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Your loudspeaker holy grail

You’d love the big Cabasse vintage speakers Steve. No port, 4 speaker units and good sensitivity, at 95 dB per watt at one metre.
Although they look quite purposeful, bass is not overwhelming, a bit recessed if anything.
Poor recordings and mp3s are unbearable on those – you want to run for shelter.
Like you I like horns but I couldn’t live with them.

cabasse-galion-iv-1274019.jpg
 
All I want is something that sounds like Quad ESLs but with more extension top and bottom, with the dynamics and sensitivity of a Klipschorn. Is that really too much to ask?
Wasnt there a version of the Wilson Audio WAMM that attempted this? Electrostatic panels for the mid with various other drivers above and below.
 
Wasnt there a version of the Wilson Audio WAMM that attempted this? Electrostatic panels for the mid with various other drivers above and below.

The electrostatics were the top. It had two KEF B139s, a pair of those Braun metal-cased mini-speakers for mids, and electrostatic tweeters. And a separate box with an 18" subwoofer. Later in the production run they started making their own mid boxes.
 
I got to hear a pair of WAMMs - Series 3, IIRC. Gotta admit - they were pretty awesome sounding, though I was probably 19 or 20 at the time. They were also much better looking in the flesh - can't say the same about the new ones!

As for a grail type of loudspeaker, the most knocked out I've ever been was by DBLs at Chris Koster's house, originally with 6x135s, then with a single 500, then with 3x500s. I don't think I've ever heard anything that I can say was unequivocally better - his system was THAT good.

The only other speaker in that realm was the Monitor Audio Platinum 500 series 2. That was nothing short of incredible, in all the right ways.
 
Surprised no one has mentioned one of the big Kenrick Sound designs. Big seems to rule here. Some of these seem to work just fine in smaller (japanese) spaces. Although I will always prefer visually small speakers they (Kenrick) make and refurbish some impressive stuff.

Plenty of YouTube videos.
 
Good Morning All,

No surprises from me. My Holy Grail is slowly being achieved. A pair of modified Isobariks with as many channels of amplification as you can afford. Ugly - maybe but ultimately 'hi-fi' is an audio medium so, to me, aesthetics come a poor second.

Regards

Richard
 
Surprised no one has mentioned one of the big Kenrick Sound designs.

I’m sure I mentioned blue-face JBLs somewhere! I’ve never heard the really huge ones, and to be honest I suspect I’d not like them the way so many Eastern audiophiles use them in such small rooms as I’m more a point-source listener (e.g. I can’t deal with NBLs etc at all, the drivers are just way too far apart to integrate to my ears). I bet they are absolutely amazing dynamically though. I’d love to hear the huge ones with 2x15” bass units and horns. I’ve heard kind of similar in studios, e.g. the Townhouse mastering suite had something pretty special with two large bass units and a couple of horns back in the ‘80s, but my memory is foggy. Maybe Westlake?
 
Surprised no one has mentioned one of the big Kenrick Sound designs. Big seems to rule here. Some of these seem to work just fine in smaller (japanese) spaces. Although I will always prefer visually small speakers they (Kenrick) make and refurbish some impressive stuff.

JBL 4345's in K's house:-


Would love to hear a pair on the end of an all Rega vinyl set up.
 
I’m more a point-source listener (e.g. I can’t deal with NBLs etc at all, the drivers are just way too far apart to integrate to my ears).
Single driver loudspeakers don't suffer phase discontinuities in the way multi-driver ones do; that's well understood. What is less well understood is that it is entirely possible to design a multiway loudspeaker such that is sounds completely coherent like a single driver; at least along the design axis. Time-of-flight differences etc. can mostly be ameliorated by clever and thoughtful crossover design. So, whilst your eyes may suggest there should be a lack of integration, the only way you can be certain is listening with blindfolds or in the dark.

I haven't heard NBLs properly, so I cannot comment on how coherent or integrated it sounds (or not). The other point about driver spacing is that the wider they are, the narrower the design axis (assuming that it was designed with one) is. That is possibly why small loudspeakers and more tightly spaced drivers are more forgiving of off-axis listening.
 
What is less well understood is that it is entirely possible to design a multiway loudspeaker such that is sounds completely coherent like a single driver; at least along the design axis. Time-of-flight differences etc. can mostly be ameliorated by clever and thoughtful crossover design.

I obviously understand all that. My view, as stated several times, is a very personal one from someone who vastly prefers nearfield/midfield listening. If my preference was to listen as far away from the speakers as you do I may well be more tolerant of driver placing. I’d also argue that you need to think about wall/floor-ceiling bounce etc, all of which behaves very differently the wider drivers are spaced apart, i.e. a large multi-driver speaker actually behaves differently in a given acoustic than a single driver, as obviously does a panel. One isn’t comparing eggs with eggs here, each approach has its plusses and minuses.

PS FWIW in a room the size of yours my personal choice would be Quad ESLs or maybe Maggies listened to in the mid-field, i.e. I’d use the space to get sufficient distance behind a dipole, not to sit further away from a multi-unit speaker! As ever it is a taste/priority thing, and that is mine. I’d actually love to hear MEG RL901s in a room like that too, again in the midfield.
 


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