Vivid Giya G3

MRJAZZ

Industry Expert
Jan 20, 2014
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I understand that you use a blend of caps that meet the price/performance/profit balance you are aiming to meet. And all caps have a different tonal quality, so you match the cap for the sound profile that works best with the driver, and subjective tastes. This is why you'll see some designers cascade caps together, to create a special blend. This also reduces microphonics.

This exactly why Tony says:

" A higher rating does not automatically mean that one capacitor is better than another. A hi-fi system is a very complex sum of many variables, a capacitor is only one part of that total, so depending on implementation things may vary a little"

In the case of the Vivid's, you don't see this blending. They are all the standard cheapie caps specifically chosen for low cost.

But I imagine if Magico was to build a $1000000 cost no object passive speaker, they would use 100% Dueland parts. I haven't heard any speaker designer say they can voice a blend of parts better than just using 100% Duelands. But they are much too expensive to be practical for most speakers.

Mr. ALON WOLF is on record (at least I have read one quote of his ) stating he prefers MUNDORF'S best to DUELANDS.

Cheers...................
 

Blizzard

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Mr. ALON WOLF is on record (at least I have read one quote of his ) stating he prefers MUNDORF'S best to DUELANDS.

Cheers...................

How about Bennic? Same league, depends on the voicing you're aiming for?
 

KeithR

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May 7, 2010
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When you have been building speakers for 20 years, you know for a fact that what your saying isn't true. I have nailed it on the head 100% why Vivid chose these components. It's also the same reason many other mass market brands use them. If xover components don't matter, either do speaker cables. Replace your cables with Home Depot extension cord.

Deleted.
 

Blizzard

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Exactly! Micro details and added clarity. No amount of Dueland $10,000.00 capacitors can fix a bad driver design or implementation.

So which do you like better? Did the Mundorf upgrade destroy the original voicing of the design?
 

nc42acc

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Nov 10, 2015
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Blizzard all I was trying to do is state speakers are a sum of their parts as executed by the designer. I do not feel you can take a bad design and make it great by switching parts. My opinion also is you cannot just switch all the parts and not change the integrity of the crossover. Capacitors and inductors all have different resistance that good designers have incorporated into the crossover design. This is just my opinion.
 

microstrip

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How about Bennic? Same league, depends on the voicing you're aiming for?

IMHO MRJAZZ was mainly pointing that the choice of a capacitor must blend with the preferences of the designer - in this sense there is no absolute best. We should remember that some of the capacitors considered to sound excellent are not the best measuring capacitors.

I can easily accept situations where a designer prefers a softer sounding capacitor, such as the Bennic, to a more specific very detailed sounding expensive capacitor. He must anticipate, for example, the type of electronics that probably MOST consumers will use with their speakers - no one will tune a speaker just for Lamm ML3's or Wavac 833's!
 

microstrip

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So which do you like better? Did the Mundorf upgrade destroy the original voicing of the design?

A good friend of mine tried replacing the original Audio Research REF5 capacitors with the very expensive same value supreme silver/oil Mundorf's and was disappointed with the result - after a few weeks he reverted back to the original capacitors.

A common modification for Jadis electronics is replacing the original cheap film coupling capacitors with V-caps. Although most people love it, our distributor said that a few owners felt is destroyed the classical "Jadis sound".
 

Blizzard

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Blizzard all I was trying to do is state speakers are a sum of their parts as executed by the designer. I do not feel you can take a bad design and make it great by switching parts. My opinion also is you cannot just switch all the parts and not change the integrity of the crossover. Capacitors and inductors all have different resistance that good designers have incorporated into the crossover design. This is just my opinion.

I'm not saying it's a bad design. It's obviously very good or else it wouldn't sound so good with cheap crossover parts. But just imagine the potential this design could have upgrading these crossovers! This is what people should be focusing on. If your high end DAC comes with a cheap power cable does it mean it's a bad design just because upgrading it makes an improvement?
 

Blizzard

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A good friend of mine tried replacing the original Audio Research REF5 capacitors with the very expensive same value supreme silver/oil Mundorf's and was disappointed with the result - after a few weeks he reverted back to the original capacitors.

A common modification for Jadis electronics is replacing the original cheap film coupling capacitors with V-caps. Although most people love it, our distributor said that a few owners felt is destroyed the classical "Jadis sound".

Yes I agree. Much more touchy when it comes to electronics than speaker crossovers. Either way knowledge of the components is essential. I'm not reccommending these mods for novices with no knowledge of anything.
 

Blizzard

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IMHO MRJAZZ was mainly pointing that the choice of a capacitor must blend with the preferences of the designer - in this sense there is no absolute best. We should remember that some of the capacitors considered to sound excellent are not the best measuring capacitors.

I can easily accept situations where a designer prefers a softer sounding capacitor, such as the Bennic, to a more specific very detailed sounding expensive capacitor. He must anticipate, for example, the type of electronics that probably MOST consumers will use with their speakers - no one will tune a speaker just for Lamm ML3's or Wavac 833's!

