the aforementioned horns so perhaps there is something in that or simply that you can’t beat a bespoke custom system where the speaker engineer builds amps for that exact system
>> On his favoured Horns Universum, I think it is fair to say he likes SET amps but has also enjoyed push pull.
>> On the Altec 817 based horn system by Mischo, for sure he likes the 3.5 watt SET amp sound.
>> On the WE Munich systems that he mainly loves, they are always with low power flea watt SET
>> On Christoph’s (Silvercore) custom horns (he affectionately calls the Vulvas) he likes the relatively higher powered custom 2 tap SETs

I feel like a spokesman for Kedar lol. But I think this is accurate.

 

[bonzo75]

Lol that is spot on summary of the Titans

Except Misho's is SEP

 

[Alrainbow]

Combination is everything ......

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Combination is everything ......

Indeed just been reading the Kolbrek and Dunker Horn book section on WE. They often had to change their amplifiers each time they changed the horn configurations and 555 driver design.

 

[thomask]

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/magico-ultimate-iii-horn-loaded-loudspeaker/

I am more interested in listening to this guy than M9.

Had anyone listened to this, if so, what was your impression?

 

[cannata]

View attachment 66353
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/magico-ultimate-iii-horn-loaded-loudspeaker/

I am more interested in listening to this guy than M9.

Had anyone listened to this, if so, what was your impression?

They are terrible, don’t you know that, other than a few lost souls, no one here has ever heard a Magico that sounded good?

 

[bonzo75]

View attachment 66353
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/magico-ultimate-iii-horn-loaded-loudspeaker/

I am more interested in listening to this guy than M9.

Had anyone listened to this, if so, what was your impression?

Only at Munich where demo was poor (nothing to do with whether speaker was good or not). The only person I know who has heard it outside of Munich is Jazzhead. He already reported on this thread. You can search on ultimate on this thread