Speaker cabinet made of real wood

Congrats on the new speakers, Al! Mind giving us a rough idea on room dimensions, placement, and associated gear?

John

Congrats on the new speakers, Al! Mind giving us a rough idea on room dimensions, placement, and associated gear?

Thanks, John! I anticipate putting up a thorough system description in the next few weeks, w/pics, and I don't want to divert the thread. But I suppose a summary would not be inappropriate:

Room: 22L x 13.5W x 8H. Speakers fire along the long dimension, of course. Central part of rear wall is an opening to another room, so acoustically the length dimension is quite long. Speakers are about 8 feet apart measured driver to driver; front of speakers are about 4 feet from front wall. Listening distance 11 feet (to mid-point between speakers). Speakers are toed in a bit more than half-way between being pointed straight ahead and being pointed directly at the listener. Room is wood-panelled, with wood blinds on the windows that comprise most of the front wall.

System:
Daedalus Ulysses Speakers (with all-poly crossover option).
Bryston BCD-1 CDP.
Classe CP-60 Preamp.
Paxthon VTA-160 Power Amp, 80W/channel (actually a simple integrated, used as a power amp, Chinese made, retubed with a matched octet of SED "Winged C" EL34's, and vintage Telefunken 12AX7's and RCA 5763's).
SOTA Sapphire turntable (1980's); Magnepan Unitrac arm; Grace F9E Ruby cartridge (being retipped at Soundsmith); Grado Reference Sonata cartridge (high output version).
Phono section of a Mark Levinson ML-1 preamp (1978) used as phono stage (accessed via tape out jacks).
1980's STAX Lambda Pro headphones, with ED-1 Diffuse Field Equalizer.
Radio Engineering Laboratories (REL) "Precedent" FM tuner (1954) + H. H. Scott LM35 Multiplex Adapter (1960)
Tandberg 3004 Cassette Deck (1980).

Come to think of it, my system covers each of the past 7 decades!

Best regards,
-- Al

Thanks Al! That's very helpful. Engaged in a laborious speaker search, and wondering if the Ulysses might work in my comparatively small room (approx 13.5 x13.5 x 9h, opening onto other rooms on two sides). I'm guessing the smaller Daedalus might be a better fit, depending. Anyway, sorry for the divergence from the OP. J

Good luck, John! You may want to give Lou a call -- I'm sure he'll be extremely helpful.

My own instinct, fwiw, would be that the DA-RMa probably would be a much better fit. If you were to provide a reasonable distance between the speakers and the wall behind them, as is obviously desirable, I suspect that with the Ulysses you would then have a problem sitting far enough away for the drivers to blend properly.

Lou has said in past threads, btw, that the DA-RMa and the Ulysses are very similar sonically, apart from the additional deep bass extension that the Ulysses provides.

Best regards,
-- Al

Jdoris:

I'll be moving my DA-1.1's into a smaller space having moved recently--they are on their way back from Lou who performed the "All Poly" crossover upgrade while we were packing and moving. Previously I had the speakers in a 23L X 14W X 9H space that opened into the rest of the house and was thus apparently much larger. The new listening room is 13 X 17 X 8 with two openings on the long wall where the speakers will be placed. If it would help Jdoris, I'll report back on how they sound in the smaller space as well as a few comments on the crossover upgrade. With regard to the topic of this thread, I have found very few exceptional sounding speakers that were made of MDF. To me better alternatives can be found in more exotic materials or in good old quality hardwoods. Not sure if others would agree but those speakers I've heard made of carbon fiber, aluminum or other composites (like the Wilson line) tend to sound cooler and more analytical whereas those made of hardwoods tend to sound warmer and more musically involving. A generalization to be sure but this has been largely my impression based upon hearing a fairly large number of designs.