Q. on shootout between time/phase coherent speaker

Most Vandersteens are pretty easy to drive. The exception is the 3A Signature which is a 4 ohm load. 1C's, 2Ce Sigs, 2Ce MKII's and Quatros are quite easy for most amplifiers.

Shiriramso,True time domain speakers do require more time and attention to room placement.Is there a reward? You bet your sweet little booties, if you like sound and images that defy room boundaries and images that are so real.Then the TDC speaker is for you! If you just want to casually listen and find tuning a room to be a pain, then go with the laid back Vandies.It is all with what one wants from ones system ( I've gone the rather zealous way of tuning everything in my Domain).You must ask yourself if you want to go on a audio journey? Once you start it gets very addicting!!Hope this helps Dennis

Hi Pubul57,

I don't know the answer to your question on why Thiels and Vandy's are not so easy to drive but you are right about that. OTOH, they're not extremely difficult loads either, but the point I wanted to make is that 1st order crossovers are an attribute that makes speakers easier to drive, not vice-versa. Thiel & Vandy obviously have other factors at work. I suspect that their crossovers are not nearly as simple as 1st order networks can be. Roy at GMA makes extremely simple crossovers because he fixes impedance and freq. response issues with the cabinet, the way it should be done, not by adding artificial fixes in the xover.

The crossover of the Callisto, for example, is one cap on the tweet and one inductor on the woofer! That's it. Then there is a simple Zobel network on each driver but I don't believe that's part of the crossover per se.

My GMA Callisto's are easy to drive, very tricky to set up, adjusting toe in by even a fraction of an inch yeilds a very different sound...pointed straight ahead they sound broken. They have a quite small sweet spot, at least compared to my previous non time/phase coherent Totem Arros, those sounded fine pretty much from any angle. and they diffinately interact with my room quite a lot...again compared to my previous speakers. They are tricky enough to set up and interact with the room to the degree that I would almost be learly of auditioning them in a dealers room unless i was very sure they set them up very carefully and calibrated them to my listening hight, otherwise you're not hearing them to their consderable capabilities.

Check out Earthworks Sigma 6.2's... unreal... or should I say REAL!

My Reference 3A Dulcet mini-monitors are time and phase aligned. The only cross-over in them is one capacitor. They are very efficient and my 70W VAC monoblocks drive them to very realistic volumes.

http://iar-80.com/page65.html

Amp/speaker matching is very critical in achieving good sound. There are a lot of threads on time and phase in speaker alignment. Do a search for more info.

If 1st Order xovers are easy to drive why are Thiel and Vandersteen not easy to drive. They are both fairly inefficient with dips in impedance down to 4ohms or less - not the defintion of easy to drive. I'm no engineer, so I don't know anything about the design parameters - theoretical or implemented, both these two manafactuers make good speakers, but easy to drive is not one of their attributes. GMA, may be a different thing altogether, but I'm not familar with them.

This is an old thread, but that is nonsense. 1st-order crossovers are the simplest and such speakers can be made *very* easy to drive - GMA's sure are.

I echo what Arthur has said. Phase/Time coherent speakers are typically tricky to set up. Minute adjustments can yield dramatic results. It can be maddening, but once dialed in they reproduce a clarity hard to ignore. In addition, P/T speakers are typically hard to drive. Due to their crossover demands P/T speakers typically demand high power amplifiers. Only Very large Tube amps or high powered SS designs will drive these speakers optimally.

My JM Lab Electras are extremely good. One of the few disadvantages of this type of speaker is the limited sweet spot. If you sit too far off to the side, the imaging moves. On the upside though, you get less room interaction and superb imaging when you are in the sweet spot. Another thing too is that speaker placement has to be more exact but after the effort, you get rewarded in a big way. The 926s are in your price range and I recommend them very highly. They are more like Thiel than Vandersteen in terms of sound type if that helps you at all. Good luck! Arthur