Speaker Oasis...Bionor
- Thread starter ALF
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Which Danley model did you hear? Was it the sound or the look that prevented you from buying it?
Not answering directly to Exlibris ..'
THe Sh50 or 60 are speakers I would like to listen in a an Audiophile set-up. Our industry being what it is these speakers would be rejected off-hand since they are Pro speakers but from many people whose ears I know and respect, they're the real deal.
I wouldn't use them in tha on the corner in the ceiling, rather would go through the painful process of finding the best on floor placement for these, put them on well engineered stand and use multi-subs for the lows... That is if they float my boat. That they are horns and well designed doesn't mean I would love them...
THe Sh50 or 60 are speakers I would like to listen in a an Audiophile set-up. Our industry being what it is these speakers would be rejected off-hand since they are Pro speakers but from many people whose ears I know and respect, they're the real deal.
I wouldn't use them in tha on the corner in the ceiling, rather would go through the painful process of finding the best on floor placement for these, put them on well engineered stand and use multi-subs for the lows... That is if they float my boat. That they are horns and well designed doesn't mean I would love them...
I've seen a few posts here and elsewhere that mention the SH50 and SH60. What about the SH25? The Danley site makes a point of talking about the "great fidelity" and "Hi-Fi sound" of this particular model.
SH 50. I don't mind the looks. Very convenient for placement. The sound is nice, I am in this hobby to play with systems, not have a speaker just set up to listen to music. Don't think Danley allows the gear hobby
Although I praise audiophile curiosity I would like to ask why? Technically they are 100 db/W, suggesting a good speaker for audiophile SETs, but have very large impedance variations, that would be a mismatch for people concerned with measurements. Using them with most typical high power SS amplifiers would just imply we would be using the amplifier at higher distortion - at low powers distortion usually decreases when power increases.
A good reason why is it's one of the closest approximations to a point source horn, which is (IMO) the definition of ideal for music reproduction. The big deal with Danley Synergy is the way it presents the music. If you haven't heard a good point source horn speaker (most have not) expect to hear the best soundstaging/imaging you've ever experienced, a speaker like this transports you to the venue. The compromises are the midrange ports into the sides of the horn and the overall profile of the horn will cause more diffraction than is ideal and there will be some unevenness in the frequency response. The FR could be tuned to be more even with the crossover but this isn't done because cost and application do not require it (info right from Danley).
Red Spade audio has a version that might be better suited for home applications:
http://www.redspade.com.au/audio/PSE-144.php
However, for home use I believe there is a better, simpler way to accomplish a similar objective, and that's the speaker I'll be releasing soon.
It has no ports in the side of the horn, uses a LeCleach profile for less diffraction, and the midrange horn covers from 400 - 15000 Hz, which results in it sounding like a point source even with nearfield listening. Also, frequency response is more even in the critical midrange. It uses a Fostex T500AMkII super tweeter, the mid and tweeter as a unit are about 105 dB efficient and they have only a single cap for xo on the mid and tweeter, so very SET friendly... bass is active with 32/384 DSP and NC500 amps. Downside is it can't achieve the SPLs of a Danley but it can hit 120 dB at the LP as a stereo pair, which is more than enough for anyone and any style of music. I expect this speaker to be better than similar-looking speakers from Avantgarde, Odeon or Cessaro. A good reason why is it's one of the closest approximations to a point source horn, which is (IMO) the definition of ideal for music reproduction. The big deal with Danley Synergy is the way it presents the music. If you haven't heard a good point source horn speaker (most have not) expect to hear the best soundstaging/imaging you've ever experienced, a speaker like this transports you to the venue. The compromises are the midrange ports into the sides of the horn and the overall profile of the horn will cause more diffraction than is ideal and there will be some unevenness in the frequency response. The FR could be tuned to be more even with the crossover but this isn't done because cost and application do not require it (info right from Danley).
Red Spade audio has a version that might be better suited for home applications:
http://www.redspade.com.au/audio/PSE-144.php
However, for home use I believe there is a better, simpler way to accomplish a similar objective, and that's the speaker I'll be releasing soon.
Please ship a pair to London, wuth amps and all, happy to review
Please ship a pair to London, wuth amps and all, happy to review
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One of the bonuses of RMAF is it occurs when the Aspens are changing colors, it might be a week or so late but there are tons of folks who come to CO just to photograph the Aspens and be in the mountains during that time.
Again, Duetta, Duetta II or Duetta Signature...rather big difference between the first two and the Signature. What do you mean by real world load?? The Duetta has an impedance that varies from about 3.5 ohms to about 5 ohms. Easy load, just put the amp on the 4 ohm tap and you should have pretty efficient power transfer. You realize that bass simply doesn't sound as loud and that 93db at higher frequencies is pretty loud. The Sensitivity (it is not efficiency) of the speaker will be the same in the bass as in the mids if the FR is flat. Sort of how that works... I have no knowledge of the Graaf 50/50 adn what it can or cannot do. Room size, distance from the speaker and the distance of the speaker from the wall behind it are of course very important for an Apogee when talking about sensitivity because nearly half the sound goes backwards and comes back reflected...if your wall is 4 or 5 meters away then you can expect very little to reach you from the reflection. I had mine just over 1 meter from the wall behind and I sat about 3 meters from the speakers.
My original Duetta Sig refurbs. But the same would happen with my Duetta Interstellas, which are one of a kind. 400-500 e-mails and a lot of telephone conversations developing those, but that is another story
I meant bass load i.e. heavy bass modulation in the source. I thought the next sentence made it pretty obvious. It requires power. The video makes it obvious, though the mic misses the low frequencies should anyone play it back on a high end system.
