Blumenstein Orcas

Associated equipment: Schiit Gungnir Multibit, Schiit Saga, Sherwood 6040 amplifer, Chi-fi JLH69 amp, Fisher X-100-B integrated amp, Chi-fi 8-watt SET amp.

I liked these quite a bit, they're fast, detailed and have a compelling sound. With my equipment in my large listening room, they're able to project a huge soundstage that's taller than my ceiling and extends outside the speakers themselves, which is unusual for what is basically a glorified computer speaker. It actually handles most genres of music pretty well, but when you feed it something it doesn't like it can sound hollow or harsh.

I really wouldn't recommend them to most of the members here. I'd recommend these more toward guys that have several pair of speakers already and like to switch things up occasionally for different flavor. They just have too many downsides to be anyone's only pair of speakers.

The bottom octave is missing completely, the next two octaves are quiet and the two after that have a suckout in the middle of them so bass tends to be pretty wonky. Male voices, piano and acoustic guitar can sometimes just not sound right. The highs are messed up too and it can be hard to tell intruments apart that should be easy. Like, I can't really tell flute and harmonica playing the high notes apart. Since the bass is quiet and the treble gets a little harsh if turned up too loudly, you kind of have to constantly ride the volume knob for best sound. I found this a little bit annoying.

Also, while detailed, they don't resolve music properly. All the details are sort of mushed together and I'm unable to pinpoint instument locations. Another example, on the Johnny Cash American IV album, the forth track is a duet of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' with Fiona Apple. On my Klipsch KI-396s, Cash is in the upper left of the soundstage and Apple is in the lower right and I can disticntly hear both voices. On the Orcas, Cash's voice ends up just drowning out Apple's and both voices seem to be coming from more towards the center of the soundstage. This is actually a problem with a lot of loudspeakers, even some that cost more than a decent new car.

I tried it with all the amps I had around, but I actually like with with the Sherwood 6040 best because it projects such an impressively large soundstage. It didn't really sound bad with any of my amps though, the Orcas are really easy to drive. I don't really have any "bad" amps though.

I wouldn't recommend trying to add a sub to these, you could crossover at 70hz, but the bottom three octaves would still be quiet, and it would be really hard to find a sub fast enough to blend with the bass from the Fostex drivers. To solve all the bass issues, you'd bassically need mid-bass modules that crossed over at 1000hz and those would end up costing more to build that the Orcas cost. It just doesn't reallly make sense and you'd have too much money invested into a poorly performing speaker.

 

Very informational, thanks!

 

Seems like the consensus is these aren’t very good in general. Curious why they were chosen for a loaner tour.

Are they any applications they would be good for? Smaller TV/ family room? Better than say the PSB Alpha B-1’s?

 

Compact and generally had a good reputation before the tour. Plus there's quite a few Fostex fans here. I like the additional data points.