Here's some comments having gotten a bit more used to them, but of course they're still not broken in.
In the past month while working my @$$ off on these cabinets that are each taller and than I am and near twice my weight I kept asking myself "WHY"!?! am I building these when I still 'mostly' love my Newform 645's??
Well, it became apparent 'why' almost right off the bat, and hearing more and more music I know very well as coming from the Newforms, I'm getting a fairly clear sense of the difference in the Alphas.
The overall impression is that the Alphas sound like I had always hoped/dreamed the Newforms would sound. And I think I've been wrongly blaming some of the Newform's glitches on room set up, other components, etc...
It was after modding the Newform's cheap stock x-over to high end parts, and dampening the cabinets to the nth degree yet still not hearing nearly what I dreamed I would that I started looking at what would give me the performance I imagined.
I had considered the VMPS RM-40's, but while I'm sure they're fantastic in their own right, due to it's unique design and drivers, I felt I liked Danny's Alpha design better (plus my wife thinks these look far better and I agree. plus I much prefer Danny's posting manner -though that never was part of which design I chose).
I also has considered an -to be left un-named knob's line array using the same Newform ribbon in my 645's that I've grown to love, and very costly hi-end metal cones, but in addition to the fact that I'd never buy anything from that guy now, it was honestly also solely on design preference that I again chose the Alphas over that design.
IMO, that line is too short, being below ear height when standing, and only 'optimal' when sitting down. My Newform 645's have several 'quirks' and I didn't want to change to 'new quirks'.
Also, while the woofers in that design are considered world class, they're crossed over so low in the design that I think it really negates the benefit of using such very costly drivers -unlike say the Ellis 1801 where a single cone seems to actually be used to it's full potential.
As is the sealed cabinet limiting the bass range to demanding the use of a sub/s. That's just not right IMO. Then there's the far less power handling and much lower effi. that while not 'flaws' certainly weren't benefits or winning features.
With the Alphas you can sit on the floor (hell.. lay on the floor), sit on the couch, or stand up and they sound exactly the same. There seems to be no 'just right' vertical spot you need be in.
I can slouch for the first time in several years! hehe
The Newform 645's could do a 2 channel 'surround sound effect' when sitting dead center and playing something w/ strong phase effects like Roger Water's CD 'Amused to Death' which is recorded in Q-Sound. There are lots of other CD's with certain sounds that also have this enveloping effect.
The effect is that specific sounds seem very much like they're coming from the rear surrounds, and can smoothly shift 360 degrees around the room if the sound's phase is shifted back to zero and panned side to side.
It's something I've yet to hear from any other system, and was scared to lose this even is a diff. speaker was better in every other way.
I've not heard anyone's personal system that's made up of great parts (just don't know anyone in town who's a typical ACforum type guy), but in several diff. Hi-Fi shops I've heard B&W 801's, Revel Salons, Linn's top speakers, Dynaudio's newest $16K tower, Martin Logan's line from the
Prodigy's on down, Magnepan quasi-ribbon 1.6's, top KEF's, etc... all hooked up to top players and amps, usually in at least decent rooms, and I felt that my system (once I got my eARTWo amp) equaled or bettered all of these systems -usually feeling what I heard wasn't even close -incl. several DVD-A and SACD demos.
Honestly, even if I could afford any of the those top store speakers (which I can't) there's not one I would choose that I felt really bettered the Newforms in many ways. Some were better in a few aspects, but overall to my taste and my wife's... nothing that said 'this is better' to us.
Anyway, back to point... the Alphas are honestly about twice as good as the Newforms at this surround effect!
It's totally enveloping w/ the right recording. My friend was over today and while he doesn't really like that Roger Waters CD, but he wanted to hear that Q-Sound effect, and he also commented that it was much more clearly and distinctly surround.
In fact the last track 'You and I' from Jeff Buckley's 'Sketches from my Sweetheart the Drunk" which is my #1 reference CD actually has some very haunting, quiet background sounds here and there that never till now sounded clearly like surround effects.
Not to mention the astounding dynamics and total lack of harshness that I've never heard (or 'not heard') before.
If that song doesn't move you, then you need to check your pulse because you're probably dead.
I suspect the improvement is because mostly the Newform's ribbon was doing this surround effect previously, and w/ the Alphas the whole woofer line and Neo 8 line are doing it. Not sure though.??
Probably the Alphas are even more phase accuarate that the Newforms, but I've never heard this effect on other speakers that I know are also very phase accurate (say... $20K Revel Salons). Room set up also coming into play?
The Alphas are more delicate, open, and detailed than any other speaker I've ever heard.
They don't sound like 'Monster' speakers that are 'in your face' in ANY way.
Even at terribly high volume there's a smoothness there that just doesn't exist in the other speakers I've heard incl. the Newforms which would get a little 'brittle' sounding if I cranked them like I've done now to the Alphas.
The sound comes from the plane of the speaker's face and goes back deeper than I've ever heard. Not 'forward' at all, which I personally consider a good thing.
