ULTRA 9's Set Up For Review(The Absolute Sound)

[Leif S]

Alternatively, will there be an Ultra 7 to be launched next, and if so, what will be some of its design characteristics and specifications?

There is in fact another ULTRA flagship model in the design stage right now. I'm not sure what we are going to call it yet. I keep calling it an ULTRA 5 but maybe it will be the ULTRA 10. This is another concentric array but without the built in subs on the back of the speaker. I'm still have a lot of work to do so I really don't want to say to much about it yet. I will try and update information as the design process continues. I'm hoping we can produce this model at a fraction of the cost of an ULTRA 11 for those who love concentric arrays.

 

[Leif S]

I haven’t heard the E5s but the E3 is a winner. I like it more than many speakers that cost more, tens of thousands more.

Folsom thank you for the kind words Will you be attending Axpona this year? Would love for you to come to the after hour listening party We will have the E-5MkII's at Axpona 2019. We have two rooms this year which is kind of crazy. It's hard enough to deal with one room let alone two lol. They are 30' x 60' with 15' ceilings. In one room I think we are going to dedicate solely to an ULTRA 9 system or maybe do a split system with ULTRA 9's and ULTRA 55's. I think the other room will have 3 systems with the E-3MkII;s, E-5MkII's, and most likely the VR-55's. I think I am done touring with the 11's for now.

 

[QuadDiffuser]

There is in fact another ULTRA flagship model in the design stage right now. I'm not sure what we are going to call it yet. I keep calling it an ULTRA 5 but maybe it will be the ULTRA 10. This is another concentric array but without the built in subs on the back of the speaker. I'm still have a lot of work to do so I really don't want to say to much about it yet. I will try and update information as the design process continues. I'm hoping we can produce this model at a fraction of the cost of an ULTRA 11 for those who love concentric arrays.

Your descriptions (and proposed name) implies that the upcoming new model may be a 4-piece system with the actively driven subwoofers separated from the main cabinet.

I would be interested and intrigued if VSA can instead build an Ultra 7 which slims down the rear of Ultra 9 by employing actively-driven dual opposing woofers which cleverly and passively cancel out vibrations (ala Vivid Giya).

 

[QuadDiffuser]

Guess my hesitation for embracing the Ultra 9 (with its 30” depth) stems from real-world constraints concerning room size, placement inflexibility, proximity to the front wall, standing wave bass room nodes, etc.

Currently, I’m enjoying a happy speaker placement and listening position configuration, one of which achieves the Rule Of Thirds:
Distance between front and back wall: 22ft 5in
Front panel of the VR-55 Aktives: 26% away
Listening position: 66% away

Together with this placement geometry, I’ve treated the listening room extensively, with one ton of prime-17 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz on the front wall, plus another ton of prime-13 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz as well as to a broader band 80-200Hz.

Augmenting all of this are four “anti-bass” active bass absorbers placed in four corners of the room to attenuate standing waves.
https://www.psiaudio.swiss/avaa-c20-active-bass-trap/

All of this resulting in the most articulate bass reproduction possible in my room, approximately 22ft (D) x 29ft (W) x 10ft(H) in its gross dimensions.

Placing a Ultra 9 in the same location of my VR-55 Aktives would result in its rear-facing subwoofer cone being just 3ft 4in (40”) away from the rear wall. And maybe just 1ft 6in above the floor.

Would you please comment on how a subwoofer located so closely to two major room boundaries can be tamed adequately to integrate well with the room?

Conversely, what is the minimum recommended placement distance from boundary walls recommended for the Ultra 9?

 

[Ron Resnick]

There is in fact another ULTRA flagship model in the design stage right now. I'm not sure what we are going to call it yet. I keep calling it an ULTRA 5 but maybe it will be the ULTRA 10. This is another concentric array but without the built in subs on the back of the speaker. I'm still have a lot of work to do so I really don't want to say to much about it yet. I will try and update information as the design process continues. I'm hoping we can produce this model at a fraction of the cost of an ULTRA 11 for those who love concentric arrays.

Very interesting!!!

Do you plan for the new speaker to be the same height as the Ultra 11? (In other words will it be basically an Ultra 11 but simply minus the pair of powered subs built into the panel (with a different cross-over, of course, so the speaker is full-range)?)

