Zero Distortion: Altec Assault and the Magic of Misho (Audio Antiquary)

[Solypsa]

This thread is pretty fun, mostly, and i'm futzing about with a small Tannoy-like coax diy these days, so its all of interest to me.

What I find so interesting is how much we still talk about what is in essence (imho) the primary technology to build a high quality pro audio speaker since 90 years. Those early engineers were amazing!

 

[PeterA]

I know that these vintage speakers have a "big" sound. I am citing those tall speakers solely for the proposition that, to me, "scale and grandeur" require height. To me the "scale and grandeur" attribute is separate and different from the "big" sound attribute.

Ron, please explain how and why these attributes are different.

 

[bonzo75]

One point I forgot to mention to Ron. I like the Orangutans in small speakers, and this is what the 6 moons reviewer wrote while auditioning the low powered Thoress F2A11 (which he describes as very clean and transparent without the traditional valve color) with it

"The Orangutan O/93 were full-bodied, saturated and pliant but not overly warm though their temperature was slightly elevated. One of their greatest strengths was the so-called big sound which translated to the entire wall facing me being tightly covered by music. The American floorstanders also did good scale and strength to not hide behind the corners. They sang here and now to please the ears with a coherent and enjoyable projection of well-sketched big muscular instruments and voices. With the Orangutan O/93, large chunks of meat were served on every bone yet the experience wasn't overwhelming or stuffy. "

https://6moons.com/audioreviews2/thoress/3.html

I similarly felt at Loftsound in Germany (great dealer) the scale of the O96 with the NAF 2a3 (which are also clean and transparent) was greater than the Lansche 20k and 65k speakers with more powerful amps (NAF couldn't drive them). Someone else might thing differently. So what's going on here? The thing is, if the system is transparent (as are simple efficient systems with clean transparent SETs, not Kondo stuff, or SETs struggling to drive complex speakers), it is the scale of the recording that shows through. If you are auditioning good classical, it will sound bigger through the NAF Devore than through Jadis Lansche. Likewise, I never personally thought Wilson Alexandrias, Focals, the likes had scale. The speaker suppresses the recording. This is fine if you are listening to girl on guitar and Stockfish, then you will get more scale from these than from Devore. PS: I do like the Lansche in conventional cone speakers.

 

[Duke LeJeune]

Neumann has some good measurements showing the effect of port, not with horns but ports behave the same way. Here they are;

First the spl/freq. response if they had the same cutoff
View attachment 63367

The group delay
View attachment 63368

here another vented cabinet with lower cutoff is introduced
The spl/freq response
View attachment 63369

The group delay
View attachment 63370

Thanks for posting those Neumann graphs, Kodomo!

Short version of my post: We can trade off low end extension for better group delay behavior.

Long version: One of the attractive things about vented boxes is that we can change things around to optimize for different characteristics. The graphs you posted show frequency response and group delay when the designs are optimized for flat response down as low as is feasible for their respective woofers, but in pursuit of that goal group delay is inevitably compromised.

Let's say we want to improve the group delay in a vented box that will be augmented by a subwoofer in the bottom couple of octaves. So we don't need (or want) our midbass box to be flat down to 20 Hz.

Let's start with the green curve and keep the same tuning frequency but significantly decrease the enclosure volume. This affects both the frequency response curve and the group delay curve:

The frequency response curve now starts to roll off gently much higher than it does on the graph, with the -3 dB point correspondingly moving up perhaps an octave or more. We might move the -3 dB point north as much as two octaves given that we'll have subwoofers (in practice this might call for selecting a different midwoofer). Below the tuning frequency (20 Hz ballpark) the rolloff accelerates to what you see in the green curve.

The group delay peak at 15 Hz or so is greatly reduced in magnitude because much less energy is now coming from the port due to the smaller box volume. So we have a much smaller amount of group delay and it is well below the speaker's passband. In other words, where the group delay peak is, the midbass box's output is down so low anyway that the peak is of no audible consequence.

Thus by using an undersized, low-tuned midbass box and handing off to a dedicated subwoofer system for the bottom couple of octaves, we can have a vented midbass with negligible group delay consequences. The reason we might want to do this instead of using a sealed box is, woofers that work well in a vented box often have considerably more powerful magnets (and/or lighter cones) and considerably higher efficiency than woofers which work well in a sealed box.

