Visit to Audiophile Bill to hear his horns project
- Thread starter spiritofmusic
- Start date
Hi Anthony,
Apologies - “in situ sans…” means here is the big horn without any driver in it yet.
I will be installing the AERs this week.
Best.
Oh my - they a gorgeous - what a sensational looking speaker that by all reports sounds superb
That totally would fit in your room! Bye, bye Zu; buy, buy Bill horn!
That is 40mm maple. It is extremely strong and dense. Similar choice to frame of a grand piano. Also has bracing too to make it incredibly stiff.
Very nice builds @Audiophile Bill. Apologize if it has already been mentioned, but what are you currently using for midbass and what are the freq points? Thank you.
Hi,
Behind the slot loaded open baffle grille you see in the photo above are 4x15” woofers actively loaded (so 8 for left and right together).
They are crossed in around 100hz.
Best.
I can really vouch for Bill's efforts. Herculean is a good summary, but the inert mass of these has led to the most delicate of outcomes.
My biggest takeaway from these spkrs, and I'm still trying to weigh up what it all means, is the "backward layering" soundstage.
My Zus don't image particularly strongly, so I was particularly taken aback by this aspect. I have heard horns be quite assertive in forward staging, Barry's Duos and Animas eg, and horns that are crazy depth holographic
like the Denman Exponential.
And I have heard weird "bubble-like" soundfields from setups like ML Prodigies on Musical Fidelity KW solid state beasties.
I have been procuring a way more naturally deep stage w my Zus, but even now it is quite locked into the plane of the spkrs so that I'm never not aware I'm hearing the Zus in the final event.
Bill's horns are the first spkrs I've heard which project music to completely detach from them, but also to backward layer so dramatically.
It's so outside my scope of home playback to effectively not know music is coming from the spkrs but also not have the music pushed out, or "delivered" to me.
So Bill's presentation is to effectively have a loudspeaker-free sound, and you the listener both look onto the stage, but are also invited into it
This is not a function of lack of focus, or smoothing of leading edge, or hazing of black backgrounds, or blunting of dynamics, or any other such hifi checklist BS.
It's effectively a presentation that is so beguiling to start (no sound detected from the horns, how cool is that?!) and effectively carries on the trick of unrushed unforced presentation that is a hallmark of the best live acoustic.
I will admit, I struggled with it on first visit...not that I didn't like it, more I was unprepared for it and it's far from my more usual presentation, and far from what many horns do.
Now, third time of asking, I'm aware of it, and finding I'm liking it.
I'm not sure if Barry agrees w me, but this level of backward layering does alter dependent on the LP played, so I felt it wasn't imposed as a coloration or affectation. So while my Allan Holdsworth sublime jazz guitar from 1975 was revealed in all it's ambient glory with plenty of tonal depth and air/studio cues, Yes full tilt prog from the same year was flatter and more direct. And both were hugely engrossing.
Despite my initial hesitation, I do feel this move to backward layering would give a whole new perspective on much jazz and classical, allowing me to properly discern the musical essence on so many performances that my Zus only get so far with.
My biggest takeaway from these spkrs, and I'm still trying to weigh up what it all means, is the "backward layering" soundstage.
My Zus don't image particularly strongly, so I was particularly taken aback by this aspect. I have heard horns be quite assertive in forward staging, Barry's Duos and Animas eg, and horns that are crazy depth holographic
like the Denman Exponential.
And I have heard weird "bubble-like" soundfields from setups like ML Prodigies on Musical Fidelity KW solid state beasties.
I have been procuring a way more naturally deep stage w my Zus, but even now it is quite locked into the plane of the spkrs so that I'm never not aware I'm hearing the Zus in the final event.
Bill's horns are the first spkrs I've heard which project music to completely detach from them, but also to backward layer so dramatically.
It's so outside my scope of home playback to effectively not know music is coming from the spkrs but also not have the music pushed out, or "delivered" to me.
So Bill's presentation is to effectively have a loudspeaker-free sound, and you the listener both look onto the stage, but are also invited into it
This is not a function of lack of focus, or smoothing of leading edge, or hazing of black backgrounds, or blunting of dynamics, or any other such hifi checklist BS.
It's effectively a presentation that is so beguiling to start (no sound detected from the horns, how cool is that?!) and effectively carries on the trick of unrushed unforced presentation that is a hallmark of the best live acoustic.
I will admit, I struggled with it on first visit...not that I didn't like it, more I was unprepared for it and it's far from my more usual presentation, and far from what many horns do.
Now, third time of asking, I'm aware of it, and finding I'm liking it.
I'm not sure if Barry agrees w me, but this level of backward layering does alter dependent on the LP played, so I felt it wasn't imposed as a coloration or affectation. So while my Allan Holdsworth sublime jazz guitar from 1975 was revealed in all it's ambient glory with plenty of tonal depth and air/studio cues, Yes full tilt prog from the same year was flatter and more direct. And both were hugely engrossing.
Despite my initial hesitation, I do feel this move to backward layering would give a whole new perspective on much jazz and classical, allowing me to properly discern the musical essence on so many performances that my Zus only get so far with.
Hi Marc,
Back in my box speaker days, I was always most enamoured and emotionally drawn to those speakers that ably detached all music from their drivers and portrayed a mid hall presentation. I was always a very big fan of Avalon for this reason as to me they had this attribute in spades. I am nearly certain I would have landed with Avalons as my next cones indeed I was very close to buying some.
I do recognise that this is rather different in style to the presentation you get from most horns where the image is mainly projected forwards at you and despite insane dynamics, the music seemingly comes from the horn mouth. I really never liked that presentation, and always wanted to gain the mid hall and fully detached approach - it was a strong part of my design ethos. I think the SLOB helps this as does the horn rear chamber.
Best.
Just amazing Bill. Thanks for sharing... in doing so you're making the world a better place. My desire to play copy-cat is strong...
And thanks for the report and thread boost Marc!
And thanks for the report and thread boost Marc!
Cal, this is the whole point. Bill has something close to unique...I don't mean alien technology, or something that defies the laws of physics...I mean a rigorous choice of materials, fully worked thru design, and craft beer fuelled obsession...to produce a pair of spkrs that absolutely excel on aesthetics, materials/construction, and critically a hugely engrossing sound w seemingly nothing to give them away.
Only the Cessaro Liszts that I've heard 3x over 5 years ago, approach on design ethic grounds, and are super fun to listen to, but fail in the final analysis on seamless driver integration.
Not so Bill's horns.
Honestly, if the federal government hadn't tried to force me to move across the country during a global pandemic (in order to work remotely from a different location) I'd be buying drivers right now. Instead I'm unemployed and in Panama.I am glad that this build inspires you in some way
Bill, it's been a while since I knew my fat friend, so badly behaved in public...but what is SLOB?
Pure bureaucratic self-consuming idiocy. Office was on remote work detail, but the position could not be filled by workers from another location. I was hired and given 3 months to move but refused to do so until I was vaccinated.
The best part is that they lost all my experience, a 2-month onboarding process, and a 2-month position approval process just to do it all again by refilling the position as soon as I left. All because the folks in charge refused to wait another 30-60 days for vaccinations to come around. Just an abject failure of leadership.
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