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Horn vs Dynamic

Purité Audio

Purité Audio

Trade: Purite Audio
I have been comparing a pair of horns, Cessaro, 'Chopin' to the Grimm LS1, the Grimms are a three way ,sealed box design, using SEAS drivers, DSP for the crossovers, phase and driver anomaly correction.
They are a complete system, everything is built in, A/D, D/A, async USB, six channels of NCore amplification, so really nothing to add except the sources of your choice.
The Cessaro is a two way design which uses a TAD 2001 compression driver for mids and HF and a light paper Supravox driver for bass , the Chopin are passive,and I have been using a small solid state amplifier to drive them.
Placing both speakers in the same room has lowed me to compare them side by side,using the same source material.


Keith.
 
Not as different as one might suppose, they are both superb, I am using the Grimms with a
45 degree toe in, crossing one metre in front of me, they have a setting in software for either the more traditional 30 or Grimms preferred 45 degree toe in.
like this create an almost sperhical soundstage which projects say vocals right into the room , I have to compare with the 30 degree toe in.
Keith.
 
Is that how you made the test as shown in the picture Keith? Speakers side by side?
 
No I pushed one set into place at a time, I prefer the Chopin with a slight toe in, and the Grimm with a 45 degree crossing one metre in front , although their software has settings for both 30 and 45 degrees.

Keith.
 
What do you ultimately prefer, or does each one has it strengths and weaknesses? Which speaker sounds more natural and "real"?

What happened to the larger horns you had in your room and how they did they sound in comparison?
 
Space I still have the four way Cessaro Liszts in my main room,


They are awesome, I suppose the compromise with horns is their size, I would love five way front loaded Gammas but just don't have the space, their bass horns alone would occupy almost half the room .
The Chopin are the finest 'real world' horns I have heard and only really lose out in terms of ultimate extension.
Keith.
 
Do you have to use some room corrections with the big horn Keith? (I Still havent had chance to try the mic you sent me yet!).

As you know ive got horns here (although not low sensitivity ones) and dynamic driver speakers, both get down to 25hz in room and are dynamic sounding, the horns just have less compression and are more relaxed sounding. I might drag the other speakers back in and try them side by side, if i can be bothered that is!
 
With a high performance horn speaker of the quality of the Liszt a dedicated room is needed and only acoustic room treatment should be used to fine tune the room so the speaker can perform at its very best as in my installation shown below.

Lizst-11.jpg
 
The room looks great Graham, I don't remember the ceiling being so low, but then the Liszts are quite tall,
Have you ever acoustically measured the room?
Keith.
 
Yes Keith, I had the room professionally measured several years ago when I had an Avantgarde Trio system installed.

The Liszts are tall at nearly 8ft but they need space both behind and in front to allow them to properly "breathe". You also need to sit at least 4-5 metres away then you get a performance extremely close to a live event...

In this system Ralph and I spent a full day just fine tuning the position of the Liszts to within 1mm of accuracy in all directions.

The room looks a lot better in reality as the camera lens tends to compress the scale.
 
It would be interesting to see the measurement plot of that room, I am not sure the speakers need to 'breathe ' but changing their proximity to different surfaces will affect the FR of course, pulling them away from the rear wall will cancel the rear output of the speakers at varying frequencies.
Keith.
 
The room required very little treatment as Ralph confirmed when he was here last year. It was pretty well sorted 15 years ago when I first installed the Trios in the same room.

With the Liszts a couple of bass traps were needed behind the speakers to remove a small bass lift and some light absorption mid room to remove some flutter echo. Further diffusion panels were fitted to improve stereo imaging and soundstage depth. All panels came from Vicoustics as G T Audio is an agent for their acoustic products. These are the best made and the most domestically acceptable room treatment products on the market. They also offer a web based room acoustics simulator to help in choosing the correct treatment for your room.

Also I use the best measuring device available: my ears...
 
Yes I take measurements from the, in my room ,limited number of listening positions and then compare the results.
An acoustically perfect room, would be ideal.
Keith.
 
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