The End Of A 35 Year Journey ---Zellaton -The Reference Ultra Final Frontier

[Taiko Audio]

Emile...I am so happy that you have joined the discussion. There is never a post of yours where I dont learn something new.Can you help elaborate on this comment



I was also fascinated about this comment which I would like to hear further comments

Curiously whatever you use as cable lifters AND how/where they are positioned has a way beyond usual effect on sound, as much if not more than the cable itself! I settled on paper signal tube boxes, which still have a small “paper” kind of colouration, but I found these the least “offensive” so far.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Nice choice of amps Emile! Bet that allows for a very natural presentation.

Emile, the Elysium is a very special set of monoblocks. They look terrific alongside the Zellatons. We will bring a pair to the US soon so folks on this side of the Atlantic can hear them. Steve, Sasa has a new amplifier underway that you will have to listen to against your Lamm's

Yeah they are special, uncanny upper bass and midrange palpability / realism, which also seems to be a Zellaton strength as it never came out like this before! The very wide FR range of the mid driver probably aids in this.

 

[morricab]

Curiously whatever you use as cable lifters AND how/where they are positioned has a way beyond usual effect on sound, as much if not more than the cable itself! I settled on paper signal tube boxes, which still have a small “paper” kind of colouration, but I found these the least “offensive” so far.

View attachment 144118

good use of leftover boxes...cheap too! BTW, did you try the styrofoam peanuts just for completion?

 

[John T]

good use of leftover boxes...cheap too! BTW, did you try the styrofoam peanuts just for completion?

Too fully optimize the styrofoam peanuts need to be in the box. Not only for support but extended mid-range...

 

[sbo6]

No I have not, not that my room doesn’t suffer from room modes but I have 80 Helmholtz resonators build into the walls which still need to be tuned. Once I finish that project and room modes are still prominent enough to bother me I may look into adding subs (but it’s not very likely).

Net is - you don't know what you don't know. After the Helmholtz resonators are tuned it would be great to see a frequency response of your room. I believe there's even a dedicated thread. As a result of that freq. response, $10 says you (and everyone else that hasn't already) can benefit from adequate quality subs employed correctly.

 

[Steve williams]

how many Zellaton users do you know that are using subs, I did a search yesterday amongst friends, dealers, online users as well as all videos and truthfully I haven't found one. As stated I respect your opinion but a sub is not in my future with these speakers and I trust Emile's opinions on the subject as well . I too have Helmholtz resonators throughout my room. I did have subs for many years in my room. It wasn't until 3 speaker manufacturers visited my room and all of them indecent of one another said my room would sound better without subs. It took me another 2 years of living with them before I finally sold them and my room has never sounded better. So can we please drop the subject. I appreciate your comments but as stated subs are not in my great scheme of things.. Time to move on

 

[Mgrif104]

Congrats Steve! I (we) look forward to your impressions once they’re installed. I’ve never had the pleasure of hearing, much less auditioning Zellatons, but I’ve read enough about them to know they’re special. I’m envious as I’m sure are many who linger here!

 

[Steve williams]

What I find so interesting about them is how revealing they are and Emile's comments above regarding cable lifters truly substantiates that IMO. I saving all my tube boxes now

 

[sbo6]

how many Zellaton users do you know that are using subs, I did a search yesterday amongst friends, dealers, online users as well as all videos and truthfully I haven't found one. As stated I respect your opinion but a sub is not in my future with these speakers and I trust Emile's opinions on the subject as well . I too have Helmholtz resonators throughout my room. I did have subs for many years in my room. It wasn't until 3 speaker manufacturers visited my room and all of them indecent of one another said my room would sound better without subs. It took me another 2 years of living with them before I finally sold them and my room has never sounded better. So can we please drop the subject. I appreciate your comments but as stated subs are not in my great scheme of things.. Time to move on

Steve, you brought it up, and you and Emile commented, I'm simply responding to your and Emile's comments. Does this forum not allow differing opinions?

I'll be sure to never respond to you mentioning subs in your thread again.