The devils are in the details, and speaker design often includes intimacy with said devils.

 

[Duke LeJeune]

if you are talking about a bass solution, omitting the room is out of question.

Totally agree. Unless the room is huge, in the bass region what we perceive is inevitably speakers + room. Our ears do not detect and identify bass fast enough for us to hear those long wavelengths before they have reflected off of multiple room boundaries.

I ended up with open baffle bass solutions... Open baffle bass is inefficient and you need more drivers and power than other solutions, you will also need to calculate and put appropriate space behind them but if you can do these, they work very well with the room. [emphasis Duke's]

My experience with dipoles agrees with yours. Many years ago James M. Kates wrote a paper showing that dipole bass is smoother than monople bass in-room, and perceptually smooth bass = "fast" bass.

As a ballpark first approximation, imo two intelligently-distributed monopole sources have approximately the same in-room bass smoothness as one dipole source. So when I made a subwoofer system intended to work well with a pair of dipole main speakers, I went with four small monopole subs.

It does not matter that everyone has a different room, they will be behaving the same way below their schroeder and %90 of rooms will have that point between 100hz to 160hz. I have come up with a system that can be configured for these rooms but I do not disclose it fully yet. You have seen a preview render of that system, it is a commercial endeavour so I think I should not talk about it here.

VERY EXCITED to see what YOU have come up with, when the time is right!!

 

[Duke LeJeune]

http://zero-distortion.org/altec-assault-and-the-magic-of-misho/

Warning: This is a long article, so you can take breaks while reading it, as it covers different sections:

1. Introduction to Misho (AudioAntiquary) and the Altecs, his background owning Altecs, Bionor, WE 16a, etc
2. Compares of his electronics against Audio Note Neiro 2a3, Allnic Phono, and comments from users who own it with Kondo and CJ GAt II
3. Tour of various other Altecs and VOTTs in EU
4. My own decision to go with dual woofer FLHs

View attachment 63265

Enjoyed your article very much, NICE JOB, thanks for posting the link.

The closest I have heard to your preferred dual-woofer FLH format was the single-woofer front-loaded eXemplar by John Tucker, and I think I recognize that same magnificent midbass naturalness in the two video clips in your article. At any rate I definitely hear something very right going on with the cello and double bass, and then with the drums.

Have you heard the Oswald Mills Monarch? If so, what was your impression of its midbass? Its wings look to me like they would be functional over much the same region as a short front horn, though I'm guessing the wings are a bit less effective.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, please explain how and why these attributes are different.

This is very subjective but I hear a "big" sound as extending radially from the middle of the speaker. I think of a full and enveloping and complex sound as being a "big" sound.

I think of "scale and grandeur" in terms of height, in that the sonic experience is a facsimile of the physical height of a concert hall.

"Scale and grandeur" is a not terribly clear and specific expression LL21 and I use to describe what we hear from tall speakers like Genesis Prime and Rockport Arrakis.

Jimford's Tannoy Westminsters make a "big" sound, but I did not hear the height that I hear from very tall speakers.

In retrospect maybe I should have used only the terms "big" and "tall" (or "height"), as I suppose "scale and grandeur" really can come from a "big" sound or a "tall" sound, or both. Let's drop "grandeur" as it really does not add anything.

Henceforth I shall try to confine such comments to:

1) big,

2) tall,

3) and scale.

Big and tall are adjectives. Is the sound "big" as in real life? Is the sound as "tall" as we experience in a concert hall?

Scale, in this context, is a verb as in "to scale up." For example, does the stereo system's sound scale up realistically in height and width from a solo vocalist to a symphony orchestra stage?

 

[PeterA]

Thank you Ron. I think I understand now. When I hear my friend Al’s system I think of a very big sound. It is not necessarily tall or deep or grandiose but it leaps forward from the speakers to fill the space in front of the speakers and images are often well laid out behind the speakers and relatively deep but not extremely wide.

I read a review once of the SME 30/12 turntable in hi-fi news or some British Journal, and the reviewer used the word grandiose to describe its sound. I took that to mean a full orchestra laid out with an accurate sense of soundstage and layering behind the speakers covering the front wall, but I don’t really know what he meant by the term. Perhaps he also meant fully fleshed out in terms of frequency response and tone.

 

[bonzo75]

Enjoyed your article very much, NICE JOB, thanks for posting the link.

The closest I have heard to your preferred dual-woofer FLH format was the single-woofer front-loaded eXemplar by John Tucker, and I think I recognize that same magnificent midbass naturalness in the two video clips in your article. At any rate I definitely hear something very right going on with the cello and double bass, and then with the drums.

Have you heard the Oswald Mills Monarch? If so, what was your impression of its midbass? Its wings look to me like they would be functional over much the same region as a short front horn, though I'm guessing the wings are a bit less effective.

Yes, I had heard the Monarch, and they did have two 15 inchers. I really liked the Monarch and they sounded more like an efficient planar, i.e. similar style of air and stage to a planar but SET driven. The might of the 4 good dual FLhs I have heard in the past 3 or 4 years is much more than the monarch. I played the videos of the cello and the rock because that's their strength. I haven't heard a good single woofer FLH yet but I am sure there will be a few. Emia guys at ETF had a single woofer with Altec woofer this year that was raved about.

 

[adamaley]

Hi Kedar

Nice write up mate, just one thing to note that my amps are Empress Silver and not Neiro, I wished I could afford the Neiro amps, however they are still 6w SET amplifiers which run 2a3 valves.

Further more to second what Ked has said in the article, the preamp did work well with my amps and out performed my current pre which is the Hattor. The power amps worked to a degree with the Mummy's but did lack that certain amount of drive that I am accustomed too. Its a pity I didn't get the chance to hear the phono stage and SUT combo, maybe in the future who knows.

Here are a few pics from the day

Untitled by henleymajor, on Flickr

Untitled by henleymajor, on Flickr

Here is what the system looks like normal, this time with the Lampizator TRP which at the time of the visit was not with us.

Untitled by henleymajor, on Flickr

Empress Silver

Untitled by henleymajor, on Flickr



Lee

Hi Lee. Have you tried tube rolling in your Wooden preamp. Misho sends it into the wild with an adequate set of tubes, but the preamp borders on mesmerizing with some diligent tube selection. I would highly recommend the RFT EZ81 paired with engraved Telefunken C3Ms.

 

[bonzo75]

Hi Lee. Have you tried tube rolling in your Wooden preamp. Misho sends it into the wild with an adequate set of tubes, but the preamp borders on mesmerizing with some diligent tube selection. I would highly recommend the RFT EZ81 paired with engraved Telefunken C3Ms.

. He doesn't have one, we took it over to his that day

 

[Zero000]

the GIP silbatone dual woofer FLHs cost 150 - 200k

View attachment 63326

Interesting speaker at Munich 2011.

The trouble was they were in the same room as a GIP enhanced Western Electric 16A. Which just stole the show.

That said, play some deep bass electronica on the 16A at volume and I am fairly sure a fail would occur.

The most interesting thing about the 16A I thought was tapping the horn. It is super resonant metal, basically. A total disaster. Yet with the right simple mix material it sounds like a dream. The sound just floated out of that speaker all over the huge room. Music making is easy. Ne pas de probleme.

Probably the best overall Silbatone experience I have come across over the years at Munich.

 

[bonzo75]

Interesting speaker at Munich 2011.

The trouble was they were in the same room as a GIP enhanced Western Electric 16A. Which just stole the show.

That said, play some deep bass electronica on the 16A at volume and I am fairly sure a fail would occur.

The most interesting thing about the 16A I thought was tapping the horn. It is super resonant metal, basically. Yet with the right simple mix material it sounds like a dream. The sound just floated out of that speaker all over the huge room. Music making is easy. Ne pas de problem.

Probably the best overall Silbatone experience I have come across over the years at Munich.

Silvercore's room has the 16a in there next to his dual woofer FLH. When I went there he also had something called WE London. 16a was a metal horn, unlike the other WEs. That metal did give some magic to strings, guitar, and simple music. It was a mono speaker. The best I heard was last year's

 

[bonzo75]

Interesting speaker at Munich 2011.

The trouble was they were in the same room as a GIP enhanced Western Electric 16A. Which just stole the show.

That said, play some deep bass electronica on the 16A at volume and I am fairly sure a fail would occur.

The most interesting thing about the 16A I thought was tapping the horn. It is super resonant metal, basically. A total disaster. Yet with the right simple mix material it sounds like a dream. The sound just floated out of that speaker all over the huge room. Music making is easy. Ne pas de probleme.

Probably the best overall Silbatone experience I have come across over the years at Munich.

