As a general rule I don't make equipment changes in my audio setup unless I have a specific need, am trying to resolve a problem, or am working to address a shortcoming. I believe that making purchases just to audition pricey audio gear is a pursuit best left to those with money to burn. That most certainly would not be me. But I have done it before. Most recently I bought a Eastern Electric Minimax and Ray Saumuels Audio F117 Nighthawk phono preamp. I think that little experiment has quenched my thirst for curiosity-driven spending on audio gear.
I've been extremely satisfied with my current audio setup. It is far from a cost-is-no-object system, but it features superbly designed equipment that performs exceptionally well. For those of you interested you can check out my equipment on the systems page
here.
The loudspeakers I have been using for the past couple of years were Omega MaxHemps. Those who have enjoyed the pleasure of listening to Louis' creations already know how truly marvelous they sound. For the uninitiated, the MaxHemp employs a single 8" full range hemp cone driver with a ferrite magnet. I later upgraded to ALNICO drivers when Louis had them ready. I raved about the speakers in the Omega Circle incessantly. Being primarily a jazz lover, and one who did a lot of near-field listening, well...I thought the ALNICO MaxHemps were about as close to sonic heaven as you could get. They were flexible as far as placement is concerned, and were right at home in my small 14 by 12 foot listening room, which is also my home office. And the sound...the sound was absolutely glorious with the vast majority of music I enjoy on a regular basis.
I don't believe that one can really know the character of a loudspeaker until they have lived with it for a while. It is not something that happens in mere days or weeks. This is a process that can take months. If there was one shortcoming of the Omega MaxHemps that I discovered over time it was that I was hearing occasional stridency in female vocals. I didn't hear it all the time, and it took me a while to understand what was happening and to properly draw the conclusion that it was the speakers. All that said, I don't want to make too big a deal out of it. Vocal music doesn't represent a great deal of my listening, and the issue did not present itself on all vocal recordings -- only a small percentage of them. However, some of the albums that presented the strident vocals were pretty important to me musically and I found myself unconsciously avoiding them and making other selections. For example, if a particular Ella Fitzgerald album was strident on my MaxHemps then I would pick another of her albums that wasn't. This wasn't even close to being a show stopper issue. It certainly wasn't something that would motivate me to consider replacing my speakers. No, I didn't see myself spending potentially thousands of dollars on another pair of speakers in order to solve a problem that might rear its head on less than 5% of the music in my sizable library of over 5,500 albums.
Sometime in early January I was browsing the Critic's Circle since I always like to see reviews and commentary on audio gear that other people are using. That was my first encounter with AudioKinesis, right here in
this thread. I immediately became intrigued by the design of the speakers and thought the fit and finish was stunning judging from the photos. While I still wasn't seriously thinking about replacing my Omegas, I found myself reading reviews of Duke's speakers and visiting his website and Circle here on AC almost daily. After a few weeks of that I had to ask myself the big question: if I could replace my MaxHemps with another loudspeaker that would not make too many compromises in the mid-range and bass performance (definite strengths of the Omegas) and resolve the stridency issue, would I be willing to spend some money to do that? I was a little shocked at myself when the answer was yes. Up next came a phone conversation with Duke and during that call I explained to him what my goals and objectives were -- and then let him explain to me how he saw his speakers meeting my needs. After exchanging a few PMs and a follow up call later I had decided that I was going buy a pair of speakers from Duke, but I needed to choose a model. The Rhythm Prisms weren't available at the time, but Duke did tell me that a more affordable speaker was coming soon. That didn't really affect my decision. I already knew that I was going to be choosing between the Jazz Modules and the custom two-piece Planetarium Alphas that were first mentioned
here. I thought about the full Planetarium Alpha system with the Swarm four-piece subwoofer setup, but I quickly brushed that notion aside. I just don't have the real estate in my small listening space for 4 separate subwoofers. If I bought the Jazz Modules, I would need to either keep my Omega DeepHemp sub or sell it with my MaxHemps and find another subwoofer. Buying the two-piece Planetarium Alphas with the integrated down-firing subwoofer drivers seemed to be the best choice to me. So I contacted Duke and placed my order for a system finished in natural Walnut in early February. The cost of the system, including the outboard Dayton SA1000 subwoofer amp, was $6,000. This is not insane money as far as speaker pricing goes, but for me it represented some serious scratch. I sent a deposit of $2,500 off to Duke to get things started. He was very upfront about delivery times, and let me know that it would take 60 days to complete my build and ship it out. I wasn't deterred by the wait since I would need some time to sell my Omegas. At first I was going to keep them, but after thinking it over I decided that I didn't want these speakers sitting in my unfinished basement. So I put them up for sale thinking it would be nice for someone else to get enjoyment from them and save a lot of money in the process. I ended up splitting the sale. One AC member took the DeepHemp sub off my hands and another bought the MaxHemps. Both are very happy.