The sound L Dickie likes about the Bennic's is the Kaa Ching! Sound of the putting the saved expense of the Xovers in his pocket.

I would bet you any money his personal set of speakers at home doesn't have Bennics in it.

This is like saying let's use a 50 cent high jitter clock to voice this DAC, because it will give us the sound we are aiming for. B.S. Replace that with an ultra low jitter OXCO, and it's only going to make it sound better.
 
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treitz3

Super Moderator
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Dec 25, 2011
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Blizzard all I was trying to do is state speakers are a sum of their parts as executed by the designer. I do not feel you can take a bad design and make it great by switching parts. My opinion also is you cannot just switch all the parts and not change the integrity of the crossover. Capacitors and inductors all have different resistance that good designers have incorporated into the crossover design. This is just my opinion.
While at the same time, not all speaker companies actually check the tolerances of said components within on the final production. I have seen all too many times a spec'd component be way off the mark. While this may not have been the case during voicing, it sure can play a part in the final result of what hits your ears as the final product. It's sad but true. YMMV.

Tom
 

Blizzard

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While at the same time, not all speaker companies actually check the tolerances of said components within on the final production. I have seen all too many times a spec'd component be way off the mark. While this may not have been the case during voicing, it sure can play a part in the final result of what hits your ears as the final product. It's sad but true. YMMV.

Tom

Very few double check components. For example tell me 1 DAC manufacturer who provides a phase noise plot for the specific clock used in each DAC? Even great clocks can have phase noise specs that vary +-30% from clock to clock. The standard take on this is everything will balance it self out. But I can assure you the ones going out to the reviewers have a verified clock spec.
 

NorthStar

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Feb 8, 2011
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Hi Blizzard,

We haven’t been formally introduced, but I’ll go first:

I’m 853guy - named for my favourtie material for making steel hard-tail single speed mountain bikes from, and used as an anonymous moniker to protect my family from the ridiculousness that is the internet’s inherent lack of privacy. I work in advertising with which I have a somewhat ambivalent relationship, like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.

Anyway, enough about me. Let me tell you quickly about two of my really close friends, Marc and Iain. One is a quant, who started his own hedge fund before joining SAC Capital and now splits his time between consulting for private banks on data analysis and running his fund; the other is an engineer with several patents related to semiconductors, who has turned down offers from a certain company in Cupertino, California for the sake of his family who are settled here in Europe.

I can say, without neither hesitation nor exaggeration, these two are the smartest guys I’ve ever met in my life. Like, stupidly smart. Just being around them makes me feel clever, and I dropped out of university. In some ways, you remind me of them. But here’s why I really like them…

They’re not theorists. Oh, they have lots of theories about lots of things. But that’s only partially relevant. They’re practitioners. They put their money where their mouth is. Everyday, they either contribute to the bottom line of the companies they work for, or they go find something else to do. That is to say, Marc and Iain’s ideas are only as good as their ability to be concretely monetized, and the only way to do that is through implementation via a strategy of risk in which the outcome is often only partially knowable from the outset. I asked Iain whether he’s ever been asked to implement the very best of his ideas. He said no, the reason being that the best of his ideas are too costly to implement in a real-world situation, and part of being a great engineer is the ability to pursue ingenuity within the context of the companies R&D budget. No one wants the best idea if the best idea bankrupts the company in the process of bringing it to market. Marc, the quant, is constantly balancing up-side with potential down-side, especially given the amount of leverage needed in order to make the trades worthwhile.

Long story short: They don’t spend their time on forums. They spend their time bringing their ideas to market, and letting the market determine whether their ideas have any purchase in a sea of thousands of other competing ideas. Lots of smart people have lots of clever ideas (especially trading ideas) but few of those are actually implemented by people with skin in the game. Lawrence Dickie has skin in the game. I like a lot of your ideas, but whether you’ll be known best for the number of revolutionary products in customer's homes, or your total post count on various forums as yet remains to be seen.

In all sincerity, I wish you the best of luck.

Here's the thing; you know your two friends well and how smart they are. But I don't think you realize yet how smart and clever Mike (Blizzard) is.
How so? He is posting his ideas, free sharing, in the most appropriate audio forum online, right here @ WBF where he can find the right type of investors. ...That's how.

And it's about time people are giving him credits for his sharing knowledge, because all of us we can surely benefit from savings tens of thousands of dollars, or by spending couple thousand more and hit audio nirvana in our own rooms @ home. ...Custom improved sound.

Mike only needs one guy who is going to lend him his pair of G3s so that he can work on their crossover parts for a sound that his owner will have to experience himself.
And then from there...tra-la-la...

I have an extra half million dollars to invest, so I am listening and reading very attentively, and since Mike joined WBF here.
 

dallasjustice

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Apr 12, 2011
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No doubt he's ringing the bell. I agree with you there. He sells a lot of speakers and there are many happy customers. He backs it up with many decades of real research. His design is unlike any other loudspeaker (unique drivers and never-imagined-before cabinet design) in the market and its been proven through numerous anechoic and quasi-anechoic measurements as well as several reviews. In the free market, this is what is called capital. LD has built real capital in the market place based on real credibility and results.

bLizzard, I'm sorry you couldn't DIY this one with the parts found on www.partsjockey.com, or whatever place you inhabit.

