Sean McCaughan of ESP's killer new design

[Duke LeJeune]

The best speakers I heard at RMAF 2015 were ESP's new "Double-Bass" speakers in Room 510. Sean McCaughan is the designer and this just might be the most intelligent speaker design I've ever seen, a statement that I will try to explain shortly.

Here's what one looks like:

It's not as big as the photo's angle makes it seem... maybe 45 inches tall, I would guess. I think it's a "splayed array", with essentially full-range arrays firing off at 90 degrees to one another.

I walked into the room and two of these speakers were up against the side walls, "facing" one another across the width of the 13' wide by 19' long room. They were maybe 2/5 of the way down the 19' walls, from the end with the equipment rack. The "forward facing" arrays were criss-crossing approximately in the listening area, and the rear-facing arrays were criss-crossing over near where the electronics were set up (sorry, I don't have a photo of the room).

Immediately Beveridge lensed electrostatics came to mind - that's how Harold Beveridge recommended setting up his speakers. The technique never really caught on in the audiophile world, but those of us who got to hear a pair of Beveridges set up as he recommended remember it vividly to this day.

Well this was no mere coincidence - from what I understand, Sean used to work with Harold! That would explain in part the attention Sean's designs pay to getting the reverberant field right. Well with all due deference to the great Harold Beveridge designs of yore, I think the student has surpassed the teacher.

I think this was the best outside-the-center-sweet-spot soundstaging I have ever encountered. In this statement I'm including my experience as a SoundLab owner and dealer, builder of Earl Geddes's Summa, admirer (though not owner) of Beveridge speakers, and designer who gives off-axis imaging a high priority.

The timbre was beautiful. The bass gave no hint that we were in a crappy hotel room. If there were room treatments, I didn't notice them. I heard nothing that sounded anything other than holographic and magical. The soundstage may have stopped at the side walls, but it was deep and palpable so that didn't matter.

I suspect that Sean has enough directional control going on "under the hood" of his Double Bass speakers to improve on the image solidity of the Beveridges. That being said, these are not "audiophile fireworks laser-guided smart bomb" speakers. These are "ahhhh... I could listen to these forever!" speakers.

There is something else Sean's design is doing that most people probably wouldn't have picked up on, but because I'm working towards a similar goal (from another angle), it was apparent to me. There is something acoustic he's doing which plays magnificently into psychoacoustics. I'm not going to describe it because it may be a trade secret of his, and he deserves to not have it blabbed all over the internet by some loudmouth. So I hope you will just trust me when I say, in my opinion at least, this design is sheer genius.

Sean if you read this, I take off my virtual hat to you. If there is a speaker that interacts with the room (and with the ear/brain system) more intelligently and successfully than your Double-Bass, I don't think I've seen it.

The US distributor is Michael Vamos of Audio Skies in Los Angeles. I've never met him, but in my opinion his choice in speaker lines kinda speaks for itself.

If I wasn't doing my own speaker line, I'd be all over trying to become an ESP dealer. I'm a longtime SoundLab dealer, and the ESP Double-Bass is the first dynamic speaker I've heard that felt like it was in the same league.

Duke LeJeune
AudioKinesis

 

[amirm]

Thanks Duke. I too was impressed as I had no idea loudspeakers situated that way could remotely sound good.

 

[audio.bill]

Any idea of the price of these speakers? I searched and found the distributor's website but there is no mention of their price. TIA!

 

[Robh3606]

They look like Allison 1's are the bass drivers down low??

Rob

 

[Duke LeJeune]

Thanks Duke. I too was impressed as I had no idea loudspeakers situated that way could remotely sound good.

Sorry I overlooked your photos! Here's the link - this will be much more valuable than my verbal description above:

Amir's photos of the ESP room

One of the things the ESP Double-Bass speakers do so very well is embody what I've come to call the "Two Streams" Paradigm. Here's a short quote from David Griesinger that sums up the general idea. He uses the word "envelopment" to describe the feeling of being immersed in the soundfield that takes a system to the next level, and takes the listener along as well:

"Envelopment is perceived when the ear and brain can detect TWO separate streams: A foreground stream of direct sound. And a background stream of reverberant sound. Both must be present if sound is to be perceived as enveloping."

He was talking about concert halls rather than home audio, but since the argument for Two Streams is based on what the ear/brain system likes, I'm pretty confident the concept translates to our home audio systems as well. It's nothing new really; I'm just pinning a descriptive label on something that acousticians have been doing for years, and focusing on the loudspeaker system's radiation pattern as the starting point.

The idea is, the ear/brain system likes for there to be a temporal (time-domain) delineation between the direct stream and the reverberant stream. In other words, we want them to be separated in time rather than running together. I think that 10 milliseconds is a good target for how much separation we want, but more is generally better. An example of a Two-Stream Paradigm speaker setup would be Sound Labs positioned about 5 feet out from the wall behind them.

As set up at RMAF, the ESP Double-Bass speakers were giving us a very good spectrally-correct reverberant stream that arrived around 17 milliseconds behind the direct sound. Brilliant use of aimed arrays and room geometry.

Any idea of the price of these speakers? I searched and found the distributor's website but there is no mention of their price. TIA!

I think they were 39 grand for the pair.

They look like Allison 1's are the bass drivers down low??

