[borism]

About 3 weeks ago my new pair of Jazz Modules arrived after a long wait. Briefly, my AC adventure started by accident beginning of this year when I decided to look for a DA converter to set up a digital music library. While doing research I came upon the DB Labs Tranquility DAC thread on AC. I found it very helpful, ended up buying the DAC and liking the site.
 
This brings me to the next step - looking for new speakers. I have been a Thiel fan for a long time. I started with the 1.2 then 2.2 and ended up with the 2.4 about 5 years ago. During this time I changed from solid state amplification to all tubes. If Thiels have one possible weakness it is the slight emphasis on the high frequencies. At times, with one particular solid state amplifier I routinely used to turn on the music and find a reason to leave the room soon afterwards. After putting in the McIntosh MC 275 into the system it was a definite improvement though there was a slight loss of base control and extension. My other issue with the Thiels was the efficiency of 87 and and impedance dip to below 4 ohms. So, one definitely needs power to drive them. My hope was to find higher efficiency speakers with less high frequency emphasis.

This is where I stumbled on Duke's circle. I found the Jazz Module reviews very intriguing and for the first time in my audio consumer career made the decision to buy speakers without auditioning. I bought small stuff before and knew I could return it easily but speakers...
 
Duke was very nice and informative on the phone. Finally, after a few delays my new speakers arrived in wooden crates beginning of September. They were beautifully packed and Dukes unpacking instructions were good. The first shock was the physical size. These are not small speakers. Even though I looked at the measures and tried to imagine the speakers in my room it did not prepare me for the reality. The wood workmanship is excellent.
I set them up about one foot from the side walls and 4 feet from the back wall, angled ~ 40 degrees to cross in front of the listening chair.

I could not wait to fire them up knowing they need braking in. This was my first disappointment. The sound seemed lifeless and voices were like coming from another room. I reassured myself again about break-in and decided to just change the length of the port tube in the back as recommended in the instructions. The next day, I let the music play while I was at work and after about 10 hours of break-in I listened again. This was very reassuring. While the sound was not perfect the vocal performers had entered the room. From the first moment I heard them, however, I knew the high frequencies though present were less in your face then with my prior speakers.

So, how are the speakers now? I have about 150 hrs on them and Duke mentioned 200-300 to fully loosen up. My way of describing the sound is 'effortless'. There is much more dynamic range. The sound is definitely non-fatiguing. I don't leave the room and quite the opposite, when I am reading, I find myself at times being pulled to listen. Another new experience has been the realization how these speakers seem to represent the quality of the recording more truthfully. Bad recordings seem to be more evident as well as good ones the other way.     

In summary, while I took a leap of faith, this has become a wonderful experience. Thanks to everybody here sharing their impressions and ultimately helping in this decision. Also, thank you Duke!

My system:
room: 15x24x8
MacBook Pro - DB Labs Tranquility DAC - BAT VK 3ix - McIntosh MC 275
cables: Kimber Hero interconnect, Kimber 8 TC speaker cables, DB Labs Essence USB cable
 
Add.: If I learn how to upload images I'll post them.

[jimdgoulding]

Sounds like you're cookin with gas, Boris.  Nice read, too.

[borism]

With gas or the lack of it such as in vacuum tubes!

[Duke]

Hi Boris,

Glad to hear your Jazz Modules are doing what they're supposed to do.  I think that prosound drivers might have a little bit longer break-in than conventional drivers, so they should continue to improve as time goes on.

Now some people find that, after a year or so, the bass output has increased to the point where a change in tuning would be beneficial.  If that starts to happen let me know and I'll send you some longer center sections for the ports.

If you want to experiment with different value resistors on the tweeter section, Sonic Craft carries a good selection of Mills resistors.

Nice photos - thanks for posting them!

Duke

[James Romeyn]

Boris
Your room is very close in dimension to fellow AC member/JM owner "Berndt".  A peak audio memory is of Ozzy Osbourne played on Bill's self-made custom TT described in our vinyl circle, Jolida Music Envoy 200W monos, live listening levels, like Ozzy was in the room playing, with absolutely no audible distortion or compression.  W-o-w!  Almost impossible to believe that level of sound could emanate from two such-moderately sized enclosures.  You'd more expect to see two 18" wide towers from floor-to-ceiling.

