Audio Nirvana Drivers

@wig 

Well here's an update. I returned my AN Super 8s for a refund. The mid/upper midrange was so "shouty" that I (nor my hifi friends that listened to them) couldn't live with it. I tried moving my speakers around and a different amp but it wouldn't quiet them enough for me to be happy with them. I contacted Mr Dicks and he certainly lived up to his last name by blaming my entire system except the one thing that changed, the Super 8 drivers. 
I have since installed the Tang Band 2145 and ,in my opinion, it absolutely crushes the Super 8 in every fashion. 
Cheers!!

@wig how long did you give them to break in. My 8in neodymium took quite awhile before they lost there "shout". I think part of the problem is that they are very very directional. I have them paired with my el34 amp still, but have gone up to the 15in classic alinco driver for my main system. The 15in Audio Nirvanas are connected to an Audio Note Kit 1 300b set amp. With an Ultra Rendu and Chord 2qute feeding the amp, the sound is sublime. Far better than I ever thought was possible, for what I paid. Very happy with the drivers, albeit not for everyone I suppose. Does dramatically improve sound with every backend component upgrade.

I assume you meant me. I had the drivers for about 6 months and probably a couple hundred hours on them. I have a smallish dedicated treated room and I moved my towers in a 2ft circle with no toe to pointing directly at me and could not get them to quiet down. I've got a tubed front end and I tried an A/B, D class and a pure class A amp and it still didn't help. I would imagine if I had a big room they would have worked better but I don't so they had to go. I agree that to some they work fantastic and in all fairness the Classic 6 I had before worked better than the Super 8 for my application. 

In November 2018 I purchased the Audio Nirvana Super 8 Plus Alnico horns and built some very custom (veneered) Japanese Tamu Ash 2.8 cabinets (with down firing ports). My background is building custom cabinets, and it has always been on my bucket list to build a pair of speakers. I did a lot of research and spoke with Audio Nirvana owner David Dicks a few times. David said that he never had experience with someone building the 2.8 cabinets with down firing ports, so it was uncharted territory what kind of bass they would produce.

After sending David pictures of the completed speakers, David told me they were some of the most beautiful speakers he had seen.

Of course, what matters most is how do the speakers sound. When first turned on, compared to my Silverline Grandeur II speakers, the Audio Nirvana speakers sounded thin and lifeless. Where was the detail?

What I discovered is these speakers need a lot of play time to break in and produce a good balance of sound through the audio range. I can put my head at the bottom of the speakers and hear the bass they are producing.

My Super 8 Plus speakers will never come close to getting as low as my Grandeur II speakers, but they have a balance of sound that appeals to me. I don't "feel" the treble or bass missing on most music, it just sounds real. Because of the depth of music these speakers reproduce, I can immediately tell a well produced recording from an average to poor one. When it's a well-produced recording, these speakers draw me into the music like no other speaker I have ever owned.

I meant to state that I can put my head at the bottom of the speaker cabinets and hear the bass they produce. At the bottom of each of the cabinets are two 3" round ports, 1" in length. There is a clearance of 1 3/4" between the base of the cabinet and the wood platform below it. This is where the additional bass is generated, which is very audible close up.