Ron’s New System

[bonzo75]

Not a fair question. Ron wanted to switch back but was in a bind and couldn't switch back because the original crossover was returned to Clarysis for upgrading over the summer. If I recall correctly, they had the crossover for several months. The revised 12db/octave crossover arrived back at Ron's exactly 1 day before I did, which was fortuitous. Otherwise, we may have just spent the weekend listening to a Sonus soundbar! (Or, we would have likely spent more time at Pat's listening to his uber system!)

Ok that makes sense - it wasn’t clear he wanted to switch back before

 

[Ron Resnick]

Not a fair question. Ron wanted to switch back but was in a bind and couldn't switch back because the original crossover was returned to Clarysis for upgrading over the summer. If I recall correctly, they had the crossover for several months. The revised 12db/octave crossover arrived back at Ron's exactly 1 day before I did, which was fortuitous. Otherwise, we may have just spent the weekend listening to a Sonus soundbar! (Or, we would have likely spent more time at Pat's listening to his uber system!)

Thank you, Marty. This all is correct.

 

[PeterA]

I am a big believer in A/B/A. We didn't put them back after removing them, so I'm not sure what differences I heard.

Robbes, who formerly was a recording engineer, was confident that "the soundstage opened up."


Yes; Marty thinks subwoofers are totally unnecessary in my system.


Maybe more subwoofers for that ham sandwich?

(But a subwoofer would not be another tower.)

Oh, I thought you were quite enamored of the REL six pack.

Respectfully Ron, you may be churning your impressions of the sound of your system because many of your visitors seem to be making changes to your system to satisfy their preferences. You very often report on what others think, but rarely describe your own listening impressions. Frankly, I’m quite surprised you don’t remember, or you don’t know, the differences you heard with those tube traps in the front corners versus having them removed from the room. I commend you for your seeming willingness to have visitors experiment so freely to improve the sound of your system. At some point, I am hoping that you describe the sound of your system in your own words in your own system thread so that we get a truer sense of what you think.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Oh, I thought you were quite enamored of the REL six pack.

I do like the REL six pack but that is a pretty expensive set-up. Also, my understanding of John Hunter's implementation of the six pack is to use slightly rising crossover points as you go up from the lower pair to the middle pair to the higher pair.

My interest in subwoofers, if at all, is strictly 25 to 30 Hz and below with a steep slope -- only for the very lowest bass down to infrasonic. The Gryphon bass towers are incredibly powerful but delicate multi-barrel cannons. Their specification is -3dB down at 16Hz.

But because of the complexity of the overlap of the high passed woofer ribbons combined with the completely non-adjustable crossover frequency and slope of the Gryphon bass towers I cannot play the Gryphon bass towers at a level as high as I would like. Raising the high pass from 250Hz to 280Hz as Marty suggests would smooth out the overlap and allow a higher level setting on the Gryphon bass towers. This might completely obviate the desire for subwoofers for very low bass.

Respectfully Ron, you may be churning your impressions of the sound of your system because many of your visitors seem to be making changes to your system to satisfy their preferences.

Respectfully you have never understood the personal use to which I put visitor comments. My impressions of the sound of my system do not turn based on visitor changes. I know what I don't like about the sound of the system, and I know the sound I want to move to.

For years there has been to my ears an unacceptable edginess in the upper midrange the source of which has changed over time. This has been complicated and confounding.

I have never made a change to satisfy a visitor's or commenter's preference unless it was 100% a change in the direction that my ears want the system to go.

Frankly, I’m quite surprised you don’t remember, or you don’t know, the differences you heard with those tube traps in the front corners versus having them removed from the room.

I'm not sure why you're surprised but that's OK. As a matter of methodological integrity I really don't believe in A/B. I insist wherever possible in A/B/A. Upon removal if I had to guess the bass sounded may be a touch more open and a touch more dynamic. But I don't consider that to be a valid observation without going back to having them in place and achieving an A/B/A comparison.

I commend you for your seeming willingness to have visitors experiment so freely to improve the sound of your system.

Robbes is a professional audio recording engineer. He has set up recording studios. I would be disappointed if he was not better at discerning small sonic differences than I am.

As a former pro audio person I know that he prefers a more neutral tonal balance, a more neutral sound than I do. So after he set the Gryphon bass towers to what he felt was neutral, I listened to my favorite tracks and bumped it up a couple of dB to satisfy my personal preferences on tonal balance and bass response and bass impact. In this context it is interesting for me to have a professional set it at what he perceives as neutral, and from there I can adjust to achieve my personal taste preference.