I don't think my current system (in a larger room) can match Berndt's in maximum output level: three monitor speakers with Duke's vertical offset bipolar technology (ala Dream Maker), separate amplifier channel for each monitor's front/rear output (6x 100Wrms), HP crossed around 200 Hz, four 10" reflex subs ala Geddes/LeJeune, 1000Wrms sub amp...   

[borism]

Jim,
This is very interesting. I have observed that I have been playing music much louder with the jazz modules and that it is really enjoyable. It makes me think in retrospect that maybe some of the 'hardness' in the sound with the Thiels in my room kept me from listening at that level. Of note, my listening room is my living room with many windows, as you can see in the pictures above, and without any acoustic treatments.
Another observation is that the soundstage with some recordings is absolutely huge.
Boris   

[James Romeyn]

Well, now that you replied, let me post again about the spatial effects.  Bill had a nice little gathering of local audio nuts including myself (me less local now haling from UT).  Most visitors temporarily departed for the kitchen for refills, etc, while Bill cranked Ozzy.  We sat on the sofa and for a minute just looked at each other grinning it was just so ethereal (and did I say LOUD).  To that moment I never got the pure joy of superb metal, didn't even know it existed, having never attended a live metal concert. 

Space wise, it seemed like you could feel the sound particles if you moved your arm through the air, the proverbial "electricity in the air", we were swimming in air particles being seriously excited by Duke's innocent looking mid-sized boxes.

I've heard much of the best extant in audio.  In this particular effect of clean and loud I effort to describe, the closest memory is probably The Record Plant in Sausalito: 2x JBL 15s with 1 huge lens tweeter built-in to each front corner, active biamp, Crown DC300 amps floor to ceiling in remote space.  Sly Stone (absolutely as lovable as you'd expect) would walk in a just crank up the volume as loud as possible as most sane persons within ear shot would run for cover.  Similar effect except less musical.

One particular year, late 80s (19, not 18) by the last day of CES Brian at VMPS really had his Supertower IIa/R's cooking as good as they possibly could.  He played the Telarc Beach Boys clone group about as loud as we could, and Brian said, "It's like a ballerina doing tippy toes on your chest".  It was really super clean and super loud, but it just didn't have the thickness like Duke's.  It's like Duke's speaker enlarged the size of the sound particles or added mass to them. 

S-W-E-E-T!     

[Duke]

Thank you very much, Jim and Boris.

I didn't set out to build a speaker that soundstages well; in fact, that was low on my list of priorities.  Years ago I read an article in Stereophile that parallels my thinking on the subject, in which the author said something like this:  "I am not so much interested in where the musicians are on the stage, as in why they are on the stage".

I was just lucky that the format I use (and learned from Earl Geddes) is conducive to good soundstaging.  But that probably shouldn't surprise me; Earl knows what he's doing.

I don't think I've ever listened as loud as "Berndt" does.  Again, it's very encouraging to me to hear that the Jazz Modules didn't get harsh or fatiguing.  Theoretically there is a level at which that will begin to happen, but if it's above Berndtlevel, then the rest of us are pretty safe. 

[James Romeyn]

Art Dudley said and often repeats that wonderful and point-well-taken quote!  Another great pro reviewer I'd love to meet, and another guitarist who loves bluegrass, etc.

[Larkston Zinaspic]

Duke has been able to capture that elusive, delicate balance of intimacy, realism, and dynamic energy in his simple but elegant design of the Jazz Modules. My wife had originally brought up the WAF issue about having to look at a rather large waveguide and TAD woofer yawning at her every day, and so Duke was gracious enough to construct grille covers for the speakers even though he never had that request previously. However, while the speakers look rather 'spartan' in some online photos, they are actually very 'smooth' looking in person, and now my wife has no problem with their appearance and has even commented that they are beautiful. She also thinks they are a vast improvement over my previous speakers sonically, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Duke has inadvertently made me a fan of Atma-Sphere amplification as well. Not only are Ralph's amps a no-brainer match for the AudioKinesis lineup, they are also the best amps I have heard since I've become more serious in this hobby. If there is something better, I'm not looking for it and probably could never afford it anyway. The next upgrade for my system will be an MP-3, and not the lossy, compressed variety either.

So far, nothing has brought me as close to my music as the AudioKinesis & Atma-Sphere connection. Have fun at RMAF...I won't be able to go. Would love to hear what Neko will bring to the mix.

[James Romeyn]

Ditto what Larkston said.  The Atma-Sphere 30W stereo OTL Duke brought to my place left an indelible imprint.  On the right load they are overall and without question the best I have ever heard and by a pretty big margin.  They also sounded significantly more powerful than a 55 lb Plinius SA-50 Mk3, superb pure class A SS, and no slouch power-wise by any metric.   

I am obligated to state that as of last night, my wife Debra and I have personal experience with new, unique, and completely unprecedented technology in production loudspeakers Duke will display at RMAF.  For RMAF goers, I demand, implore, hope, and pray you make Duke's room a must-visit. 

I predict Duke's sound will be the best or among the best of show.  But beyond that, if a power outage or some other act of God causes silence to befall at RMAF, you could not find two better persons to spend time with than Duke and his lovely wife Lori. 

[borism]

I have read so much about the synergy between the jazz modules and the atma-sphere amplifiers. Would an S 30 be able to drive them reasonably well in my size room (se my original post)?

[Will2]

Duke will be able to respond with an authoritative view but all I can say is my S30 drives less sensitive speakers past my listening tolerance before the volume knob gets near 12 o'clock.  The space is admittedly small but I can't imagine the S30 isn't powerful enough.  In fact I think Duke designed his top-level Dream Makers using the S30.

I think you will love the Atma-Sphere/AudioKinesis combination.  I certainly do.

[James Romeyn]

Realistically, my speaker sensitivity is between 86-87.5 dB tops.  Duke tested the midbass driver personally but I lost the specs.  The midbass maker specifies about 89 db but they're dreaming as is normally the case.

IIRC my room is about 3300cf, w-w carpet, bass modes are so many and so severe that a normal sub in this room is unlivable...meaning: account for bass boost.  In this room the S30 had plenty of headroom, and as stated sounded more powerful than the Plinius SA-50 MkIII pure class A, not a slouch power wise, about 55 lbs.

I imagine the S30 powering Duke's 93 dB JM (its long-discontinued 11" TAD midbass certainly being one of the best extant) would make the equivalent of about 4x the power with its approximately 6dB greater sensitivity (doubling for each +3dB sensitivity), for about 120W compared to its 30W driving my speakers.

That said, Bill's room may be about identical to yours in size.  IIRC, Bill, being used to the scenes described above, found the S30 lacking compared to his 200W Jolida Music Envoy monos.  From his description, it was lacking more than the extra 2.5 dB, sounding threadbare in the bass when stretched.  I was surprised when I heard his reaction till I listened to Ozzy with him.

At my place the S30 lacked nothing in overall performance, especially power, dynamics, headroom.  My midbass are a piddling 6.5", stressing the amp far less.  I'd almost positively get different speakers if I didn't/couldn't use multiple subs.     

IMO the one and only person who can accurately judge pass or no pass for any specific listener/amp/speaker/room/music interface (all are indelibly interconnected, change one and the house of cards may tumble apart) is the individual listener.   

Actually, even if every parameter staid the same but the listener's mood changed, you might even get a different result!  Sometimes you just want to rock out an rolls the windows down, other times you want it nice and quiet with no rough edges.   

   

           

[mgalusha]

But beyond that, if a power outage or some other act of God causes silence to befall at RMAF, you could not find two better persons to spend time with than Duke and his lovely wife Lori.

We did have a short power outage last year at the show and the fire alarms went off. I do agree with you that Duke and Lori are great people. Oh yea, I love the JM as well.

[James Romeyn]

Lori's image at Facebook is one my favorites.  I dare you to find a sweeter/happier face!

[Clio09]

I've been using S-30's with my Jazz Modules for a few months now. Love the combination. I just moved into a lager apartment with a bigger listening room available with a nasty cathedral ceiling and was encountering bass issues. Duke came through in the clutch and sent me a variety of bass port extensions to play with. That and a couple bags of poly fill helped a lot in solving the issue.

[borism]

Thank you Will, Jim and Clio for your response! My budget is exhausted for now and I am enjoying the combination of my Mac with the jazz modules very much. However, after reading all this praise for the atma-sphere amps I am certainly very curious.
Boris

[ncdrawl]

hot damn! another one in the cult!
 

I love my Jazz Modules dearly. So much in fact, I plan to purchase another pair soon for my second room..

heres a pic of them in our new townhouse(another thing..they survived a 1000 mile jaunt in a uhaul with NARY a scratch! ) .. the room isnt straighened up or treated, and is messy(with all our stuff everywhere) but I had to get em set up to listen!

[borism]

ncdrawl,
I know it's frightening and even worse they seem to be getting better each day!
Boris