Now this is one 30K speaker I would be crazy enough to implement sight unseen.

SNELL REF A 7 (http://www.audioholics.com/news/trade-show-coverage/2007-consumer-electronics-show-ces/snell-a7-reference-tower-speakers)

http://cineramax.com/images/a7.jpg

Imagine three behind the perf screen.

When it comes to speaker design theres Arnie, Wilson, some other good ones, some horrible ones (Kevin Voecks ) and then there is God (Joe D'appolito).

Now this is one 30K speaker I would be crazy enough to implement sight unseen.
Oxymoron?

That silver A7 is very early prototyp...

Here is picture from Japan official release.
BTW, if D'Apollito is God then he designed few not-so-good speakers, Usher Be10 for example.

Oxymoron?

Crazy enough to implement without having auditioned.

Better refrased professor tripleQ?

That silver A7 is very early prototyp...

Here is picture from Japan official release.
BTW, if D'Apollito is God then he designed few not-so-good speakers, Usher Be10 for example.

Thanks Kreso. His work influenced Dunlavy and Dyanudio. He departed from the MTM principle in those Usher, so he lost his dietic touch there I guess.

These a 7 rferences scream for a new designed center channnel.

http://www.phileweb.com/news/photo/200703/mcin-front_big.jpg

3 of these behind the screen. I wonder how much power they need?

I'm sorry, but D'Appolito midrange design sounds flawed to me. Always has, no matter what the speaker, no matter what the price, no matter who the designer. Too much acoustic interference. If I were going to risk money, I'd buy Joseph Audio Pearls sound unheard. Or Revel Studio 2s. Both make more sense from a design standpoint. I bet both kick the stuffings out of them. I don't think they'd pique my interest unless they were maybe $7500/pr or less.

Jeff makes a great speaker. 2nd vote for Pearls.

Aaah but to the sharp eyed observer are the prototypes up top and the bottom pair with the 2k monos using different drivers ?

Looks like they just anodized them.

Now this is one 30K speaker I would be crazy enough to implement sight unseen.

SNELL REF A 7 (http://www.audioholics.com/news/trade-show-coverage/2007-consumer-electronics-show-ces/snell-a7-reference-tower-speakers)

http://cineramax.com/images/a7.jpg

Imagine three behind the perf screen.

When it comes to speaker design theres Arnie, Wilson, some other good ones, some horrible ones (Kevin Voecks ) and then there is God (Joe D'appolito).

How many have you sold? Sold them sight unseen? What's your profit margin? :D :D :D

More seriously folks. Where should the line be drawn. Does a dealer get to come on the forum and start threads about the products he carries to promote his stuff? Isn't that going too far. Isn't that what Cinemax often does??? I don't have a problem when a non-dealer, someone not selling a product, starts a thread.
Or when a dealer chimes in with some good information and even opinion I can live with. But for the dealer to start threads on and on re his own products? What do you folks think about that?

$15k each and you still need to power them... and power them well at only 89dB even with such a large enlcosure. The enclosure sure looks purdy, although to think there is anything revolutionary going on here is a bit nieve. I'm sure they sound great, but these aren't what should be going in a state-of-the-art home theater.

More seriously folks. Where should the line be drawn. Does a dealer get to come on the forum and start threads about the products he carries to promote his stuff? Isn't that going too far. Isn't that what Cinemax often does??? I don't have a problem when a non-dealer, someone not selling a product, starts a thread.
Or when a dealer chimes in with some good information and even opinion I can live with. But for the dealer to start threads on and on re his own products? What do you folks think about that?

I agree with you in prinicple and what's he got against Kevin anyway?

When it comes to speaker design theres Arnie, Wilson, some other good ones, some horrible ones (Kevin Voecks ) and then there is God (Joe D'appolito).

Hmm, is that because Kevin is the only one who knows what he is doing, and Joe has created some very bad speakers?

More seriously folks. Where should the line be drawn. Does a dealer get to come on the forum and start threads about the products he carries to promote his stuff? Isn't that going too far. Isn't that what Cinemax often does??? I don't have a problem when a non-dealer, someone not selling a product, starts a thread.
Or when a dealer chimes in with some good information and even opinion I can live with. But for the dealer to start threads on and on re his own products? What do you folks think about that?
He's not clandestine about it and besides, it's not like the 'promotion' didn't meet with comments that were decidedly contrary. Can I buy them at Hammacher Schlemmer?