I don't know, but speculate that the heights of the bass drivers were chosen with room interaction very much in mind. I'd have placed the woofer at a different height on each of the two splayed arrays for that reason, but I'm under the impression that Sean doesn't give out many details so it might cost you thirty-nine grand to find out! Whatever he was doing, it worked extremely well in my opinion.

 

[Robh3606]

Here is an Allison 1 from the wayback.

Rob

 

[Duke LeJeune]

Here is an Allison 1 from the wayback.

Rob

I see what you mean! That looks like the same angle as the ESP, 45 degrees outward splay for each stack of drivers.

How did people use the Allisons? Like conventional speakers, backs against the front wall... or backs against the side walls, "facing" one another from across the room? Are you aware of anyone having used them in the latter "Beveridge-esque" configuration?

The DCM Time Window also used a splayed array, not sure of the angle but it looks a bit shallower:

I prototyped a configuration that was outwardly similar to the ESP/Allison shape about six or seven years ago and concluded that it didn't work as well as the bipolar configuration I was using at the time... BUT I did not try it oriented the way Sean did, up against the side walls and firing "across" the room (actually firing along two axes splayed 90 degrees apart)! Dangit, I was THIS CLOSE!! But I hadn't read Toole's book yet, among other things.

* * * *

Something that fascinates me about Sean's design (the ESP Double-Bass) is, if my understanding of what works and doesn't work acoustically and psychoacoustically was spot-on, then it shouldn't work as well as it does. I think I have some grasp of why it does what it does in some areas, but as far as off-centerline imaging and soundstaging goes, it's doing things that I would not have expected. I need to hit the books again.

 

[Robh3606]

The recommended placement for the Allison's was against the wall away from side walls. One of the first speakers designed to address room placement. The woofers were mounted down low at floor level. The mids and tweeter were up high the like the Time Windows. Low first crossover point.

Rob

 

[Asa]

The best speakers I heard at RMAF 2015 were ESP's new "Double-Bass" speakers in Room 510. Sean McCaughan is the designer and this just might be the most intelligent speaker design I've ever seen, a statement that I will try to explain shortly.

Here's what one looks like:

It's not as big as the photo's angle makes it seem... maybe 45 inches tall, I would guess. I think it's a "splayed array", with essentially full-range arrays firing off at 90 degrees to one another.

I walked into the room and two of these speakers were up against the side walls, "facing" one another across the width of the 13' wide by 19' long room. They were maybe 2/5 of the way down the 19' walls, from the end with the equipment rack. The "forward facing" arrays were criss-crossing approximately in the listening area, and the rear-facing arrays were criss-crossing over near where the electronics were set up (sorry, I don't have a photo of the room).

Immediately Beveridge lensed electrostatics came to mind - that's how Harold Beveridge recommended setting up his speakers. The technique never really caught on in the audiophile world, but those of us who got to hear a pair of Beveridges set up as he recommended remember it vividly to this day.

Well this was no mere coincidence - from what I understand, Sean used to work with Harold! That would explain in part the attention Sean's designs pay to getting the reverberant field right. Well with all due deference to the great Harold Beveridge designs of yore, I think the student has surpassed the teacher.

I think this was the best outside-the-center-sweet-spot soundstaging I have ever encountered. In this statement I'm including my experience as a SoundLab owner and dealer, builder of Earl Geddes's Summa, admirer (though not owner) of Beveridge speakers, and designer who gives off-axis imaging a high priority.

The timbre was beautiful. The bass gave no hint that we were in a crappy hotel room. If there were room treatments, I didn't notice them. I heard nothing that sounded anything other than holographic and magical. The soundstage may have stopped at the side walls, but it was deep and palpable so that didn't matter.

I suspect that Sean has enough directional control going on "under the hood" of his Double Bass speakers to improve on the image solidity of the Beveridges. That being said, these are not "audiophile fireworks laser-guided smart bomb" speakers. These are "ahhhh... I could listen to these forever!" speakers.

There is something else Sean's design is doing that most people probably wouldn't have picked up on, but because I'm working towards a similar goal (from another angle), it was apparent to me. There is something acoustic he's doing which plays magnificently into psychoacoustics. I'm not going to describe it because it may be a trade secret of his, and he deserves to not have it blabbed all over the internet by some loudmouth. So I hope you will just trust me when I say, in my opinion at least, this design is sheer genius.

Sean if you read this, I take off my virtual hat to you. If there is a speaker that interacts with the room (and with the ear/brain system) more intelligently and successfully than your Double-Bass, I don't think I've seen it.

The US distributor is Michael Vamos of Audio Skies in Los Angeles. I've never met him, but in my opinion his choice in speaker lines kinda speaks for itself.

If I wasn't doing my own speaker line, I'd be all over trying to become an ESP dealer. I'm a longtime SoundLab dealer, and the ESP Double-Bass is the first dynamic speaker I've heard that felt like it was in the same league.

Duke LeJeune
AudioKinesis

 

[Asa]

Hi Duke. You make very nice speakers. I respect what you do.

Over 30+ years ago I owned ESP Concert Grand speakers. I was a TAS reviewer way back then and Sean was kind enough to sell me a pair. I had to sell them, as I changed careers and moved to a smaller place, but have always regretted that. Do you know anyone who owns these double-bass models, or any info on what happened to Sean re-entering the US market? There is this and then, nothing. Thanks, Mark