Nomad Audio discussion

[AJINFLA]

Looks like someone here has turned "Homegrown Seas coax" into reality : http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/v...er=asc&start=0
I wish him the best of luck with the new company.

Cheers,

AJ

[tktran]

I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous pricing.

[AJINFLA]

I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous pricing.

The market will determine that.

Cheers,

AJ

[tktran]

AJ,

I guess it's a cheaper than some "high-end" 2 ways with similar cost, but this is a DIY forum, so I don't think my comment is out of line...

[AJINFLA]

I don't think your comments were out of line. I was slightly taken aback by the price as well (much more bothered by the monopole bass in the modal region, cardioid transition in the vocal range,etc.). But that is irrelevant. Why?
If he sells one or two per year, then yes, the price is ridiculous.
If they sell like hot cakes, well......
Like I said, the market will determine.

Cheers,

AJ

p.s. - it's a "high-end" 3 way

[Dennis H]

Well good for Paul, I wish him luck. I recongnize the RS265 and the W22. Anybody know what he's doing for the tweeter? Is he building the coaxes himself or did he get Seas to custom build him a batch?

[mikec]

May i suggest another tweeter candidate...

Looks interesting; however, I think the 7K crossover point will be an issue, especially with any of the metal cone midbass drivers being discussed here.

[AJINFLA]

Is he building the coaxes himself or did he get Seas to custom build him a batch?

It appears he made them himself:

No, it is not an off-the shelf unit. I actually machine down copper cylinders to re-create the standoff for the copper phase plug in the W22, this retains as much copper in the motor as possible. The change in impedence is very very small.

After reading the whole AC thread, it seems Paul and I share much more in common than I was aware of. Influenced by SPTechs waveguides, favors coaxials (W22s!), metal cones, low tweeter xo's, etc. Heck, it seems he even built

As to the orion... I have built several full dipole systems, most recently one almost identical, but with dual 12" Peerless XLS woofers instead of dual 10's

Don't recall ever seeing any of his coax/waveguide/dipole/XLS12 designs on his posts on the Mad board. Would love to have seen them. Small world indeed.
He also seems to have a few critical errors in his understanding of the Orions....but I digress .
Getting back to the design, it doesn't appear that he modded the throat or surround. The treble response isn't bad, but shows some roughness.

http://www.nomad-audio.com/index_files/speaker.htm

Image not available

Kudos to him for making reality out of what Eric and I only talked about.
Unless Eric made one also without telling me :W
As for whether Paul's speaker (passive, with monopole bass) sounds better than an Orion (is this what he implies?), well, I'll let other listeners decide.
Again, good for him turning his ideas into reality.

Cheers,

AJ

[Dennis H]

I remember Paul going through the dipole journey on the Mad board and his love-hate thing with the Seas metal cones. At first he hated them (probably crossed too high) and eventually he ended up loving the W22. But he kept pretty quiet (make that silent) about his coax experiments. No doubt he didn't want to give away the store.

[JoshK]

Well good for him, hope it works out for him. It is actually one of the few commercial products that looks pretty interesting.

[tktran]

Perhaps it's a custom made job by SEAS- the cone doesn't look like the nice white of the standard W22E/X drivers... it looks grey to me.

High-end electronics retail is a tough business, (I would know, it's my Saturday job), so I hope a) Paul is a self-funded retiree, b) has another day job, or c) starts getting good press (Stereophile or other high-end magazine is a start)...

In all honesty the price of this speaker is only high by DIY standards, but then, which commercial speaker isn't? :W
It's a relative bargain compared to this 8" two way that costs US$12,200

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/506an/index.html

In the DIY spirit, I wonder if Paul offers kits or plans, like Seigfried Linkwitz, Rick Craig, John Kreskovsky...

[cjd]

I heard at least one of Paul's dipole experiments a couple years ago. Not bad, not anything that I remember as being great. But it was at the end of a very long day of listening and I wasn't really listening critically (let alone to the point I might remember anything about it two years later). I seem to remember it being crossed digitally.

