Alsyvox planars...prepare to sell your Magico's, YG's, Wilson's, Cessaro's. Maggie's, and all others!!

[Rhapsody]

How far away from the speakers is your listening position and what sort of toe in do you have Bob?

I sit about 3M from the speakers and the speakers are 2.5M from the back wall out into the room. That's my personal listening placement, although for visitors that are NOT used to "near field listening" I can move the listening chair back another meter and then I might toe the speakers in a bit less so that the midrange ribbon is aimed at the listening position.

The electronics for the BX are in the back of the room behind the listening position. The electronics for the projection system and TD 1.2 are between the BX.

 

[Levitator]

That makes sense…I’m a bit further back, same sort of distance off the front wall but do need to do some repositioning soon. What are your room dimensions out of interest?

 

[Rhapsody]

That makes sense…I’m a bit further back, same sort of distance off the front wall but do need to do some repositioning soon. What are your room dimensions out of interest?

15' X 28' X 9'

 

[SeagoatLeo]

I like Alsyvox much better when 2-3M away from the back wall. I have a few customers that have them 1Mish away from the back wall, but when "out in the room" they have great layering capability on the soundstage which doesn't come through in the same manner when closer to the back wall.

One meter, that's what I have to work with max, sitting 3 meters away. EAR 890 amp with 70 Class A tube watts or a pair of 125W. Class A/B tube monoblocks (prefer the EAR).

 

[Rhapsody]

This is a customer of Rhapsody in Tribeca, NYC that has his Tintoretto X's about 1M from the back wall. It sounds great and he loves it.

 

[godofwealth]

My first impression of this speaker, looking at the manufacturer’s web pages is that we’ve seen these type of designs going back 20 years or more. Carver’s Amazing speaker used similar technology. There are many others.

Carver Amazing Loudspeaker (Platinum Edition)

Even to a nontechnical observer, someone without a deep grasp of the germane technical issues, the Amazing Loudspeaker should indeed prove a source of amazement. First of all, there's no box. Don't mistake the back grille for an enclosure—if you pass your hand along the Amazing's behind, you'll...

www.stereophile.com

As a grizzled cantankerous audiophile of 35+ years, I’m a curmudgeon. It takes a lot to impress me. A flashy web page ain’t going to do it. Want to impress me? Show me your distortion measurements at 96 dB. And frequency response. And square wave measurements. The above Stereophile review of the Carver includes some measurements made by John Atkinson. Designs like these always have problems, and I imagine these will have the same issues. These are not insoluble, but they are certainly challenging. There’s no free lunch.

Lesson from someone who’s seen a lot of such speakers come and go. Speaker design is a hard problem. You have to be a mathematician, a physicist, a musician and immensely talented. Peter Walker, who designed the Quad electrostatics, was all of these. It took him 18 years of hard work to figure out how to control the off axis response of a planar loudspeaker through the use of innovative delay lines. Otherwise, these designs look horrible off axis. Needless to say, speaker innovation is not easy. It’s a slow moving field. Thousands of manufacturer‘s take the easy route of stuffing drivers into boxes. At least these guys didn’t resort to that. But this looks to me like a variant of Carver’s design. I wish them lots of luck in marketing this design. It’s a hard business to be in to make any money.

 

[Rhapsody]

My first impression of this speaker, looking at the manufacturer’s web pages is that we’ve seen these type of designs going back 20 years or more. Carver’s Amazing speaker used similar technology. There are many others.

Carver Amazing Loudspeaker (Platinum Edition)

Even to a nontechnical observer, someone without a deep grasp of the germane technical issues, the Amazing Loudspeaker should indeed prove a source of amazement. First of all, there's no box. Don't mistake the back grille for an enclosure—if you pass your hand along the Amazing's behind, you'll...

www.stereophile.com

As a grizzled cantankerous audiophile of 35+ years, I’m a curmudgeon. It takes a lot to impress me. A flashy web page ain’t going to do it. Want to impress me? Show me your distortion measurements at 96 dB. And frequency response. And square wave measurements. The above Stereophile review of the Carver includes some measurements made by John Atkinson. Designs like these always have problems, and I imagine these will have the same issues. These are not insoluble, but they are certainly challenging. There’s no free lunch.

