“Audio” means the machines that make music from recordings in the home. I’ve been working on a new amplifier, to multi-amp the Bill Woods-designed Yorkville U215s that I have around here. This has been a longstanding ambition. But, that is not done yet. Along the way, I looked around at the current state of affairs in the audio hobby.
Mostly, it hasn’t changed much. There is a lot of gear hype, and still a focus on little shoebox speakers that are very nice if you want something small and convenient that doesn’t cost too much, because you have better things to do than worrying about “audio,” but are not (in my opinion) where you want to focus if you have a little ambition.
Even in the shoebox-speaker category, I would focus on horn designs. I’ve mentioned that Jonathan Weiss of Oswald’s Mill Audio is a friend of mine going back to the “tube and speaker tasting” days around 2001. More than anyone, he creates what I think of as ambitious audio devices. I was there the first time he hooked up a 300B SET amplifier to his big RCA horns, replacing some kind of EL34 Williamson-type amplifier. (It was a lot better.) Heck, I bought those RCA horns, at least the basshorns, which we lowered out of the Mill with an electric winch. Of course he has gone 10x beyond me since then. I’ve heard some of Jonathan’s designs including the Mini, DeVille and Excelsior, which are all small, and they were astonishing — because of their horns.
Meanwhile, Magico released the M9, “only” $750,000 a pair, and they look like this:
An enormous among of effort and optimization went into this, as you can imagine. And it is certainly “good,” and in fact very, very, good, within its genre. But, what I see here is: a six-inch cone, and a one-inch dome, which makes most of the music, aided by some woofers on the low end. This format has considerable inherent limitations. The one-inch dome is simply not capable of very much output, and begins to break up at quite low levels. The crossover to the 6″ woofer is typically around 2200hz, which is too low for the dome, and too high for the cone, already getting well out of its pistonic range. The DeVille shown above has a 1″ horn, which has practically unlimited power handling, at least in the home environment. Also, it is probably crossed around 1500hz, which is very comfortable for the compression driver, and also is low enough that you can push the 6″ cone very hard without worrying about breakup in the sensitive midrange.
One thing I’ve noticed a lot of, in audio, is imitation and optimization. The speaker above basically began as a simple two-way shoebox or “monitor” speaker, like the LS 3/5A from the 1970s, or the original Advents. This basic format, a 6″-ish driver and a 1″-ish dome, was imitated and optimized, resulting in the Magico M9. But, along the way, very few people stop to ask the questions that I ask, such as: Is a 1″ dome really the best we can do? Anyway, after hearing big horns, or, for the top end, bullet tweeters or ribbons, combined with large-format compression drivers, I don’t have so much interest in cones and domes anymore.
To take another example: We’ve had thirty years now of 300B single-ended amplifiers. But, is single-ended really the best topology? Should we use push-pull instead? There are a lot of good reasons to use push-pull. Here, Lynn Olson thought about it, and went with a 300B push-pull design.
So you would think that, after several decades now, there would be an interesting variety of 300B push-pull amplifiers. But, there are almost none. 99.9% of 300B amplifiers are still single-ended. Mostly, this is just imitation.
For $1300 (and less if you look), you can try a pair of Klipsch The Sevens, which also have a 1″ compression driver and a 6″ cone.
Also, this is a fully multi-amped speaker, with all the digital bits and amplification built in. You just bring a smartphone and $1300, and you are listening to music, which, in some important ways, will be better than you will get from the Magico M9.
Oswald’s Mill Audio has a YouTube channel, which I have been enjoying recently. Here is a video on the Excelsior system, which is basically a “convenience/lifestyle system.” That’s how small it is. I was amazed at the “big sound” that these produced — basically because of their conical horns. I think the constant directivity characteristic of conicals helps create some of this “bigness,” as it fully energizes the room in the upper frequencies, avoiding the unnatural “beaminess” of typical horns.
Jonathan likes to complain about the state of “high end audio.” I think this is a bit of a posture, but I actually agree with most everything he says. He gets warmed up around 5:00 here:
Meanwhile, you can see Jonathan Weiss’ “reference system” or main home system, here:
Basically, big horns. But, you could build something like this in your own home for probably under $5000. The RCA MI-1428B field coil compression drivers, from the 1930s, are serious unobtanium today. But, you can also buy the B&C DCM50, based on the 1428B (I think Bill Woods, who designed the speakers for OMA and also the horn in the picture above, had a main role in their design), and I think it would be almost as good, and they are $488 each at Parts Express. Make some horns like you see (it’s a 40 degree conical, simplest thing in the world), and you are in business. These 12-sided horns involve tricky woodworking, but you can make a simple four-sided square and it would be almost as good. These horns are around 110db, compared to about 90db for the Magico M9. This means that they are 20db or 100x more efficient. The amount of sound pressure that you would make with 100 watts on the M9, takes one watt on these horns. But, at one watt, these horns are loping along gently, like a V12 Mercedes at 45 mph, while that 6″ cone and 1″ dome would be rattling themselves to death if you put 100 watts through them.
