LOL! I'm sure he is delighted he asked for all this input. Clearly, he needs to tear the house down and start over to get it right.
Ron’s New System
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
You are correct. But Grant in Perth, Australia, who has Pendragons advised me that he found the Gryphon prescription to be too bright-sounding. So far, I totally agree with him.
And that is why we’re in this business in the first place, right?! 100% correct or not - most important thing is to have fun
Btw: Hey Ron, did you read my message conversation I did send you regarding the Genesis Prime setup procedure?
All the best
/ Jk
I think having the ribbon planar journey is the phase just before going to horns…Nah…just SET + horns
I have lowered the woofer level from +4.0 to -5.5. Clearly, I was initially overdosing on woofing.
Every time I lower the woofer level the sound seems more balanced. And even 9.5 steps lower than I started, there still is more power and oomph than I recall from the Prodigys + REL Stentor III.
There still is a bit of brightness on vocals. I still am hoping that is ribbon driver break-in. I still need easily another 50 to 100 hours on the whole shebang.
It could also be, in theory, the power cords. Are Iconoclast Belden BAV power cords neutral or perhaps a bit lean?
The other confusing factor is that the Magnepan 1.6s are way rolled-off compared to these things.
Every time I lower the woofer level the sound seems more balanced. And even 9.5 steps lower than I started, there still is more power and oomph than I recall from the Prodigys + REL Stentor III.
There still is a bit of brightness on vocals. I still am hoping that is ribbon driver break-in. I still need easily another 50 to 100 hours on the whole shebang.
It could also be, in theory, the power cords. Are Iconoclast Belden BAV power cords neutral or perhaps a bit lean?
The other confusing factor is that the Magnepan 1.6s are way rolled-off compared to these things.
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I think having the ribbon planar journey is the phase just before going to horns…
Ahhhhhh . . . no. This giant planar system is great for me!
Lol. Just good you are really enjoying the ride Ron… that’s great. It looks like you are having a whole lot of fun, the destinations are really just wherever they take you.
David Karmeli was right about the Tube Traps, at least in my situation. I prefer the sound without them.
Hi Ron, just a little input from my side, having used the Pendragons for several years. With regards to the mid/high being too bright, I believe that that really depends on who is listening, and with my 60+ "old" ears it was just fine. However my son once told me that some music was indeed a bit too bright to his liking (being 25 years younger than me). The woofer level -in my room, and certain recordings- was set at 0,0 (highest) and -9,5 for some bass heavy recordings. Again, this will also be room- and recording dependent, and the good part is that it is all remote controlled, so you can adjust from the listening position. In general, the bass towers were set at -1,5 or so. "Break-in" is a factor as well, to my experience mainly with regard to the woofer towers. My advise is to get a couple of hundred hours on them first, familiarize yourself with the sound, and only after that start moving the heavy speakers around. Otherwise you may find your self pushing and pulling for the next couple of month, as the sound WILL change. (the good part being that you will develop a lot of muscle mass, without having to pay for the gym. OTOH, those costs (gym) are nicely included in the sales price of the Pendragons I believe
). For initial set-up, I departed from a theoretical (calculated) location, also taking into account the Gryphon advise. Only after a couple of month I have made minute adjustments.Han.
just give them a try flat in the ground corner to the wall, so not killing / influencing the rear Dipol reflections, but killing the plus 3db to 6db bass effect of the 90degree Wall/ground area.
The new ribbons do indeed need quite some time to run in.
They might be still rather stiff and need to smooth out and then they will sound awesome.
The Maggies are certainly run in enough and therefore smooth.
I had the same phenomenon when I had the Ribbons changed to all new ones on my Apogee Scintilla and Apogee Studio Grand.
They also needed around 300 hours of run-in to sound their best.
You just need some patience not to start too early with the fine tweaking.
But absolutely nothing wrong with playing around and getting to know your all new system along the way.
These experiences you make now help you better "understand" your system and will be beneficial and educational for the fine tweaking in the future.
Having worked with this type of driver for many years, I can say that it does have some zing compared to a true ribbon driver. Please be aware that this doesn't have the same properties as say a long Apogee midrange ribbon driver. The BG driver has a higher resonance frequency and it also has a "cavitation" resonance that is a result of the framework to contain the magnets and tension the film. This is well known and BG recommended and even provided the correct values of RC parallel network to suppress this rather large resonance that occurs in the presence region.
I believe this is where the zing comes from as it never fully went away even after hundreds of hours. While the circuit did a good job of suppressing the resonance (I measured with and without just to see what it did), being sonically much more benign with the filter, it was never as "easy" sounding as the ribbons on my Apogee Caliper Signatures or my large electrostats. The electrostats are also tensioned but don't have this cavity resonance and are looser in the tensioning in order to give bass response. Even though the prescribed notch filter is suppressing the resonance it doesn't eliminate it and I think that it can still be heard and the effect is that bit of "zing".
IMO, it is a bit like the break up issue with ceramic drivers that most designers try to suppress with steep filters and/or notch filters. You can still hear the breakup even if it is suppressed and it makes the sound a bit "whitish") . I heard the equivalent diamond midrange from Accuton and it was incredibly clear and clean as it had a breakup well out of the audio band.
The BGs are very transparent overall but they always had this "edge" to the sound that made them a bit less relaxing to listen to long term compared to Apogees or my Stats.
What is the Pendragon using for tweeters, or is it running the BG driver all the way to its limit (18Khz)?
Toeing in might exaccerbate the effect...I would consider pointing them straight ahead as there is sufficient dispersion with this driver to do so. If you miss a bit of center fill, then consider moving the speakers a couple of feet closer together to compensate.
Yeah I had also texted him earlier he should try them straight, after burn in. I preferred Apogees and analysis straight as well thought they weren’t bright
At this level it's all a bit "personal taste" as well I guess, I have owned the Acoustat model 3 for years, owned the Apogee Full Range for years, owned the Apogee Grand for years, and finally the Pendragons.... For me, I preferred the Pendragons.
I'm aware (and won't dispute) that for others it may be different.
I'm aware (and won't dispute) that for others it may be different.