Vivid Giya G1 vs G1 Spirits

[spiritofmusic]

That's right up there w hearing John Bonham's squeaky drumstool on Whole Lotta Love!

 

[tdimler]

Ted....a swoon worthy system! Have enjoyed following along with this thread.

 

[Rodney Gold]

Im biamping my spirits with a 650w Abeltec ALC1000 based class D amp
Using my 500w into 6 ohms Devialets as the amps driving the mids and tops and via its pre amp out to the 650 watter (into 8 ohms) for the woofers

My crossover truly splits in a HF/LF section

Input sensitivity of the Abeltec according to documentation is 1.35 v
I have set the max output of the devialet pre outs to 1.4v

That ok ? or should I go thru the whole ac measuring of a test tone at speaker outputs of both?

Sounds quite promising so far .. perceptually the bass sounds about the same as single amping in terms of level , need a bit of time to evaluate its quality but my initial impression is of better dynamics and tighter bass control. Even better control of the mids/tops ..

Im debating whether to implement a high/low pass scheme , which I can do via the devialet so as to free up even more headroom..Im not sure of the devialets DSP quality..wont hurt to try tho

Cross over of the speaker is 220hz , so thought to do a 4th order high pass at 100hz or so for the mids/treble and a low pass with 4th order at about 500hz ?

PEEVE (Its a bit of a schlep to re configure the Devialet .. sd card shuffle and online)

 

[tedtag]

Hi Ted, roomwise, do the angled ceilings help or hurt? And how did you deal with the little alcove behind the speakers, which has 2 storage shelves of music and houses the amps?

Obviously you are getting great sound already, but is there more to be done for the room or are you set?

Hi caesar. I'm not sure if the vaulted ceilings help or hurt. The room is over the garage so its just the way the architecture worked out. But I think the vaulted ceilings actually help because it increased the volume of the space so there is more room for the sound waves to develop. I really sweated how to treat the gables. Some folks said I should eliminate them by lowering and building the ceiling flat, but that would have reduced the volume of the room. I went to see Alan Goodwin in Boston for advise, and spent a whole day with him. He suggested hanging 2' wide panels along each beam and I ended up doing it like that. This was also suggested by both the folks at ASC and at GIK. I used ASC Tube Traps in the corners and GIK panels on the ceiling. GIK helped with the panel layout and I sent several sketches back and forth with their advisor to dial it in.

When I first had the 2 layers of sheetrock installed the room was so reflective you couldn't even talk to anyone up there. Seriously, it was horrible! You almost could not understand what the person next to you was saying. Then the carpet went in and it was better, Then the 6 tube traps; better yet. Finally with the panels; fantastic and very natural sounding. This stuff really works if you get it right, but it took quite an effort to do the research, contact a myriad of experts, and order and install everything.

I was very concerned about putting anything in the alcove behind the speakers, but needed space for some records, CD's, and an old Mapleshade rack with extra gear and some supplies stored on it. The room is a good 50' or more from the house so it was important to me to have some storage space up there. As you can see in the pictures, I ended up with 2 IKEA record shelf units. Jim Smith was fine with that and ultimately I don't believe this stuff had any negative impact on the sound. Of course to be sure I'd have to move it all out and then try the system, but it sounds so good the way things are I'm not inclined to try that! The alcove does have a pair of 20" Tube Traps in the corners, while those in the main listening area are 16". ASC recommend the larger Tube Traps in the alcove and I think they were right. I think its a general understanding that amps on the floor between the speakers are fine as long as they are kept low to the floor.

As a side note; I put the room outlets on their own electric circuit, panel, and ran the line straight to its own meter on the pole. So the power to each outlet is separate from the garage below. The Mitsubishi Over/Under HVAC unit in the listening room is also powered by the panel for the garage below, so the outlets are 100% pure with JPS wire and Furutech outlets. Also, the floor is made of 4" of concrete poured in a steel pan held up by steel beams. No bounce and dead quiet from below!

P.S.; I had a lot of fun building the room, selecting and buying the gear, doing the research and talking to a bunch of industry experts! Now its done. I kept working on it all through chemo with the hope that I'd at least finish it. Probably kept me alive and helped me beat cancer. Thanks for all your great comments and support!

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Ted,

gorgeous room and wonderful system and elegant room environment. love the great pictures. it has to sound spectacular.