Lesson from someone who’s seen a lot of such speakers come and go. Speaker design is a hard problem. You have to be a mathematician, a physicist, a musician and immensely talented. Peter Walker, who designed the Quad electrostatics, was all of these. It took him 18 years of hard work to figure out how to control the off axis response of a planar loudspeaker through the use of innovative delay lines. Otherwise, these designs look horrible off axis. Needless to say, speaker innovation is not easy. It’s a slow moving field. Thousands of manufacturer‘s take the easy route of stuffing drivers into boxes. At least these guys didn’t resort to that. But this looks to me like a variant of Carver’s design. I wish them lots of luck in marketing this design. It’s a hard business to be in to make any money.

You might do a little research about Alsyvox. It goes back 40 years ago, to the time of the Apogee full range ribbon speakers, in the 80's. Daniele Cohen the Alsvyox designer loved Apogees as many did, including myself. I owned six different pair of Apogees in the 80's/90's.

Daniele, an aeronautical engineer by formal education, began his pursuit way back in the Apogee days to realize the full potential of full ribbon speakers. I won't go into the all of the enhancements that Daniele has accumulated since the 90's regarding the full ribbon design Alsyvox speakers but it is important to point out that the Rafaello model of Alsyvox is 98db efficient. I drive my Botticelli X which is 94 db efficient with a 27 Watt Kondo Ongaku tube amp. Apogees were REALLY difficult to drive, the exact opposite of Alsyvox.

Btw, Carver is NOT a full ribbon design. It's only similarity is that it is a planar speaker and has a a midrange/tweeter ribbon but NOT a full ribbon bass, which is where a lot of a full range ribbon design excels regarding speed and texture. Apogee was around for 20 years prior to Carver coming out with their attempt at a hybrid ribbon/cone speaker. It came an went.

There are 20+ installed Alsyvox speakers in the US. There are many more than in Euro and Asia. No need for luck in marketing Alsyvox, we do quite well marketing, selling and supporting Alsyvox speakers because they are a great sounding and very aesthetically pleasing speaker to many.

 

[SeagoatLeo]

You might do a little research about Alsyvox. It goes back 40 years ago, to the time of the Apogee full range ribbon speakers, in the 80's. Daniele Cohen the Alsvyox designer loved Apogees as many did, including myself. I owned six different pair of Apogees in the 80's/90's.

Daniele, an aeronautical engineer by formal education, began his pursuit way back in the Apogee days to realize the full potential of full ribbon speakers. I won't go into the all of the enhancements that Daniele has accumulated since the 90's regarding the full ribbon design Alsyvox speakers but it is important to point out that the Rafaello model of Alsyvox is 98db efficient. I drive my Botticelli X which is 94 db efficient with a 27 Watt Kondo Ongaku tube amp. Apogees were REALLY difficult to drive, the exact opposite of Alsyvox.

Btw, Carver is NOT a full ribbon design. It's only similarity is that it is a planar speaker and has a a midrange/tweeter ribbon but NOT a full ribbon bass, which is where a lot of a full range ribbon design excels regarding speed and texture. Apogee was around for 20 years prior to Carver coming out with their attempt at a hybrid ribbon/cone speaker. It came an went.

There are 20+ installed Alsyvox speakers in the US. There are many more than in Euro and Asia. No need for luck in marketing Alsyvox, we do quite well marketing, selling and supporting Alsyvox speakers because they are a great sounding and very aesthetically pleasing speaker to many.

Forget Carver, there not "Amazing." I liked Apogees except for their intense power requirements. The Alysvox I heard was wonderful for at least the recordings selected (small group jazz and vocal). I have to audition them again. Carver's amps and hybrid Amazing ribbon speakers, yeech! I did like the holographic Carver Amazing Line Source speaker, unfortunately, not mated to a proper woofer/bass speaker/sub. It had fantastic imaging and dispersion qualities in a very small footprint speaker. Bass through the Rel subs was not good. Oh well.

 

[the sound of Tao]

You might do a little research about Alsyvox. It goes back 40 years ago, to the time of the Apogee full range ribbon speakers, in the 80's. Daniele Cohen the Alsvyox designer loved Apogees as many did, including myself. I owned six different pair of Apogees in the 80's/90's.

