General Speaker Advice and Recommendations

I think one of the advantages the Martens have are that they are being made by a super designer for European homes. The rooms over there are much smaller typically than their American counterparts. The speakers are ported towards the bottom and the port is tuned accordingly. This allows such large speakers to be placed even closer to the wall without typical bass detriment.

In addition, the speakers have a very competent 3 setting bass adjustment for further tuning (-1, 0, +1). So all that played to the advantage of letting a very large speaker vanish into the soundstage even at such a small listening distance. I find that fascinating as I tend to hate crossovers and I also tend to hear them. Not so with the Marten Bird II or my current speakers, the Marten Coltrane Tenors.

 

Indeed, and if you're a horn fan, nobody does it like Tom Danley, though I love the higher end JBL stuff and Pro Audio Technology too: http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/products/loud-speakers/jericho/jh-90/

 

I like horns, but they sorta-kinda make the tweeter as big as the woofer, so you need to step quite a ways back for things to sound coherent and not get all weirdly beamy.

I have a set of PA speakers based on Danley designs actually. The horn is a 60° cone with a tweeter at the throat and three midrange drivers mounted at the mid-depth surface of the cone. It's roughly 16" diameter, stacked above a 15" woofer. The sound is great within its relatively narrow dispersion, but I need to back up 20 feet for it to sound right.

 

@winders Not to detract from the other thread about an amp...those are incredibly efficient speakers and imho a 5-8 watt SET amp could be an end-game for that setup. Something like Line Magnetic 518ia perhaps or a Class A solid state like Sudgen A21SE. Occasionally these are available used. I had a Jolida 502 awhile back and really liked it. Prima Luna is another to look out for on the used market.

 

Large speakers visually don't work so well, but they can sound amazing in small rooms. I use Gedlee Abbeys in a smaller room and they work amazingly well. Sealed boxes work really well, just mate a few subs for bass response and you'll have a top notch system. Ported designs are a bit more problematic as you need more space from boundaries.

 

That's pretty cool @Marvey.
It would be cool to see measurements comparing your dodecahedron to a ping-pong ball.

 

IME the Voxativ drivers absolutely annihilate Lowthers. The FR is so much less screwy, I can actually listen to them without EQ of any kind in the chain.

 

Yeah the prices of those are pretty nuts. That said, the Voxativ driver makes the Lowther sound positively stone age.

 

As soon as I've got my own place I'll pick up a pair of Ampeggios with the wood cone drivers to go with the custom 2A3 amp, the price is a lot more palatable if you know the right guys to dodge the markup. No widebander as smooth.

 

Admittedly, I don't have that much speaker experience. However this year I sampled a lot of JBL, altec, avantgarde and custom horn stuff in Japan, I also spent some time in Singapore sampling speakers.
The Voxativ ampeggio met the hype, it does't even really sound like a BLH, has no mid-range shout. We abused it with RATM and Propellerheads and it somehow held it together. The Bass roll off was real, however the upper bass was fine, so a sub could be integrated.

What is the other voxativ you liked?

 

Haha. 9.87. literally pi squared.

 

I listened to AER drivers on JoSound Horus speakers with @Serious and the sound was as bright as a supernova. I mean it was ridiculous how piercing these sounded. The owner looked at us in disbelief when it was pointed out. No amount of towing could alleviate the brightness.

Voxativs on the other hand were a pure delight to listen to. Something may have changed but the Due was quite agreeable. @Serious setup and the Pureaudioproject Trio 15 Voxativ were the highlight for me at Munich High End. Open baffles with 4x 15 inchers for bass duties let the widebanders do their magic with ease with my classical pieces.

I took a plunge on the horridly expensive wood Voxativ Ac-Pi-Fe widebander for my PAPs that I'll set up in the next few days. $10K for the whole speaker set... (sigh)

Mind you the markup is real as I got manufacturer receipts in hand. I mean the difference in dealer to customer price for the Vixativ Ac-Pi-Fe is 4.5x! But what other widebander options are there? I asked Holger how he did it and he replied with a smile on his face...'years of hard work'. Well, I guess in the next few days I'll know if this plunge was worth it.

 

What about those Trio 15 open baffles with the Voxativ's in the middle. Anyone heard those? They sure as hell look cool....

http://www.pureaudioproject.com/product/trio15-voxativ-open-baffle-speakers/