I hope this explanation gives better insight into why I like to hear people's comments and how I use those comments and their proposed system changes to establish a professional baseline which I then work off of to achieve the sound I personally want.

At some point, I am hoping that you describe the sound of your system in your own words in your own system thread so that we get a truer sense of what you think.

The headline as of today is that I am really happy with the sound of the system. At the moment I am not changing a thing, not a single thing. The bane of my problems for years -- edginess --is completely gone. I am ecstatic that the edginess is gone. I love the tonal balance.

In the future I may try Marty's suggestion about a 280Hz crossover with another pair of Phil Marchand custom crossover/attenuator boxes to see if that allows me to raise the Gryphon bass towers level.

The room mode which has been bedeviled me for a long time and which screwed up double bass by over-emphasizing ~105Hz is gone.

I am very, very happy with the tonal balance of the system. I am hearing it as natural-sounding, sweet highs, dynamic, impactful and realistic. While I'm not terribly sensitive to driver non-integration and the Frankenstein configuration could be a prescription for driver discontinuity I am hearing it as well-integrated and nothing weird sounding.

I find the harmonics and the decay of this 100% all tube system to be realistic, natural, gorgeous and life-like.

Marty is extremely sensitive to driver discontinuity and I think he is not finding as much to complain about in that area as he would expect to find from such a Frankenstein system.

I am happy that the Italians are finally working well for the specific purpose for which I bought them -- driving the midrange/tweeter ribbons.

I am now very glad that I was unsuccessful in selling the VTLs over the last two years because they are now working beautifully in triode mode (on the lowest damping/feedback setting) to dial in a modest amount of woofer-cooking, and to achieve my personal preference in upper bass to lower midrange texture, body and impact.

With all of this (despite all of this) Frankenstein complexity I finally

-- am capitalizing on the open presentation of planar dipoles which I have loved my entire life

-- am enjoying highly resolving ribbon drivers with no sacrifice in upper bass to lower midrange body and weight due to the mild woofer-cooking

-- am hearing beautiful and natural and fatigue-free highs due to parallel SET amplification on the midrange/tweeter ribbons

-- am enjoying low frequency extension and impact (below ~200Hz) with the Gryphon bass towers (which literally are a unique design in all of high-end audio and the very best implementation of the powered woofer tower concept ever produced)

-- am enjoying the convincing sound of a truly full-range system with, to my ears, no compromise in any segment of the frequency range, addressing and solving for any criticism of dipole planar loudspeakers

PS: I still wish my room were 5 feet longer!

 

[bonzo75]

For years there has been to my ears an unacceptable edginess in the upper midrange the source of which has changed over time. This has been complicated and confounding.

Exactly the sound you tried to avoid with your auditions, you got it in the gryphon set up at home, and now you still have/had it with the Clarisys? Like I have been asking you for a few years, why didn’ don’t you develop a bit on the audition process?

I'm anot sure why you're surprised but that's OK. As a matter of methodological integrity I really don't believe in A/B. I insist whereever possible in A/B/A.

I really doubt most people don’t ABABA or such when they say A/B. That is just for short,

 

[tima]

For years there has been to my ears an unacceptable edginess in the upper midrange the source of which has changed over time. This has been complicated and confounding.

I have some occasional tinnitus and hearing damage, very likely from loads of concerts my father took me to in the 1980s. I believe that the hearing damage has petrified into me being very sensitive to sound (voices and instruments) in the 4kHz to 6kHz region.

As you know I have struggled with what I perceive subjectively to be a slight edginess in the 4kHz to 6kHz region of my stereo system. Interestingly I hear this edginess more than anyone else hears it.

What aspects of your system ameliorate your physical condition?

 

[PeterA]

The room mode which has been bedeviled me for a long time and which screwed up double bass by over-emphasizing ~105Hz is gone.

It sounds like you are finally happy with your system’s presentation. Congratulations.

How did you eliminate that room node? Was it simply Marty repositioning your speakers or something else? Also, could you share a photo of that external device with connectors you had custom made to block bass from your speakers?

 

[Johan K]

What aspects of your system ameliorate your physical condition?

When Pantera is pounding my chest it definitely ameliorates my physical condition☝ LOL..!!!