C

[AJINFLA]

Zaph,

I had no idea you would be interested in something like this, although I recall you mentioning something about getting tired of 2-way boxes .
You seem to have enough drivers to choose from if you decided to do so.
Does the Seas 27TAFNCD have a vented pole? IIRC, the Fs is highish. Ability to add a larger rear chamber to lower Fs would be a nice option. Using the woofers pole vent for this rear chamber is desirable also, since the loading by the cone allows a fairly low XO. I am curious as to what tweeter Paul used.
The roughness in the response of his Nomad tells me that throat/surround is not optimal. Why these were not modified (my speculation) is rather puzzling.
I would also like to see the response as drive level increases past 80db.
I don't want to sound too critical here, since coax dipoles are very much my design philosophy. But when a forum member turned speaker maufacturer implies that their speaker may be better than an Orion, it should certainly deserve greater scrutiny.
If you decide to give it a go with the P18, keep us posted. I'm not sure that's a (DIY) project you would want others undertaking (like your other projects).
Questions about how to fix a VC that was just damaged, etc. wouldn't be too much fun.
You might just like it yourself however. Next thing you know, you'll be building a OB.... :W

cheers,

AJ

[Davey]

Zaph,

But when a forum member turned speaker maufacturer implies that their speaker may be better than an Orion, it should certainly deserve greater scrutiny.
cheers,

AJ

He actually seems to imply even more than that.

"Welcome to Nomad Audio. Here you will find a wealth of information pertaining to one of the most advanced, unique and true-to-life speakers of all time."

That's quite a statement. I'll be interested to see more information on Paul's efforts. Especially distortion performance of the tweeter since the xover point is rather low. Although I'm sure the waveguiding effect of the W22 alleviates the situation somewhat.

Cheers,

Davey.

[PaulHilgeman]

Hey everyone,

Thought I would do my best to answer some of the questions here.

Ronin Vs. Orion

I have never heard the Orion. The two closest speakers were: Dual 12" XLS woofers with Seas W22 with Seas Millennium. I did several crossovers for this, some with DCX2496, some with an active cross from woofer to mid and passive mid-tweet ala NaO. The version at DIY Chicago '04 was a rough predecessor to all of these.

When taking into account primarily sound quality as well as cost, system complexity and technical issues (which of course relate to sound quality), I really do think that the Ronin is a better speaker.

1. Sound.

a. I have listened to systems with flawless crossover transitions and +/-1dB in-room responses with drivers, crossover slopes and frequencies similar to the Orions (same, except woofer size), yadda, yadda. I enjoy the sound out of here more. They have less strain in the lower mids, more dynamic range below 100Hz, and in-room bass response can be flatter and more accurate, with smaller cabinet size, less amplifier requirements, and lower cost. The hard part is that with DIYers is that dipole bass is theoretically perfect. I have probably spent 200-300 hours driving my wife nuts, analyzing bass response in every room in our house and two rooms in our church. At about hour 50 she was going nuts, around hour 100 she was going to kill me and then she just gave up . Bottom line, I don’t think that dipole bass is all it is worked up to be. Aside from the wonderful power response reasons and theoretically less energy going to the ceiling and sidewalls, there are some big real-world down sides. Reverb time is one; even response through a room is another. So, from a theoretical standpoint, I think that the Ronin has a leg up.

b. The coaxial Mid-Tweet is really incredible sounding. The tweeter does receive a big boost down low to keep distortion low. The benefits in power response are real and they are audible.

2. Cost. It is cheaper than the Orion, have you looked at the prices for a finished product lately? Even in satin black they are $5500 assuming you have the amplifiers already. I am not making these for DIYers. It is along the lines of prices from Salk Sound, Selah Audio and well below the typical prices of commercial speakers, and well above them in sound quality.

3. Complexity set it up like any other speaker. It doesn’t even need a huge amplifier. It can be placed like most any high-end boxed speaker, it is slightly more sensitive to rear-wall distance because of additional radiation from the ‘BSC region’ through 1300Hz. However, it will not suffer from poorly balanced baffle step compensation from being placed too close to the rear wall vs. in the middle of a room.

4. Technical issues vs. Orion.

a. Mid is crossed higher. On dynamic passages with a W22 crossed at 120Hz, large excursions were not uncommon, and it was actually a fairly difficult load for the amplifier to drive. Well recorded drums really drive it nuts.

b. Coaxial Mid-Tweeter. Even vertical lobbing and even power response transition from midrange to tweeter. Too much of the Orion's beauty comes from a top-down (literally) view of dipole theory while one of the most delicate issues, the crossover from midrange to tweeter seems to come along for the ride. I have no doubt (in fact, proof) that the drivers chosen are stellar (esp. the W22 ), the dipolar theory is outstanding, and inspirational (to me), the crossover points are well chosen considering. Bottom line is that both the Ronin and the Orion are so far ahead of what it typical, that with open ears, an open mind, proper set-up and almost any decent recording they will trounce most other commercial offerings. The builders of Orions on this board can no doubt attest to this. The Ronin just takes things further, and hopefully your enjoyment of the music.

c. Better low bass dynamic range. I don’t have any calculations with me, but the single 10" in the Ronin easily is capable of more output through the entire range of the Orion's Dual 10" Woofers. Aside, it has better distortion performance, and it is asked to do less.