More seriously folks. Where should the line be drawn. Does a dealer get to come on the forum and start threads about the products he carries to promote his stuff? Isn't that going too far. Isn't that what Cinemax often does??? I don't have a problem when a non-dealer, someone not selling a product, starts a thread.

No, Cinemax has really risque movies, Cineramax promotes stuff :) On the other hand, it's not like people feel compelled to buy it and he does tend to put up stuff that is interesting and worth discussing at least.

Aaah but to the sharp eyed observer are the prototypes up top and the bottom pair with the 2k monos using different drivers ?
Yup, all of the drivers are different between the 2 pics.
The "silver" one is using lower end Seas mids and woofers and what looks to be a Scan-Speak or maybe a Vifa tweeter, probably Scan-Speak revelator.
The 2nd one is using black-coned Seas Excel mids\woofers and Seas Millenium tweeters.
The guy knows excellent drivers.

I am not a dealer. I am a systems designer and in trying to do the best job as I have a million options in my head, I just get feedback here, and it has a chunk of the weigh in the decision process, but my gut makes the finaldecision..

If I told you what I have spent doing for a week you wouldn't believe. It's related a customized Vista media center with the Xbox Elite. It's being very frustrating but I am finally making some good progress. It's beginning to work very slick and picturewise, the "room client" is a knockout.

But the real cool thing is that there are some fairly large sized images of every major painting ever made by a grandmaster, and is one slide show from hell. I tried keeping the nativity and christ paintings down to a tolerable level so that the slide show covers every major painting by the grand masters, balanced. K can't do that.

Steve B. some people like the fact that I think out loud here. I am the biggest promoter of Fujitsu in the forum directly influencing hundreds of sales per year, and I am not a dealer. Yet. I put my client in touch with Barco, to create the finest customised digital cinema projector in a home screening room. I am not a dealer. So chill. If I do like something I am going to get excited and take a position on it.

$15k each and you still need to power them... and power them well at only 89dB even with such a large enlcosure. The enclosure sure looks purdy, although to think there is anything revolutionary going on here is a bit nieve. I'm sure they sound great, but these aren't what should be going in a state-of-the-art home theater.

What is then? Willl the moderators and Mr. Bruzonsky allow Mark to show his wares.

Yup, all of the drivers are different between the 2 pics.
The "silver" one is using lower end Seas mids and woofers and what looks to be a Scan-Speak or maybe a Vifa tweeter, probably Scan-Speak revelator.
The 2nd one is using black-coned Seas Excel mids\woofers and Seas Millenium tweeters.
The guy knows excellent drivers.

The silver model appears to have Excels as well, but it looks like they had time to get the drivers anodized black for the second models. You can't just swap drivers like that without spending 6 months or more completely redoing the crossovers. In fact, it may be that different color speakers come with different color Excels.

I agree with you in prinicple and what's he got against Kevin anyway?

The original Snell Thx speakers sounded like crap. Not to mention the first gen REVELS, edgy as hell. Conceited MF for the crap he was putting out at the time.

The ones at the bottom also have out-rigger feet, the photos of the top do not, perhaps this is the refined prototype heard at ces.

The original Snell Thx speakers sounded like crap. Not to mention the first gen REVELS, edgy as hell. Conceited MF for the crap he was putting out at the time.

You really should audition new Revel Ultima2 series. I did and I liked new Salon2 very, very much. Since I heard that US price of new Salon2 did go up tp $25K(from originally projected $22K) it is more or less a competitor for Snell Illusion A7(yes, it is the final name)...

BTW, regarding Snell Illusion A7 here is Japanese press release:
http://www.dm-holdings.com/JPN/Docs/20070322_jp.pdf

It is in Japanese but, on pages 8-9 is technical info and pics that we all can understand.