You could literally run these big horns, in a multi-amp setup, on a one-watt amplifier. The one-watt amplifier I would use here is the MicroZOTL, based on the ZOTL technology from David Berning. This has been around a while, and you can find them on the used market for not too much.
We’ve been waiting for the speaker genius of our generation, Tom Danley, to come out with some products aimed at the home market. He did — not one, but four speakers, all of them quite innovative by the looks of it.
In the little box speaker category, we have this:
What is it? Danley says that it is a “Synergy Horn,” which looks like it covers everything down to about maybe 120hz — horn loaded — with this little pepper shaker thing.
For the home, a different version, with a woofer on the bass:
Here the “pepper shaker thing” has a fabric cover. Unlike the similar-looking Klipsch speaker, which is probably crossed around 1500hz, the horn here probably goes below 200hz.
Basically it is a pair of 15″ subwoofers, and a horn going down to about 100hz I would guess. It looks like this is a Unity horn, not a Synergy horn. It does not use the “tapped horn” technology to boost the bottom end. This speaker is active, digitally processed and multi-amped, which means that Danley can use EQ and other means to raise low-end output. Basically it is the 2×15 version of the Klipsch The Sevens.
Lastly, we have this:
That slot in the front is actually a kind of horn, basically a diffraction horn I think (the literature says it has a 140 degrees horizontal dispersion), and it goes down to 80hz I would guess. For example, here is a similar speaker from their prosound lineup, using the “Paraline” technology.
The whole idea that a little slot provides horn loading down to 80hz is freakish. But, Danley has delivered one freakish thing after another over the years. He is in a class by himself.
This speaker is also “active,” which means, like the Klipsh The Sevens, you just plug in a digital source like a iPhone and you are in business. This can be irritating to “audiophiles,” because audiophiles want to play with stuff. They want to plug this thing into that thing, and experiment. No experimenting here, you get it just as Danley intended, and no changes are possible, not even a speaker cable. Getting it just as Danley intended is not a bad thing, however. Personally I also like to experiment with things, but I do it in a DIY fashion. One reason for this is, to get what I want (basically big multiamped horns), you can’t buy it in stores. You have to make it yourself.
OK, there are a few products out there that are multiamped horns, including the Danley or Klipsch speakers above. Or, the AvantGarde Trio system. But, they are mostly very, very expensive. Also, I like making it myself.
Among amplifiers, I like this:
I am using the Behringer A500, the Class AB transistor-based predecessor, and it is a heck of a nice amplifier for the money. For the newest version, the A800, they went with a Class D technology. I don’t think it is all that great, but it puts a lot of watts down for the price. Since I do a lot of multiamping, I tend to have a need for big power amplifiers that are refined enough to drive woofers up to about 300hz (that is, not very refined); and then a need for small, highly refined <10 watt amplifiers for horns. I don’t really need both refinement and power, which is always a tall order. A lot of the time I am listening literally to the “first watt” of power, or maybe first 100 milliwatts. Often, the first watt on a 400 watt amplifier is not that great. You have to use low-efficiency speakers just to get the amplifier into its “sweet spot.” Maybe I should just add some resistors to the output — har!
Among things I’m looking at, but haven’t tried yet, in the big power category is the newest offering from Hypex, the Nilai. The current NCore was a big improvement from the prior (but still good) UcD series. The Nilai, Hypex claims, achieves 10x less distortion even than the NCore. I haven’t found that these kinds of Class D amplifiers achieve the highest class, but they can be very good for the money, and provide big power. Maybe the Nilai does deserve to be in the highest class.
Also, there’s this GANFet-based “Power DAC” amplifier. Basically the amplifier itself is a digital-analog conversion device, of the PWM variety (like a DSD DAC). There is no “analog” amplifier. You just feed it a digital signal. The response it has gotten seems similar — it provides a heck of a lot of refinement and power for the money, but it is not quite in the top class.
Cables do make a difference. But, that doesn’t mean you have to spend big money on them. I would start with “good wire.” “Good wire” means something perhaps from Mogami or Canare, which are go-to sources for wire for professional recording studios. These cables use wire from Mogami, and good connectors from Neutrik or Amphenol, and don’t cost much.
Yes, another, more expensive cable will sound different. Better? Maybe not.
In the bigger-dollar category, there’s Analysis Plus, which would be my first stop if I had ambitions beyond Mogami. Their Oval One RCA interconnects, at $120/pair in 1 meter length, have the basic technology.
I am mentioning this because I think you can read the magazines and the online forums all day long and still never know about any of this stuff — which, to me, is the most interesting stuff, and the stuff that I personally want to play with.
As I always say: Have fun with it.
Here’s a guy who had a lot of fun with it. He’s a retired policeman.