OR you could go the other way (i.e., up) and make an Ultra 12 (14?, 15?) by keeping the Ultra 11 exactly as it is and excising the subs and putting the subs in a separate, outboard box (maybe three or four 15" drivers per side) and you have a four column system. (Of course, then Jack would have to upgrade to this which I am sure would be a giant hassle! )

(I have no idea if the difference is detectable but, in theory anyway, I like the idea of getting the biggest woofers out of the main cabinet so there is no chance that they are vibrating internally the higher frequency drivers.)

 

[Ron Resnick]

Guess my hesitation for embracing the Ultra 9 (with its 30” depth) stems from real-world constraints concerning room size, placement inflexibility, proximity to the front wall, standing wave bass room nodes, etc.

Currently, I’m enjoying a happy speaker placement and listening position configuration, one of which achieves the Rule Of Thirds:
Distance between front and back wall: 22ft 5in
Front panel of the VR-55 Aktives: 26% away
Listening position: 66% away

Together with this placement geometry, I’ve treated the listening room extensively, with one ton of prime-17 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz on the front wall, plus another ton of prime-13 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz as well as to a broader band 80-200Hz.

Augmenting all of this are four “anti-bass” active bass absorbers placed in four corners of the room to attenuate standing waves.

All of this resulting in the most articulate bass reproduction possible in my room, approximately 22ft (D) x 29ft (W) x 10ft(H) in its gross dimensions.

Placing a Ultra 9 in the same location of my VR-55 Aktives would result in its rear-facing subwoofer cone being just 3ft 4in (40”) away from the rear wall. And maybe just 1ft 6in above the floor.

Would you please comment on how a subwoofer located so closely to two major room boundaries can be tamed adequately to integrate well with the room?

Conversely, what is the minimum recommended placement distance from boundary walls recommended for the Ultra 9?

Hello,

22' x 29' x 10' is fantastic! But I am confused about your room dimensions.

1) Do you have the speakers on the long wall?

2) How did you lose 6.5' (29' to 22.5'?)

 

[QuadDiffuser]

Hello,

22' x 29' x 10' is fantastic! But I am confused about your room dimensions.

1) Do you have the speakers on the long wall?

2) How did you lose 6.5' (29' to 22.5'?)

My listening room is a complex jigsaw of multiple rectangles, with staggered compartments created from walls which were taken down to create more space/volume. Real estate in Hong Kong is by far the most expensive in the world, so space is a luxury, and is scarce. But I can legitimately say that the effective space is actually larger than 22.5 x 29 as there are no structural boundaries between the rectangles, being only visually separated through partitions which fully allow low frequency energy to pass.

Yes, to put things very simply, my system is set up along the long wall, as the listening area is an alcove containing the listening sofa and a home office with a standing (adjustable height) desk. So effectively, near-field boundaries which surround the immediate vicinity of the listening area and the speaker placement area (influenced by the sub-12msec Hass effect) comes to play.

 

[Leif S]

Guess my hesitation for embracing the Ultra 9 (with its 30” depth) stems from real-world constraints concerning room size, placement inflexibility, proximity to the front wall, standing wave bass room nodes, etc.

Currently, I’m enjoying a happy speaker placement and listening position configuration, one of which achieves the Rule Of Thirds:
Distance between front and back wall: 22ft 5in
Front panel of the VR-55 Aktives: 26% away
Listening position: 66% away

Together with this placement geometry, I’ve treated the listening room extensively, with one ton of prime-17 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz on the front wall, plus another ton of prime-13 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz as well as to a broader band 80-200Hz.

Augmenting all of this are four “anti-bass” active bass absorbers placed in four corners of the room to attenuate standing waves.

All of this resulting in the most articulate bass reproduction possible in my room, approximately 22ft (D) x 29ft (W) x 10ft(H) in its gross dimensions.

Placing a Ultra 9 in the same location of my VR-55 Aktives would result in its rear-facing subwoofer cone being just 3ft 4in (40”) away from the rear wall. And maybe just 1ft 6in above the floor.

Would you please comment on how a subwoofer located so closely to two major room boundaries can be tamed adequately to integrate well with the room?