Interesting enough Illusion A7 is strange 3.5 way design since its crossover points are 250Hz, 1.8kHz and 3kHz which means that lower midrange unit is working only till 1.8kHz and upper one till 3kHz... That's pretty strange MTM array by D'Appolito IMHO. Crossover is actually high order(4. order?) design and all drivers are Seas Excell series specially made for Snell. There are twin ports at the back and normal tuning frequency is around 26Hz... A7 is using tri-wiring terminals.

I still say that i like for multichannel sound what dynaudio had done with the mtm concept that D'Ap. invented. Actually the dynaudio is mttm and an elaborate cross over, they call it Dynaudio Directivity Control.

And I know something like this would sound phenomenal with the appopiate subs that have not been drawn in. Not to mention thr Rotary Sub too.

http://cineramax.com/images/Helene-Fornt-Elevation-Fina.jpg

http://cineramax.com/images/Proposed-cinemascope-height.jpg

OK Peter,

I'll openly admit, as I've done in the past, that I've come to dig your designs and their originality in the past 18 months. I think that the stuff you come up with is somewhere like 80% not going to work as well as you thought, 15% turn-out pretty darn decent, 4% rather impressive in a "why didn't I think of that?" kind of way, and 1% PURE GENIOUS.

NOW, having said that- and openly admitting that I see real potential in alot of your designs....

Why the hell are you showing pictures of typical off-the-shelf products? You come up with ideas for custom media servers, 4 way masking for torus screens, modified Mac amps (I don't even try to understand that one), crazy modified Barco cinema projectors (my sincerest kudos), and then plain, vanilla, middle of the road at best, speakers. They may be "excellent" magicos, or evolution acoustics, or perhaps dynaudios that you show.... but honestly man, why do you do this? Why not call someone like Mark Seaton, or CAT, and say " here's some conceptual drawings for what I'm looking to do...what can you make to fit this and perform flawlessly. So far as I know, Mark and the guys at CAT are the only loudspeaker manufacturers that even have the ability to make one-off products of the ilk that you show in your PS pictures...that could possibly work well, and to be quite honest, probably perform much better- in my opinion...

I'm not asking to poke a stick, I'm asking because as much as I like the guys at Snell, I really don't think that those speakers you showed can possibly compete with some of the other stuff available at the same price or even within 15%. We've had conversations/traded comments questions about products like this in the past... and admittedly, your designs show more of a willingness to defer to other experts now than they did before (i.e. barco folks and screens/mods/etc.). I mean seriously, you don't design speakers, neither do I; so we rely on those that do to give us the best product they can given their abilities and available funds/materials, I would just think it would be alot better if I knew that the speakers for the room I'm doing were specifically designed for THAT room, and none else...

my .02 unsolicited, I know- but hopefully thought-provoking ( that's usually my intention when I post here).


Dan

also, my apologies to those who feel that this dead horse has been beaten way too often by me...but really, if I didn't see some real passion and effort in these guys, I wouldn't bring them up, and they really do some pretty-cool stuff!

why must you encourage him?

Thanks for your thoughtfull response. I fly by the seat of my pants in these designs, but i am confident that whatever I end up doing will perform in the upper 15% of your performance scale. It's 31 years of 24/7 pondering and endlesss tinkering in HT, and a plain desire to be the very best designer I can be and work only in the most elegant of concepts, or not work at all (that later part can and does suck, but I hope to have learned my lessons).

By operating based on full time research, gut feeling,devloping a long term personal taste,and taking a few calculated gambles, I feel don't really have to follow all of the "rules of good HT design - that are the Bible to all HT afficionados". I promise I will come up with something synergistic and totally appearing to be transported from another parallel universe. That is why I name the systems after the moons of Saturn, because they push the envelope while breaking with as many logical conventions as possible. Sound cocky? I am not, I am just a pudgy friendly guy on a quest.

Re CAT I don't like cat from the demos, the giant in wall speakers lack finesse as a concept. I know you use them and they must be very good, but Dynaudio for me is magic.

I witnessed from the sidelines a power amp lunging competition at CEDIA. In a parallel reality HT Install we could do this:

Just stand in the middle of the room and lunge across the room the 7 Dynaudio Esotar based speakers to land wherever they may (in the general dolby suggested directions). After you setup you surround processor the sound will be 91%-99% satisfactory to me. I can fine tune it to sound awesome. And by just treating the front wall with absorption.

