Intuitive Summits & R.S. Audio Sasons?

Hello Post-a-teers!

Thanks Ted, Ehider and Rhythmace for taking time to post your thoughts.

Rx: I've heard rumors over some time you've wanted to make it over this way. Hope you're able to make it at some point.

The break-in thing: The Sasons do take some good time to break in and settle down. We've always said about 500 hours. Up to about 200 hours the Sason are okay - nothing too special - and they can certainly be frustrating if one doesn't keep their sights and expectations set on the 500 hour mark. After the 200 mark, healthy glimpses of what the Sasons are about kind of come and go but...mostly come the closer they approach 500 hours.

Break-in is a funny animal and while it's something that a lot of us experience in our personal systems, it seems most folks don't have enough broad experience to talk about a given product's break-in character in a wide range of installations. I think this is true whether we're talking about speakers, electronics or cables.

As a manufacturer, we're fortunate to have a lot of experience with regards to break-in in a lot of different installations - for us, whether it be our cabling or the Sasons. What we've been able to conclude is that break-in is not isolated to just the component that's been newly installed. To one degree or another, an entire system needs to re-acclimate to the new component. As all the other componentry "centers" around the new component, it's all being "exercised" differently and needs to "break-in" accordingly. I suppose it's kind of interesting this seems to never be considered or talked about. It should be at least an important consideration during the evaluation of a newly installed component. And still, I think that's just kind of the beginning! What about the AC that powers our gear and how that varies from one neighborhood to the next, whether you're in a rural or a densely populated metropolis, etc, etc. Consider that in light of the music we listen to is the AC being modulated and controlled by all the circuitry in each piece of gear. I guess ones head could begin to hurt after a while or, be encouraged that the new piece of installed gear isn't as "broke" as it might sound.

Ha! It's been some time ago but I had one Gent report that a pair of "P"!!! S/Cs took 500 hours to break in at which point he became thrilled with their performance and kept them after many comparisons to other cables. Another Gent reported that after about the 100 hour mark the cables were still sounding less than optimal. At that point he informed me he was ready to send them back. The next day I get another email from him informing me he had left the system playing for an hour or two while he went and did some chores and came back for one last listen. LOL! Transformation and he kept them! His words: "...the darndest thing I've ever heard!" Go figure! I know this, our cabling for example does not, in and of it's self require a ton of break in and they sound pretty darn good cold so, there's definitely more at play here than just the newness of a component.

All this to say I'm never surprised how different people's experiences with break-in differ. There is a myriad of things that contribute to the differing experiences. Getting an idea of others experiences can be helpful to some degree but I would set my expectations or conclusions based on another's experiences given all the variables.

So, in light of that, I wouldn't negate your lengthy process Ted. I'm just glad you stuck it out to get to the pot of gold! On the other hand, Steve and I personally set up Rhythmace's pair and another pair before that in the same town late June. Both Steve and I were surprised at how good the Sasons sounded right away in these new installations. No, they didn't have the magic they are capable of after being fully broken in but they sure as heck didn't sound as un-involving as a new set sounds in our music room or in other new installations we've heard.

So...go figure! Or, save some mental anguish and perhaps wrap your head around what I posted above. LOL!

Hope that helps a bit.

Cheers to all!

Robert
RSAD

Ooops! Correction to my post above. I forgot the word "not". Should read:

"...Getting an idea of others experiences can be helpful to some degree but I would not set my expectations or conclusions based on another's experiences given all the variables."

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

Composed 10/13/07 12:36pm

Little late coming back to this. Sorry for that. We're buried and I can't find enough days in the hour. I'll be brief.

Sirspeedy Wrote:
...What EXACTLY is "Rothboard",other than the play on letters,from the designer's name.
Also, if the front "Rothboard" baffle is 4 inches thick(impressive),is it layered,like how Avalon does it,or one piece?

Rothboard is a unique material chosen for dissipative qualities. It's a cast monomer board - nothing like MDF or HDF. We chose the material which we dubbed Rothboard because it's very good at not storing energy. Along with the granite, this material contributes significantly to the Sason's "boxless" and open sound.

Sirspeedy Wrote:
...so I must assume the cabinetry is damped

Yes, the cabs are internally damped. One thing to realize though, the frequency at which granite resonates is pretty high. This means as a cabinet it would take one hell of a lot of energy to excite it's resonance - more than a speaker driver is capable of producing. Also I think it's good terminology to say the cabinet panels are damped in three dimensions. In other words, along with the internal damping, each cab panel is of course captured top/bottom/front/back by the other panels and this virtually eliminates the "PING" sound you mention. As the drivers are doing their business, there is no cabinet talk. Rap the Sason cabinet....nothing. Hit the cabinet with a 10lb sledge hammer....well okay, it'll probably break - don't do that.

