What is the prettiest loudspeaker?
- Thread starter Beachman
- Start date
Honestly, I don't remember. I could have sworn it was wrapped in some sort of grayish looking snake skin, with highlights of other like colors and white throughout. Skip would know. What I do remember was the look. It was one sexy speaker (if one would/could consider a speaker being sexy).
I think it was the floorstander of that particular lineup. Maybe the Alba? Don't hold me to that, as I am running off of memory here...
Tom
I love the design and looks of the new one too. DD6600
Although, when i heard a pair at a hi-fi show (in a room with a huge glass wall !) they sounded very poor.
Lacking in bass with strident & harsh mid-high frequency delivery.
Was a real disappointment.
They do look very appealing to me, kinda reminds me of the big TAD 2401 -- which are a delight. Of course I am biased, having the K2 M9500. Not the same aesthetic, but the same heritage, so I was pleasantly surprised that you mentioned Everest. I don't look in the abstract, sound quality influences how I see speakers.
TAD 2401
JBL Everest DD66000
JBL K2 M9500 -- not pretty, the beauty of utility.
"While K2, the mountain, will always remain in Everest's shadow, K2 the loudspeaker, would stand above all of its predecessors." Lansing Heritage
Hi Tim, yes those TAD's are an impressive piece also.
I was surprised and frankly disappointed with the DD6600, (I'm sure the room and electronics being used was contributing somewhat) given they were designed and engineered by Greg Timbers.
The same man responsible for your speakers.
He is a very talented fellow and was the brains behind one of my favorite (and little known) speaker, the JBL Array 1400.
They came fairly close to sounding as clean and fast as a good electrostatic(sort of, almost) with real bass and the dynamics of a horn with no horn coloration. They can't image and soundstage quite like a Quad though!
I think i remember him saying (after Harman sacked him) the transducers in the DD6600 were state of the art, but the marketing team pushed him to house them in a less than ideal enclosure that needed to appeal aesthetically over outright performance.
I am similar to you in that,if the speakers performance matches my expectations the looks also become appealing!
I run three separate systems in the one room including Tannoy, large Quad Estats(which most friends and visitors say are ugly) and also a 7.6.4 Atmos system for movies and multi channel/Atmos audio.
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And here I thought it was bacon.
I wonder why it has always sounded disjointed?
I'm pretty sure Laurence Dickie knows what he is doing, if i remember correctly it was one of the first loudspeaker designs to utilise ultra stiff pistonic cones so each driver worked in a narrow frequency band with extremely low distortion.
Problem with this approach is the drivers can only cover limited frequency range so you need a 4/5 way design to cover 20hz-20khz. Maybe that's part of the reason they sounded disjointed??
Plus you need 8Xchannels of amplification or 4Xstereo amps.
As they say, there is no free lunch, loudspeaker design is always finding the right balance of compromises.
I wonder if they were using DSP somewhere in the chain on this video for time alignment on the drivers and or room correction?
Maybe there is a $800 miniDSP hiding behind that big stack of exotic amplifiers.
In the hi-fi rack are the two active xovers for Nautilus. I think it sounds like that because they're using the new signature xover, but that's just my guess.I wonder why it has always sounded disjointed?
I'm pretty sure Laurence Dickie knows what he is doing, if i remember correctly it was one of the first loudspeaker designs to utilise ultra stiff pistonic cones so each driver worked in a narrow frequency band with extremely low distortion.
Problem with this approach is the drivers can only cover limited frequency range so you need a 4/5 way design to cover 20hz-20khz. Maybe that's part of the reason they sounded disjointed??
Plus you need 8Xchannels of amplification or 4Xstereo amps.
As they say, there is no free lunch, loudspeaker design is always finding the right balance of compromises.
I wonder if they were using DSP somewhere in the chain on this video for time alignment on the drivers and or room correction?
Maybe there is a $800 miniDSP hiding behind that big stack of exotic amplifiers.
Old version
Signature version
I have heard them many times at a friends place.
To be honest, in this photo they kind of do look a bit "home made" Like a horn facing the wrong way plonked on top of a subwoofer. Performance over form.
The vertical orientation of the horn lends to excellent off axis performance(none
you only hear the speaker not the room) and very precise imaging.Just doesn't look normal or sell well, i think the speaker was originally marketed for the home theater crowd.
If you are into measurement(not everyone is) the in room response from 30Hz is exceptional!
JA measurements comment 2010
""I'm not surprised that the Synthesis 1400 Array offers both superb speaker engineering and superb measured performance. I keep returning to that remarkably flat and even in-room response: Good grief!"
Probably not a SET speaker, I'm pretty sure they are essentially a 2 way with a super tweeter, sort of.
The compression driver horn loaded midrange and tweeter would be super efficient but padded down to match the lower sensitivity of the low frequency driver. Otherwise you would be better served going active(audiophiles don't like) which is probably what Greg did at home
Also wouldn't have the same dynamic slam & bass presence of the M9500 2x15" vs 1X12"
Greg Timbers made his own version of this speaker for his personal use. Says a lot!
PS, i think he was bi-amping with Quicksilver tube amps on the horns and solid state on the bass/sub bass?
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Ah, i see. I was looking in the video for something but couldn't make it out.
Makes some sense, perhaps the new "signature Xover" is contributing to a more coherent homogeneous presentation.
Agreed. My pleasure.
I believe that is the proprietor of Kenrick Sound (most known for JBL rebuilds/remans, to my knowledge) in the photo.
Yep, very nice.
Rey Audio RM-8 (?) custom finish
I'd imagine they would sound pretty good too.
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