The f*ckers sound great, for multichannel reality recreation: It's "check please".

I have heard many speakers, few tickle my fancy like those with an esotar tweeters. For my type of client I have a tool that I can count on . Why add speakers as a variable to the cornucopia of custom problems I am dealing with on an on going bassis. Whomever tells me that home theater sound aint done like that has not heard a half dozen dynaudio7.1 installs. Dan Marino was the pickiest speaker client, a speaker super freak, his confidence 3 with 4 micros for surround rocked his world and mine too.

You also have issues that these are not isolated home theaters, they have family rooms, and spas, and spa lounges, and master bedrooms that need quality in ceiling, in cabinet shiit, the Dynaudio's deliver there too.

From Dan Miller's demo next to the Meridian training class at EHX, the Snell's sounded like Dynaudio (they sure were using some high tech danish drivers). How is it possible that a Receiver based system (Marantz/snell) blew the hell out of a 5.1 meridian 5XXX system? You tell me.

Now I have history with tom danley and the motorised intersonics sub, that does connect me in a way to Mark. But he is yet to email me any info on his speakers.

I hope someday I can work in a carte blanche fashion on a system with Mark, I really do. I am earnestly content that Art is pushing the envelope in that area.

On my very first large home theater the Titan, I seeked collaboration with Cristopher Hansen and we did a custom meyers sound system. I did learn a lot from him.

But those "lunge into the general position and they will sound great" dynaudios are a trade secret of sorts. At least I love their sound, is natural and fatigue free. And no client has ever said it did not exceed their ecpectations by a large magnitude.

I think the new Snell has a heck of a potential, that is why I posted.

I had forgotten about the mac amp light dimming mods, :). The Barco projector mods are purely a credit to Odyssey who demoted me from aspiring to being the king of projection video throne. I will have to settle to be one of several princes (along Alan, and Art, and the rest of the gang), like in the Saudi royal family [ they have like 237 princes in line for the throne].

Again I will trust Art to be a good patron to Mark, and I do hope sometime to go see the color corrected seleco, I mean" ahem" listen to Mark's blank piece of paper creation.

But at the moment I am just focused in two little monsters that have taken a life of their own with semi fixed or fixed :eek: budgets and new challenges rearing their heads every day, thrice a day. I think once I finish, if I finish I am going to try get a gig consulting to microsoft media center, as that is the future of home electronics.

Just to give you an idea of this afternoon's new pet problem, after spending 10 days conquering media center extesion.

http://cineramax.com/images/chippingthebunker.jpg

In order to maximise for a retroreflective multi screen masking design (a la Tryg), I had the builder rotohammer through a 15" solid wall, the above hole. The fact that someone taller than 5'5" head would hit the light was practically inconsequentital compared to the priority to be close to axis with the light bounce path.

This narrow angle would have also worked great with a Torus, so those were the options.

Now the Barco Digital Cinema VAR changed the screen, "TOO MUCH LIGHT" unity gain contrast enhacing perforated screen.

Perforated eh? I had vowed never to do one of those again.


OK so for State of the Art Digital Cinema I defer to these guys; they do every post house with Barco. I have to narrow my vendor/contractors down.

So now after the hole is cut and the platform is built...

http://cineramax.com/images/Helene_-rear_elev.jpg

The builder mentioned that perhaps soemeone 5'10" should be able to transit through the back aisle without getting their retinas burnt.

How very apropo, and a new "must do".

We will move the port hole 9" up closer to the original position suggested by the architect. Zeb Jarosz, the best "single family home" living architect in Miami.

http://cineramax.com/images/helene_side_elevation.jpg

Deternmining the right size port hole is another subject, only 2 factors should count, the lens in all it's tilt angles, and a peeking angle for the projectionist's eyes to see the screen.

Again Dan thank you for your words of encouragement, i'll sleep better tonight.

$15k each and you still need to power them... and power them well at only 89dB even with such a large enlcosure. The enclosure sure looks purdy, although to think there is anything revolutionary going on here is a bit nieve. I'm sure they sound great, but these aren't what should be going in a state-of-the-art home theater.