Rja Wrote:
Robert,
What does the new short version weigh compared to the tall version?

The tall version weighed close to 140lbs. The short version weighs around 100 - 110lbs. Still that's pretty heavy but the size of the speaker is a lot easier and less awkward to handle. Now the stands weigh more but that's not an issue unless you're trying to put the stands on top of the speakers.

So still, as a package each side weighs around 200lbs with speaker and stand. Add sand to the stand's three columns and now you're talking about 250lb a side. Maybe you're saying "Geez! how do you move these things?" Solved: Carpet sliders! These work like a charm. You can almost move these with one hand with the sliders.

Sirspeedy Wrote:
Finally...What is the current cost,with stands...

Mfg. Direct pricing is $8575.00 as a package. And that my friends is an incredible value - believe it or not. As Ehider mentions, there's a lot of things done in the Sasons that no one else is doing including the other speakers mentioned in this thread. These things are all performance related. The "Pure Direct Connect" binding post arrangement is one example and is not inconsequential compared to other binding posts which are little more than audio jewelry that promote convenience rather than performance.

I guess finally, my little 10 second commercial to maybe affect some positive change in high end audio or at least ponder. This grabbed my attention and I thought it worth addressing: "I told my friend to seriously check out the Sason, before he went for the Magicos. His response was that he didn't think they had enough exposure". Now I hope I don't offend anybody but this is kind of a sad commentary. If one is endeavoring to assemble an outstanding music system, does one really approach that based on how much exposure a product has? I think the answer is too many times Yes. Good/bad, right or wrong, it's certainly easy to be motivated by "exposure" - all those cool ads or that over the top review - than it is to invest time and effort in personal experience over a broad range of whatever.

"Certainly, it would seem, the only thing worth expereincing is that product that has the greatest "exposure". And certainly if it costs a gabillion $$$$ it's the best. And it's definately true your gets what yous pay for." To the latter I agree and I think what's "got" a lot of times is SOTA marketing and perfomance that achieves little if anything to raise the bar.

Advertising and all the industry politics that produces "exposure" can do much to drive up the selling price of a given product. When all is said and done, I believe the bar is set too low for what can be expected out of a system component or music system.

Too much in audio is more about image than substance and unfortunately, the consumer buys into it. It costs a lot of money to create an image and something usually has to give to meet a price point. That something is usually performance. Doesn't mean a given product won't sound good but how much better could it sound if more of the cost of creating an image went into the performance of the product. Once you start putting a lot of focus in creating an image you then have to say what you have to say bigger and louder than the next guy. After a while the whole marketing thing just kind of goes nuts it seems. What gets promoted as the greatest thing since spread peanut butter is really only peanut butter flavored paste product...LOL!

The bar is set too low. I say there's more to be had and the bar can be set higher without some of the astronomical selling prices. I think that's what a few smaller companies like Dale Pitcher's Intuitive Design are trying to do. I would also include RSAD in this camp. We're more interested in folks buying performance than marketing. For us, our exposure comes from people's own experience of our products and then by word of mouth end users. Slower process for sure but I trust it's more credible. Anyway....was that 10 seconds? I know I screwed up "brief".

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

Rx8man Wrote:
Taller speakers get slightly shorter stands and shorter gets taller stands ?

Correct Pat.

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

Hi Rx and Sirspeedy.

Rx, enjoyed talking with you too.

Seems it would be good to answer a couple of questions here.

There is a "Short" version of the Sason available. It puts the entire X-over in the stand's back column allowing us to eliminate the isolated chamber for the X-over in the cabinet.
Comparative rendition HERE

The short version is what we'd like to promote but the tall version will remain available. The short version was born out of a couple of things. One being they are simply more manageable for one person. Two, the short version will easily facilitate any upgrade path we offer down the road. The tall version would be fairly more complicated and expensive to do a full Monty upgrade. The upgrade is in the works but it will be a while before we make it available. I'm not prepared to discuss what all the upgrades are but I'm thinking when all is said and done, it will offer performance that will justify a new model designation. The short version will be able to accommodate all the modifications to bring it up to the new model designation. I love the Sasons as they are but I can hear more in my head of what I'd like a loudspeaker to do and I think this can be accomplished. The Sason Ltd will serve as an excellent platform to get there but in the meantime this speaker does enough of what I want that I could be more than content for a very long time.

