Vivid Giya G1 vs G1 Spirits

[Rodney Gold]

I'm pretty much a Vivid audio fan..I have heard almost their whole range and all are impressive . The company treat customers well and are a pleasure to deal with. I'm just a happy customer - so view my ramblings in that light

This is a comparison of the Giya G1's and the new G1 Spirits and just some musings on the Spirits themselves

The G1's

They are incredible speakers , a tour de force .. they floated my boat for over 2 years .. endless hours of pure pleasure .. incredibly musical , dynamic , astounding bass .. holographic imagery and huge sense of grandeur and presence .. go as loud as your ears can take and they cope .. no genre sounded bad and even poor recordings were listenable .. sounded great at any level , background or full orchestral..their overall sound in my room was unlike whatever I owned or had heard.

And then I heard of the G1 Spirits .. my appetite was whetted.. Better than G1's? Cmmon....

Vivid , confident of their product , put their money where their mouth is and said they would do me a set of Spirits in the colour of my choice (copper) and allow me to play with them and the G1's for a month and keep the set I wanted.. if I decided to keep the spirits , they would trade in my G1's and of course I would have to cough up some boodle..a VERY fair proposition.. I was ordering on a leap of faith with a get out clause....

The moola for both my G1's and my spirit upgrade came from me selling 3 yank muscle cars I had , 2 Corvettes and a Camaro .. I hadn't driven 2 for a year and the other I drove infrequently .. basically giving me no joy and gathering dust..I decided to parlay that "investment" into something I can use daily..

After listening to my Giya G1 Spirits for a month , all run in and sort of fine tuned..it was time to wheel my older G1's back into the room to get a true handle on sonic differences between the 2. I listened to the Spirits for 2-3 weeks and then the G1's for a few days and then swapped back to the Spirits..once you go Spirits there is no going back

The spec differences are :

Spirits are slightly shorter and fatter .. I like both's looks

The tweeter/mid tweeter and midrange panel has shifted about 10cm downwards .. a huge improvement in that the 2 domes are not way above ear level

They use a different midrange driver .. much bigger magnet and coil..

Tweeter and mid tweeter have salt and pepper shaker protective grids vs the old cruciform one.. no more angst about breathing too near the domes and seeing them crumple ..fingers and dent magnet issue solved..

Spirits have different bass drivers .. total overkill units .. for extra shove ..

They have external crossovers .. great for changing wires or making the speakers active .. no more 3 person tipping the speaker over to do anything re cables. .. a short umbilical 8 pole speakon goes under the speakers .. unplugging it is a bit of a gynecological affair but possible while the speaker is standing. You can make the speaker fully dsp active if you really want , accessing the drivers themselves..Vivid offer NO guarantee if you go this route

Boxes that the externals come in are high gloss piano black (fingerprint magnets and a b*tch to clean) but overall a better solution than with G1's ..Spirits obviously have a different crossover topology

Different internal bracing is used in the Spirits ..

They are at least 2db or more efficient over the G1, A welcome bonus

They handle double the power .. from 800w rms to 1.6kw rms. .. but anyone going near the upper limit is insane .. these speakers go LOUD.. but more on that later

To me they are also better made than the G1 and the paint finish is superior.


I dont like the Giya grilles for various reasons ...
So I dont use either the main or the woofer grilles..I unpacked one , saw it fitted the spirit and carefully repacked and stored. As said before ..The new protective covers on the low and high tweeters ally a lot of angst when it comes to finger pokers

I like all genres of music , I am open to experiment and exploration
I like it loud , at least lifelike
I like visceral and tight bass , treble and midrange purity , precise imaging and a wide soundstage.. I want every listening session to be an experience.

My system is real simple ..I stream to a squeezebox touch either straight into to my 2 Devialet D premiers or to a miniDSP DDRC-22 and then to the Devialets. The DDRC is a hardware based DIRAC solution

The devialets go directly to my speakers

The only cables used are a set of solid silver mundorf ribbons to the speakers .. If using the Touch..a kimber D60 spdif cable.