This is a 4 way with the WE 16a, including a front loaded horn. https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/horn-system-from-south-east-asia.20701/#post-394261

I heard similar at audioplan where he had crossed it over to two basshorns, so that should take care of the deep electronica.

 

[Zero000]

2011 Munich 16A was mounted on a box with one or more cones in IIRC.

 

[LL21]

This is very subjective but I hear a "big" sound as extending radially from the middle of the speaker. I think of a full and enveloping and complex sound as being a "big" sound.

I think of "scale and grandeur" in terms of height, in that the sonic experience is a facsimile of the physical height of a concert hall.

"Scale and grandeur" is a not terribly clear and specific expression LL21 and I use to describe what we hear from tall speakers like Genesis Prime and Rockport Arrakis.

Jimford's Tannoy Westminsters make a "big" sound, but I did not hear the height that I hear from very tall speakers.

In retrospect maybe I should have used only the terms "big" and "tall" (or "height"), as I suppose "scale and grandeur" really can come from a "big" sound or a "tall" sound, or both. Let's drop "grandeur" as it really does not add anything...
...Big and tall are adjectives. Is the sound "big" as in real life? Is the sound as "tall" as we experience in a concert hall?

Scale, in this context, is a verb as in "to scale up." For example, does the stereo system's sound scale up realistically in height and width from a solo vocalist to a symphony orchestra stage?

I do not have Ron's experience listening to multiple SOTA systems ,nor Kedar's in traveling to hear [many] big horns and panels. All I can say from my limited experience over the years from some of the following is that...

- Genesis 1s
- Cessaro Betas + Sub
- Cessaro Liszt
- Rockport Arrakis
- Wilson X1, X2, XLF
- Focal Grande Utopia
________________________
- Audio Note AN-E Speakers
- Focal Utopia Stella
- Magico Q5, SF Strad, Hansen Prince
- Apogee Stages, Quad 2912
- Martin Logan CLX + Subs
________________________
- Plenty smaller

________________________

...I understand what Ron is saying. There IS something about scale that comes from the ability for the speaker to handle both complexity, volume and pure unadulterated movement of AIR in an effortless manner. But is ALSO seems in my limited experience to be correlated with bigger/taller speakers. Now of course, that COULD be because the taller speakers just also happened to be bigger, have more cone/panel surface area and therefore more 'air pushing power'.

But taking the Rockport Altairs vs the Arrakis for example, the Altairs were amazingly good speakers...but in comparison with the Arrakis...all i can say is the Altair scale felt intuitively smaller than the big Wilsons...but the Arrakis made the big Wilsons feel like somewhere between and Alexia and a Maxx. And having asked...dealers and distributors were dead certain no amount of sub augmentation would enable the Altairs to match the scale of the Arrakis. The height, movement of air in the mids/treble...something all seemed to contribute to something that was quantums more than 2x Altair.

The Arrakis made the XLF feel like an Alexia/Maxx..but the big Genesis 1 made the Arrakis feel like an XLF.

How do I describe this scale (or perhaps what I am looking for in scale)?

1. The physical 'believeable' bounds of the soundstage push much further back, above, around you in a way that I have never experienced with smaller speakers or shorter speakers...but more importantly...

2. ...MORE importantly, the instrument POWER is closer and closer to live. When we played Vivaldi La Stravaganza on the Genesis 1s, I have never heard before (nor since) the sense of 10-12 or so life-sized musicians scaled about 8 feet in front of me with an effortless sense of power not entirely different from listening in Wigmore. Normally, you get the massed strings laid out in positions across the room, some of the power, but not where it was effortlessly individual musicians playing life-sized instruments adjacent to each other. Crazy. Again, imagine big Wilsons suddenly being dwarfed into Sashas by comparison...and simply NOT being able to handle that much string power and resolve it all so well as to be able to break it back down into individual players.

That was at Audiocrack's place, and that is a reference experience now in my "visual memory" of identifying musicians the system was playing back.

