I am a very happy owner of Duke LeJeune's AudioKinesis Jazz Modules since 2010. Briefly, my listening room is our living room that has 5 large windows and an additional very large window (without any window treatments) on the front and the two side walls. Room treatments are not an option. The Jazz Modules replaced Thiel CS 2.4 speakers and were a significant upgrade for my circumstances. The JMs are about 5 feet from the front wall and are aimed to cross as per Duke's recommendation in front of the listening chair. An additional attraction of the JMs are the adjustability of the bass by changing the port length and of the high frequency by changing resistors in an external, crossover resistor bypassing cup on the rear of the speaker - "tilt control". All this has contributed to long term satisfaction.
The rest of my system has changed over the years considerably. At present, I have an Atma-Sphere S30 amplifier and an MP3 pre. In addition, I have an Almarro A318B and a Bottlehead Stereomour 2A3. The Almarro has seen the most usage recently. Phono pre is a Bottlehead Eros.
I have been intrigued reading about open baffle speakers but reluctant to consider them for 2 reasons, one being my room without the possibility of room treatments and the other that I just enjoy my Jazz Modules to much. So back to Duke whose philosophy if I understood correctly is to create tunable speakers that adjust to the room as opposed to adjusting the room to the speakers. I know that Duke used to have his own circle on AC and I'll invite him to respond and correct my misperceptions.
The "4th generation Big Horn Space Generators" arrived at my place about 6 weeks ago. Duke still uses the same cabinet maker that made my Jazz Modules. Fit and finish was perfect. I opted for satin black because the walnut finish on the JMs had faded somewhat over the years.
On the front is a potentiometer to set the volume for the Space Generators and binding posts to insert a resistor for treble tilt. The SGs are connected in parallel to the main speakers. The impedance of the SG depends on jumper, resistor or open circuit at those binding posts and varies between 20 (jumper) and 40 ohms (open circuit). Duke recommends using pink noise and setting the Sound Generator SPL about 10-12 dB lower than the main speakers.
It took some time to play with the settings and get a sense of what the SGs were contributing. My preconceived notion was an expanded (width, height, depth) space perception - as in Space Generator. Ultimately that is probably true but it was not the main effect for me. Nothing about the tonality of the sound changed. The way I can explain it best is a visual analogy. With the SGs the picture became more 3D and turning them off by simply turning the volume control to 0 the image flattened out and became more 2D. On some recordings closing my eyes gave me the wonderful perception of being "there". I should also note that I didn't perceive any negative effects. Duke mentioned that if the volume of the SGs was set to high there could be a smearing of the center image. I tuned the SGs just by ear and then checked the SPL and discovered that I was actually more than 12 dB below the main speaker SPL.
So, from my perspective if you can't tune your room but desire more 3D the Space Generators are highly recommended!