My room is driven off a 5kw pure sine wave inverter fed by a bank of 200 ah batterys , which are solar charged. So I dont really concern myself with power conditioning or power cables .. neither do I tweak with isolation or racks , my rack is a coffee table.

I *do* have a fully treated dedicated 500sq ft room , soundproofed .. bass traps in corners and either absorption or diffusion strategically placed.

I have some really nasty room mode peaks at 21hz , 40 and 60 hz .. no bass trap will ever remove them so I use DSP to knock them out using DIRAC below 180hz or so , nothing else is touched

I use ROON as a front end ..integrated with Tidal .. I have a local collection of round 4000 cds .. if you are music lover and have a big library and want to partake of the smorgasbord of lossless music out there in the ether .. ROON and Tidal is the bees knees...

I have tried various other speaker/chair positions and the best is where I am now
My chair is one of those configurable ergohuman things , I can roll it around and tilt it to get into different sweet spots , closer to the backwall the more bass , inclined makes it smoother and so on. A very comfortable "command" chair..you can sit in it for hours and get up refreshed

The moment the first note was struck when we set up the Spirits , I knew there was something special.. the local agent who installed the speakers was also astounded..just plonked down fresh out the box....

To cut to the chase:

The spirits do it all .. they detach the music from the system , it does NOT come from speakers , it comes from somewhere in the ether .. you can follow any individual thread in the music , you are there , you know what the artists intent was..

When listening , I wish I could play the artists their own recordings on these speakers .. just to hear their comments

They extract information you never dreamed you could encode in stereo...Imaging is rock solid and the soundstage is layered both left and right and fore and aft.. its surreal .. you dont have to close your eyes to pinpoint a performer or instruments' space in 3d..


This is the spirits party trick .. the imaging is superb wherever you are , get up , walk towards the speakers and the imaging DOESNT change.. only when you go behind the speakers does it collapse .. then walk back to the listening seat with the speakers behind you and amazingly enough the imaging pops up in FRONT of you ... the off axis performance of these speakers is amazing, I recon you can toe them in so they face each other and still get amazing sound..

The bass is profound , totally distortion free to ungodly house shaking levels , its tight , but its a bass that is not often heard but felt .. there is NOTHING this speaker can not handle in the bass .. you can go from dub to organ , to electronica , whatever.. you will NEVER come close to unsettling the Spirits..My devialets also have something to do with it , running 500w per chan .. but these speakers can take 1.6KW!!!!! ..92 DB efficiency. I recon they can go close to 120db at 3m
You do NOT a sub with these speakers , their bass section will outperform almost all subs...

PS DIRAC measures my bass as -2b down at 10hz!!!! .. and we are talking pretty high levels here

Im still fine tuning the bass and have plans to change my bass trapping to 12x 20" diameter 8 ft tube traps to replace my flat traps

If you touch the furniture in my room when pumping the bass at serious levels , its all buzzing , touch the shells and they are totally dead..not a hint of vibration.. you can touch right near the woofers..Nada..nothing
The way the bass units are coupled and the bracing in the cabinet works brilliantly

A con to all this bass is that I now have some new buzzes and rattles to sort out..not the Spirits fault tho...

The bass drivers also dont seem to roll off.. they can do low bass TOO well, and im talking ulta low freqs here , some albums with ultra low freqs encoded are problematic and disconcerting as they have bass that no other system would reproduce.. the woofers go mad...and the room pressurises

IMHO , the spirits need a pretty steep roll off below 20hz to get rid of this. I have implemented a 36db/octave high pass filter at 20hz.


As to the rest ..
Treble purity has to be heard .. every nuance is conveyed with utmost clarity..there is no etch , there is no breakup , there is no beaming ..its just there ..as you would hear it in real life .. the whole top end is different to the the
G1's .. there is a lot more clarity , and its far less laid back.. those salt and pepper shaker covers dont seem to affect the tweeters at all..apart from giving them better off axis performance

The midrange is something else .. the driver is part dome part cone ..more dome
The spirts are a lot more forward and immediate than the G1's in a good way..totally natural .. far more detailed and textured... but the G1's are more forgiving than the Spirits on bad recordings..occasionally I implement a -1db filter with a low Q centred around 2k for those brasher performances which just takes the edge off.