I am slightly amused, Brad. We have you claiming how little it takes to run an Apogee to good volume, and countless others firmly in the other camp.
All I was saying is the obvious. Think "why do subs use high power class D amps". Reason? To drive large cones to large excursion levels. But if there is little bass in the source material, that power isn't required.
So, with heavy bass reggae, for instance, low power amps will simply cop out at low SPL levels compared to high power amps, which CAN supply the required power. Not rocket science. Without the high LF modulation, the low power amp will do better.
Is that the track you played here that saw the power meters almost at full excursion i.e. nearly half a KW?
Maybe, don't know. It just has a jump, which the Einstein could not cope with on the Analysis. I haven't seen this problem with other amp speaker configs, so not sure why it was doing that.
I wonder if this idea of the point source horn brings us back to my first post about speakers that are able to create a soundfield that immerse the listener(s). Spiritofmusic's post about the Denman horn, a point source horn, described it as "death by marshmallow as the soundfield reaches out and hugs you".
I like the phrase "transports you to the venue." I have heard and owned some speakers that reportedly do this but in actual fact all they do is create the venue behind the speaker plane. As such, they give you a window on the venue but you as a listener are not in the venue.
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My original Duetta Sig refurbs. But the same would happen with my Duetta Interstellas, which are one of a kind. 400-500 e-mails and a lot of telephone conversations developing those, but that is another story
I meant bass load i.e. heavy bass modulation in the source. I thought the next sentence made it pretty obvious. It requires power. The video makes it obvious, though the mic misses the low frequencies should anyone play it back on a high end system.
I am slightly amused, Brad. We have you claiming how little it takes to run an Apogee to good volume, and countless others firmly in the other camp.
All I was saying is the obvious. Think "why do subs use high power class D amps". Reason? To drive large cones to large excursion levels. But if there is little bass in the source material, that power isn't required.
So, with heavy bass reggae, for instance, low power amps will simply cop out at low SPL levels compared to high power amps, which CAN supply the required power. Not rocket science. Without the high LF modulation, the low power amp will do better.
Your argument about the bass drivers is what is amusing. A large driver is often MORE sensitive than a smaller one. Go look at many of the main driver manufacturers and look up and down their bass driver lineup and you will see that for a given design, the larger the driver the more sensitive it is. A large cone also needs less excursion to achieve a given SPL level all things being the same up and down a given design. The impedance is usually quite similar up and down a line as well. The simple truth is that if you want to use a small woofer as a sub you need a lot of power whereas a big woofer will usually require much less. This is why all those Classic designs from the 30s-60s used BIG woofers...15 inches or larger that would make high SPL with low power. Small drivers that need large excursions to make substantial bass needed more power than was easily available at that time. Now, to make a woofer go really deep you have to make the cone very heavy to get the resonance frequency down...but this also affects sensitivity. Even then though, a larger woofer will be more sensitive than a smaller one of the same design.
There is no problem with low powered amps delivering bass if they are designed right and this goes for SETs as well. An equal amplitude of bass signal and 1Khz will draw the same power from the amp unless the impedance in the bass is signficantly lower (for Duetta sigs it is not) or there is a serious FR imbalance where the bass is shelved down (it is not). That means 1 watt at 1Khz will make the same SPL as 1 watt at 30Hz if the impedance and FR are the same. You will not hear it at the same amplitude though because our hearing sensitivity is quite different at these two frequencies.
I am claiming that Apogees do not need a lot of power if:
1) It is not a Full-range, Scintilla or earlier Duetta or Caliper (i.e. Signature series forward)
2) The room is not large/very large and/or the speakers are far from a wall
3) The listener is less than 4 meters away
4) Mid to upper 90s peaks are acceptable for your listening habits.
Note, I am not claiming an 8 watt 300B amp will work. I am talking about 20+ watts with good headroom and/or fast overload recovery. There are plenty of rather beastly SETs out there that will do well.
Of those in the high power camp, most of them simply never considered if a lower powered amp could work in most ways better because they believed what they were told by other "experts". This kills most audiophiles sense of exploration.
It's just like another thread I saw here some time ago. A guy was asking if he could drive his Thiel CS3.7s with SETs successfully. The "experts" chimed in, including "top" reviewers, that no way would this work. Well, I can tell you that it works and works beautifully. A friend of mine has this speaker and he originally had McIntosh MC501 monos. After hearing that tubes sound better, he switched to Octave Push/pull monos. Then he heard a VAC 30/30 on his Thiels and convinced that a push/pull Class A 300B with no feedback amp was superior (it was and by a wide margin). THEN he heard SET amps on his speakers and that is what he has now. Guess what? It sounds great, has great bass and plays as loud as you would want (my friend listens quite loud actually) without obvious strain or compression...even with bass heavy material. The word on the street is that this speaker "needs" big power because it has a lowish impedance, needs bass control (as if power and bass control have much to do with each other) etc. Well, it's bull.
People said the same thing about the big Wilsons...but if you look at the actual measurements they don't need high power at all. THe original X1 was 95db and an easy load. It has a 15 inch woofer but in a well damped alignment and it works perfectly with a 30 watt KR VA350i. The smallish Watt/puppy might but even it is well over 90db/watt. It does have some nasty impedance in places that make it not suitable for all tubes.
Nah. My parallel push-pull triode amps (15 W/ch) can easily and with great dynamics drive my 92 dB sensitive monitors, but they were 'dying' on 96 dB Goldmund speakers with large woofers.
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