I'm another one who loves the space behind my speakers. my room is 21' x 29' x 11', and an oval shape. the front baffles of my main towers (a 2 tower speaker system) are 9'6" from the wall behind, and 109" tweeter to tweeter, I sit in the near field at 92" tweeter to ear. so I'm 17" into the 'near field'. my chair is almost exactly in the dead center of my symmetric room.......so half the room is behind where I sit.

btw; the term 'near field' has to do with the listening position relative to the tweeter spread. if your ears are closer than the distance between the tweeters then you are in the near field. it's not a distance issue but a relationship issue. 'far field' obviously being where you sit farther from the tweeters than the distance between them. and significantly; to sit in the near field typically requires a well treated and balanced room since otherwise the reflective energy will drive you back into the far field.....and if that is happening when you move up into the near field don't blame your speakers......it's your room treatments or lack thereof.

again; congrats and a very excellent system there.

 

[Barry]

Im biamping.... That ok ? or should I go thru the whole ac measuring of a test tone at speaker outputs of both? Cross over of the speaker is 220hz , so thought to do a 4th order high pass at 100hz or so for the mids/treble and a low pass with 4th order at about 500hz ?

I would measure using the test tone at speaker inputs (I think you meant). As you know when you change the crossover gain, you change the crossover frequency. If they're not matched very well you lose some imaging/sound stage. I would set my active XO to emulate the existing passive crossover frequency and slope. They spent more than just a few dozen hours of testing to decide where it should be.

I once used different amps with a crossover around 250Hz and it never sounded quite right. My strong personal preference is to use the same amps for high and low pass duty. You sometimes can get away with different ones if the low pass one connects a sub below 100Hz and has a fast roll off, say 24dB/octave. Soundstage and imaging issues again.

 

[tedtag]

Ted,

gorgeous room and wonderful system and elegant room environment. love the great pictures. it has to sound spectacular.

I'm another one who loves the space behind my speakers. my room is 21' x 29' x 11', and an oval shape. the front baffles of my main towers (a 2 tower speaker system) are 9'6" from the wall behind, and 109" tweeter to tweeter, I sit in the near field at 92" tweeter to ear. so I'm 17" into the 'near field'. my chair is almost exactly in the dead center of my symmetric room.......so half the room is behind where I sit.

btw; the term 'near field' has to do with the listening position relative to the tweeter spread. if your ears are closer than the distance between the tweeters then you are in the near field. it's not a distance issue but a relationship issue. 'far field' obviously being where you sit farther from the tweeters than the distance between them. and significantly; to sit in the near field typically requires a well treated and balanced room since otherwise the reflective energy will drive you back into the far field.....and if that is happening when you move up into the near field don't blame your speakers......it's your room treatments or lack thereof.

again; congrats and a very excellent system there.

Hi Mike. Thanks for your comments about my room and for clearing up what "Near Field" really means. I had never heard it explained like that and very much appreciated! Bet your system and room sound fantastic.

 

[tedtag]

Ted....a swoon worthy system! Have enjoyed following along with this thread.

I'm swooning and love it........ Hope everything is OK for you in Texas! The info and pictures on TV look horrible and I wish the best for everyone there.

 

[DaveyF]

Ted, I think having a vault ceiling in the room is most likely a positive thing. I know in my very small room, the fact that it enjoys a vault ceiling is the saving grace. Along with significantly increasing the volume, the possibility of ceiling bounce is majorly reduced. IMHO, for soundstage addicts ( and who amongst us isn't?) a vault ceiling is almost a 'must have'.

 

[caesar]

Gentlemen, with the Spirits, does the cross-over sit outside the speakers as a separate box? Or is it an option to have it that way? (I swear I remember reading that in the promotional literature.)

Does anyone understand the pros and cons of this approach?

 

[tedtag]

Gentlemen, with the Spirits, does the cross-over sit outside the speakers as a separate box? Or is it an option to have it that way? (I swear I remember reading that in the promotional literature.)

Does anyone understand the pros and cons of this approach?

Hi caesar. Yes the Spirits have an outboard cross over hard wired to each speaker with about an 18" cord. The first picture of my room on page #5 post #42 shows the crossover box to the left of the left channel speaker. Once you see the box in this picture you'll probably notice it in some of the others.

Each box is about 12" wide by about 16" long and about 4" tall and I understand the boxes are piano black no matter what color the speakers are painted. I believe Lawrence Dickie did this for a variety of reasons including allowing more space inside the speaker for the larger magnets on the new woofers. Rodney probably knows more about this. The crossover box is set up for biwiring.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Gentlemen, with the Spirits, does the cross-over sit outside the speakers as a separate box? Or is it an option to have it that way? (I swear I remember reading that in the promotional literature.)

Does anyone understand the pros and cons of this approach?

I have spoken to my own speaker designer of my EA MM7's about this who uses the MM7 crossover for the MM3 'Exact' in an outboard design, and at the L.A. Show in June he introduced a new high performace small footprint speaker system with a large outboard crossover. from those conversations.....

cons for this approach would be three;

-another enclosure increases costs, raises the retail price.
-crossover is farther from the drivers, a theoretical 'only' difference, but a difference.
-needs more floor space, another box to ship and handle.

pros include....