Just for the hell of it I played them at a far lower in volume than I ever, ever, ever listen to anything, and it was still fantastic. The Newforms don't have anywhere near as much 'life' at such low levels, though the issue never really comes up for me. I'm not a 'soft levels' type of guy. hehe
I love the Newform's 45" (~4') ribbon (and really... still do) and was nervous that the ~5' long Neo 8 line would fall short in some way that I liked and was used to in the Newforms, but there's not one thing worse about the Neo 8.
And this is a fairly unbroken in speaker compared to a 3 year old pair. Though I'm guessing the Neo 8's don't take much time to break in. Just a guess. Planars in general don't seem to.
The Newform ribbon is a little more 'airy', and if anything that's the only note in it's favor, but I think this was a slight distortion effect? A 'nice flaw' if you will, but they also have a slight 'bite' on the very high end when push loudly. A really very subtle harshness I'd call it. (I had been blaming the Outlaw pre/pro for what now seems to be a slight Newform harshness)
The Neo 8's have none of this harshness at all, and are slightly more clear and detailed, and just as great at imaging laser sharp, so the lack of harshness seems not to be due to the Neo 8's being ANY 'duller' than the Newform ribbon, or due to the slight roll off in the extreme high end of the Neo line.
I don't notice any of that small roll off on the extreme high end. I was hoping this wouldn't be a problem and it sure seems not to be. I certainly don't care about a speaker that can play out to 40kHz (I don't own any dogs that might benefit from this), but I didn't like that the Alphas are a touch rolled off at 20kHz.
This just doesn't seem to be audible to me though. All the music I know very well sounds like nothing's missing.
Playing track 4 of Danny Elfman's brilliant 'Planet of the Apes' soundtrack (too bad the film sucked) there are a lot of very high pitched tinkling metallic chime like things (not sure what they are?).
Compared to the Newforms the Alphas sound a hair duller, but I think the Alphas are probably (though in this case a bit 'sadly') more accurate.
I tried it again w/ +2db and +4db treble on the pre/pro and that made the Alphas sound damn close to the brightness of the Newforms that I've been used to, but still w/o any of the slight harshness, and still w/ slightly more detail.
That bump in the treble is centered @ 10kHz though, and that's below where the Alpha's have that small roll off. This is why I'm guessing the Alphas are still playing more accuratly w/ the treble untweaked at 'zero'.
The midrange of the Newforms has a quirk in the design IMO. It's only 'damn near seamless' IMO, and even then that's only when sitting at the exact right height, which is in the lower third of the bottom 15" ribbon section of the 3 section 45" ribbon. Was that too confusing??
Anyway... the best spot on the Newform ribbon itself is the center of the middle 15" ribbon section which isn't close to seated height or the woofers, so there's always been a compromise in blending those dual woofers to the ribbons mounted on top.
I still think the Newform ribbon is terribly good, and probably something like playing w/ caps could tap down that slight 'bite' to it, or maybe a fairly colored/warm tube amp or pre might do the trick too, but since that 4' ribbon costs about the same as the 5' Neo 8 line, and both play about the same freq. range, and the Neo's sound better in every way ('cept maybe a little less 'airy'), and are more effi., and can handle far, far more power.... it's really a no-brainer which is the better line IMO.
The Alphas, having a line of woofers next to a planar line are 100% seamless.
Totally seamless even though the x-over's right in a section many people call a "don't ever do this" (as are the Newforms).
I think this probably also has to do w/ the very smooth and simple x-over of the Alphas. The two sets of very diff. types of drivers totally act as one w/ a very natural, smooth, clean, detailed sound.
I didn't have real problem w/ the Newforms in this area and have defended them in this regard online several times, but clearly the Alphas take this area to a 'tremendously refined level', where-as in direct comparison the Newforms 'do a pretty nice job'. Very good, but 'no'... not the same.
Listening to the fantastic 'Red Violin' soundtrack, you can test this x-over range as a violin's fundamental range in cut right in half at the Alpha's and Newform's ~1275 and 1000Hz x-overs.
The strings pass up and down over the x-over and there's no shift or change and the detail is astounding.
I'm really trying not to sound like I'm raving, since most don't take such people very seriously (incl. me), but by every aspect a speaker's sound is typically defined, this is the best I've personally ever heard, so if they break in and sound even better I'd be fine w/ that, but I guess I don't really care.
The lower mids are where the Alphas really stomp on the Newform 645's.
The Newforms had a slight bass peak in the ~150-200Hz area that always colored dialouge -somtimes pretty noticable w/ certain movies, though thankfully usually hardly noticable w/ vocals in music.
A chesty resonance on the rare certain tone when people (male and female) were speaking that reminded you 'this is a speaker, not real life'.
It seemed to be a matter of the low floor mounted cabinet and floor bounce 'cuz no matter where I placed them from the side and back walls that bump hardly changed (the best I could do placed them WAY too far apart so that was no solution).
The Alphas have no resonance in this range (or any other) so the illusion that real people are speaking to eachother in front of you is never broken. It's a subtle, but beautiful thing.
Also the woofer cabinet on the Newforms are so low that lower range sounds recorded strongly in one channel tended to pull down imaging-wise. Hard to explain if you haven't heard this speaker, but it's another 'Newform quirk'.
