What would the ultimate orchestra speaker be

[knifeinthesink]

I know some of you guys are fans of symphonic music.

If you were going to create the best speaker you could come up with, no holds barred, to reproduce Mahler symphonies, or anything else huge and extremely dynamic, what would the driver choice and configuration be and what kind of XO would you use.

Im not asking for complete designs. Just thoughts.

Incidentally, all but one of my most memorable hifi experiences came listening to Mahler. One was the 2nd symphony in the last movement. There is a tumultuous climax of the orchestra, followed by complete silence for a few bars, and then the mens chorus starts up slow and soft. There was a vivid impression of the voices rising from the ground like fog. I was so blown away that I made a friend of mine who didn't even like classical music sit and listen and without any prompting he made exactly the same observation. It was just fantastic.

The other great experience was listening to the famous proprius choral and organ recording from the seventies. It was an utter revelation of what hifi, and good recording, could do. To this day I still cant believe that that reletively modest but well chosen and set up system made the sounds it did. Im really going to have to find myself another turntable.


Looking forward to your thoughts

[cjd]

Ahhh.

Well, I must say that I am greatly impressed with the ability of the big RS 3-way towers to manage symphonies, in particular Mahler. The end of the first half of the 8th symphony is interesting, 'cause it has some quiet moments, but mostly because there is SO much going on, so many layers of sound and texture, and THAT is no easy task (or so it seems) for speakers to reproduce.

But, my end-goal is open baffle. I suspect I will forever pine after something along the lines of what Jon is putting together, but I just don't have the room (or budget).

I think that you need fairly sensitive drivers, and very much a highly dynamic system - at least, it should not take much amp power to get them moving, and they need to proportionately increase output across the entire frequency range or you find that the quiet spots go away or the loud spots compress. Orchestra has a sickening dynamic range. I have measured the 3-ways with the quiet points being below my meters range to measure and the really loud parts pushing into the lower-mid 90dB range. Think the meter stops at 50dB (it has peak and min hold features).

C

[Brian Bunge]

Chris,

Can you recommend a specific disc for the Mahler tracks you use? If I'm going to buy some classical music I might as well get a well recorded disc!

[JonMarsh]

Well, once I get my other projects out of the way, there's the "Saint-Saens", an open baffe dipole design for which I have most of the drivers. BG RD line source driver for the 500 Hz up midrange, 8 JP2 Founteks per side for treble over 3.5 kHz or so, and 6 RD265HF in the bottom end (line array). Probably augmented with W cabinet dipole woofers using RS315 below 40 Hz. Of course, in that range you could use monopoles if one wants to keep the cost down... I'm still personallly wondering how the two would compare, so I'm inclined to build at least one of the dipole "subs" to test it out.

At the rate things are going, I'll be lucky to start on it by Christmas.

[knifeinthesink]

Brian,

im can recommend a recording. Bernard Haitink conducting the Concertgabow (or however its spelled) in symphonies 1-4. Im not 100% sure but i think it was on London. Its an older recording so there may be others now that are must haves, but I sure enjoyed this one. Unfortunately I have it on Vinyl and no longer have a TT

[cjd]

Well recorded, I don't usually care so much about.

Well performed?

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir George Solti is almost always a winner.

I have the 8th on SACD(was curious about it) but haven't given it a full listen yet. Promising though.

C

[Dennis H]

BG RD line source driver for the 500 Hz up midrange, 8 JP2 Founteks per side for treble over 3.5 kHz or so,

Jon, I don't get that design choice. Bigtime lobing on the horizontal axis with those drivers and that XO frequency, yes? Seems to me the Fountek array could cross lower and fix that. Of course then the question becomes whether the BG is a better choice than an array of 3" HiVi or Aurasound drivers -- better LF extension and closer C-C spacing with the tweeter array.

But then I'm just an old Padawan so these are all just humble questions.

[knifeinthesink]

I dont have the faintest idea if a 3"HiVi array would be a good idea or not, but I'd sure be happy to find out that it is. Gotta love the price on those.

[Cowanrg]

i know this is more about DIY than commercial... but the best speaker ive heard for orchestral (the complex dynamic stuff) were my old speakers, magnepan tympani 1D's. 6 panels of planar bliss.

with enough power, they had dynamics. and the greatest thing they had was prescense and soundstaging. with a huge orchestral piece, the soundstage was literally 25' wide by 10' high by 15' deep. you were there.