In case you're wondering, the smaller cabinet does not change the internal volume of the cabinet at all so bass tuning and loading is not affected. There is also no compromise in performance. If anything, I think they may sound a titch better. They seem to disappear better but that very well could be a visual thing complimenting better one of the Sason's sonic virtues to disappear. I suppose another thing that contributes to the perception of it sounding better is that the bass is more impressive - not better but more impressive. You just flat out can't imagine this much extended and excellent bass coming from such a small cabinet.

Well, that's it for now. I've been up since 3:30am and it's 11:20pm now. I'm whacked...LOL I'll post more of what I wanted to say tomorrow sometime.

Oh, BTW...The Accents. They weren't my favorite speaker but one of my favorites. A grand speaker they were. Heard them in Cleveland at a great audio shop called Sound Resource. It was owned by a Gent named Mike Osmond. What a terrific fella! Met him twice in his establishment. Wished I knew what happened to him. I'll probably never forget him and the fun experience of his shop.

Anyway....

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

Hi Rja.

The Sason is a vented design. The designation is a modified QB3 alignment.

We favor bass that sounds like music - not just impressive low frequencies. A lot needs to be considered for bass to contribute appropriately to the music and that's a whole other topic but...

I admire acoustic suspension designs and normally favor that type of bass tuning when kept at a max. of 0.7 system Q.

However, between the particular mid/bass driver we're using with it's modifications applied to it and the modified QB3 bass alignment I don't miss the virtues of a sealed box design and I don't need to tolerate the drawbacks of a sealed box bass loading.

The modified QB3 bass loading of the Sasons: The port incorporates a laminar flow device - fancy talk for loading the port with straws. There's a slight twist to that though which I won't go into.

This straw arrangement is adjustable allowing for tuning the bass to the acoustic environment and/or to taste. Tune the vent in on direction and you accomplish a slower roll off in the bass that reaches deeper and is better damped. Tune it the other way and you can accomplish a warmer fuller sound that might compliment a room that's lossy in the bass.

Most mid/bass driver's peak to peak excursion capabilities will not accommodate this type of tuning. The driver will crap out. Drivers that do have the Xmax capabilities have significant flaws in the midrange that preclude them from being useful in what we wanted to accomplish with the Sasons.

The bass tuning we're doing is a novel approach and works beautifully to serve the music if it's done correctly and specific to a given driver that can handle this type of loading.

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

Sirspeedy Wrote:
...you missed mentioning the benefit of not having the crossover in the same box as the drivers...

There is benefit of not having the crossover in the same box as the drivers.

There...done. :)

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

Pat...

You got me...LOL! I'll do your "White Paper" version later today or tonight.

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

Well, I'm not sure how much "white Paper" can be written about outboard X-overs and I definitely don't consider myself a write paper writer. So...

Hopefully some of the folks here who enjoy some DIY will find some useful info here that could be applied to whatever speaker they have where the X-over is in the volume of the cabinet.

Isolating the X-over from the internal volume of a speaker has a couple of advantages. One, it goes a long way to mechanically stabilize the X-over from all the resonances that are going on in the volume of the cabinet. If the bass output for example is energizing a room, what do you think is going on inside the cabinet! You wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall inside the cab to find out!

If one is using exotic components to realize the X-over circuit, those components can be pretty sensitive external disturbances. This exaggerates the point but it's a good illustration: Tap an output tube on a pre-amp and you can hear the tapping through the speaker.

So, isolating the X-over eliminates at least a lot of undesirable external influence. It would then be good to also address any mechanical self resonance the X-over produces simply by it's own operation.

Putting a X-over in an outboard arrangement - in a box or, in the case of the Sason, in the stand's back pillar - allows for mechanical self resonance to be addressed. The X-over can be potted in the box or, as in the Sason's stand, it can be loaded with clean dry silicon sand. Loading or potting can also have a side benefit of acting as a heat sink to some degree which can help resistors perform more linear.

Also, getting the crossover completely away from any driver magnets will eliminate any possible interaction between the fields created by the driver's magnet(s) and the X-over.

There's a couple of other reasons for putting the X-over completely outboard but they are specific to the Sason short version compared to the tall version and I already mentioned some of that in one of the posts above.

There...done done.

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD