[PMAT]

Here I was sitting in front of my VMPS RM-1s with my head in a vice so the stage would hold. Ribbon heaven and ribbon hell. Are the Songtowers to rescue me? Oh no! Now the Songtowers have ribbons too! Oh my. Is it just my rig? Maybe I can move them AGAIN. On my left shoulder sits the god of ribbons whispering in my ear. "Surely no mere dome can give you bliss my friend" On my right shoulder sits the god of practicality "forget all the nonsense, my friend. A good dome in a good design is just fiiiiine." Arrrrg. My calm voice says "my speakers suck today. No worries. Remember playing Wilco live at rocket levels and being right there on the stage with the band?" I look to my right shoulder "can't have everything right?" I look to my left shoulder and the little sucker looks smug. My neck hurts after Wilco. Don't look so smug....................... Am I the only one doing this? If my wife read this she would set an appointment with a shrink. Talk to me guys, I'm on the edge.

[robinje]

While your post is interesting, I can't quite figure out what you are asking...   

[mcullinan]

Hes asking to ribbon or not to ribbon that is the question. Personally Im not a ribbon fan.

Mike

[PMAT]

While your post is interesting, I can't quite figure out what you are asking...   

You already bought ribbons right? I have lots of ribbons. Everyone was in love with the dome in the Songtowers. I loved the design and the reviews and the whole idea of going back to "the dome." Now it's a ribbon. Jesus Christ man, I have to have a whole stack of justifications to purchase any Hi-Fi. I don't know a single person, friend or family member, that understands any of this. Money is tight-tight-tight. I don't buy in a flippant way. I don't go with the flow. I didn't buy a pet rock. I don't have an I-pod and I never owned Bose dammit!

[mcullinan]

Well you Must upgrade, youve given yourself the door of no choice. And its open, too late fork over the cash buddy.

Mike
This is a weird convo eh...

[*Scotty*]

PMAT, the Salk Song Towers are a completely different design compared to the VMPS RM 1 The presence of "ribbons" in both designs is not predictive of how the Salk Song Tower will image compared to VMPS RM1. Your fears concerning how ribbons behave when used in a loudspeaker are unjustified. The VMPS loudspeakers are designed with shallow slope crossovers
and Salk speakers have steeper slope crossovers which contribute to better imaging stability.
Scotty

[Rocket]

Hi,

I don't have a pair of Songtowers but I do have a pair of Salk HT2's that use a phy ribbon.  In the past a used a pair of speakers that have a raven 1 ribbon tweeter.  The top end was very good but I did not notice that they tended to beam and I had to keep my head in a vice like grip to ensure I was in the sweet spot.

I don't seem to have this problem with the phy ribbon tweeter.  In fact they have a better disperson than my nuforce s9 speakers.

I'm sure that either version of the Songtowers would sound really good.

I hope this helps.

Rod

[PMAT]

Are you beaming me Scotty? Tell me more. It is very hard to find someone who understands the technologies well and is unbiased. I understand very well that the speakers are very different designs. Lots of my post was obviously tongue-in-cheek but I wonder if the ribbon was really necessary other than to have something new which I also understand. Good stable imaging and soundstaging are my goals along with superb asthetics and several other things. I seem to want the impossible at that price point. My speakers do some things very well and sometimes you have to hang from the ceiling in just the right spot to get it. Does the new ribbon make it harder to place than the dome? I have a very good listening room.

[Kris]

It's not that complicated really. As a whole, a good design is a good design ribbon or no ribbon. The difficult part is to set your mind to enjoy the music. Just pretend you're 17 again and you'll be fine. 

[TheChairGuy]

PMAT - you are a fun one 

John (just down the 101 in Southern Marin)

[PMAT]

ChairDude, you're my neighbor! There goes your neighborhood. If you hear Wilco bouncing off the Golden Gate north tower it's me.