It is really difficult to describe the Spirits by breaking them down into parts .. it doesnt work that way..Its a no compromise speaker that can deliver the sound you want , no matter your preferences
You have to deal with the paradigm change in comparing it with anything you have heard..


You like classical..well you can have the orchestra in your room .. you got the best seats in the house

you like rock..just turn up the wick..get out the air guitar and go for it

say Yello to electronica..the ambient effects are amazing..zone out within the music

You like female vocal..krall just put on a private performance just for you

Overall the speaker has a dynamic range you have to experience 0-100000 in a parsec..the effortlessness they exude is addictive.. you reach for the loud pedal knowing that you not going to end up with a mess when things get busy
The louder you go , the more you feel part of the performance .. you wind it up some more to mine the nth degree of detail on offer .. your ears will give up before the spirits will..they are clean at ANY level.


An added bonus to these speakers is they still have much of their character at low levels and background.. but they really come to life when you play at lifelike levels and beyond..the louder it goes , the more you feel part of the music.

With the spirits , you instantly get the artists intent on your old or new music .. its sort of weird.. yeh maybe its not the best recording or mastering.. but you still get it!!

At the end of it all .. what the spirits do *is* make every listening session an experience

I was wondering whether the $30k premium for the spirits over the G1 was worth it ... well , Im keeping them !! they are worth every cent!!
These are not speakers.. they are magic music machines..Well done Vivid and Dickie .. you have surpassed yourselves.

 

[adyc]

Excellent report. Congrats. These are speakers for life. Btw, very nice room.

 

[DaveyF]

Nice write up Rodney. Makes me believe that the older G1's are a steal at their current used pricing. Wish I had the room to accommodate them. While I agree that the new Spirit's are a better speaker, as you alluded to, the older G1's are superb. I think the difference in pricing is something that each listener will have to decide upon, but I wouldn't be too surprised if many come to the conclusion that the older G1's are perfectly good enough.

 

[Rodney Gold]

I agree davey .. The G1's are still superb and are an amazing buy used... I initially inquired about supercharging my G1's with the woofers and mid of the spirits .. no go...hence I had to have the Spirits

 

[Rob181]

WOW...would love to hear these speakers one day...

 

[caesar]

Rodney, Congrats! A shame that Vivid gets no respect from most of the disgusting smegma in the media.

 

[caesar]

Rodney, not to put a damper on your comparison, but I think at Axpona they showed Vivid Giya 1 Version 2, that is probably a lot better than the model you had. I have no doubt that Spirits will kill the Vivid Giya Version 2, but I am sure it's a bit closer.

 

[caesar]

There is an excellent review by Jeff Fritz comparing the Vivid Spirits to the Magico Q7 that make things very clear how one person may prefer the experience of the Vivid and how another may prefer the experience of the Magico. Very well done by Mr. Fritz!

http://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/727-vivid-audio-giya-g1-spirit-loudspeakers

 

[Rodney Gold]

I havent heard of the G1 version 2 .. mine were 2 yrs old and had the latest cross overs..I did inquire about supercharging my G1's but it cant be done .. they certainly cant include the new bass drivers .. maybe the new mids and a revised X over?

The rarified uber upper end speakers like the Magico Q7 are few and far on the ground in South Africa.... the best system I heard to compare to the spirits to is an Avant Garde trio system with 6 basshorns

Hehehehe Caesar .. smegma might be just the right word..some folk have commented the Giyas look like giant dicks with floppy foreskins ...

 

[sbo6]

Great review. I recall being impressed by the smaller teardrop shaped Vivid's a few years back at RMAF. I remember in particular impressive detail / clarity and great dynamics. Congrats!

