What's best in highly sensitive/efficient speakers.

[the sound of Tao]

The APL MR amps are a tube hybrid design. The APL MR dac sounds natural and is superb, so I think that'd be a good pairing.

Thinking you might have left the word ‘guess’ out. You guess it would be a good pairing. Whacking a couple of them little ECC99s up front of an amp doesn’t necessarily transform an amp into the right choice for horns. SS is great for some speaker topologies but just not for all. Good horns are very revealing and would clearly reveal the limitations in pairing with many, many amps.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

No not sure. Hence "it seems". He did say they were influenced by RCA designs, and I see wings and possibly two front firing bass drivers in the RCA as well? I gave a pic of the back as both are boxing up the woofer section that way to provide reinforcement, I think. So I guessed it is this one

They aren’t very similar other than they have extended baffles as far as I can see. In terms of boxing up - Actually the Monarch you can see the driver whereas the Shearer is a folded horn.

 

[bonzo75]

They aren’t very similar other than they have extended baffles as far as I can see. In terms of boxing up - Actually the Monarch you can see the driver whereas the Shearer is a folded horn.

So it has two drivers in that pic in a folded horn?

 

[Bodhi]

Thinking you might have left the word ‘guess’ out. You guess it would be a good pairing. Whacking a couple of them little ECC99s up front of an amp doesn’t necessarily transform an amp into the right choice for horns. SS is great for some speaker topologies but just not for all. Good horns are very revealing and would clearly reveal the limitations in pairing with many, many amps.

Yes, that is only a guess on my behalf. Though i've gotta say the APL gear is bloody good. It floats my boat anyway. On a lower budget, Misho Myronov's woodenamps would probably synergise well based on f'back from Avantgarde owners.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

So it has two drivers in that pic in a folded horn?

The 2 drivers in the shearer fire into a folded horn - that is if you view from front, you can only see the apertures. See image.

In the Monarch, the drivers are seen from the front - they are firing at you not into a folded horn. There might be some type of additional loading on the Monarch but it is very different approach - quite unique I think.

 

[morricab]

I think the key thing is horns that large need a large, professionally treated room & expert setup. Being that sensitive, i'd love to throw the super-quiet Vitus SIA-030 at them, or APL Hifi Master Reference amps.

Part of the beauty of horns is that they are more directional than normal speakers, thus room interaction is not as critical...room size might be depending just how large the horn system is. Mine are not very large and so work very well in rooms as small as 18 square meters...without treatment

 

[kantx]

Tune Audio Anima was the first speaker I ever heard where the "box" effect of other units were mostly absent.

 

[Bodhi]

Part of the beauty of horns is that they are more directional than normal speakers, thus room interaction is not as critical...room size might be depending just how large the horn system is. Mine are not very large and so work very well in rooms as small as 18 square meters...without treatment

Interesting, I know that dipole line source speakers like the classic Infinity IRS-V’s have less room interaction due to their figure 8 radiation pattern & the height of the panels, but I had the misconception that horns radiate in a similar way to point source speakers, though that’s probably a discussion for another thread.

 

[morricab]

Interesting, I know that dipole line source speakers like the classic Infinity IRS-V’s have less room interaction due to their figure 8 radiation pattern & the height of the panels, but I had the misconception that horns radiate in a similar way to point source speakers, though that’s probably a discussion for another thread.

Horns have a given directivity depending on the horn geometry. For example, the horn on my DIY system has a vertical directivity angle of 50 degrees and horizontal of 60 degrees. Some horns are wider than this and some are more restricted...depends on what you want.

 

[totaldac]

Please be welcome to listen to this new high efficiency speaker in Paris hifi show the 7 and 8 December!
http://www.totaldac.com/d150-speaker-eng.htm

 

[the sound of Tao]

A tour of Oswald Mills... OMAgawd, just lovin the horn SET! See link below.

OMA video from Steve Guttenberg

 

[Joe P]

 

[tima]

http://zero-distortion.org/oswald-mills-oma/

Also keep in mind that a lot is paid for the aesthetics too and the eye to detail is seriously good, right from the speakers to all the corners of the room to the sink and the bathroom, everything is designed with an eye to detail

Do you a sense of the room size for a nice Monarch setup?

 

[djsina2]

What about this unique system?

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis9hfb6-yamamura-churchill-dioniso-27-loudspeakers-speakers

 

[bonzo75]

What about this unique system?

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis9hfb6-yamamura-churchill-dioniso-27-loudspeakers-speakers

Hi, I discussed this with Pietro, who owns the last version of the yamamura, and these were some older version. The mouth was smaller from his, the small speakers you see are Cantus. 2 and 3, while his are 4.

http://zero-distortion.org/yamamura-horns/

Both Gian and pietro know yamamura himself well, but they don't know this system, so it's hard to comment

 

[bonzo75]

Do you a sense of the room size for a nice Monarch setup?

Keep in mind that when you pay for the monarch you pay a lot for the art. Front loaded horns with dual 15 inch woofers are much cheaper and can achieve similarly sonics but you get into DIY territory.

The speakers would need roughly 5 feet from the front wall. You would need to be 15 feet or more. Now, if you were closer, or if the speaker was 3 feet from the front wall you would still get good sound just that you might lose some.

 

[tima]

Keep in mind that when you pay for the monarch you pay a lot for the art. Front loaded horns with dual 15 inch woofers are much cheaper and can achieve similarly sonics but you get into DIY territory.

The speakers would need roughly 5 feet from the front wall. You would need to be 15 feet or more. Now, if you were closer, or if the speaker was 3 feet from the front wall you would still get good sound just that you might lose some.

Okay. Thanks for that. Too big for my dedicated room which is 16' x 20' with an 11' listening triangle.

Here we're told American homes tend to have more space, bigger rooms, than Britain/Europe. Yet the majority of horns come from overseas. My sense is that horn systems take more space generally, though no doubt some exceptions. Makes me wonder about why the cone/horn distribution across continents is what it is.

 

[bonzo75]

Yes most horns, and panels, require some amount of space. But there are sensitive speakers for smaller rooms.

Caelin of Shunyata moved from Sasha 1 5 years ago to devore orangutan and is very happy. And his room is not small so he could play both. Since then he has also added a Volti and a PAP and is experimenting with them.

 

[morricab]

Okay. Thanks for that. Too big for my dedicated room which is 16' x 20' with an 11' listening triangle.

Here we're told American homes tend to have more space, bigger rooms, than Britain/Europe. Yet the majority of horns come from overseas. My sense is that horn systems take more space generally, though no doubt some exceptions. Makes me wonder about why the cone/horn distribution across continents is what it is.

In Japan the rooms are even smaller and yet they kind of kept the horn flame alive by buying up all those old JBL and Altec studio and movie speakers. They ultimately care more about sound than space...

 

[tima]

Yes most horns, and panels, require some amount of space. But there are sensitive speakers for smaller rooms.

Caelin of Shunyata moved from Sasha 1 5 years ago to devore orangutan and is very happy. And his room is not small so he could play both. Since then he has also added a Volti and a PAP and is experimenting with them.

Yes - I've known Caelin for 15+ years and he does have a nice room now. Do you think the devore orangutans are the right speaker for full symphonics?