So, that sums up the bench top race of Ronin Vs. Orion. I think that there are certain things that give the Ronin particular advantages, and I mean no disrespect to the Orion design.

Now to answer some other things brought up here:

AJ:

Well, that sort of depends on the system design goals Davey. If you view the function of the coaxial as I do, which is primarily as a tweeter/midrange point source, not to be used for bass output at all, then a driver smaller than 8" can yield fairly high output. The JBL driver I have is a 5" that is used in a 3-way system capable of very high output.

However, you have to look at driver performance, not just output capability based on Sd/Xmax. In that regard, the W22 really does have the best performance from 250 to 1300Hz, that I have found so far.

Davey:

He actually seems to imply even more than that.

"Welcome to Nomad Audio. Here you will find a wealth of information pertaining to one of the most advanced, unique and true-to-life speakers of all time."

That's quite a statement. I'll be interested to see more information on Paul's efforts. Especially distortion performance of the tweeter since the xover point is rather low. Although I'm sure the waveguiding effect of the W22 alleviates the situation somewhat.

I don’t see what makes it 'quite a statement', and I think my first true comparison to the Orion is right here, and again, both are truly phenomenal speakers.

As to the distortion performance of the tweeter down low it is good. Maybe I'll post measurements someday, but I did extensive comparisons with a TDFC on a flat baffle, and there are no issues with crossing this low.

JoshK:

Well good for him, hope it works out for him. It is actually one of the few commercial products that looks pretty interesting.

Thank you, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. 'It' being a commercial design.

Dennis:

I remember Paul going through the dipole journey on the Mad board and his love-hate thing with the Seas metal cones. At first he hated them (probably crossed too high) and eventually he ended up loving the W22. But he kept pretty quiet (make that silent) about his coax experiments. No doubt he didn't want to give away the store.

Yeah, I just hadn't heard a Seas Excel system that I, or one of the other talented designers here had done. Done correctly, they have no signature, and incredible performance, as I am sure any of the Orion owners can attest to.

As to the tweeter response up high, yes, it may look a little bit rough. At 10 degrees off axis, they fit within a +/-1.5dB window, not bad at all if all you want to look at is one frequency response. The beauty of the design is to look at ALL of the frequency response curves... what you hear.

Hopefully there will be some events soon where some of you can hear them. I would be happy to set something up as well in the Chicago area.

If I have left anything unanswered, let me know.

Respectfully,
Paul Hilgeman

[mikec]

Hey everyone,

Thought I would do my best to answer some of the questions here.

Ronin Vs. Orion

I have never heard the Orion.

<snip>

I don’t see what makes it 'quite a statement', and I think my first true comparison to the Orion is right here, and again, both are truly phenomenal speakers.

<snip>

If I have left anything unanswered, let me know.

Respectfully,
Paul Hilgeman

Thank you for such an entertaining post. The proper ratio of convition and irony can be quite humorous. I think you nailed it. :laughat:

Cheers,
Mike

[PaulHilgeman]

"So, that sums up the bench top race of Ronin Vs. Orion."

Thats what I meant by "comparison".

"both are truly phenomenal speakers."

Don't be offended, I honestly dont mean to offend.

"Bottom line is that both the Ronin and the Orion are so far ahead of what it typical, that with open ears, an open mind, proper set-up and almost any decent recording they will trounce most other commercial offerings."

Please, if there are any problems that you have with my design, let me know. I'll be happy to talk about them.

-Paul Hilgeman

[Evil Twin]

You've taken one of the most difficult first steps, which is investing your work, effort, and money behind the conviction of your beliefs, and developing a product honest to those beliefs which you'll offer on the market.

It's much easier to second guess and write cute posts sitting on the sidelines, than putting your own @ss on the line.

Congratulations- you've completed the firs step of what hopefully will be a long journey of discovery...

[mikec]

Don't be offended, I honestly dont mean to offend.

"Bottom line is that both the Ronin and the Orion are so far ahead of what it typical, that with open ears, an open mind, proper set-up and almost any decent recording they will trounce most other commercial offerings."

Please, if there are any problems that you have with my design, let me know. I'll be happy to talk about them.

-Paul Hilgeman

Paul, Believe me when I say that I'm not offended in the least.

