[klh]

Danny and Al (and others),

Since you designed both of these speakers, will you please describe the difference in sound between the two. What type of environment would benefit one over the other? Are room treatment requirements different? In my circumstance size and space is not an issue as the setup will be in an HT with a front projector. Since they use similar drivers, have a MTM component, don't use dome tweeters, there are some basic similarities. The difference is also obvious.

Thanks for you input.

Edit (of course the size and shape of the room matters, but aesthetics won't limit what I chose)

[RAW]

I will jump first and I know Danny will follow.

The RA8 has a higher sensitivity advantage.
Would be the big advantage to some people.

Dispersion well Danny have you done 0-45 of the Neo's yet?
I have not seen them posted but we do have the 0-45 that Danny did for the RA8.
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=20593
Below is the horizontal off axis responses taken at one meter

The Red line is on axis.

The Orange line is 10 degrees off axis. Hardly any change except at 20kHz.

The Yellow line is 20 degrees off axis. Still nearly dead flat!

The Grey line is 30 degrees off axis. It is still within a +/-1.75db range!

The Black line is 40 degrees off axis. From 250Hz and up it's still within +/-2.5db.

Man the off axis response of that ribbon is killer! A 3/4" diameter dome tweeter can't even do that.

Now most people tend to think that the vertical response from ribbons is poor, and for many longer ribbons this is true, but this one isn't very long. What I really like is the smooth output level across a wide range, and this speaker has it in spades.

See off axis vertical response below.


The mic was pulled back to 60", and this is why we see the sensitivity across the board falling off.

The first line, the Red one, was taken on tweeter axis with the mic at 39" from the floor.

The second one, the Orange one, was taken with the mic moved up to 43". There is hardly any change.

The third one, the Yellow one, was taken at 47". It still looks great and shows that the drivers are acoustically in phase very well. From the back of my room and standing (I am 5' 10" tall) this brings the mic to just below ear level, but close. If I were to step back another foot or two then this would be at ear level.

The last one was taken with a mic height of 51", the Grey line. This is above ear level to me and would be even to a really tall person. We are still looking at a +/-2.5db range, and the highs did not fall out of it in the top end. In fact it appears that the peak in the top may be a little hot straight on but off axis it is as much a blessing than a curse.

A speaker with an on axis and an off axis that is this smooth is rare. The total in room response of this speaker will look very good. I like this speaker the more time I spend with it.

[klh]

Al... with the RA8, I would imagine it would be easy to convert it to a CC. Is it as simple as laying it on it's side, rotating the ribbon so it's still vertical, and centering the drivers within the cabinet while not changing their relative position to each other? What would you recommend doing for surrounds? I could do another pair of RA8s, but I'd rather do wall mount speakers. I would definitely like the surrounds to have the M-130s and ribbon tweeter.

[RAW]

Well for a center yes as a fact I have a few options.
But turning the RA8 side ways and rotation of the ribbon is all that is really needed.

For surrounds.
Well I have a few dozen CNC baffles and grills sitting here for the speaker you are looking for
RAV1.
Yes a AV1 with our ribbon added.

As well the RAV3 and S

This really opens up the door for another line of kits.

[klh]

Danny... please give your input. Since you designed both speakers, it would be very informative.

[Danny Richie]

Two pretty solid winners there. You can't go wrong either way.

The big difference is sensitivity. The RA8 is on the high side of 95db. The open baffle MTMWW is just over 90db.

The RA8 packs more punch and has lower distortion in the bottom end. With an added sub it will really pound and makes a great home theater speaker for a medium to large sized room.

The open baffle MTMWW is a little more intimate. Not as suited to high SPL's. Its strength is the openness of the midrange. It presents a wide open sound stage with no boxed sound. I have really enjoyed these speakers.

While the MTMWW is smaller it is more complex to build.

The crossover is more complex too. The tweeter in the RA8 has 5 components. It has two caps, one inductor, and two resistors.

The tweeter in the open baffle MTMWW looks like this with seven components.



The mid circuit in the RA8 uses only three components.

The open baffle MTMWW looks like this with seven components.



The RA8 uses a single inductor on the woofers while the open baffle MTMWW uses three.

Then here is how the network for the MTMWW had to be built to fit into the bottom of the box and have no cross talk.



The bottom of the box has a screw on bottom (inset type panel) that allows the network to be mounted. You then screw on the bottom panel then cover that (screw it on) with the base that holds the floor spikes.

The tweeter network just slides through one of the holes in the braces to fit neatly inside.

The Open baffle MTMWW won't be offered for another week or two. I am waiting on some parts to arrive.

[klh]

Thank you Danny! That is exactly the type of response I was looking for . Two well built speakers that excel in different ways.