Since the Alphas have a true line source of slightly smaller cone woofers nothing ever 'pulls down' like that.
The Alpha's low bass is so fast, clean, and tight. Really just stunning. The line of woofers does exactly what I had hoped and seems to trip up all bass modes in my room.
I'm in a dedicated HT room 17.5' x 23' x 8'-10' vaulted ceiling. 60% of the room is an addition w/ walls made of 12" thick polystyrene/concrete beams called perform panel (GREAT stuff!!).
I have corner bass traps, and a large sheet covering fiberglass on a 80" dia. frame to kill a front to back echo.
Nothing on the side walls for reflections.
I had used large bales of fiberglass on the sides, but oddly enough it seemed to have no (or little effect) so I removed them.
I have the Alphas 5' from the back, and ~4 from the side walls. Comparing them full range (which is how I've run them pretty much all of the time) to running them @ 40, 60, and 80Hz on up mixed w/ my dual 15" Tempest sonotube subs tuned to 16Hz, I found that @80Hz the subs sound a bit slower/muddier, but w/ recordings w/ low bass, there is a slight 'even deeper' weight that the subs hit that the Alphas don't. Again... subtle, but it's there.
Not sure if the subs are just slower? They shouldn't really be I'm thinking since they're only playing very, very large (i.e.-'slow') sound waves, or if it's more a matter of the phase balance not blending into the Alphas correctly (I have no phase adjustment for the subs -other than doing a speaker wire 180 degree flip, which I didn't get to test yet, but will).
The subs are each about 5' away from the Alphas, but an 80Hz wave is like 14' long so I dunno if phase matter that much in the blending??
@60Hz the diff. is still in favor of the Alphas in speed, but it's pretty subtle. I can't hardly tell the subs are in the mix, till I turn them off and put the Alphas back to Large.
@40Hz there seems to be little diff. in quality between the two, w/ the subs probably winning as they seem to hit an even deeper freq. Probably not too worth turning the sub amp on for only that though.
I'll try to flip the sub phase and see if that helps, but either way, I'll still probably use the Alphas full range for CD's, and use the subs x-ed @ 80Hz w/ movies so I don't miss any LFE info, and w/ killer stuff like Star Wars, etc... It's just safer to have terribly deep, loud bass go to drivers that are tuned to really handle it.
The level of distortion in the Alphas is tremendously low. At average listening levels this isn't terribly noticable over the Newforms which are far more dynamic than say Martin Logan 'stat panels or Magnepans, and are fairly effi. in their own right.
At louder and louder levels though the dynamics really shine through. It's a very smooth natural sounding speaker even when playing way too LOUD. If you think CD's 96db dynamics aren't good enough I have a few tracks that I think you'd have a hard time arguing that could be more dynamic.
My amp has a great noise filter element to it though too and this I'm sure adds a great deal to that dead quiet noise floor.
Overall the Alpha's tone..hmm... I wouldn't call them warm or bright, but I'd say just on the slight 'warm' side on the very high end if you forced me to say it ("we didn't, so why did you just say it"? hehe). Maybe just my preference though for a hair brighter high end (but only on certain recordings).
Overall I feel the Newforms are pretty neutral too w/ maybe a hint more on the warm side in the lower range than the Alphas, but clearly a bit brighter on the highs. IOW, not as top to bottom 'even' as the Alphas are.
There's no sterile or dry tone from the Neo 8 planars, and the paper cone woofers are wonderfully natural/realistic in the low freq. fundamental vocal range.
Danny calls (if he doesn't mind me saying it?) the Alpha's CSS woofers a 6" knock-off of the far costlier 6.5" Scan Speak 8545's -which are exaclty what the Newform's use (and far costlier speakers incl. the $20K WATT/puppies). I, at least pretty much, agree.
The overall tone of the Alphas sound very much like the Newform 645's IMO, but without any high range glare/harshness, and has a perfectly blended x-over and midrange, and stunningly clean, tight, fast, 'damn near' full range bass. Just beautiful from top to bottom.
I'm sure the x-over still needs say a week or so till it's pretty well broken in. The Neo 8's should break in very fast, and I'm guessing the woofers will take a looooong time to fully break in.
Scan Speak says ~250 hours for the 8545!!, and the Alpha's woofers are all working so little that I'm thinking it should only take all the longer?
Then again, the less a woofer is asked to move, the more control it's in and I think that's why they sound so great right off the bat. So does 100% break-in really matter that much in this design?? I dunno.
It's not like I'm playing a single pair of unbroken-in woofers at high volumes and they're trying to move a great deal of start/stop travel and they're just not softened up enough yet.
I'm just asking each of these woofers to move a little bit each. It's also funny to be playing these so loud at times, yet I can walk up and put my ear right up to one of the drivers and it's not that loud. Line sources kick @$$! hehe
I'll be keeping these speakers for a long time I'm sure, and the 645's are now going to surround duty. I've been out of 'center speaker' game for years now, and I still find a phantom center to be better than an actual (usually of a compromised horizontal design).
Feel free to post any comments and/or questions. I'll answer the best I can.