 

[tima]

When Pantera is pounding my chest it definitely ameliorates my physical condition☝ LOL..!!!

good luck with that -- you don't want hearing damage.

 

[Ron Resnick]

It sounds like you are finally happy with your system’s presentation. Congratulations.

Thank you very much! It's been an arduous and frustrating journey, and a long time coming.

How did you eliminate that room node?

The room mode is still there, just somewhat mitigated.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Also, could you share a photo of that external device with connectors you had custom made to block bass from your speakers?

Phil Marchand is a joy to work with. He patiently answers questions, doesn't expect the customer to be an electrical engineer, advises, educates, but doesn't launch into hours-long guru mansplaining.

He offered to work with whatever parts I provided. He sourced some things.

It's a wonderful process because whatever crossover equation or connection conundrum you are trying to solve he will devise a way to do it.

 

[PeterA]

Thank you very much! It's been an arduous and frustrating journey, and a long time coming.


The room mode is still there, just somewhat mitigated.

Forgive me. How did you mitigate the room node?

 

[PeterA]

View attachment 163260


Phil Marchand is a joy to work with. He patiently answers questions, doesn't expect the customer to be an electrical engineer, advises, educates, but doesn't launch into hours-long guru mansplaining.

He offered to work with whatever parts I provided. He sourced some things.

It's a wonderful process because whatever crossover equation or connection conundrum you are trying to solve he will devise a way to do it.

Thank you for the information and photographs Ron. If you were to actually connect this to your system, would you do it near the output of the preamp or the input of the amplifier and do you use a single ended in interconnects? I was imagining a much smaller device with really short connectors. Pardon my naïve.

Now that you have it, I’m surprised you don’t want to just spend an afternoon trying it. It might be fun.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Thank you for the information and photographs Ron. If you were to actually connect this to your system, would you do it near the output of the preamp or the input of the amplifier and do you use a single ended in interconnects? I was imagining a much smaller device with really short connectors.

Sorry, but we are talking about two different things.

I now realize you were talking about the single capacitor high pass filter jumpers in front of the midrange/tweeter ribbon amplifiers.

I answered your question by discussing and showing you a photograph of the high pass filter + attenuator in front of the VTLs.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Now that you have it, I’m surprised you don’t want to just spend an afternoon trying it. It might be fun.

Eventually, sure. But after three years of aggravation and frustration and seemingly endless problems I don't want to touch a thing. I just want to enjoy listening to music for a while.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Forgive me. How did you mitigate the room node?

Nothing at all to forgive. I didn't answer your question.

As the devils were cast out of the room by Marty, one of them -- the apocryphal "good" devil -- left me with a bit of sorcery that I am not at liberty to discuss.

 

[bonzo75]

. I just want to enjoy listening to music for a while.

Define a while

 

[PeterA]

Nothing at all to forgive. I didn't answer your question.

As the devils were cast out of the room by Marty, one of them -- the apocryphal "good" devil -- left me with a bit of sorcery that I am not at liberty to discuss.

I understand. And I was under the impression that the only discussion about divine intervention was occurring on my natural sound thread about Vladimir Lamm’s design process.

I figured the perception of frequencies in your room was addressed by the crossover slope and proper speaker positioning.

I know you give no value to system videos, but you have shared some in the past because people have requested them. Is there any chance you might want to make a quick video and share it with those of us who would like to see if we can hear how the sound of the system has changed? Any of your girl with guitar recordings would be fine.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I understand. And I was under the impression that the only discussion about divine intervention was occurring on my natural sound thread about Vladimir Lamm’s design process.

What's Best Forum is a Godly forum.

I figured the perception of frequencies in your room was addressed by the crossover slope and proper speaker positioning.

I know you give no value to system videos, but you have shared some in the past because people have requested them. Is there any chance you might want to make a quick video and share it with those of us who would like to see if we can hear how the sound of the system has changed?

okay

Red Hot Ray Brown Trio "Exactly Like You"

Any of your girl with guitar recordings would be fine.

okay

Diana Krall "A Case of You"

. . . next time I play one of these.

I don't have a Vimeo account anymore. Is there any other way to upload a video directly here?

 

[Johan K]

What's Best Forum is a Godly forum.


okay

Red Hot Ray Brown Trio "Exactly Like You"


okay

Diana Krall "A Case of You"

. . . next time I play one of these.

I don't have a Vimeo account anymore. Is there any other way to upload a video directly here?

If you make an own youtube video