The sound L Dickie likes about the Bennic's is the Kaa Ching! Sound of the putting the saved expense of the Xovers in his pocket.

I would bet you any money his personal set of speakers at home doesn't have Bennics in it.

This is like saying let's use a 50 cent high jitter clock to voice this DAC, because it will give us the sound we are aiming for. B.S. Replace that with an ultra low jitter OXCO, and it's only going to make it sound better.
 
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NorthStar

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Feb 8, 2011
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Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
I would urge caution here... Even the S7 crossover you included photos of isn't using the most advanced Mundorf capacitors all around; notice the use the new EVOs (white caps), also used in the M-Project. And even in the EVO line, there is the lower-end "red" markings version (what you show in the S7) - rated at 7.5 by Tony - to the top-of-the-line light-gold-markings EVO Silver Gold version rated at only 9-... I believe the latter is what's used in the M-Projects. Contrast this with the Supremes (black caps), which are rated at 10 and higher. Even Mundorf themselves acknowledge that the EVOs are below the Supremes: "The beauty of the MCap EVO Silver Gold Oil's music performance is only surpassed by Mundorf's top-line Supreme capacitors". However, having heard the M-Projects, it's hard to argue the EVO are not good enough, but perhaps there is room for improvement, if the Q7's use of the Supremes all around (what I also use) is any indication...

Bottom line is, parts quality is one thing, but one must really look at the entire implementation... This is why I am still interested in listening to the Giya, but from a technology perspective, I have lost all interest... BUT, for similar reasons, I have lost interest in the S7s as well, as I don't care for the lower-end EVOs.

Marty is the one who brought that Magico's crossover picture.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Sep 30, 2015
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No doubt he's ringing the bell. I agree with you there. He sells a lot of speakers and there are many happy customers. He backs it up with many decades of real research. His design is unlike any other loudspeaker (unique drivers and never-imagined-before cabinet design) in the market and its been proven through numerous anechoic and quasi-anechoic measurements as well as several reviews. In the free market, this is what is called capital. LD has built real capital in the market place based real credibility and results.

bLizzard, I'm sorry you couldn't DIY this one with the parts found on www.partsjockey.com, or whatever place you inhabit.


All the points you made are valid. However it still doesn't mean it couldn't be improved upon by upgrading the xover components.

And I wouldn't want to make an exact replica of someone else's design.

Thank's for the link, perhaps someone is selling Home Depot extension cord on there to replace your exotic ribbon speaker cable with. Since parts make no difference anyways.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Sep 30, 2015
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Here's the thing; you know your two friends well and how smart they are. But I don't think you realize yet how smart and clever Mike (Blizzard) is.
How so? He is posting his ideas, free sharing, in the most appropriate audio forum online, right here @ WBF where he can find the right type of investors. ...That's how.

And it's about time people are giving him credits for his sharing knowledge, because all of us we can surely benefit from savings tens of thousands of dollars, or by spending couple thousand more and hit audio nirvana in our own rooms @ home. ...Custom improved sound.

Mike only needs one guy who is going to lend him his pair of G3s so that he can work on their crossover parts for a sound that his owner will have to experience himself.
And then from there...tra-la-la...

I have an extra half million dollars to invest, so I am listening and reading very attentively, and since Mike joined WBF here.

Thanks Northstar, but that was not my intentions here. I simply can't stand to see people do things inferior ways, if I know of a better way. I know, it's a fruitless way to be, but I am who I am.
 

treitz3

Super Moderator
Staff member
Dec 25, 2011
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Hey guys, let's play nice. It is, after all, just a hobby of ours. ;)

Tom
 

DaveyF

Well-Known Member
Jul 31, 2010
6,129
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La Jolla, Calif USA
All the points you made are valid. However it still doesn't mean it couldn't be improved upon by upgrading the xover components.

And I wouldn't want to make an exact replica of someone else's design.

Thank's for the link, perhaps someone is selling Home Depot extension cord on there to replace your exotic ribbon speaker cable with. Since parts make no difference anyways.

I have to admit that you have some points. When I first saw the photos that JA took of the inner cabling and connections that he posted in his review for S'phile about the G1's, I was shocked! The quality looked very sub par.
However, having seen and heard the speakers, LD must be doing something very right.
Could all upgraded parts make the speaker sound a lot better?? I guess that's very possible, but is it for certain?
One thing is for certain, the price would have to rise a lot... And with those looks, which I know put a lot of people off....that may prove to be a detrimental decision in the long run.
 

NorthStar

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Feb 8, 2011
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435
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Thanks Northstar, but that was not my intentions here. I simply can't stand to see people do things "conventional" ways, if I know of a better "improved" way.
I know, it's a "regular" way to be, but I am who I am.

That much I could have figured it out, but still, there is a market for people of your caliber and experience in the field; just ask people, like Amir. :b

I feel good, real good about your participation, your sharing, your expertise here. Nobody can take that away from you, no one.
 

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