 

[SCAudiophile]

Rodney,...thank you for the great review! Your room and system are beautiful!

 

[heihei]

Great write-up. I currently have the G1's on home demo which I think are superb speakers across different genres of music and importantly quality of recordings. I'm seriously considering listening to the Spirits (the yellow ones from Munich are finally back in the UK) but my one concern would be the latter point - a more exacting speaker would be less accommodating to bad recordings.

 

[tedtag]

I've got the Spirits up and running with a pair of CAT JL7's for now. Statements will be arriving soon but I'm not giving up much with the JL7's. These are fantastic tube amps (200w triode!) and work beautifully with the Spirits. So what about the Spirits? I simply could not be more pleased. First they are absolutely gorgeous. Mine are piano black and to me, just stunning to look at. The proportions have changed slightly from the G1 and all for the better. They just look right but that's only one attribute that reflects the care and passion that obviously was involved in the design of these speakers.

They are currently 92" apart and 112" from my ears and aimed right at my nose. I came to that positioning by listening only. Next week Jim Smith is coming over to help voice the system but ironically the location turned out to be exactly at the 83% "rule" in his book "Get Better Sound". There is an area of open space behind the speakers that's relatively large at 14.5' x 8.5', so they have plenty of room to really open up.

What I can say about the sound is it's so natural and easy to listen to that on compelling music I just forget I'm listening to a system at all. The speakers literally disappear and the tonality is wonderful. But the detail is there and so are the dynamics. An unexpected drum thwack makes me jump up in my seat, but on the softer passages there is so much subtle information that it makes me lean into the music to not miss anything. Images are just the right size and although you can almost see the artists and instruments on the soundstage, the portrayal is more real than anything I have heard. Its like a live performance. Although the images are separated in space, there is a continuity to the sound that presents the music as if its all cut from the same cloth. Between the images there is the presence of space where each note develops completely and then blends in with the rest of the sound to make music.

Last night I had some friends (non audiophiles) stop by before we went out for dinner and they all wanted to see and hear this new stereo I'd been talking about. I put on The Beetles "Sergeant Pepper" and played "When I'm 64". One of the wives actually jumped up off the couch and started dancing completely oblivious to the rest of us. Then proclaimed, we've gotta have a dance party in here! Well, I'm not one to dance but the sound was truly engaging. That cut has the plastic imaging of the early experimental days of stereo but even with that, the experience was more natural than I've ever heard. And the tone of the clarinet, the bell, the bass line, all of it was just plain fun to listen to. That one song elevated everyone's mood as we exchanged wow's and cool's and lots of other spontaneous explicatives. To me, that's what this hobby and music is all about; deeply touching our emotions.

All of this is before the set up has been finalized and I've got a long way to go to make it even better; the CAT Statements, fine tuning of placement, spikes and plinths under the speakers and amps, better cables (currently Audience), cable lifts, etc. I've also got a pair of REL G2's sitting behind the Spirits ready to go. Not that these speakers need any more bass! The bass is rock solid, crisp, and clear. But a pair of subs crossed over at say 30 hz might just add another layer of harmonics and sort of relax the sound even more. We'll see, and I'm anxious to hear Jim's opinion. (although as a true professional he is careful with comments about gear!)

With all the terrific choices for speakers in the market, I'm completely comfortable with my decision to go with the Spirits even without hearing them before purchasing. I did travel to Chicago to listen to the G1's and ordered a pair of those on the spot. Shortly after that I was able to upgrade the order to the Spirits when they launched late last year, although I then had to wait another 6 months! The Spirits are even better than the G1's and not by a small margin. Right now I just feel fortunate to have them and can't wait to run off to my listening room and play some more music. (btw, the TechDas 3 is the bomb!!! but that's another story.....)

 

[Rodney Gold]

Ted .. it sounds like you are in audiophile heaven .. and having the access to jim smith make me very jealous indeed .. with the system and tools you got , you can't go wrong
Subs are a waste of time with the spirits , they are capable of extreme LF at extreme volumes .. mine are *only* -2db down at 10hz in my room at pretty high levels
Enjoy and keep posting ..

