Orb Audio - Page 3

You're welcome --- I'm always happy to pass along some party trivia.

--Andre

Is that a good enough basis for calling out someone for 'talking out of their ass'? Cause there might be pwnage incoming.....

I don't know why your panties are in a bunch. I've written that your new little baubles are a good value based on the cost of the parts. I think their approach makes sense for the size constraints, and would certainly pick them over the Gallos because they're basically equivalent in performance and much cheaper. In fact, my negative comments were by and large focused on the price difference between two essentially identical satellite speakers, refuting the notion that there's any special magic in the expensive one (Gallo) just because it has a designer name. "There's nothing to be a master of" was a comment about "audiophilia's" sycophantic comments about Anthony Gallo. Gallo's made some OK speakers (I don't hate the original Nucleus Reference, as long as I'm seated because that 330deg piezo cylinder tweeter beams badly in the vertical axis) but he isn't in the top echelon of modern speaker designers in anything but marketing. I do, admittedly, think KEF's little eggs with their small Uni-Q (concident) driver is better than the Gallo/Orb approach, because the Uni-Q does allow for much cleaner highs than a wideband driver, the Uni-Q midwoofer' motor is better, and the superior ventilation of the Uni-Q's basket results in less power compression. Also, they sound better than the Gallos. They're spun metal spheres. Yes, I got the exact metal wrong. Perhaps for both of the speakers, or perhaps just for the Orbs. Oops, my bad. I wouldn't consider that mistake especially material, considering the basic rigidity of the spherical form. Andre pointed out the error in your reasoning here. To add to what he wrote, conceptually perhaps it's useful to think of a "crossover" as just another form of EQ: a circuit, active or passive, that modifies the response of a driver. A notch filter is a form of EQ that may or may not be part of a crossover. (Strictly speaking, it's usually not, in that it doesn't shape response within the crossover region but usually above it. It's just passive EQ built into a speaker) With the driver Orb's using, if they aren't employing one then they are insufficiently engineered. I wrote that they were a good value. But the magnet material isn't especially relevant. Neo is lighter, which matters for shipping costs and perhaps allows greater flexibility in where one can hang the speakers. When employed smartly, neo can also have sonic benefits because it can is narrower than a ferroceramic slug and thus can allow for a basket that reduces backwave reflections. (The Orb's doesn't.) Underhung drivers can be more linear than overhung drivers, but aren't necessarily. Moreover, in a small driver the shorter coil of an underhung driver will exacerbate power compression issues, simply because there's less wire to dissipate heat. The shorter coil will also likely allow greater HF extension compared to an overhung coil of the same excursion. So there are tradeoffs. As for part quality, those two things have little to do with it. The Aura NS3 has basically an audio tech geek's dream specs: Aura's fantastic neo-radial motor (NRT), underhung voicecoil, Faraday rings, etc. Because of the sophisticated motor, it also has an insanely long throw for its size, with a linear xmax of about 5mm if memory serves. And very low inductance for a small driver with that kind of throw. But the Aura is so cheap because the parts quality is often appalling. That thin stamped steel basket rings like a bell and doesn't manage the backwave very well. It's still a very thoughtfully engineered driver and an amazing performer relative to its cost, but certainly does not have above-average part quality.

Power compression!? How loud are you playing those speakers?

--Andre

On a 3" driver, power compression can be very significant at normal listening levels after a short time. I didn't believe power compression was that big a deal in domestic audio until I did an experiment at someone's suggestion. I disconnected subwoofers, set the mains in the nearfield system to run fullrange (I never had a highpass on the main system mains) and set the volume knobs in each system such that they played the pink noise track on "Sound Check with Alan Parsons and Stephen Court" (Mobile Fidelity CD, cat. nr. SPCD-25 if memory serves) at 85dB. Then I measured my main and nearfield speakers cold then played an identical playlist on my main home and nearfield systems for a couple hours. (Basically, I left the house and did stuff.) Then I came back, listened to both a bit (different rooms), and measured them. The nearfield speakers are a trio of Tannoy System 8 NFM II's (8" Dual Concentric driver, 91dB/w/m efficient) and the main speakers were at the time a trio of stock Tannoy System 12 DMT II's (12" Dual Concentric driver.) The results were that the 12 DMT II's measured closely enough to chalk variance down to slightly different mic placement, but the 8 NFM II was different. It had a little droop in the bass, but the big difference was that the overall level was down enough that I had to make sure nobody had gone into the room and turned the knob down a few clicks! To test to see whether the issue was perhaps that the 8" Dual just wasn't that good a driver, I did the same thing with a known "high end" driver (Seas Excel W22EX, magnesium cone and copper phase plug that acts like a heatsink for the coil) in a test box. Same voltage drive (the Seas is much less efficient), same basic results. A few days later, at equivalent SPL, worse results than the Tannoy driver. The W22's are about 5dB less sensitive than the Tannoy 8's. What I took from that test is that cone area and efficiency matter more than conventional wisdom admit.

Not sure what I was saying against my stated emphasis, but if I was unclear about something earlier then sorry. Why'd you return them? I thought you liked them.

Thanks for sharing those very interesting results. They do seem to be pretty good indications of power compression, which I normally associate with tweeters because of their limited cooling capabilities. If I sound slightly skeptical, it's only because the overall level went down instead of particular frequency ranges. Speakers and mics being electromechanical transducers, they're subject to all sorts of effects that may vary with time, temperature, weather, etc.

--Andre

I wasn't quite clear in my writing above. The overall level didn't go down on the 8" Duals, the woofer level did. (I didn't have a tweet hooked up with the Seas Excel driver.) That had an obvious impact on the speakers' overall tonal balance after long use. The 12's, by contrast, did not. Despite being worked twice as hard. (I took the 85dB/w/m level I mentioned at the listening position, which is about 6' for the 8 NFM II's and roughly double that for the 12 DMT II's.) Perhaps with a subwoofer it would have been less of an issue. I didn't try that. I bet conventional tweeters would likewise suffer, but Tannoy's waveguide-loaded metal tweet is pretty robust.

a buddy of mine just got a set of these and i feel the same. he actually fell for the "mod 2" thing where he doubled up the center and fronts, which really doesn't sound any different than the mod 1. his setup's a little weird since everything's wired in the ceiling except the center, which is on the entertainment console.

the living room sounds OK. it is a bit bose-ish in lacking any real depth or personality, but the sound's pretty clear and sharp. it does sound worse as it gets louder.

his bedroom has 2 speakers in it and it sounds like shit without a sub in there - just a really thin, clock radio sound.

all in all, not entirely horrible if space and aesthetics are your biggest concerns, but i wouldn't get them.

+1 to all of that.

I just built my own speakers. Sound great, finish is a little weak but I can always redo that, and they were very inexpensive for the sound I get out of them. It was also a lot of fun building everything, woodwork, crossover, finish etc.