Mark
I have learned to respect your opinions and have learned a great deal from your posts. This one however does not strike me as being objective; in fact, I construct it as a bit of prejudice:

Have you heard these speakers?
What in your opinion deems them unworthy of a SOTA HT?.. I hope it is not the low sensitivity... ?

I do not know these speakers either, have heard them or of them until this thread in the AVS... The last Snell speakers I heard were the Type B , many moons ago..

Hey, Cinermax. Is it raining in there?

You mean Miami or inside the theater. It's a dirty lens and it shows up when using insuffcient flash.

It happened again...

http://cineramax.com/images/Rorary_Sub_Platform2.jpg

Here is the platform and here is the rear Manifold exhaust for the rotary sub directly under the back row of seats:

http://cineramax.com/images/Rorary_Sub_Rear_out.jpg

Mark
I have learned to respect your opinions and have learned a great deal from your posts. This one however does not strike me as being objective; in fact, I construct it as a bit of prejudice:

Have you heard these speakers?
What in your opinion deems them unworthy of a SOTA HT?.. I hope it is not the low sensitivity... ?

I do not know these speakers either, have heard them or of them until this thread in the AVS... The last Snell speakers I heard were the Type B , many moons ago..

Hi Frantz,

I'll agree the previous response was a bit presumptive, but I also pretty confident I'm not far off the mark given the discriptions linked earlier in the thread. The post was probably also a reflection of my personal, general frustration with the current "state-of-the-art" in home audio as I work with more and more of what are widely considered great products. :confused:

Also please note I specified my statement as pertaining to *home theater,* in a thread where Peter has been speaking directly to larger scale and budget systems.

Getting to the point, I expect these to be very good examples of a well designed speaker for a dedicated 2ch listening room. The approach and end goal appears to have similar goals of all predecessors and uses brute force construction and custom tweaks the latest crop of exotic drivers. If your primary use will be listening to music and your speakers will be sitting well out in the room, these are certainly worthy of serious consideration and evaluation.

If your primary use will be listening to music and your speakers will be sitting well out in the room...


Musicality is important . And musicality in the back 2 rows of medium-large sized home theaters is hard to achieve without controlled vertical dispersion.

The D'appolito invented array MTM or MTTM , or MB M T T M MB like the C4, essentialyy are Far Field type monitors. That is why I prefer to use them.

I have heard large dynaudios against walls and there was nothing muddy or boomy about it.

Here in helene the C4's would be 10 inches away from the back wall. Enough.

http://cineramax.com/images/Helene-Front-Dimensioning.jpg

What is wrong with this picture? The front row? That is for children and sissies. :D

Hey, Cinermax. Is it raining in there?

But I get your point: time to retire the old 2mp kodak. Here is a great wide angle low light with high power flash.

Lumix DMC- FX100 (http://www.dcresource.com/news/newsitem.php?id=3528)

"Musicality is important . And musicality in the back 2 rows of medium-large sized home theaters is hard to achieve without controlled vertical dispersion.

The D'appolito ..."

D'Appolito gives some of that over a narrow freq range, but does nothing for the tweeter's dispersion, which like all direct radiators has dispersion that varies continuously with freq.

For those that don't know, waveguides are a type of horn that give the efficiency and controlled directivity benefit w/o the "horn sound".

Waveguides are far superior in both controlling dispersion at wide angles and at giving a power response that varies far less with angle.

I think Mark was alluding to the uncontrolled/uneven dispersion when he mentioned keeping the speakers well away from walls.

For those that don't know, waveguides are a type of horn that give the efficiency and controlled directivity benefit w/o the "horn sound".

Waveguides are far superior in both controlling dispersion at wide angles and at giving a power response that varies far less with angle.



Besides Triad and Genelec (that are a matter of personal taste), who makes a great waveguide speaker?

Besides Triad and Genelec (that are a matter of personal taste), who makes a great waveguide speaker?New Revel Ultima2 line.

Thanks Kal any others?

Here is what Genelec says are the benefits :

"Genelec DCW™ Technology
The revolutionary Directivity Control Waveguide™ (DCW™) technology greatly improves the performance of a direct radiating multi-way loudspeaker.