---allows for a more unrestricted cabinet design for best performance.
---allows unlimited space for a large crossover regardless of the cabinet size (in the new EA speaker, this was significant after he saw how the large crossover from the MM7's transformed the MM3's. the new crossover for the new speaker is a lower spec version of that same MM7 crossover).
---allows for clean sheet thinking about crossover possibilities.
---speaker cabinets are not idea places for circuits; they are not places where heat dissipates easily and they vibrate, outboard crossover cabinets can even have exotic resonance treatments applied.
---crossover upgrades much more real world possible (customer can fairly reasonably ship back crossovers compared to speakers. Speakers get more easily damaged in shipping, crossovers are like electronics.).
---when a speaker family is like the Giya's, their 'vibe' is their visual impact to some degree, this allows for that 'vibe' to not restrict performance.

 

[Rodney Gold]

The crossovers allow easy bi amping .. prior to outboard units , you had to tip the speaker over to do this..a schlep
The spirits xover box is terminated with an 8 pole speakon type connector which plugs into the bottom of the speaker
If you knew the wiring diagram of the connector you could make the speaker fully active .. Evidently dickie has done this.
Personally , I think it was a convenience/going active thing and only then the other considerations
Im pretty sure the Spirits dont have the option of inboard x overs .. as their bottom and bottom plate is different ..

I would have liked to have a matching colour...piano black is a mission to clean if you touch it..

The wires vivid use are van den hull and they dont use exotic components in the X over .. and they are huge, tons of components

People mistake the x over boxes for the amps (my amps are smaller)

I might go DSP active at some time , but am not sure whether an active quad amped setup with all its fiddling and effort will be hugely better than biamping.

 

[heihei]

Speaking to Dickie and the team, the primary driver to move the crossover outboard was to free up some cabinet space for the larger bass units and to bring the overall cabinet height down, which in turn brings the tweeter to approximate ear level.
I asked about colours for the crossover and they can be matched to the speaker if requested.

 

[bonzo75]

I have spoken to my own speaker designer of my EA MM7's about this who uses the MM7 crossover for the MM3 'Exact' in an outboard design, and at the L.A. Show in June he introduced a new high performace small footprint speaker system with a large outboard crossover. from those conversations.....

cons for this approach would be three;

-another enclosure increases costs, raises the retail price.
-crossover is farther from the drivers, a theoretical 'only' difference, but a difference.
-needs more floor space, another box to ship and handle.

pros include....

---allows for a more unrestricted cabinet design for best performance.
---allows unlimited space for a large crossover regardless of the cabinet size (in the new EA speaker, this was significant after he saw how the large crossover from the MM7's transformed the MM3's. the new crossover for the new speaker is a lower spec version of that same MM7 crossover).
---allows for clean sheet thinking about crossover possibilities.
---speaker cabinets are not idea places for circuits; they are not places where heat dissipates easily and they vibrate, outboard crossover cabinets can even have exotic resonance treatments applied.
---crossover upgrades much more real world possible (customer can fairly reasonably ship back crossovers compared to speakers. Speakers get more easily damaged in shipping, crossovers are like electronics.).
---when a speaker family is like the Giya's, their 'vibe' is their visual impact to some degree, this allows for that 'vibe' to not restrict performance.

And that's how you get restored apogee xovers, so one can send the external box to upgrade xovers, so it's easier to roll budgets. Cam also be made active

 

[microstrip]

Hi caesar. Yes the Spirits have an outboard cross over hard wired to each speaker with about an 18" cord. (...)

Strange - Technically I would expect such speakers to use a long umbilical and putting the crossover close to the amplifiers. It was what was done in the B&W SS25 silver signature.

 

[Sablon Audio]

Speaking to Dickie and the team, the primary driver to move the crossover outboard was to free up some cabinet space for the larger bass units and to bring the overall cabinet height down, which in turn brings the tweeter to approximate ear level.
I asked about colours for the crossover and they can be matched to the speaker if requested.

Larger drivers also implies stronger magnetic fields, hence a good idea to offboard the xo.

 

[flez007]

Just reminded me about my plans to get a CAT preamp... congratulations for this fantastic set-up!

 

[DaveyF]

Just reminded me about my plans to get a CAT preamp... congratulations for this fantastic set-up!

Fernando, get a CAT preamp, you can go no wrong. It really is the Cat's meow o )

 

[Nevillekapadia]

Ted what a wonderful room, the gear and set up.
Rodney yours too, as you seem to be one of the first off the blocks with the Spirits.

Enjoy your time with the full set up, it clearly wants me to read more about your experiences.

Best,
Neville