MAB
Major Contributor
Rauna Freja, affectionately called Swedish Tombstones! Thanks for noticing!Heh heh. Rauna you say. Okay a little OT. I grew up in the same small town as their designer, Bo Hansson. You're lucky you only have them to carry around and not the Ukko creations by Bo Hansson. I heard the Ukkos at a HiFi fair in 2008. The picture below is from that fair (not taken by me).
Big sound, awesome sound.
They could work at high volume with low distortion. At least that's how I experienced it then. Best sound at that show, but then they were also the only speakers not played in a super small demo room.Plus the only HiFi rig at the fair where the volume was really turned up. And high volume trumps as you know.
Ukko dipole:
View attachment 331100
To refer to the thread and the room's influence, this is how Bo Hansson's Ukko dipoles are described in a sales text:
Description
Ukko dipole is a so-called eight-beam (I don't know what that means). This means that it radiates in a limited forward and backward lobe. The ultimate solution in the so-called open architecture and difficult room acoustics, as the limited side radiation reduces room impact. The structure consists of two layers of concrete slabs with seven intermediate layers of laminated MDF boards, all pressed together under very high pressure. Together with the element baskets, it gives exceptional rigidity to the baffle and minimum baffle radiation. ..
The controlled directivity means that the sound is "thrown" far, i.e. that you experience the sound equally strongly at longer distances, at the same time early reflexes are minimized as the line sound source responsible for the mid-range treble limits the radiation in height. The high efficiency and power resistance mean that the dipole can also be used in smaller PA contexts.
Opus 3 Ukko Dipol - Ljudshopen
OBS! DEMO EX! HÄMTAS I BUTIK! Ukko Dipol är en s.k. åtta strålad högtalare. Det innebär att den strålar i en begränsad lob framåt och en bakåt. Den ultimata lösningen i s.k. öppen arkitektur och med besvärlig rums akustik, då den begränsade sidostrålningen reducerar rums påverkan. Detta var Bo...www.ljudshopen.se
I don't know what to say about that sales pitch. Line speakers that go from floor to ceiling can really reduce problems with floor and ceiling reflections. Dipoles themselves and their placement, distance from rear wall is another challenge in itself. It's just not possible to randomly throw a couple of dipoles into a room
and then get superb sound, as the sales text suggests. But with the right placement, it can sound big, awesome and so on.
____
Ove Bo Hansson, born April 6, 1940, died May 20, 2011 in Karlskoga,[1] was a Swedish record producer, designer and entrepreneur.
Hansson, who has long worked with the development of advanced hi-fi equipment, founded and ran during the 1970s the company AudioProdukter in Karlskoga and in the early 1980s together with Lennart Bergstedt and Olle Neckman formed the audio engineering company Rauna with the advanced hi-fi equipment they engineered, such as turntables, amplifiers and cast speakers.
Bo Hansson (producent) – Wikipedia
sv.wikipedia.org
I use them as desktop speakers from time to time since they lack deep bass and have a bit of a suckout in the midbass due to the bass reflex tuning, they have a broad natural notch just where I would normally EQ for desktop placement. The Freja is an example of a speaker that has a frequency response irregularity that can actually be useful, in this case it provides a natural desktop EQ. However, in-room it is a slightly finicky speaker to setup since the response. While they happen to be useful for desktop, can be tricky to avoid placements that have weak bass.