Mani's Orelo MkII speakers

[christoffe]

Hi,

Bass is a very special story.

I owned the von Schweickert speakers “VR-5 Anniversary” a couple of years ago, and it was nearly impossible for me to get a satisfying bass in my room, and I moved the speakers for at least one month around in my room

I do believe Mani has to make some “body building exercises” with the movements of the speakers to get the right position for a good bass.

Joachim

I found this link:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=19720.0

[manisandher]

Did you feel the woofers ?
Anyway, tell me.

OK, just done this. Not sure what I'm 'feeling' for but I set the volume so that the bass drivers were moving ~2-3mm p-p at 20Hz. Well, I could feel vibrations easily all the way up to 100Hz (and beyond). But the driver excursion diminished with increasing frequency. Certainly there was no sense that there were more vibrations at 100Hz than say 63Hz.

My room dimensions are 5.5m x 4.3m x 3.2m. Could there be some sort of cancellation effect going on around 55Hz (300/5.5)?

Mani.

[manisandher]

Peter, just a suggestion ? Maybe send to Mani a file consisting of a drum session that you use to make comparisons on your system ?

Alain, you mean the recording of Peter playing the drums? No way. I don't care how good the sound quality is... the drumming is cr*p.

Now, a new recording of Paul (Peter's son) playing the drums... oh yes please.

Mani.

[manisandher]

I do believe Mani has to make some “body building exercises” with the movements of the speakers to get the right position for a good bass.

Haha. My Orelos are now >150Kg each. Rather than trying to move them, I'd prefer to simply apply some DSP between 40Hz-80Hz. Should be possible with the way the Orelos are designed - easy to apply using a laptop, and much easier on my back...

Mani.

[AlainGr]

Alain, you mean the recording of Peter playing the drums? No way. I don't care how good the sound quality is... the drumming is cr*p.

Now, a new recording of Paul (Peter's son) playing the drums... oh yes please.

Mani.

Ha ha I mean Paul yes

Alain

[PeterSt]

My room dimensions are 5.5m x 4.3m x 3.2m. Could there be some sort of cancellation effect going on around 55Hz (300/5.5)?

343/5.5 = 62.36 (careful with length regarding your book shelves).

And if you like :

343/4.3 = 79.76 (try toeing out somewhat).

a 'suck-out' between ~40Hz and ~80Hz in my room. I've never noticed this before.

This can already be because the frequencies will be (way) more distinct now. Keep in mind, for the lower frequencies the distortion products are soon better audible than the fundamental and anyway all mix. For example, if 40Hz cancels out (and it always did) then 80Hz does not while 80Hz easily also plays because of distortion. Today though this 80Hz is not there.
For fun play the tracks so loud that 25Hz sounds higher pitched than 30Hz (namely 50Hz). Then at least you know what I mean with distortion being better audible than the fundamental. You can also totally easily see then how no cancelled 25Hz would be audible ever (for its cancellation effect).

Btw, at this moment I am not saying that you suffer from (room) cancellation because you mention a tad too many frequencies to my likings. Adding also plays a role (so now think upside down) and that needs walking around the room.
But maybe start with moving the speaker towards yoo with 20cm or so and see what happens. Or backward if forward can't be justified (but this is more challenging in general).

Peter

[Scroobius]

Hi Peter,

I know, we could easily stick for now to the "must break-in" but I had rather that we all start to realize what we listenED to. But how to do such a thing ...

I understand what you are saying and because of that I was expecting to hear something different in the bass than I am used to but I would be interested in hearing Nick's opinion because his view was that when he listened to the Mk II's at your place there was much more weight to the sound.

Cheers

Paul

[manisandher]

Hey Paul, Nick didn't hear the Orelo MkII speakers at Peter's place. He listened to the Orelino speakers. But you're right in that he felt the Orelino speakers, even with their 3x 12" bass drivers (as opposed to the 3x 15" drivers in the Orelos), had no issues with lean LF.

Mani.

[Nick]

Hi,

I though I would also post impressions of listening to Mani’s new speakers and NOS1a on Sunday.
Thank you very much to Mani and his family for such lovely hospitality and putting up with Myself and Paul discussing hi-fi all afternoon 

I have heard Orelo MkI (I think ???) with 12 inch bass drivers at Peters prior to listening to Mani’s new Orelo MkIIs, it was however my first time listening to a NOS1a  and to Peters new Arc prediction filter. So lots of interesting components to listen to.

My comments are based on listening to Manis Orelos and NOS1a with very few hours run in on either, I guess the new Arc prediction software filter was run in fully however (haha). This in mind we all recognised on the day that there will be very significant changes in sound quality to come. What a starting point to the run in process though, right from the first bars with the Orelos and NOS1a you know your listening to something very special. The speed, dynamic weight and continuous spectrum of tone reproduced presents a supremely realistic and “live” level of performance. Detail is absolutely unbelievable however it’s also fully “in the context” of the music so not at all false, overblown or picked out un-naturally in a particular area.