 

[heihei]

I had both the Spirits and G1s in residence yesterday, sadly now both gone. We've had the G1s for around a week and had fallen for them in a big way, with the demo pair of Berning Quadrature Z's we also have providing a stunning balance of drive and speed, but with depth of bass and delicate treble. As such, it's been musically engaging across genres and even across recording quality.

Initially the Spirits didn't wow us in the way we expected, and in fact switching back to the G1s was in many ways preferable. The guys from Vivid wondered if the amps were not providing enough "juice" for the larger drivers on the bass units, despite the higher nominal sensitivity of the Spirits. To test this theory, they put in place a set of old B&W amps onto the Spirits (which offer > 1kW of power), and sure enough the bass slam was significantly better, although the upper frequencies lacked the openness, delicacy, speed, and natural timbre of the Bernings.
We had enough sets of cable to bi-amp the system, putting the B&W amp on the bass and the Bernings handling everything else. Whilst we weren't able to fine-tune gain, phase etc, this set-up was stunning - tight, fast, phenomenal bass (both speed, precision, as well as outright depth), but maintaining the musical engagement we had with the G1s.
This has left us plenty of food for thought. Having just moved away from a fully active system, I've been looking for something reasonably simple in terms of set-up, but this has got me thinking!!

 

[Sablon Audio]

Maybe something ncore based with a super-low output impedance would be a cheapish solution for driving the bass?

 

[Rodney Gold]

Ive tired an Abletec 600w Class D for the bass drivers , good results apart from matching gain

I'm ordering a D-sonic m3a 3000s amp for the bass , based on the 1.5kw Pascal modules
1.5kw into 8 ohms
http://www.d-sonic.net/products/

My 500w dual mono D premier devialets will drive the mids and treble and can provide the line level outputs for the D-sonic amp.
I have a particular issue due to using DIRAC.. it implements a -6db attenuation in the digital domain to stop digital clipping , so I'm effectively only getting a 1/4 of the watts available ...

 

[tedtag]

I had both the Spirits and G1s in residence yesterday, sadly now both gone. We've had the G1s for around a week and had fallen for them in a big way, with the demo pair of Berning Quadrature Z's we also have providing a stunning balance of drive and speed, but with depth of bass and delicate treble. As such, it's been musically engaging across genres and even across recording quality.

Initially the Spirits didn't wow us in the way we expected, and in fact switching back to the G1s was in many ways preferable. The guys from Vivid wondered if the amps were not providing enough "juice" for the larger drivers on the bass units, despite the higher nominal sensitivity of the Spirits. To test this theory, they put in place a set of old B&W amps onto the Spirits (which offer > 1kW of power), and sure enough the bass slam was significantly better, although the upper frequencies lacked the openness, delicacy, speed, and natural timbre of the Bernings.
We had enough sets of cable to bi-amp the system, putting the B&W amp on the bass and the Bernings handling everything else. Whilst we weren't able to fine-tune gain, phase etc, this set-up was stunning - tight, fast, phenomenal bass (both speed, precision, as well as outright depth), but maintaining the musical engagement we had with the G1s.
This has left us plenty of food for thought. Having just moved away from a fully active system, I've been looking for something reasonably simple in terms of set-up, but this has got me thinking!!

Interesting about the amps. The CAT JL7's are having an easy time with the Spirits; its all there and the bass is like getting slugged in the chest..... I had a pair of Carver Black Beauty 300w mono blocks hooked up for a while last weekend and they drove the Spirits just fine. At one point I was absolutely in love with the Carvers and they were terrific with my Maggie 3.7i's but that was before I got the CATs. For the past few nights to save the tubes while breaking in the speakers, i've been switching over to a Creek Integrated that's probably putting out about 60w into each speaker. Highs and meds are actually listenable and to a casual observer they might say it sounds good. But not much bass and what's there is sort of thin sounding. I never expected much.