What I find amusing is that you are placing your speakers on the same plateau as the Orion, yet you haven't even heard them. I applaud your self-confidence; however, IMHO only a fool would make some of the claims that I'm reading in your posts. There are likely a high percentage of DIYers here with similar experience to you, yet I don’t see them making similar proclamations.

Do you have distortion measurements you’d care to post that substantiate some of your claims? I find it difficult to believe that the Neo automotive tweeter you're using is capable of such a low crossover point, even with the help of a "waveguide".

Cheers,
Mike

[ThomasW]

MikeC,

You have a couple options at this point.

Stop posting to this thread.....or post in a polite, non-judgmental, non-provocative, non-confrontional manner.

Rude posts, personal attacks, posts meant to bait, harrass, etc., just won't cut it.

[AJINFLA]

Whoa, look's like I started a thread without knowing it.
You know they say memory is one of the first things to go in old age .

Please, if there are any problems that you have with my design, let me know. I'll be happy to talk about them.

-Paul Hilgeman

Yeah, but if I showed you how to smoothen that treble and improve the design in general, I'd have to charge you a consulting fee - now that you've left the DIY world and gone "big time" commercial on us :W .

As you probably already know, there isn't a design in existence that DIY'ers won't pick apart. I've ventured on to a few fullrange forums to try to explain that a good 8" coax will be hands down superior to a 8" cone tweeter, only to have it fall on deaf ears. Precisely because not everyone is searching for the same "sound".
I would imagine your goals are similar to mine, Jons, Thomas's and many others here. That is to remove the sound of the speaker as much as possible. How you choose to do it is at least half (upper ) as similar as mine. But not everyone is going to see eye to eye with that route.
Different strokes for different folks. The fact that you are comparing your design to the Orion raises the bar and opens it up for a much closer look. Just make sure you have comprehensive data to back up any claims, to put yourself on solid ground. The critics will always be there. Especially on DIY sites!
Lord knows if I were to start my own company (under an alias of course :twisted: ) I would fully expect the mob of peasants with flaming pitchforks to be knocking at the gate...... :B


Cheers,

AJ

[Davey]

Now that the thread name has been changed and the discussion is centering on a commercial product with proprietary design is it even in the correct forum??

I enjoy reading this forum because of the many projects that Jon, Thomas and others come up with that are fully documented and can be attempted by a DIY'er. We certainly don't have that with this product.

My two cents. Worth what you paid for it.

Cheers,

Davey.

[ThomasW]

Davy the thread name wasn't changed. This is a completely new thread created by splitting the posts specific to Paul's design from this thread. https://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17543

All the posts excluding those related to Pauls designs remain in the original thread. So it remains as DIY as it gets....

This was done since things were beginning to heat up, get personal, and decidedly off topic.

[Dennis H]

Let's cut Paul some slack guys. No he didn't build a "real" Orion but he did build a similar design with a DSP crossover so he's not totally clueless about the tradeoffs involved. He made the choices he made and they make sense to him. That's why not everybody in the world listens to the same speaker.

[ThomasW]

Thank you Dennis.... :T

[PaulHilgeman]

Thanks for the support guys.

Just for a comparison, I have attached a 1510Hz FFT of a TDFC and the Ronin Speaker. Levels were matched to .1dB.

You can see the usual higher order distortion products in the TDFC, but also to note is that the Ronin has less of all orders of distortion at 1510Hz.

The test was performed at equal levels at equal distances. The TDFC was flush mounted on a 11" wide board, with the center equaly placed with regard to the top edge of the board in reference to teh tweeter on the Ronin. I know this dosnt matter for this type of test, but I wanted to keep things square.

The Ronin is obviously in Red, and the TDFC in black. The Ronin is on top of the TDFC, so anywhere you see black above the red, that is more distortion from the TDFC. The 2nd order difference is 4.4dB, the 3rd order difference is .8dB. The Ronin has undetectable levels of distortion above 3rd order.

The reason that I chose 1510Hz is that is where there is very little attenuation from the crossover, so we get the worst case sceneario, as frequency goes down, the crossover adds more and more attenuation.

Above this frequency they become more and more similar, but the TDFC always has more 2nd order distortion, I verified this on two samples (all I had).

Image not available

-Paul Hilgeman

[PaulHilgeman]

Just wondering if everyone saw this. I think we all lost our subscriptions when the new thread was created.

-Paul

[Davey]

Paul,

What drive level did you use for that test?

Davey.

[mikec]

Just wondering if everyone saw this. I think we all lost our subscriptions when the new thread was created.

-Paul

Paul,

What drive level did you use for that test?

Davey.

Paul, I think you are correct.

