Roy Gregory Names Clarisys Atrium/VAC System Best in Show

[Holmz]

And surely get a wrong number for efficiency ... The fact that people do not know the standards properly or how to use them does not make them wrong. The "old" standard stated 8 ohm clearly.

I am not sure if it is my wording or the reception on your end… but I’ll try again.
In those olden times, a driver at say 88dB/W may have been an 8 ohm driver, If there were a close cousins at 4 Ohms it might have also been 88dB/W, and the other cousin at 2 ohms may have been 88dB/W.

Now with the 2.83v the 8 ohm one is still 88dB/2.83v.
The 4 ohm 91dB/2.83v.
And the 2 ohm 94dB/2.83v.

It is not hard to understand from an ohm’s law perspective.

Yes. But as far as I have seen since long manufacturers use pink noise for the sensitivity measurements - although they sometimes wrongly call it efficiency!

Pink, white, brown, and a the rest of the noise rainbow…
But dB(A), dB(C) etc, can all give different readings.
And some manufacturers appear to take some liberties in marking.

 

[PeterA]

Please also dont forget that especially dynamic speakers; and some panel speakers (not Clarisys Audio or Apogees) have a lot of variance in the impedance across freqencies (which is why i show real life impedance over frequency domain on youtube videos). So even if the speaker where to be 4 or 8 ohm under 1KHz; when playing music the impedance is quite different depending on frequencies. Its not a complex topic, but the indication of "efficiency" of a speaker really means nothing real life use cases; and the value is used a lot by Audio Friends to interpret some acoustic property.

Thank you for your candor on this audio forum. How much power rating do you recommend for your various speakers? Do you find you get better results with more power, and what are your thoughts on higher powered tube amps versus solid state amps for your speakers?

 

[microstrip]

I am not sure if it is my wording or the reception on your end… but I’ll try again.
In those olden times, a driver at say 88dB/W may have been an 8 ohm driver, If there were a close cousins at 4 Ohms it might have also been 88dB/W, and the other cousin at 2 ohms may have been 88dB/W.

Now with the 2.83v the 8 ohm one is still 88dB/2.83v.
The 4 ohm 91dB/2.83v.
And the 2 ohm 94dB/2.83v.

It is not hard to understand from an ohm’s law perspective.

Yes, I said the same. But (I quote)

In practice, few labs in the 1970s or 80's measured actual real-time power into the speaker using load-matching or true RMS current measurement. Instead, most assumed the impedance was fixed (eg. at 8 ohms ) and calculated the voltage needed for 1 watt accordingly. This is problematic because real speaker impedance varies with frequency, often significantly. (end of quote) .

So in practice, it was mostly an approximate value, but we could not separate the good guys from the bad guys. One more real difference was distance - the old standard specified 4 feet, later ones 1m.

I had a big surprises when I measured some speakers I have owned.

Pink, white, brown, and a the rest of the noise rainbow…
But dB(A), dB(C) etc, can all give different readings.
And some manufacturers appear to take some liberties in marking.

Most do not have full frequency anechoic rooms, so they truncate the spectrum.

 

[ClarisysAudio]

Thank you for asking questions; i love that
In terms of power i would recommend the following as rule of thumb taking into consideration the room that these do play in.

Piccolo Standard > 100wpc
Piccolo Neo > 50wpc
Minuet > 100wpc
Studio > 100wpc
Auditorium > 200wpc
Atrium > 100wpc x 8 since its fully active

In terms of solid state vs. tubes; in my mind this doesnt exist. There are good and bad designs in both camps.
Here is a list of devices that customers use which i like. (we are closing in on 80 pairs in the market; i have by far not heard all, so here are some)

Piccolo Standard > Hegel H390, Soulution Audio 331
Piccolo Neo > Jadis Defy 7; Aries Cerat 20wpc integrated
Minuet > Ayon Audio, Aries Cerat, CH Precision 1.5, VAC Essence 90, Luxman (bigger one), Modus Audio, Hegel H590
Studio > Aries Cerat Monos, Karan Acoustics, CH Precision 1.5; CH Precision 10 Series, Soulution Audio 511, VAC Master 300
Auditorium > Aries Cerat Monos, CAT JL7, VAC Master 300, Soulution Audio 701; Soulution Audio 511, CH Precion M10, PassLabs X600, VAC Statement 450S iQ
Atrium > 100wpc x 8 since its fully active (personally i use VAC Master 300s (4 of them) and Soulution 701

 

[emoonie]

Thank you for asking questions; i love that
In terms of power i would recommend the following as rule of thumb taking into consideration the room that these do play in.