The aim is to match the frequency response and directivity of the drivers in the loudspeaker. This results in excellent match of overall frequency response on and off axis.

The improved directivity control reduces the reflected sound at the listening position. This improves the stereo imaging and ensures very small sensitivity to varying control room acoustics, actually much smaller sensitivity than with any conventional direct radiator design.

And this is not all! The DCW™ technology also improves the drive unit sensitivity even up to +6 dB, and therefore increases the maximum sound pressure level as well as decreases the distortion.

Flat on and off-axis response for wider usable listening area
Increased direct-to-reflected sound ratio for reduced room coloration
Improved stereo imaging
Increased driver efficiency
Increased system SPL capacity
Decreased drive unit distortion
Reduced cabinet edge diffraction
Reduced distortion"

http://www.genelecusa.com/documents/images/studios/plus-xxx1.jpg

I will have to hear for myself including the new Revels. Thus far what I have heard from dynaudio and the snell demo employing d'appolito configs has sounded natural & fatigue free, more so than Triad and Genelec [TO MY TASTE].

I am open minded though so we will see...

Also Geddes' Summa, now in transition to Thailand mfg under a different name (AI I think); models are ESP15, ESP12, and ESP10.

These use efficient pro audio woofers and 1" compression on bigger waveguides that maintain directivity to lower freq.

Directivity is one big part of the equation, but stepping back the real issue is the approach to product design. In general you see continued polishing of what people have used in their home stereo/2ch rooms for years where acoustic treatment is minimal, placement will be farther out into the room, and there is only one "money seat" to be concerned with.

The realization that we now care about multiple rows of seating, we have more heavily treated rooms, and more and more speakers are behind screen walls makes for a different set of design requirements. Let's also not forget that hi-fi has long loved to leave the listener in the dark about output levels and system clipping. Sure, a meter might show an average level of 0.5-3W, but that leaves us blissfully ignorant of the 20-30dB peaks inbetween. :rolleyes:

Sounds similar to the laundry list of the JBL Synthesis One project.

Are you advocating compression drivers too?

Hi Peter,

Intent and execution can be two very different things. :rolleyes:

I am advocating sufficient capabilities. One of the most important and early things I learned from Tom Danley was to focus on what had to be accomplished, not the means to get there. Convention doesn't solve problems; if anything it obscures the most effective solutions.

High efficiency on its own isn't hard. Making high efficiency sound good is more difficult, and I don't trivalize that. Let's remember that not all that long ago it was "common knowledge" that ported speakers can't sound great, yet for years now most of the more highly regarded 2ch speakers are in fact ported.

Designs though to sound bad on the whole usually suffer the fate of a more complex system where there are more opportunities to foul it up. Horns/waveguides (whatever term the marketing department feels more cozy with), can sound very good, not enough do. I am working with a few compression drivers as well as more conventional HF drivers. There tend to be three big hurdles with horns and compression drivers. First you need a well designed waveguide/horn that doesn't create problems that you have no means to compensate for. Secondly the designer needs to pay attention to actually achieve a smooth response. This is not simple, but definitely possible, for passive speakers, and a bit easier with some attention in the active realm. Finally, you need to integrate that high frequency device smoothly with the adjacent frequency ranges. Short changing any one of those points can make for a system that will work well in some applications and with some program material, but show its warts at other times.

Still delayed as hell, but here are pics of Prometheus.

http://cineramax.com/images/5020%20pool.jpg

http://cineramax.com/images/Lady-Mary.jpg My personal assistant.

http://cineramax.com/images/CinemaBonan.jpg A working conceptual.

http://cineramax.com/images/Prometheus-shell.jpg Framing going up.

http://cineramax.com/images/Prometheus-shell_side.jpg

And for Helene

http://cineramax.com/images/NewElevated-Stage-w-Lady-Ma.jpg New Elevated Platform.

http://cineramax.com/images/Behind-the-screen-platform.jpg

http://cineramax.com/images/rotarysubfrontoutlet.jpg Front manifold out.

http://cineramax.com/images/New-Projection-Porthole.jpg Refined projection port

http://cineramax.com/images/Projection_porthole.jpg

detail.