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Pearljam5000
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Most beautiful speakers in the world ?
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How about this for endgame speaker?
View attachment 355847
View attachment 355850
Horns, of course...
View attachment 355849
Nice view from up top, entrance in the back...
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Karaoke ready, of course
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cabinet made of concrete, certainly aimed at the audiophile market...
As a comment to all the "truncated pyramid" designs not only the Swans, here's JBL 250Ti, by Greg Timbers, around 1983-5. I think GT got a lot right first time around. What we can't see are internal, individual closed chambers for each of the mids. The more I see in this thread, the happier I am with their simple style
. And price - they cost me only 1% of the Black Swans. Ok, the 250Ti can't reach 18Hz, but is the Black Swan 100x better? I doubt it. The 250Ti even has a secret weapon, the 8-inch spanning 350-1250Hz . But since the truncated pyramid design has advantages, I guess designers are bound to reuse it in the future too.
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Pearljam5000
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I've seen that somewhere before, help me connect the dots, 4 connections should help me remember.
This was a Taiwanese propaganda device, playing western music and possibly "spoken word" of some form towards Chinese mainland. Featured on some TV-show "Mysterious" or "Unknown" something - can't remember exactly. I think there was 5 or more built...
Might have been me a few above…
I like the look.
Have thought about using that shape in my own design.
That's what I thought it was, but I was making a joke that it liked like a Connect 4 game.
Back to mono
lol, sometimes translation takes a long time, - I did wonder if I understood that fully...
I like it too, asymmetry avoids many problems, as Greg Timbers points out when interviewed by Erin some time back.
His DIY project at the time: components from Everest, hornloaded ribbons (looks like), DEQX crossover/DSP...
Not sure I'd disassemble Everest's for a DIY project...
. Actually, 100% sure I wouldn't. Everests are fine by me.
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Sure to pique some interest for aesthetics debaters: the newly announced Vivid Moya. Perfect for your H.R. Giger-themed listening room!
Grotesque in every way. Half a million and 1/3 of a ton. That's not engineering.
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My personal take is that they are a bit grotesque, they strike me a bit like something Baron Harkonnen would want in his living room, but I certainly can't say they "aren't engineering." Overengineering, maybe. There's something about those long, tapering tubes that just screams "powerful."
Cost and size are stratospherically ridiculous though.
You can obtain higher performance for much (much) less money, and better cosmetics. So even if I had the funds for these alien obelisks, nope. But I do love the shear size of these things! As many have heard my mantra in the past when it comes to my desired speaker characteristics, go big or go home
With above said, given my past experience with Vivid auditions and seeing the reasonably decent measurements, and apart from some marketing mumbo jumbo, I am sure there is some legit and respectable engineering here, and an attempt at neutral FR … similar to Magico
With above said, given my past experience with Vivid auditions and seeing the reasonably decent measurements, and apart from some marketing mumbo jumbo, I am sure there is some legit and respectable engineering here, and an attempt at neutral FR … similar to Magico
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You can obtain higher performance for much (much) less money, and better cosmetics. So even if I had the funds for these alien obelisks, nope. But I do love the shear size of these things! As many have heard my mantra in the past when it comes to my desired speaker characteristics, go big or go home
With above said, given my past experience with Vivid auditions and seeing the reasonably decent measurements, and apart from some marketing mumbo jumbo, I am sure there is some legit and respectable engineering here, and an attempt at neutral FR … similar to Magico
Curious why you feel confident to make that claim, achieving much higher performance, without hearing those speakers or before they've been measured?
What examples would you give?
A fair challenge of my assertion to be sure … on the looks, definitely that is subjective, beauty in eye of beholder, so some may like the looks, but I suspect most will not.
As to performance, a bit surprised you would ask for examples. If you have followed my journey past 1.5 years or so, you should well know what I would consider higher performance. I would take just about any of the modern DSP cardioid actives over these. As to not hearing them, based upon the design characteristics, including hearing almost every Vivid model, I am very confident in what the sound will be and I stand by my claim. But as I stated in another post, I am also sure there is some decent engineering here and they will sound relatively good. But end game and a good value for your dollar? No way.
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I believe I remember some of the speakers you prefer, but we need to distinguish your personal preferences from claims about "much higher performance."
I may prefer even a little Harbeth monitor to those Vivid monsters, but that doesn't mean the Harbeths are higher performance.
And I can't recall a speaker that you are considering that strike me, aside from your preferences, as "much higher performance." So I was wondering if there was some technical claim you were making I guess.
I know many of us end up seizing on some certain aspect in speakers we value, some like open baffles, others not, etc.
As for cardioidd design advantages, my understanding is the advantage is in easier room integration, not some sonic advantage under any circumstances. I've heard cardiod base designs, for instance the Kii Audio Three speakers I auditioned several times against some passive designs, and I didn't hear any startling difference. Since I pull my speakers well out from the back walls I have experience many speakers giving really smooth sounding bass. Similarly, if someone has the money for those Vivid speakers it's also possible they have an appropriate room that wouldn't constrain the performance...they just might not "need" the cardioid behaviour to sound really impressive.
Cardioid is not just about easier room integration (and minimizing room treatment!), much more to it than that. There are definite audio benefits. I leave it to you to do your own research. And my preference is active cardioid with neutral FR, constant (or variable) directivity, and low distortion at high SPLs. I would call that that solid loudspeaker engineering, not a preference, but I am well aware there are many that in fact do not prefer these attributes (beyond me why if you want accurate reproduction of the source, but in fact many actually do not want an accurate window on the source, and are willing to pay silly amounts of money for that inaccuracy… hey, whatever floats your boat).
Outside of the Kii (which I don’t care for as much as other cardioid designs, dropped from my short list early on), what other active cardioid designs have you auditioned? Also how many of the Vivid models have you auditioned? Note the Kaya 90 was actually on my original short list, but eventually dropped.
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