[JonMarsh]

Jon, I don't get that design choice. Bigtime lobing on the horizontal axis with those drivers and that XO frequency, yes? Seems to me the Fountek array could cross lower and fix that. Of course then the question becomes whether the BG is a better choice than an array of 3" HiVi or Aurasound drivers -- better LF extension and closer C-C spacing with the tweeter array.

But then I'm just an old Padawan so these are all just humble questions.

I think it's a tradeoff- I want to be below the front cavity resonance of the BG "ribbon". But if you look at the ETC behavior and distortion on the Founteks and similar ribbons, they REALLY don't like being run much below 4 kHz. ThomasW's setup with 6 kHz crossovers to the Technics leaf ribbon is not "optimal" based theory, but it actually sounds pretty good at the practical listening integration distance for a BG ribbon anyway- minimum of 10 feet in front of the speakers. There's not much "off angle" listening possible, given the living room width is not that great.

Now, 3.5 kHz is a lot lower, so while not really optimal, I think it may be the best tradeoff. Who knows?

The really interesting question is will the gains in dynamic range be worthwhile compared to the layout planned for the Isirs (C90/T6 in mids, and something like C13/6 for tweeters- both high efficiency, both with low distortion up to 100 dB+, and possible to cross to each other at say, 2.2 kHz? The published specs indicate a cone breakup mode for the C13/6 of around 35 kHz, not too high a Q (a bit like the H1283 in that regard). I'm thinking about even trying a bandpass tweeter crossover, limiting upper end to ~25 kHz. Just to avoid exciting the ~ +8 dB peak. Maybe just a teensy weensy notch at the peak?

Maybe the Isiris with the planned dipole sub is a simpler, better approach.

[knifeinthesink]

I've been devouring threads on the the various RS series projects being developed on this forum. Very exciting. In the context of this thread there is one thing that makes me nervous though and that is the question of tweeter harshness due to the low XO.

I suspect that this is handled well by the designers of these speakers. But when it comes to reproducing orchestral music, the one thing I am almost always put off by is harsh violin sections. Being able to reproduce violins with the smooth, velvety tone that you hear in a concert hall is probably my number one concern.
According to this chart, http://www.tnt-audio.com/topics/frequency_e.html, the frequency range of the violin goes up to about 3200 hz. I would really like to have a loudspeaker were this is the LEAST trouble free part of the sound spectrum.

I dont have the faintest idea why, but the one place I consistently hear good violins reproduced is at the Famous players mega theatres with the huge screens, stadium seating, etc. I assume their using horns there, which is not really the way I want to go at this point, because I know nothing about them. But whatever the case, that environment is the closest I've heard to listening to a real orchestra.

My humble guess at the best way to ensure happy violin sections would be to find a midrange driver that will run up to 3500 hz with minimal distortion. I would guess that that means something other then metal cones.

Although my financial resources are limited and I am always looking at budget drivers, perhaps this is one place where it would be worth while to loosen up the pocket book abit. I think id rather compromise in the bass region since I cant ever recall wincing at a double bass.

Am I on the right track here. Any suggestions, recommendation, or ridicule?

thanks

[cjd]

I have played violin since I was 3.

It is one area where I am exceedingly critical. In fact, one of the first albums I run through my speakers are some of Hillary Hahn playing solo unaccompanied Bach (my warm-up pieces when I play, so again stuff I am quite familiar with).

I think you are far more likely to have violin issues by crossing to a tweeter too high - the midwoofer is nearly always going to have worse issues the higher it gets, whereas a tweeter is far more likely to simply have excursion issues (though not exclusively).

C

[JonMarsh]

And don't forget the quality of your electronics and digital sources....

~Jon

[knifeinthesink]

I have played violin since I was 3.

It is one area where I am exceedingly critical. In fact, one of the first albums I run through my speakers are some of Hillary Hahn playing solo unaccompanied Bach (my warm-up pieces when I play, so again stuff I am quite familiar with).

C

This is good to know. How do you find your mtm for orchestral violins? Any harshness at all?

As for the other components, Ill probably get around to that next, although I think the chip amps im using probably wont be going anywhere soon. If anything Ill just use more of them. Maybe Ill get them out of the shoebox though . I am having fun trying different components in the amp though. I was not aware about the importants of potentiometer quality until i bought some surplus bourns pots. Wow. I was always sceptical when I heard people discussing the sonic merits of parts like that but I've sure seen the light. Source is a whole other can of worms. I cant say I've heard too many things that made me want to spend money. Maybe I have to go back to records.Whatever the case, Its getting hard to hear the changes up front so I want to get the speaker department sorted out.