Conversely, what is the minimum recommended placement distance from boundary walls recommended for the Ultra 9?

Oh my gosh lol....

I just know realize who this is. I'm going to pm you so we can really discuss the best options. I may have to design a speaker just for you lol.

 

[QuadDiffuser]

I

Very interesting!!!

Do you plan for the new speaker to be the same height as the Ultra 11? (In other words will it be basically an Ultra 11 but simply minus the pair of powered subs built into the panel (with a different cross-over, of course, so the speaker is full-range)?)

OR you could go the other way (i.e., up) and make an Ultra 12 (14?, 15?) by keeping the Ultra 11 exactly as it is and excising the subs and putting the subs in a separate, outboard box (maybe three or four 15" drivers per side) and you have a four column system. (Of course, then Jack would have to upgrade to this which I am sure would be a giant hassle! )

(I have no idea if the difference is detectable but, in theory anyway, I like the idea of getting the biggest woofers out of the main cabinet so there is no chance that they are vibrating internally the higher frequency drivers.)

I’m generally not a fan of a duplicity of short-wave transducers, ala D’Appolito configurations, as the better way to achieve amplitude, phase, and temporal coherence is to stick to single-point transducers while paying close attention to the balance between direct and indirect sound and their characteristics at arrival to the listener’s ears at the listening position. Duplicity can augment and reinforce the direct sound by +3dB, but will also potentially add to the undesirable in-phase indirect sound, which confuse localization.

In listening to a variety of D’Appolito configuration, every single one of them sounded constrained in the vertical dimension, as if one was listening to a frisbee / pancake of sound which was unable to bloom naturally in a pulsating bubble as in nature. Particularly when one’s ears are centered directly on the horizontal axis of the center transducer, as they should be. The unnatural and phasey upper frequency acoustic energy distribution will be evident as one moves above or below this plane, resulting in the realization of how constrained the vertical soundstage actually is. Those seated significantly below the straight-ahead center transducer axis may not realize this reality if they are always seated at this sub-optimal position. A case of out of sight, out of ear/brain!

It is critical that the owner/user fully understands the balance of compromises. Some of the downside can be mitigated by the very liberal usage of quadratic diffusers to randomize the deleterious off-axis in-phase short wavelength energy, in combination to keeping the transducers away from any boundaries by at least six feet.

The longer wavelength bass energy which essentially are pressure waves can however benefit greatly from distributing the physical location of the bass drivers, particularly with respect to moderating constructive and destructive nodes. Unknown to most audiophiles is the that the near-floor placement of bass drivers is essentially a compromise to address the practicality of keeping the CG low on an otherwise unstable cabinet with a narrow footprint. The ideal placement of the bass driver should actually be away from nearfied boundaries; since the floor to ceiling dimension is often the physical constraint which constributes most to undesirable standing waves, the bass drivers should ideally be placed at the midpoint (ie. four feet high, for a typical eight foot ceiling), or even better, at the 1/3 and 2/3 heights. In the case of a room with 10 feet ceilings, two bass drivers should ideally be placed in a vertical tower at 3-1/3 feet and 6-2/3 feet. More practically and realistically, a very tall tower with multiple bass drivers would likely be easier to build and integrate into a variety of rooms which understandaby will have different heights.

 

[Leif S]

Very interesting!!!

Do you plan for the new speaker to be the same height as the Ultra 11? (In other words will it be basically an Ultra 11 but simply minus the pair of powered subs built into the panel (with a different cross-over, of course, so the speaker is full-range)?)

OR you could go the other way (i.e., up) and make an Ultra 12 (14?, 15?) by keeping the Ultra 11 exactly as it is and excising the subs and putting the subs in a separate, outboard box (maybe three or four 15" drivers per side) and you have a four column system. (Of course, then Jack would have to upgrade to this which I am sure would be a giant hassle! )

(I have no idea if the difference is detectable but, in theory anyway, I like the idea of getting the biggest woofers out of the main cabinet so there is no chance that they are vibrating internally the higher frequency drivers.)

Hi Ron,
This would be more along the line of an E5 but with all Accuton and the Beryllium tweeter. So this would be a smaller speaker for sure. If used in a much larger room our Shockwave subs can be added to the system.

