For those Omega owners who may be curious as to how they stack up to other single drivers... and multi-way speakers... these are my thoughts:
First, for those who have never heard Omegas, they are single drivers. If extreme SPLs are mandatory, these aren't for you (peaks in the low 100 dB range at 6' are possible, add a few dB w/sub). They also may not be the best choice if you have a very large room, or if you expect impact and dynamics like a huge line array. What they do well is present an intimate, coherent presentation with speed, detail, and accuracy. Imaging and soundstaging are excellent. They most closely approximate a point source and are also phase accurate over a broad range of frequencies.
I own the XRS speakers, which cover from the mid 40 Hz range on up. They are powered by a kt88 set amp I built, which would retail in the $2k range given the parts I used. I also use a 10" sub in a sealed cab to get down to the mid 20 Hz range.
There were only a few real single drivers at RMAF, and some augmented Lowthers. I don't think the XRS would be embarrassed in a head to head with any of them, and the 3 Feastrex loaded cabs ranged from $28k to $70k. The 5" Feastrex cabs were BLH designs and can play louder with more quantity of bass than the BR cab the XRS drivers are loaded into... however the bass is more disjointed in the horn cabs, I think a subwoofer integrates better than the output from a BLH. The lower freqs end up coming across in time with the music better and have less coloration than BLHs. As far as the mids and highs... it depends on whats playing. The Feastrex excel in some areas like chamber music, girl w/ guitar, classic guitar, etc... but when playing more complicated music the mid-bass region is overly full and this effects the clarity of the highs. They are not as neutral as they could be. I think the XRS are better suited for playing a broad range of music, and do not get confused and fall apart playing complicated pieces with a lot of the frequency range being used simultaneously. The Feastrex do not "fall apart" at all, but do sound colored at times.
Compared to conventional speaker, I heard some that I'd trade in my XRS for, no doubt. However, they all cost a lot of cash.... like $10k and up. A few that come to mind are the Tidal Pianos ($17k)...these were powered by Lamm hybrid monoblocks and were pretty amazing with every kind of music I threw at them. Incredible resolution without getting annoying... The Merlin floorstanders ($10k) were also in this league, driven by Joule Electra OTL monoblocks. Ridge Street Sassons ($10k) may be there too, but I didn't get to play my own demo tracks. These are all smaller speakers that can probably play a little louder than the Omegas, but probably not by a lot. Some of the speakers in the $50k range were in another league entirely, like the Van Schweikert VR9 and the Oswald Mill solid cherry horn hybrids... and others I didn't get to hear probably.
IMO, the reason most speakers under $10k fail to compete is because they do more wrong, given my priorities. Many can't extend low enough and cross over to subs at over 100 Hz, which is a good enough reason to reject them outright. Sorry, but thats just how I feel... the speaker needs to extend down past 80 Hz minimum to get good integration with a sub, IMO. Many are not coherent and sound off... many x-overs aren't perfect, and many don't make any attempt at coherency with the x-over or cabinet design. There also seems to be an issue with tweeters, ribbons annoy me more often than not, they have this glossy metalic sound that they add to everything... many speakers with dome tweeters have more uncolored highs but the speakers just don't dissappear. Both ribbons and domes can work great, but I just don't hear it in most less expensive speakers.
Amplification is an issue as well. Omegas are sensitive enough that I can have a great 2 stage SET amp that makes plenty of power for them without breaking the bank. Most conventional speakers need much more power, and to get a comparable quality amp will cost a lot more $$$. An example is the Ridge Street speakers, the 3 stage Ultra-Fi SET amps sounded great, but cost far more money than my similar 2 stage amp. I spent about $700 in parts, using the same OPTs and coupling caps the Ultra-Fis use, but adding an 845 power tube would at least double parts expense, probably triple it. It also triples power output, which the RSA speakers needed.
So, I plan on upgrading to the 6.5" Alnicos. Unless I have over $20k to drop on a system, I won't consider anything else. However, RMAF does prove the point that everyone has different tastes, and they can be radically different at times. But, if you enjoy what single drivers can do, I don't think you'll do any better.
Dave