Daniele, an aeronautical engineer by formal education, began his pursuit way back in the Apogee days to realize the full potential of full ribbon speakers. I won't go into the all of the enhancements that Daniele has accumulated since the 90's regarding the full ribbon design Alsyvox speakers but it is important to point out that the Rafaello model of Alsyvox is 98db efficient. I drive my Botticelli X which is 94 db efficient with a 27 Watt Kondo Ongaku tube amp. Apogees were REALLY difficult to drive, the exact opposite of Alsyvox.

Btw, Carver is NOT a full ribbon design. It's only similarity is that it is a planar speaker and has a a midrange/tweeter ribbon but NOT a full ribbon bass, which is where a lot of a full range ribbon design excels regarding speed and texture. Apogee was around for 20 years prior to Carver coming out with their attempt at a hybrid ribbon/cone speaker. It came an went.

There are 20+ installed Alsyvox speakers in the US. There are many more than in Euro and Asia. No need for luck in marketing Alsyvox, we do quite well marketing, selling and supporting Alsyvox speakers because they are a great sounding and very aesthetically pleasing speaker to many.

All makes sense Bob, we should give design credit where it is due. Apogee is so clearly a central inspiration for Alsyvox and Apogee as a speaker in reality stands among the most influential panel speakers of all time. Apogees were landmark speakers that have directly inspired so much ongoing pure ribbon panel design since the 80’s.

Carver was always driven by thoughts of innovation and marketed very, very heavily on this and Carver did do some other interesting things but when people think of panel speakers not sure too many (at all) would think of Carver…probably the most amazing thing about Carver’s speaker back in 2006 was it’s name, it was very late to the panel party and in truth could almost have been named The Forgettable panel speaker. Apogees on the other hand are still an amazing speaker. I’d love me some Alsyvox as well!

 

[Avidlistener]

I heard the Tintoretto at the @Rhapsody dealer in the west palm beach area of Florida. Highly recommend anyone in the area stop by for a listen.
It would be pretty hard to tempt me away from my TAD CR1 setup with super tweeters and subs, but this is one speaker that could! Would like to hear them again when I’m back home in NYC.

 

[Rhapsody]

I heard the Tintoretto at the @Rhapsody dealer in the west palm beach area of Florida. Highly recommend anyone in the area stop by for a listen.
It would be pretty hard to tempt me away from my TAD CR1 setup with super tweeters and subs, but this is one speaker that could! Would like to hear them again when I’m back home in NYC.

Please do come for a listen.

 

[Rhapsody]

Ron posted this Alsyvox review over in the Rhapsody thread, but it should be posted in this thread for those that are interested in Alsyvox speakers.

I apologize for the double post.

https://www.enjoythemusic.com/super...io_Design_Botticelli_X_Loudspeaker_Review.htm

 

[Avidlistener]

Nice write up. Seems to align with what I heard listening to the Tintoretto. Interesting that he mentioned Rickie Lee Jones. One of the tracks I requested during my short demo was from Pop Pop. I know that album quite well and was able to hear right away how well the speakers reproduced everything including the bass, which can get a bit wooly in some systems. Dynamics were really good as well.

 

[jbrrp1]

Ron posted this Alsyvox review over in the Rhapsody thread, but it should be posted in this thread for those that are interested in Alsyvox speakers.

I apologize for the double post.

https://www.enjoythemusic.com/super...io_Design_Botticelli_X_Loudspeaker_Review.htm

Nice endorsement of the speakers, Bob! I am interested to know more about this quote from it:

"However, both gentlemen had expressed reasonable concerns that my room was likely just not wide enough to permit the Botticelli to reveal their fullest potential."

The reviewer doesn't elaborate at all on the actual size that was considered and found wanting. What width of a room do you think is needed for the Botticelli's?

 

[Rhapsody]

Nice endorsement of the speakers, Bob! I am interested to know more about this quote from it:

"However, both gentlemen had expressed reasonable concerns that my room was likely just not wide enough to permit the Botticelli to reveal their fullest potential."

The reviewer doesn't elaborate at all on the actual size that was considered and found wanting. What width of a room do you think is needed for the Botticelli's?