Piccolo Standard > 100wpc
Piccolo Neo > 50wpc
Minuet > 100wpc
Studio > 100wpc
Auditorium > 200wpc
Atrium > 100wpc x 8 since its fully active

In terms of solid state vs. tubes; in my mind this doesnt exist. There are good and bad designs in both camps.
Here is a list of devices that customers use which i like. (we are closing in on 80 pairs in the market; i have by far not heard all, so here are some)

Piccolo Standard > Hegel H390, Soulution Audio 331
Piccolo Neo > Jadis Defy 7; Aries Cerat 20wpc integrated
Minuet > Ayon Audio, Aries Cerat, CH Precision 1.5, VAC Essence 90, Luxman (bigger one), Modus Audio, Hegel H590
Studio > Aries Cerat Monos, Karan Acoustics, CH Precision 1.5; CH Precision 10 Series, Soulution Audio 511, VAC Master 300
Auditorium > Aries Cerat Monos, CAT JL7, VAC Master 300, Soulution Audio 701; Soulution Audio 511, CH Precion M10, PassLabs X600
Atrium > 100wpc x 8 since its fully active (personally i use VAC Master 300s (4 of them) and Soulution 701

Florian can I take the liberty to add one to your statistics? Auditorium> 225wpc VAC Statement 450S iQ
Stereo (discontinued I believe). Thank you again for your invaluable assistance.

 

[DasguteOhr]

Please also dont forget that especially dynamic speakers; and some panel speakers (not Clarisys Audio or Apogees) have a lot of variance in the impedance across freqencies (which is why i show real life impedance over frequency domain on youtube videos). So even if the speaker where to be 4 or 8 ohm under 1KHz; when playing music the impedance is quite different depending on frequencies. Its not a complex topic, but the indication of "efficiency" of a speaker really means nothing real life use cases; and the value is used a lot by Audio Friends to interpret some acoustic property.

But that shouldn't be a problem since you use transformers in front of the ribbons to adjust the winding ratio ( like tvc does)so that amplifiers with little negative feedback don't start screaming at 8 ohms.

 

[ClarisysAudio]

But that shouldn't be a problem since you use transformers in front of the ribbons to adjust the winding ratio ( like tvc does)so that amplifiers with little negative feedback don't start screaming at 8 ohms.

Absolutely and the bass panel is as flat as a pancake, I dont mean only the panel

 

[PeterA]

Thank you for asking questions; i love that
In terms of power i would recommend the following as rule of thumb taking into consideration the room that these do play in.

Piccolo Standard > 100wpc
Piccolo Neo > 50wpc
Minuet > 100wpc
Studio > 100wpc
Auditorium > 200wpc
Atrium > 100wpc x 8 since its fully active

In terms of solid state vs. tubes; in my mind this doesnt exist. There are good and bad designs in both camps.
Here is a list of devices that customers use which i like. (we are closing in on 80 pairs in the market; i have by far not heard all, so here are some)

Piccolo Standard > Hegel H390, Soulution Audio 331
Piccolo Neo > Jadis Defy 7; Aries Cerat 20wpc integrated
Minuet > Ayon Audio, Aries Cerat, CH Precision 1.5, VAC Essence 90, Luxman (bigger one), Modus Audio, Hegel H590
Studio > Aries Cerat Monos, Karan Acoustics, CH Precision 1.5; CH Precision 10 Series, Soulution Audio 511, VAC Master 300
Auditorium > Aries Cerat Monos, CAT JL7, VAC Master 300, Soulution Audio 701; Soulution Audio 511, CH Precion M10, PassLabs X600, VAC Statement 450S iQ
Atrium > 100wpc x 8 since its fully active (personally i use VAC Master 300s (4 of them) and Soulution 701

Thank you for being so specific and for giving actual real world examples. A few rare dealers share this kind of information, but it is quite unusual for a manufacturer and designer to share so openly on a forum. It is great information in general and more so specifically for those interested in your speakers.

 

[ClarisysAudio]

Thank you for being so specific and for giving actual real world examples. A few rare dealers share this kind of information, but it is quite unusual for a manufacturer and designer to share so openly on a forum. It is great information in general and more so specifically for those interested in your speakers.

Like i said, i enjoy it Thank you for the feedback.