[ArthurDent]

I think you have to 'blame' /'Thank'    Nuance for that development. I believe after all the time spent on his speakerquest with funkmonkey, and Craigsub, he had pretty well settled on the original Songtowers, but wanted that little bit more. Something a little different. He spoke to Jim and Dennis regarding the swap, and they came up with the ST RT. I'm sure he'll jump in if I have it wrong. I think he's addressed what he felt were the sonic differences in prior posts.

As I have no real experience with ribbons can't speak to the difference. I will say my stock STs sound great with the domes, and in my opinion so do my old Dahlquist DCM-7 compact monitors. The Songtowers imaged very nicely from their hookup. Then improved when I added in the DAC, and my listening room would not be considered optimal.

Have you checked to see if there are any SongTowers in your area you can check out ? I'm basically a hermit, but Jim is such a nice guy to work with I took the 'chance' and have met a couple of very nice folks by opening my doors for auditions. If you're going to be up Seattle way let me know, will be happy to set something up.

I am looking forward to checking out some ribbons in the near future. A friend has a pair of Jim's QWs almost completed which I will get to hear hopefully by Turkey Day. In any case, break out that bottle of 12 yr old single malt, or a brew, feed those demons on your shoulders till they relax.   aa

[*Scotty*]

I never said I was unbiased, I prefer Planer Magnetic tweeters and ribbons over domes for the most part. Domes usually sound like speakers playing music rather than just the music appearing from a point in space and I can frequently point to to where the dome it is when it is playing with my eyes closed. That is not to say that the same failing couldn't occur with a ribbon tweeter,but I don't get out much so I can't say I've witnessed this first hand.  Ideally I want the whole speaker to disappear as well the tweeter. You should probably solicit the opinions of actual users of the Salk Song Towers as to how they image. If they use the same LCY tweeter as the V3 they should have virtually the same dispersion pattern as the OWL version with similar imaging.
Scotty

[cujobob]

Dome tweeters seem to test better than ribbons from what I've seen, but there are some good exceptions.  It really does come down to how you like music to be presented...and how well the designer incorporates/mates everything in the speaker system.

VMPS w/ ribbons are quite different than other speakers with ribbons out there, as has been mentioned.

[ctviggen]

Here I was sitting in front of my VMPS RM-1s with my head in a vice so the stage would hold. Ribbon heaven and ribbon hell. Are the Songtowers to rescue me? Oh no! Now the Songtowers have ribbons too! Oh my. Is it just my rig? Maybe I can move them AGAIN. On my left shoulder sits the god of ribbons whispering in my ear. "Surely no mere dome can give you bliss my friend" On my right shoulder sits the god of practicality "forget all the nonsense, my friend. A good dome in a good design is just fiiiiine." Arrrrg. My calm voice says "my speakers suck today. No worries. Remember playing Wilco live at rocket levels and being right there on the stage with the band?" I look to my right shoulder "can't have everything right?" I look to my left shoulder and the little sucker looks smug. My neck hurts after Wilco. Don't look so smug....................... Am I the only one doing this? If my wife read this she would set an appointment with a shrink. Talk to me guys, I'm on the edge.

I have VMPS RM40s and Salk HT3s and personally I think the imaging is better on the RM40s, and I've never, ever, ever, ever had the imaging move with either speaker. 

[zybar]

Here I was sitting in front of my VMPS RM-1s with my head in a vice so the stage would hold. Ribbon heaven and ribbon hell. Are the Songtowers to rescue me? Oh no! Now the Songtowers have ribbons too! Oh my. Is it just my rig? Maybe I can move them AGAIN. On my left shoulder sits the god of ribbons whispering in my ear. "Surely no mere dome can give you bliss my friend" On my right shoulder sits the god of practicality "forget all the nonsense, my friend. A good dome in a good design is just fiiiiine." Arrrrg. My calm voice says "my speakers suck today. No worries. Remember playing Wilco live at rocket levels and being right there on the stage with the band?" I look to my right shoulder "can't have everything right?" I look to my left shoulder and the little sucker looks smug. My neck hurts after Wilco. Don't look so smug....................... Am I the only one doing this? If my wife read this she would set an appointment with a shrink. Talk to me guys, I'm on the edge.