3. The ability for the BASS of the room to pulverize effortlessly (Arrakis) and with completely perfect pitch was astounding and again...enabled me to listen to Kurt Cobain (Nirvana Unplugged) in a way that made the big Wilsons seem about 65% of the Arrakis' sense of power, drum kick, movement of air that you get when standing near a live band. When I used to stand next to the drum kit during rehearsals, the chest punch was fun, never made me flinch from distortion...and the Arrakis delivered that better than anything i have heard before. The opening single string NOTE from Norah Jones Feels Like Home (1st Track) had a power i have NEVER replicated on any big Wilson, big Focal, or ML before. And I chalk that up to the air power of the speaker...its ability to move air at all levels of the room, top and bottom. Yes, having 4 Siefried II monos helped without doubt when driving the Arrakis...but i still intuitively felt that having heard major power driving other big speakers...it is still about the massive air movement.

And I know there is still a long way to go...see below.

4. The ability for the subterranean 'presence of the symphony hall' which IS often the domain of great subs (where by switching it off...the palpable sense of the symphony hall volume instantly collapses to whatever the main speakers themselves are producing...is also something where I only found this presence in the really big speakers...and in more than one instance with big speakers supported by well set up subs

5. The ability during concert recordings to give you a sense of 'being there' in terms of power and scale...that is something I have again only found in the domain of the really big speakers...

Having understood Dan D'Agostino once drove his Wilson X1s with SIX Krell Master reference Subs (dual 15" subs weighing 400lbs each)...I am told by someone who heard it that the movement of air produced a sense of scale, realism and power (not necessarily loud) that was reveletory.

I also know from Arnie who uses the Arrakis...that adding 6 REL Reference Subs (2 towers of 3 each)...they have once again enabled his system to SCALE in a way that (even I knew) the Arrakis could not do on its own. (I did remark that no matter what...i would STILL like to see the Arrakis with great subs after auditioning them in Hong Kong years ago. I am glad now that Arnie believes he has proven that observation with his own system.)

I suspect the big horns can also do this...though I did not sense the same scale from the 2 mid-sized ones i heard which we were physically still quite large (7 feet tall?)...and so the problem I am afraid to find out is how big horns need to be in comparison to their cone and panel+cone counterparts to achieve this level of scale. Even the mid-sized horns like the Cessaro Liszt take up a lot of volumetric space (7 feet tall). The Cessaro Beethoven is the size of a small piano for each channel. The Living Voice 4-box is also a lot of square footage...each sub is nearly 4 feet deep and 2+ feet wide and (i think) about 3 feet tall. The main channels are the same but not so deep.

 

[PeterA]

Lloyd, that is a superb post. Bravo!

 

[Mike Lavigne]

absolute power corrupts absolutely. and the ability to move lots of air in the mid bass and bottom octave in a large room, with amplifier headroom, is what propels the music. where the technology is beyond what the music might ever be able to even approach using.

driver surface in one way or another being the limiting aspect of what separates levels of this.

get that air moving to resemble real life......

 

[Folsom]

absolute power corrupts absolutely. and the ability to move lots of air in the mid bass and bottom octave in a large room, with amplifier headroom, is what propels the music. where the technology is beyond what the music might ever be able to even approach using.

driver surface in one way or another being the limiting aspect of what separates levels of this.

I have to agree that at least a significant portion of the lower registers into the midbass must be present and accounted for to really have a complete sound that doesn't feel underwhelmed for any space. I'm not sure what kind of evil practices of corruption Mike uses to enhance his, though

Driver surface area and Xmax are your factors for total SPL - but also kinda acoustic watts, at least to the efficiency of how much power you need.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I do not have Ron's experience listening to multiple SOTA systems ,nor Kedar's in traveling to hear [many] big horns and panels. All I can say from my limited experience over the years from some of the following is that...

- Genesis 1s
- Cessaro Betas + Sub
- Cessaro Liszt
- Rockport Arrakis
- Wilson X1, X2, XLF
- Focal Grande Utopia
________________________
- Audio Note AN-E Speakers
- Focal Utopia Stella
- Magico Q5, SF Strad, Hansen Prince
- Apogee Stages, Quad 2912
- Martin Logan CLX + Subs
________________________
- Plenty smaller

________________________

...I understand what Ron is saying. There IS something about scale that comes from the ability for the speaker to handle both complexity, volume and pure unadulterated movement of AIR in an effortless manner. But is ALSO seems in my limited experience to be correlated with bigger/taller speakers. Now of course, that COULD be because the taller speakers just also happened to be bigger, have more cone/panel surface area and therefore more 'air pushing power'.