[MDS129]

Perhaps it's a custom made job by SEAS- the cone doesn't look like the nice white of the standard W22E/X drivers... it looks grey to me.

High-end electronics retail is a tough business, (I would know, it's my Saturday job), so I hope a) Paul is a self-funded retiree, b) has another day job, or c) starts getting good press (Stereophile or other high-end magazine is a start)...

In all honesty the price of this speaker is only high by DIY standards, but then, which commercial speaker isn't? :W
It's a relative bargain compared to this 8" two way that costs US$12,200

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/506an/index.html

In the DIY spirit, I wonder if Paul offers kits or plans, like Seigfried Linkwitz, Rick Craig, John Kreskovsky...

1) The W22 is not white. It is a greyish color. The W21 and older stuff looks more white. The driver is customized by Paul using the Seas W22 and Seas dome.

2) Press? His speakers have been reviewed by one of the higher end audiophile press.

3) It's a bargain compared to "any" speaker.

4) I don't think many want to spend a few weeks building the cabinets alone.

[MDS129]

Let's cut Paul some slack guys. No he didn't build a "real" Orion but he did build a similar design with a DSP crossover so he's not totally clueless about the tradeoffs involved. He made the choices he made and they make sense to him. That's why not everybody in the world listens to the same speaker.

Steve D from Australia has a website practically dedicated to the Orion speaker that he "cloned" using dual W22's and larger bass drivers. He has not heard the Orions either, but I'm sure he would have a difficult time going back to bass drivers that Linkwitz crosses at 50hz because they cannot handle low frequency information unless you enjoy woofers flapping and sounding like they are going to pop out of the basket at moderate listening levels. And I'm also fairly certain he is hearing the sound that he would be hearing if the ASP crossover was on his Orions in place of the digital box.

Paul built a few variations of the Orions, again, similar to what Steve and perhaps some others out there have done. I'm sure he has knowledge on the potential of the Orion using a digital box. How much better the ASP is compared to a Paul/Steve/Linkwitz based digital boxed Orion is the question.

You were very kind with your response about giving Paul some slack and the fact that we all have differing ears. Some of us will love our Maggies, some our line arrays, some our one driver fullranger, some horns, and the list goes on and on...I would guess along the same lines as you in that Paul actually learned a lot from the Orion and his many OB designs prior to the Ronin and tried to figure out what precisely he could do to alleviate the issues he had not just with the Orions, but any OB type design he had worked with in the past.

[MDS129]

Paul, Believe me when I say that I'm not offended in the least.

What I find amusing is that you are placing your speakers on the same plateau as the Orion, yet you haven't even heard them. I applaud your self-confidence; however, IMHO only a fool would make some of the claims that I'm reading in your posts. There are likely a high percentage of DIYers here with similar experience to you, yet I don’t see them making similar proclamations.

Do you have distortion measurements you’d care to post that substantiate some of your claims? I find it difficult to believe that the Neo automotive tweeter you're using is capable of such a low crossover point, even with the help of a "waveguide".

Cheers,
Mike

I have heard the Orion (non + version) 3 times, each time for a minimum of 3 hours. Two times at Linkwitz's place, once at a friend's place. The Ronin sounds better to me and I can listen to them for hours/days on end while with the Orion, I have gotten fatigued every time I sat in for the three listening sessions. I cannot say the Ronin does this or that better, etc. etc...I can only say it produces an experience that the Orion never did for me. I was always trying to find ways to fully appreciate and "accept" the Orion. With the Ronin, I am convinced that it is the most compromised speaker. In other words, since we cannot have a speaker that uses the virtues of the many different speaker types all in one speaker, we have to either own all these types or find one that best compromises the situation. More importantly is that the Ronin convinces me that even if I did have a bunch of systems with different speaker types, etc. I would find myself in the Ronin room for the majority of the time.

All in all, the Orion and the Ronin both sit in a cost-no-object section of audio. This is to say that regardless of my complaints about the Orion and my favoring the Ronin, they both hold this level of sophistication/authority that I am convinced enough to say that they are amongst the best speakers in the world as of today, 2007.

[wmilas]

Mostly a lurker but:

1) Congrats on producing a new speaker line. The more producers we have, imho, the richer the hobby.

2) I LOVE the bamboo. Simply sweet. I'm on the southside of Chicago... is your supplier local?

3) Any chance on demoing these if I make a trip north?

[ThomasW]

Not sure why someone dug up this 9 month old thread and decided they would post responses to individual members as if they'd made those posts yesterday.

Further discussion regarding Paul's speakers should occur on his forum.