I have VMPS RM40s and Salk HT3s and personally I think the imaging is better on the RM40s, and I've never, ever, ever, ever had the imaging move with either speaker. 

I have the exact opposite opinion and think the HT3's image much better then the RM 40's.   

It's a fun hobby.

George

[2bigears]

  what the hell,no pet rock,,,,is this a true indicator of our fragile economy.

[ctviggen]

I have VMPS RM40s and Salk HT3s and personally I think the imaging is better on the RM40s, and I've never, ever, ever, ever had the imaging move with either speaker. 

I have the exact opposite opinion and think the HT3's image much better then the RM 40's.   

It's a fun hobby.

George

So far, I think the Salks beat the RM40s in low bass, but the bass is boomy, so I'm not sure that's a plus.  Otherwise, I think the RM40s best the Salks in every other category.  I think the bass is so boomy on the Salks as to be unlistenable; however, I haven't been able to spend any time positioning these speakers, and I think they may take different positioning than the RM40s, but I just put the Salks in the RM40's spots.  I haven't had the time to sit down and adequately test the two speakers to any depth -- these are my impressions based on simply swapping the speakers out and not really listening to the same music on them.  Now, I did have a gentleman here who was thinking of buying the RM30s, so I let him listen to the Salks (with a test CD of his), the RM40s, then my lone RM30C.  He listened for quite a while with all speakers, and he said he liked the RM40s better than the Salks, although he complained about too much bass for both sets of speakers.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Now that I finally have my HT room back into some semblence of listening condition, perhaps I'll finally get around to finally testing these speakers with better conditions -- the same music and back-to-back.  I also plan on placing the Salks in the best location I find for them.  I'll report again once that's done. 

But my original point was that ribbons don't mean that the imaging is bad or wavers.  Neither the Salks nor the VMPS speakers have that problem in my system.  The imaging is rock solid. 

[zybar]

I have VMPS RM40s and Salk HT3s and personally I think the imaging is better on the RM40s, and I've never, ever, ever, ever had the imaging move with either speaker. 

I have the exact opposite opinion and think the HT3's image much better then the RM 40's.   

It's a fun hobby.

George

 

So far, I think the Salks beat the RM40s in low bass, but the bass is boomy, so I'm not sure that's a plus.  Otherwise, I think the RM40s best the Salks in every other category.  I think the bass is so boomy on the Salks as to be unlistenable; however, I haven't been able to spend any time positioning these speakers, and I think they may take different positioning than the RM40s, but I just put the Salks in the RM40's spots.  I haven't had the time to sit down and adequately test the two speakers to any depth -- these are my impressions based on simply swapping the speakers out and not really listening to the same music on them.  Now, I did have a gentleman here who was thinking of buying the RM30s, so I let him listen to the Salks (with a test CD of his), the RM40s, then my lone RM30C.  He listened for quite a while with all speakers, and he said he liked the RM40s better than the Salks, although he complained about too much bass for both sets of speakers.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Now that I finally have my HT room back into some semblence of listening condition, perhaps I'll finally get around to finally testing these speakers with better conditions -- the same music and back-to-back.  I also plan on placing the Salks in the best location I find for them.  I'll report again once that's done. 

But my original point was that ribbons don't mean that the imaging is bad or wavers.  Neither the Salks nor the VMPS speakers have that problem in my system.  The imaging is rock solid. 

Bob,

I look forward to hearing your thoughts after you properly position the HT3's.

I know for a fact that putting the HT3's in the same location as the RM40's is doing the HT3's a disservice (I tried this out when my HT3's first arrived and were being auditioned against the RM40's).

When properly setup the HT3's bass is far from boomy and I found it to be far superior to the RM40's in terms of passing more detail, texture, as well as being more forceful.

Marbles,

I agree that the FR measured much better with the HT3's than the RM40's.


George

[Big Red Machine]

YOu won't need a vise with any Salk ribbons.  I've not found a sweetspot as the soundfield is wide and high.  I have both the LCY's and G2's.