Part One
Hi everyone. I've known Bill via the forum after an introduction from Ked, and have struck up a solid friendship predominantly online, and a small handful of meets over the years. He's always been a great person to turn to, his help has been invaluable to getting my system to turnaround (he put me right on tt/arm/cart setup which has transformed my sound off lp, and he got me to dump Rollerblocks from under my Zus, which led to a big step up in SQ).
In return, I've tortured him with circular comments and questions, and no little amount of self agrandisement, and in his way he's put up with my ways with true British stoicism (sorry, Bill Lol).
Anyhow, in the course of chatting with him, it became apparent he'd been bitten badly by the horns/SETs bug, so much so he'd resolved to move on from his big Focals to a first pair of horns and then BD Swings horns.
And around this time he intimated he was going to design and build a pair that would be as uncompromising as possible. Now if you know anything about Bill, you'll know he talks the talk...and walks the walk. And so he started talking and walking Lol.
Ongoing comms led to him divulging some of his ideas. I know he loved his Swings and The General's Pnoes. This led him to favouring the full range BD driver from AER. Good to 20Hz and all the way down. Despite the Pnoe being hugely impressive, noone could ever say it convinces below 40Hz, and so to reach a lot lower, Bill worked on various bass solutions. And Bill has refused to allow any compromises on his prototype, so...no plastic in his horns, all mahogany. No stupid disparity in efficiency between horns and sub drivers...the latter over 100dB efficient and able to be powered Class A Mosfets. No cheap MDF for Bill...he's settled on a Panzerholz spine for the speaker, and literally whole felled trees' worth of wood forming his baffles and superstructure. Crossover is minimal I believe.
So, after arriving, him pouring me a cold draft beer (useful after 90 mins drive), and chatting all things life with him, we got down to seeing and hearing these things in person after 12-18 months teasing from him.
I cannot tell you how impressive these things are. Smart and purposeful. I don't think I've ever seen a solid mahogany horn, what 30"/75cm diameter, and stretching back 36"/90cm+. That horn on it's own should earn Bill his stripes. It houses the BD driver, all the way to 20kHz, rolled off at 170Hz.
This then moves on to 4x 15" high efficiency sub drivers, effectively side mounted but firing into each other, Ripole style, into a central chamber that has some elaborate woodwork chambers. The front baffle is effectively split in half, with a narrow grille over this chamber that the subs fire into. Bill has a very particular mathematical choice he made on how he mounted these subs, but I've been sworn to secrecy.
So effectively there are no visible bass drivers, just a smart split baffle topped off with his majestic main horn.
He also showed me around and inside the speaker...I don't think I've ever seen such a fantastic level of craftsmanship and heroic attention to detail. Bill's threat to go all the way wasn't idle.
The overall aesthetic effect is of a fantastic heirloom/artisan crafted product, so different from so much, even highly touted and priced pieces. The effect is of simple beauty, careful lines, and solid timeless craft.
And then it was time to listen...
Hi everyone. I've known Bill via the forum after an introduction from Ked, and have struck up a solid friendship predominantly online, and a small handful of meets over the years. He's always been a great person to turn to, his help has been invaluable to getting my system to turnaround (he put me right on tt/arm/cart setup which has transformed my sound off lp, and he got me to dump Rollerblocks from under my Zus, which led to a big step up in SQ).
In return, I've tortured him with circular comments and questions, and no little amount of self agrandisement, and in his way he's put up with my ways with true British stoicism (sorry, Bill Lol).
Anyhow, in the course of chatting with him, it became apparent he'd been bitten badly by the horns/SETs bug, so much so he'd resolved to move on from his big Focals to a first pair of horns and then BD Swings horns.
And around this time he intimated he was going to design and build a pair that would be as uncompromising as possible. Now if you know anything about Bill, you'll know he talks the talk...and walks the walk. And so he started talking and walking Lol.
Ongoing comms led to him divulging some of his ideas. I know he loved his Swings and The General's Pnoes. This led him to favouring the full range BD driver from AER. Good to 20Hz and all the way down. Despite the Pnoe being hugely impressive, noone could ever say it convinces below 40Hz, and so to reach a lot lower, Bill worked on various bass solutions. And Bill has refused to allow any compromises on his prototype, so...no plastic in his horns, all mahogany. No stupid disparity in efficiency between horns and sub drivers...the latter over 100dB efficient and able to be powered Class A Mosfets. No cheap MDF for Bill...he's settled on a Panzerholz spine for the speaker, and literally whole felled trees' worth of wood forming his baffles and superstructure. Crossover is minimal I believe.
So, after arriving, him pouring me a cold draft beer (useful after 90 mins drive), and chatting all things life with him, we got down to seeing and hearing these things in person after 12-18 months teasing from him.
I cannot tell you how impressive these things are. Smart and purposeful. I don't think I've ever seen a solid mahogany horn, what 30"/75cm diameter, and stretching back 36"/90cm+. That horn on it's own should earn Bill his stripes. It houses the BD driver, all the way to 20kHz, rolled off at 170Hz.
This then moves on to 4x 15" high efficiency sub drivers, effectively side mounted but firing into each other, Ripole style, into a central chamber that has some elaborate woodwork chambers. The front baffle is effectively split in half, with a narrow grille over this chamber that the subs fire into. Bill has a very particular mathematical choice he made on how he mounted these subs, but I've been sworn to secrecy.
So effectively there are no visible bass drivers, just a smart split baffle topped off with his majestic main horn.
He also showed me around and inside the speaker...I don't think I've ever seen such a fantastic level of craftsmanship and heroic attention to detail. Bill's threat to go all the way wasn't idle.
The overall aesthetic effect is of a fantastic heirloom/artisan crafted product, so different from so much, even highly touted and priced pieces. The effect is of simple beauty, careful lines, and solid timeless craft.
And then it was time to listen...
Last edited: