single driver loudspeakers

I took the single driver loudspeaker plunge about 4 months ago and purchased a pair of the Omega Super 3's in the narrow cabinet. I have about 200 hours on them. I am in the middle of preparing a review of Omegas, but here are my impressions so far:

1. The Omegas are very sensitive to the amplification that you provide them with. The amplifier will need to be very musical and on the warm side, the more elegant sounding the better. Keep dry and analytical sounding amps or amps that are proudly solid state like the NADs and Rotels away from them. This is particularly interesting, as I was talking with Omega's owner (Louis Cochos) and he had said that some of his speakers are being designed with solid state amplifiers in mind. If you go with a solid state amp, think smooth, elegant, and musical ... like Creek or Musical Fidelity or Arcam, et al.

2. I have been pairing the Omegas with a vintage Marantz 2240 receiver and quite frankly, I am very pleased with both male and female vocals and small ensemble music. The sound has a 3D, in the room presence to it. There is a test that Robert Reina (Stereophile) does where he "listens in" on the speakers from an adjoining room. The Omegas are some of the most captivating speakers that I have ever heard in this manner ... the music just invites you in.

3. Where I have not been pleased is with swing music like Frank Sinatra's "Night & Day." The brass fanfare is ridiculously annoying and cartoonish sounding. Also, some rock oriented Americana like Big n Rich just sounds dull and lifeless. I think that the culprit may be the Marantz and I have been busy switching equipment back n forth with my systems and the sound improves somewhat.

4. Because I am using the Omegas in my bedroom system, it is an absolute requirement that a receiver serve as the power source. For a while now, I have been looking to retire the Marantz to "tuner only" duty in another system and I have an Arcam receiver on order. More listening to follow.

Hope this helps. The other associated equipment is a Music Hall MMF CD25 cd player and Signal Cable interconnects and speaker cable. I think that the Omegas are going to be winners, but it will be another month or so, before I know for sure.

As I wrote this response, I have been listening to ... Di Stefano "Operatic Recitals," a recent Decca re-release of a 1959 recording on my NAD C320BEE/SONY SCD 555 ES SACD/AR 302 system. The music and system rocks.

Regards, Rich

Rar1 from what I gather you do need to upgrade your amplifier and especially the source. Those speakers are so pure. The majority of the faults your hearing is upstream.
I think we make the mistake when buying fair price high quality speakers like the Omegas. By assuming components in that bracket will work.
The better the equipment the better your speakers will sound.
I look forward to your review!

Good luck!

Hey Bombaywalla I never did make it to Earthshaking but a good friend did. His report and yours is all it took for me to take the plunge.
Oh yeah for the ones that haven't listened to the new Fostex lately. The whizzer cones do not make a buzzing sound and are certainly not rolled off! This driver's highs spank my ribbons in the Maggies all day long!

Happy listening!

I have a pair of Fostex 208 Sigmas in Zhorn backloaded cabinets. They are unbelievably quick and exciting, but as it is well said, they are also very demanding in the type of watts you feed them. I have tried my set up with Op amp powered solid state, 47 Labs Shigaraki integrated...the sound, it was outstanding and lighting fast. Also, I currently have it powered with a Final Music 6 battery powered op chip amplifier, but in this case, with a tube regulated power supply...The sound is also intense and wonderfully uncluttered. Finally, I have paired the same drivers in a self constructed Voigt Pipe (cost be a grand total of about $80 for the plywood and other hardware, about $450 with the pairs of drivers included) with a Assemblage 300B Platinum edition tubed amplifier along with matched WE tubes and these were also amazing in the vocals and the quickness.

For the price being, a single fullrange driver experience have been eye opening. Nevertheless, there is a catch, you will find that the low end is not as heavy or as noticable as in other dynamic speaker set up and this lack can easily be remedied with a powered subwoofer picking up the low end duties.

What you need to be aware of is the quality of the amplification....If it is SS, it needs to be extremely good, not necessarily powerful, the design needs to be well executed and the lower the power, the better, therefore of the use of the OP amp based amplifiers.

But

with tubes, ahhhhhh. A match made in heaven.

Single fullrange speakers do not waste money or frills in capacitors and other crossover thingies, just in sound.

BTW, I am planning to get myself a pair of FT2000A cabinets made for my F200A with Alnico drivers. Have you considered this design? The F200A is not longer being made and Madisound has some in stock.

Good luck.

Hello,

I have the exact speaker that you are inquiring.

http://cgim.audiogon.com/i/vs/s/f/1093027454.jpg

Stock, it performs very well. But the magic is how to find the correct ratio of damping material so the speaker/room coupling is flawless. Not to mention that the BSC(Baffle Step Correction) circuit needs some patience to find the correct value of resistor to use in order to make the correction seamless.

In the end, it is worth all the effort.

Goodluck!

Bemopti123,

BTW, I am planning to get myself a pair of FT2000A cabinets made for my F200A with Alnico drivers. Have you considered this design? The F200A is not longer being made and Madisound has some in stock

Is that similar to this?

http://cgim.audiogon.com/i/vs/i/f/1104807499.jpg