 

[Steve williams]

regarding amplifiers, I am quite confidant that my Lamm ML3 will perform in an exemplary fashion. These past 4-6 months in my due diligence with users and Gideon have been reassuring as to think they would not rise to the task and I would need to consider other amps was for me always a deal breaker. I talked to users who were driving their Zellatons with 20 wpc tube amps.As to the midrange, this for me is the main reason I love my Lamm Signature electronics. They have become a part of my DNA

 

[Steve williams]

Steve, you brought it up, and you and Emile commented, I'm simply responding to your and Emile's comments. Does this forum not allow differing opinions?

I'll be sure to never respond to you mentioning subs in your thread again.

Actually I did not bring up the subject of subs. It was PK-LA who did. Thanks for understanding but they are not in my future

 

[morricab]

f

Why didn’t I think of that, the ultimate solution staring me right in the face

Cavity tuning of the inside of the box

 

[AudioLibertarian]

Have you tried? Please share your experience.

Wilson Benesch Infra Subs are known to have "helped" to improve the Zellaton's mid bass impact.

 

[AudioLibertarian]

I ve used Ensemble PA-1 with the Netorovic subs and their crossover to a very good effect.

 

[AudioLibertarian]

Congratulations Steve - nice to see that after 35 years in the hobby you are still able to make big changes!

I have always admired Zellaton - in fact in the 90's I owned the Pawel/Ensemble PA-1 silver speakers using Zellaton units - and as you say their medium is as close as as electrostatic as dynamic speakers can go. A good friend and frequent visitor often refers to the voice of Jose Carreras singing Bernstein West Side Story played through these speakers - a moving experience.

The drivers in Pawel/Zellaton while looking similar, were not made by Zellaton. In fact theirs were such a custom version that you can not find identical spec replacement drivers for the PA-1, Primadonna, Animatas.

 

[AudioLibertarian]

Pure Low magnetic subs from France are certainly fast enough for the Zellatons. Now the proper integration is the key of course, but if one is shooting for the absolutes, that should sound like an amazing combo me thinks.....

 

[sbo6]

Correct I don’t know. Not for a lack of subwoofer experience though. I actually still have a pair of Alsyvox subwoofers, being ribbon woofers they may be a decent bet for a potential reasonable match.

But to be honest I just lack the motivation to spend time on it as everything which is there is quite satisfactory.

Out of Nostalgia though, if someone knows of a pair of old Rel Studio subs in good condition, I would happily buy & try those, if only for nostalgia reasons. Additionally the old Rel’s high level input (used up to the Gibraltar series), has been the only one which made a satisfactory match with SE tube amps for me, which is actually the biggest concern for me regarding subwoofer integration.

I would respond but I'm not allowed

Happy Listening!

 

[Mike Lavigne]

To clarify, this is not about sub integration from an acoustical pov, but rather an electrical one, the old Rel high level input option is the only one I found to not impact the pre or power amplifiers electrical performance.

which has some things in common with how the EA MM7 active bass towers integrate with the passive towers. in that case they also take a high level signal from the speaker terminal. but additionally the passive towers are rolled off acoustically and the bass towers are inverse matched in their slope to avoid doubling.

the key point being that the bass towers get their character from the same amplifier that the passive towers do so the bass tower output is 'of a piece' with the passive towers. coherence and balance results.

when i used the ML3's in my system the bass was fully integrated and seamless. the very neutral class D amps in the bass towers mimicked the ML3 character.

 

[John T]

To clarify, this is not about sub integration from an acoustical pov, but rather an electrical one, the old Rel high level input option is the only one I found to not impact the pre or power amplifiers electrical performance.

Now you got me curious Emile. When you say electrical impact pre/power, how so? With my Mephisto and Rel's I use only a single wire configuration. Mephisto doesn't like any other config. (positive) Because of this no need to connect to Amp terminals, single Positive to the Speaker. This achieves the same result...

 

[Al M.]

To clarify, this is not about sub integration from an acoustical pov, but rather an electrical one, the old Rel high level input option is the only one I found to not impact the pre or power amplifiers electrical performance.

A well designed preamp should not be affected by a subwoofer load. I drive my JL Audio subs via RCA from an Octave HP 700 preamp and there is no sonic difference, other than in the bass, with the subs driven or not (I drive floorstanders with sub bass blended in at 40 Hz and going below via sharp filter slope at 24 dB per octave).

Or maybe the REL low level input is somehow funky.