Hello everyone, this is my first post here.
I"m an audio enthusiast for 15~ years or so, and have been avoiding writing in forums for about a decade due to the well known phenomenons of anti-science, anti-reason, unreasonable subjectivity, snake oil etc. So I'm glad to have found this place.
Anyway, I wanted to ask if anyone can elaborate on the subject of speakers with no internal damping, which I've had a very positive experience with, although they seem to be a small niche design wise. I've had about 25 pairs of speakers come and go over the years, in the range of up to about 8,000$~ (I've also worked in HIFI sales for 2-3 years, so there was a lot of traffic of 2nd hand equipment). There is one pair that I always keep on the side as reference, and they never disappoint- the Morel Octave Signature (Bookshelf).
A few words about these babies- these are not exactly Morel speakers. Morel is a (very good) driver manufacturer, but they don't really know how to make complete speakers. In 2005 they partnered with the veteran speaker designer with roots in B&W, Russell Kauffman, who designed these for them, and it was a one-hit-wonder. I'll save the superlatives, and just say that it seems that the rigid, internally braced, un- dampened cabinets makes the speakers sound much bigger than they really are, but does so in a very clean way. Absolutely no audible sign of cabinet resonance or "coloration".
I've actually compared them to a pair of Merlin TSM-mme I used to have, which uses very similar Morel drivers (with a larger 6.5 inch woofer, compared to the Octave's 5.25), in a sealed, heavily dampened (and heavy) cabinets. The Merlin simply sounded small in comparison depite having more woofer surface (although generally being a very nice speaker).
It seems that Russell keeps going forward with this design principle in his own speaker brand:
http://www.russellk.co.uk/the_concept.php#
(I don't know who makes the drivers, but not Morel).
So, does mr. Kauffman hold some arcane knowledge others don't? Why don't we see more of these? or maybe this design principle has disadvantages or practical difficulties making other speaker designers give it up? Any thoughts?
I"m an audio enthusiast for 15~ years or so, and have been avoiding writing in forums for about a decade due to the well known phenomenons of anti-science, anti-reason, unreasonable subjectivity, snake oil etc. So I'm glad to have found this place.
Anyway, I wanted to ask if anyone can elaborate on the subject of speakers with no internal damping, which I've had a very positive experience with, although they seem to be a small niche design wise. I've had about 25 pairs of speakers come and go over the years, in the range of up to about 8,000$~ (I've also worked in HIFI sales for 2-3 years, so there was a lot of traffic of 2nd hand equipment). There is one pair that I always keep on the side as reference, and they never disappoint- the Morel Octave Signature (Bookshelf).
A few words about these babies- these are not exactly Morel speakers. Morel is a (very good) driver manufacturer, but they don't really know how to make complete speakers. In 2005 they partnered with the veteran speaker designer with roots in B&W, Russell Kauffman, who designed these for them, and it was a one-hit-wonder. I'll save the superlatives, and just say that it seems that the rigid, internally braced, un- dampened cabinets makes the speakers sound much bigger than they really are, but does so in a very clean way. Absolutely no audible sign of cabinet resonance or "coloration".
I've actually compared them to a pair of Merlin TSM-mme I used to have, which uses very similar Morel drivers (with a larger 6.5 inch woofer, compared to the Octave's 5.25), in a sealed, heavily dampened (and heavy) cabinets. The Merlin simply sounded small in comparison depite having more woofer surface (although generally being a very nice speaker).
It seems that Russell keeps going forward with this design principle in his own speaker brand:
http://www.russellk.co.uk/the_concept.php#
(I don't know who makes the drivers, but not Morel).
So, does mr. Kauffman hold some arcane knowledge others don't? Why don't we see more of these? or maybe this design principle has disadvantages or practical difficulties making other speaker designers give it up? Any thoughts?