I've got a pair of Nuprime Reference 20's (http://www.nuprimeaudio.com/index.php/products/amplifiers-and-preamps/mono-amps/ref-20.html) sitting over in the corner that I'll hook up this weekend to try them out. These are relatively new 420w into 4 ohm class D mono blocks that I sort of ended up with through a trade in/upgrade program with Nuforce when they sold and changed their name. I've been wanting to try these anyway and will let them run at night with a Modwright SWL9.0 preamp. But I'll try the Nuprimes with the CAT legend pre for some critical listening. It should provide a comparison to another Class D in addition to Rodney's fantastic Diavelets. God help me if the Nuprimes beat the CATs! I'll report back later this weekend when things warm up and settle in.

 

[tedtag]

Well, so much for the Nuprime amps..... After a couple of hours at low volume to warm up, I cranked the volume to realistic listening levels. At first the sound was wonderful and I began to nit pick comparisons with the CATs. That went on for about a full record side. Then the left channel fizzed and got scratchy and it was over. I've had those exact problems with this pair of amps before with my Maggies and sent them back for repairs about 3 times. We thought it was because of the way I was hooking up my sub woofers. But this time there were no sub woofers so its gotta be something else. Frustrating because for a moment the sound was truly magnificent! Back to the JL7's today.

 

[tedtag]

I posted this in the "Best Amps for Vivid G2" thread but then realized it really should go here along with impressions about the Vivid Spirits. Please pardon the redundancy in case you have already seen this in the other thread. Thanks!

"Yesterday Jim Smith (Get Better Sound) came over and spent the day dialing in my system. I've been a huge supporter of him for years and fortunately Jim lives only a little over an hour away. I'd positioned the Spirits to what I thought sounded good, but hadn't done exact measurements and was a little apprehensive about what he would say. After all I had just spent over a year building the room, selecting and buying all the gear, adding room treatments, etc, so there was a ton of time and money invested in the system. He had never heard the Spirits before.

We ended up moving the left speaker about 3" in and the right about 1.75" forward to get everything within about 1/8" or less using laser beams. Toe in crosses right in front of my nose. The Spirits ended up 91" apart and 115" from my ears for a 79% ratio. That was a little closer together than I had them but it tightened the images and pulled them slightly forward. Even with that, there is still tremendous depth and dimension to the soundstage. Sound just fills the whole room. But I was close and felt really good about that! With so many variables, its quite a daunting task to start from scratch to build a system in a dedicated room.

Then using an RT Analyzer, we moved the subs to about 4' behind the speakers and pointing backwards! They are crossed over at 25 hz with volume set at 15. The verdict is still out with the subs but I plan on spending more time today with them on and off to see if they add anything significant. The Spirits produce plenty of bass on their own but we were going for a little more air and space. Since I already had the RELs, why not try?

I'll try to avoid gushing over the outcome, but I could not be more pleased with everything! The Spirits are so fast and detailed that they just draw you in to the music. Plus the tonality is luscious with lots of texture. Dynamics are startling on drum thwacks and loud orchestral pieces. The bass is clear and crisp and the system just dances through complex bass passages pronouncing every note so you can hear all the details but they blend together beautifully. And that was with the CAT JL7's. As mentioned before, I have a pair of Statements on the way and they should be here next week. So I'm expecting even more.

Speaking of the CATs, I cannot imagine better amps to match with the Spirits. The combo is natural sounding but powerful. The triode/tube sound and texture is there, but so is the bass. It's a very musical system that really does not draw attention to itself, and instead just lets the performances come through. Plus it will play really loud or very soft and sounds good at just about any volume setting.

So for now, my wandering eye has settled down and I've finally found the sound I've been looking for. One last thought on the Spirits..... I've always been a planar speaker/tube guy because of the seductive midrange and the natural sound, speed, and detail that's possible if set up well. But there was always something missing especially in the bass. This system seems to have everything I loved about planars plus all the missing pieces."