Personally I also felt the bass response was indeed light in weight and as a consequence mids were also a little thinner than you would want and a little down on warmth. Having heard Peters Orelo MK1s I however am very confident that this is down to nothing more than the need to run in Mani’s speakers (possible the long interconnects might play a part as well ?). At Peters there was plenty of bottom end in Peters very large listening room and I understand that the 15 inch drivers and final tweaking of the crossovers in the Orelo MKIIs have if anything made the bottom end even stronger than it was when I heard Peters system. So in this respect I fully expect to hear a perfectly balanced bass response if I am lucky enough to visit Mani when he has the speakers run in.

The NOS1a also left big and positive impression. We were able to compare it with Mani’s NOS1 (with USB interface clock and capacitor tweaks). The NOS1a takes reduction of “harshness” to a whole new level . It is fluid, dynamic and has you immediately relaxing into the performance. With the NOS1 with caps there was a slightly greater tonal solidity that was attractive produced startling real grand piano. The NOS1 with caps had almost intrusive harshness compared with the NOS1a. Just to be clear I would take the NOS1a every time and we all felt that way.

The new arc prediction filter made a very positive contribution too. We played standard and new arc prediction back to back. I would say that the new filter made mids and highs sound less reproduced and more natural.

I’m really looking forwards to getting my NOS upgraded to “a” spec and using new Arc prediction. I think both look as though they do great things for reproduction through high sensitivity speakers where any imperfection in the source can end up writ large across the music.

A great day and a fantastic system Mani , many thanks for having me over to listen.

Kind regards,

Nick.

[manisandher]

Hey Nick, thanks for chiming in... and for the kind words.

But why is it that you and Paul have such difficulties with the nomenclature of the BD-Design range of speakers? There are only 3 after all!:

1. Orelo MkI (4x 15" bass drivers)
2. Orelino (3x 12" bass drivers) - these are what you listened to at Peter's place
3. Orelo MkII (3x 15" bass drivers)

I think actually, only the last two are commercially available - I remember Bert saying that the Orelo MkI speakers were prototypes really only made for him.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Thank you very much Nick (and Paul no different btw).
But OK, let's say I may be a bit too quick on blaming things other than breaking in. It *is* true that it needs that, really.
So let me put some other weight on the scale - something I am only just thinking of :

By the end of April VJ's speakers went out. I recall that in the 3 weeks prior to that I have been lowering the bass output by 1dB. But when did I receive mine ? March 2 (2014).
Of course it took me quite some time to properly tune them in the first place. But I registered the dates. Last adjustment was on April 8 (the 1dB lower). I never touched anything since.
Possibly this tells that one month of breaking-in is needed (each day a couple of hours BUT with really low frequencies).

And before you think "what the heck is 1dB ?" well, the difference between coloured sound and correct sound. But of course also the difference between too lean and OK (breaking in).

This is a quite different response, but like with the NOS1 at first, I never noticed the breaking in. Only when compared afterwards with others (new). This is similar ...

Peter

[Scroobius]

There are only 3 after all

Hey Mani,

You forgot one variant :

4. Orelo MkII (but with 4x 15" bass drivers) with 1 x 15" mounted above the horn. And wow would that be BIG

Ha ha

Paul

[PeterSt]

Ha ha

Ha ha ? No ...

4. Orelo MKII with another bass section on top. That counts 6x 15".


Peter

[vrao]

Mani,
Give it an additional 2weeks, low end is going to open up. Btw dipole bass/open baffle bass is different than boxed bass. Non-audible vs audible distortion.
VJ

[manisandher]

But maybe start with moving the speaker towards you with 20cm or so and see what happens. Or backward if forward can't be justified (but this is more challenging in general).

The rear of the speakers were originally 50-60cm from the wall. I've now moved them closer to the wall (moving further out was just out of the question in my reasonably small room). They are now 30-40cm away from the wall. Surprisingly I can hear no real difference in the LF. I can't go any further back because I have a metal radiator (always switched off, even in winter) immediately behind the left speaker and I don't want the magnets too close to this.

Oh, and the speakers were surprisingly easy to move - the great advantage of felt feet on a wooden floor.

I recall that in the 3 weeks prior to that I have been lowering the bass output by 1dB.

Hey Peter, just a quick thought...

One of the effects of filling the wings with sand was to tighten up the LF considerably... and perhaps lower the overall LF output slightly? I'm assuming you were tuning the speakers with hollow wings. Could it be that my LF output is now too low due to the filled wings?

In any event, something that no-one has yet talked about is the LF DSP. Weren't we going to be exploring all sorts of options and user configurations here?

Anyway, irrespective of your response, I don't intend to do anything for another few weeks at least... need to let the drivers loosen up more.

Mani.