 

[Ron Resnick]

My listening room is a complex jigsaw of multiple rectangles, with staggered compartments created from walls which were taken down to create more space/volume. Real estate in Hong Kong is by far the most expensive in the world, so space is a luxury, and is scarce. But I can legitimately say that the effective space is actually larger than 22.5 x 29 as there are no structural boundaries between the rectangles, being only visually separated through partitions which fully allow low frequency energy to pass.

Yes, to put things very simply, my system is set up along the long wall, as the listening area is an alcove containing the listening sofa and a home office with a standing (adjustable height) desk. So effectively, near-field boundaries which surround the immediate vicinity of the listening area and the speaker placement area (influenced by the sub-12msec Hass effect) comes to play.

I understand. Thank you.

You have a huge amount of space for Hong Kong!

 

[Ron Resnick]

A-ha! Okay, Leif.

Thank you.

 

[QuadDiffuser]

Oh my gosh lol....

I just know realize who this is. I'm going to pm you so we can really discuss the best options. I may have to design a speaker just for you lol.

Hi Leif, haha Happy New Year!
Sure, let’s chat.
Looking forward !

 

[JackD201]

All I can say about Quad's description to Leif is .... "Hey brotha, I told ya!" LOL

Roll that U-88 out baby!

 

[Leif S]

Guess my hesitation for embracing the Ultra 9 (with its 30” depth) stems from real-world constraints concerning room size, placement inflexibility, proximity to the front wall, standing wave bass room nodes, etc.

Currently, I’m enjoying a happy speaker placement and listening position configuration, one of which achieves the Rule Of Thirds:
Distance between front and back wall: 22ft 5in
Front panel of the VR-55 Aktives: 26% away
Listening position: 66% away

Together with this placement geometry, I’ve treated the listening room extensively, with one ton of prime-17 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz on the front wall, plus another ton of prime-13 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz as well as to a broader band 80-200Hz.

Augmenting all of this are four “anti-bass” active bass absorbers placed in four corners of the room to attenuate standing waves.

All of this resulting in the most articulate bass reproduction possible in my room, approximately 22ft (D) x 29ft (W) x 10ft(H) in its gross dimensions.

Placing a Ultra 9 in the same location of my VR-55 Aktives would result in its rear-facing subwoofer cone being just 3ft 4in (40”) away from the rear wall. And maybe just 1ft 6in above the floor.

Would you please comment on how a subwoofer located so closely to two major room boundaries can be tamed adequately to integrate well with the room?

Conversely, what is the minimum recommended placement distance from boundary walls recommended for the Ultra 9?

40" from the rear wall is fine. The adjustability of this speaker allows you to place it where most other speakers wouldn't work as well without some serious treatment.

Guess my hesitation for embracing the Ultra 9 (with its 30” depth) stems from real-world constraints concerning room size, placement inflexibility, proximity to the front wall, standing wave bass room nodes, etc.

Currently, I’m enjoying a happy speaker placement and listening position configuration, one of which achieves the Rule Of Thirds:
Distance between front and back wall: 22ft 5in
Front panel of the VR-55 Aktives: 26% away
Listening position: 66% away

Together with this placement geometry, I’ve treated the listening room extensively, with one ton of prime-17 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz on the front wall, plus another ton of prime-13 quadratic diffusers and diaphragmatic bass absorbers tuned to 40-80Hz as well as to a broader band 80-200Hz.

Augmenting all of this are four “anti-bass” active bass absorbers placed in four corners of the room to attenuate standing waves.
https://www.psiaudio.swiss/avaa-c20-active-bass-trap/

All of this resulting in the most articulate bass reproduction possible in my room, approximately 22ft (D) x 29ft (W) x 10ft(H) in its gross dimensions.

Placing a Ultra 9 in the same location of my VR-55 Aktives would result in its rear-facing subwoofer cone being just 3ft 4in (40”) away from the rear wall. And maybe just 1ft 6in above the floor.

Would you please comment on how a subwoofer located so closely to two major room boundaries can be tamed adequately to integrate well with the room?

Conversely, what is the minimum recommended placement distance from boundary walls recommended for the Ultra 9?

Now knowing your room and the fact that you already have VR-55's, the ULTRA 9's are a perfect fit!