Well, just placed an order for some SAMs with Louis. I have been trying to purchase a pair since about this time last year but due to my wife being pregnant with twins I just couldn't make it happen as we needed to be prepared for the massive hospital bills. I've long been a fan of single driver speakers since the earliest days of my entry into this hobby. I started off with some small 3" tang band "fullrange" drivers from Parts Express in quick mock up cabinets I built when I worked at a cabinet shop and was just shocked at what I was hearing. Imaging, for the first time I heard in my life speakers that could cast an image of separation and depth. It was all so new to me and I went down a path of audio exploration in DIY for a couple years until I came upon Omega.
At that time Louis was selling his DIY drivers and I bought a pair of his 7" alnico models to play with. Louis helped me design a box for them and I enjoyed them quite a bit. During that time I was building a pair of speakers every other month or so and let the Omegas go to fund another project. Boy that was a mistake. I've never been able to achieve the warmth and tonal accuracy from the Omegas in any speaker I've built since then. That was almost 7 ago and I've bought multiple retail speakers (multi-way), built countless single driver speakers based on other drivers as well as built a couple handfuls of 2-way monitors with world renowned drivers such as ScanSpeak Revelators, ScanSpeak Illuminators (including BE tweeter), SB Acoustics and SB Acoustics Satori (including BE tweeter), Seas, Hiquphon, etc. Clearly I've spent thousands searching for the sound I had with the Omegas, all to be let down in one way or another. Now I know you might be asking, well, if you spent thousands on other speakers, why didn't you just buy another pair of Omegas? Well, simply put, I was convinced by the audio industry that I needed to spend that kind of money to achieve better. Better resolution, better insight, better emotional connection, better frequency extension, blah blah blah. It wasn't true. Sure, some of the designs did some really cool tricks and let me hear details like what color pants someone was wearing (haha). BUT, none of them gave me that deep musical connection to music like Omegas and none of them even held a candle to the true tone of instruments like the Omegas.
I requested that Louis surprise me with whatever veneer he chooses as I have no finish preference. I've liked all of the exotics people have posted here so I'm confident Louis will pick something unique. I'll also be using these speaker in my small office with my Schiit Bifrost Multibit Gen5 and my prized Elsdon Wonfor Audio (EWA) Claymore Retro integrated amplifier. I'm a little nervous about my Claymore amp driving these speakers though but the general consensus is that most of you guys seem to enjoy good SS with these speaekrs and the speakers aren't particularly picky about amplification. So fingers crossed here as I'd like to hold onto this amp; it's a real gem.
So here I am, full circle after a nearly 7yr hiatus. I'm tired and I'm throwing in the DIY towel. I'm ready enjoy music again.
Cheers,
-Z