But taking the Rockport Altairs vs the Arrakis for example, the Altairs were amazingly good speakers...but in comparison with the Arrakis...all i can say is the Altair scale felt intuitively smaller than the big Wilsons...but the Arrakis made the big Wilsons feel like somewhere between and Alexia and a Maxx. And having asked...dealers and distributors were dead certain no amount of sub augmentation would enable the Altairs to match the scale of the Arrakis. The height, movement of air in the mids/treble...something all seemed to contribute to something that was quantums more than 2x Altair.

The Arrakis made the XLF feel like an Alexia/Maxx..but the big Genesis 1 made the Arrakis feel like an XLF.

How do I describe this scale (or perhaps what I am looking for in scale)?

1. The physical 'believeable' bounds of the soundstage push much further back, above, around you in a way that I have never experienced with smaller speakers or shorter speakers...but more importantly...

2. ...MORE importantly, the instrument POWER is closer and closer to live. When we played Vivaldi La Stravaganza on the Genesis 1s, I have never heard before (nor since) the sense of 10-12 or so life-sized musicians scaled about 8 feet in front of me with an effortless sense of power not entirely different from listening in Wigmore. Normally, you get the massed strings laid out in positions across the room, some of the power, but not where it was effortlessly individual musicians playing life-sized instruments adjacent to each other. Crazy. Again, imagine big Wilsons suddenly being dwarfed into Sashas by comparison...and simply NOT being able to handle that much string power and resolve it all so well as to be able to break it back down into individual players.

That was at Audiocrack's place, and that is a reference experience now in my "visual memory" of identifying musicians the system was playing back.

3. The ability for the BASS of the room to pulverize effortlessly (Arrakis) and with completely perfect pitch was astounding and again...enabled me to listen to Kurt Cobain (Nirvana Unplugged) in a way that made the big Wilsons seem about 65% of the Arrakis' sense of power, drum kick, movement of air that you get when standing near a live band. When I used to stand next to the drum kit during rehearsals, the chest punch was fun, never made me flinch from distortion...and the Arrakis delivered that better than anything i have heard before. The opening single string NOTE from Norah Jones Feels Like Home (1st Track) had a power i have NEVER replicated on any big Wilson, big Focal, or ML before. And I chalk that up to the air power of the speaker...its ability to move air at all levels of the room, top and bottom. Yes, having 4 Siefried II monos helped without doubt when driving the Arrakis...but i still intuitively felt that having heard major power driving other big speakers...it is still about the massive air movement.

And I know there is still a long way to go...see below.

4. The ability for the subterranean 'presence of the symphony hall' which IS often the domain of great subs (where by switching it off...the palpable sense of the symphony hall volume instantly collapses to whatever the main speakers themselves are producing...is also something where I only found this presence in the really big speakers...and in more than one instance with big speakers supported by well set up subs

5. The ability during concert recordings to give you a sense of 'being there' in terms of power and scale...that is something I have again only found in the domain of the really big speakers...

Having understood Dan D'Agostino once drove his Wilson X1s with SIX Krell Master reference Subs (dual 15" subs weighing 400lbs each)...I am told by someone who heard it that the movement of air produced a sense of scale, realism and power (not necessarily loud) that was reveletory.

I also know from Arnie who uses the Arrakis...that adding 6 REL Reference Subs (2 towers of 3 each)...they have once again enabled his system to SCALE in a way that (even I knew) the Arrakis could not do on its own. (I did remark that no matter what...i would STILL like to see the Arrakis with great subs after auditioning them in Hong Kong years ago. I am glad now that Arnie believes he has proven that observation with his own system.)

I suspect the big horns can also do this...though I did not sense the same scale from the 2 mid-sized ones i heard which we were physically still quite large (7 feet tall?)...and so the problem I am afraid to find out is how big horns need to be in comparison to their cone and panel+cone counterparts to achieve this level of scale. Even the mid-sized horns like the Cessaro Liszt take up a lot of volumetric space (7 feet tall). The Cessaro Beethoven is the size of a small piano for each channel. The Living Voice 4-box is also a lot of square footage...each sub is nearly 4 feet deep and 2+ feet wide and (i think) about 3 feet tall. The main channels are the same but not so deep.

Wow! What a fantastic explanation and description! I agree on all points!

Thank you very much, Lloyd, for this fantastic contribution to the thread!

And what you wrote in 4. is why I still slightly fantasize about grafting Wilson Audio Master Subsonics onto the Gryphon Pendragons.