Greg's room is 13' wide. I just did not feel that for a review, with all that is involved with shipping, set-up and shipping back made sense.

My room is 15' wide. I personally feel that for Botticellis, a 14' wide room is an acceptable width. If someone has a 12' or 13' wide room I probably would recommend Tintoretto or Tintoretto X.

Btw, the Botticelli will play fine and not overload a room in a 13' wide room, although give them a little more room to "open up" and you will hear more of their full potential.

 

[jbrrp1]

Greg's room is 13' wide. I just did not feel that for a review, with all that is involved with shipping, set-up and shipping back made sense.

My room is 15' wide. I personally feel that for Botticellis, a 14' wide room is an acceptable width. If someone has a 12' or 13' wide room I probably would recommend Tintoretto or Tintoretto X.

Btw, the Botticelli will play fine and not overload a room in a 13' wide room, although give them a little more room to "open up" and you will hear more of their full potential.

So, you think a 22.5' x 14.75' x 7.75' room would work well with Botticelli's, then, I take it.

 

[Rhapsody]

So, you think a 22.5' x 14.75' x 7.75' room would work well with Botticelli's, then, I take it.

My room is 24' X 15' X 8' and I love the sound in my room with the Botticelli. One thing is as there is zero lateral dispersion the speakers can be placed very close to the side walls giving lot's of room in the center to open up the soundstage.

 

[BillK]

Apogees were REALLY difficult to drive, the exact opposite of Alsyvox.

I think that was true for the early Apogees, the Full Range along with the Scintilla.

By the time the Signature line came out, impedance only fell to three ohms, so they could be driven by any decent amp that could swing some voltage.

For about a decade I drove my Caliper Signatures with an Adcom GFA-555 (the original Nelson Pass-designed version) and then later a series of Mark Levinson amps (first a No. 27, then a No. 334.)

I still own the speakers today, having moved them to a bedroom. I had been using a Denon POA-8200 to drive them for about a year, but about eighteen months ago replaced the Denon with a Simaudio Moon 330A, and I am continually amazed at just how good they sound in that configuration.

The Denon never even got all that warm (its fan never switched on) nor does the Moon unless I crank the volume up to concert levels, something I don't often need to do.

Efficiency wise, the Alsyvox of course blow them out of the water; I've no idea how Daniele pulled that off, or frankly the other things he did to give Alsyvox all the magic of the Apogees without their attendant shortcomings.

(Especially when other vendors who tried, notably IMHO Analysis Audio, failed miserably. I had the opportunity to hear Omegas on more than one occasion and was very much disappointed as compared to even my Caliper Signatures let alone Divas or Full Ranges.)

 

[morricab]

I think that was true for the early Apogees, the Full Range along with the Scintilla.

By the time the Signature line came out, impedance only fell to three ohms, so they could be driven by any decent amp that could swing some voltage.

For about a decade I drove my Caliper Signatures with an Adcom GFA-555 (the original Nelson Pass-designed version) and then later a series of Mark Levinson amps (first a No. 27, then a No. 334.)

I still own the speakers today, having moved them to a bedroom. I had been using a Denon POA-8200 to drive them for about a year, but about eighteen months ago replaced the Denon with a Simaudio Moon 330A, and I am continually amazed at just how good they sound in that configuration.

The Denon never even got all that warm (its fan never switched on) nor does the Moon unless I crank the volume up to concert levels, something I don't often need to do.

Efficiency wise, the Alsyvox of course blow them out of the water; I've no idea how Daniele pulled that off, or frankly the other things he did to give Alsyvox all the magic of the Apogees without their attendant shortcomings.

(Especially when other vendors who tried, notably IMHO Analysis Audio, failed miserably. I had the opportunity to hear Omegas on more than one occasion and was very much disappointed as compared to even my Caliper Signatures let alone Divas or Full Ranges.)

Alsyvox uses Nd magnets. Far more powerful than the ones Apogee used.

 

[picears]

I've no idea how Daniele pulled that off

The force (which moves the film which pushes the air) is proportional to the product of the current and the magnetic field. Alsyvox implements a much stronger magnetic field than the older planar manufacturers (not just Apogee but also Magnepan, etc.)