By the end of March I was without a speaker system and left only with my headphone setup for listening. It isn't a shabby headphone rig, mind you: A Melody I2A3 integrated tube amp that feeds a pair AKG K1000 earspeakers, using Denon's flagship DVD-5910CI as a source. However, it didn't take very long to begin missing listening to music through loudspeakers. As outstanding as the AKG K1000 is, as far as I am concerned there is no headphone made that can substitute for listening to music through speakers. I contacted Duke for a status update and he told me that the speakers should be ready to ship a little earlier than expected. I was elated, but several days later he told me that there was problem with the waveguides he received from the manufacturer and that they would have to be redone. This wasn't exactly the news I was hoping for, but I understand these things happen and tried to take it in stride. Duke didn't know when the waveguide supplier would furnish him with replacements, and I have to admit that leaving the delivery date open-ended did cause me a little anxiety. I never doubted Duke's integrity once, so I didn't sense that I had money at risk. But I was without speakers and asked Duke to contact his vendor and press them for a ship date. If it was another two weeks or a month I was OK with that, but I wasn't OK with they will fill the order at some indeterminate date in the future. I needed to know roughly how long an additional wait I was in for. I know Duke probably felt like I was applying some pressure...and in truth I was but it wasn't personal. I know if a customer of mine (I am an IT Consultant) booked a project with me that they would want to affix that project to a schedule and they aren't being unreasonable in insisting upon that. To Duke's great credit he worked with his supplier and came back to me with a ship date on the replacement waveguides. So the updated shipping date had Duke sending the speakers out by the end of the first week of May and on May 6th the speakers where shipped. FedEx Ground arrived with them at my door on May 12th. I appreciate Duke going to bat for me with his waveguide supplier.
Here is a post with some pictures of the shipping crates and speakers being unpacked. Duke did a great job of packing the speakers and crating them up. They were very well protected for their cross-country trip from Utah to Connecticut.
The build quality of the speakers exceeded my expectations. I was looking forward to a pair of beautifully crafted speaker enclosures and a lovely finish, because that is what everyone else who has written about Duke's speakers has said. Those reports, and this one, are completely accurate. Make no mistake about it, Duke's woodworker is a master craftsman. I don't think the pictures below do justice to the fit and finish.
Naturally, the expectation of superlative sonic performance was equally high. Everything I had read before placing my order suggested that Duke's speakers were uniformly outstanding. I can't think of anyone who suggested a hint of a performance problem. So I was anticipating a revelatory listening experience. Imagine my complete surprise when I hooked up my new speakers and didn't like how they sounded!
With the subwoofers out of the loop the bass was boomy and overbearing. My first thought was that there was some odd sort of room interaction with these speakers, even though I did not have this problem with my Omegas. I really wrestled with this issue for the next several days and tinkered around with plugging the ports and then trying to dial in the subwoofers. I was having a heck of a time, and I really didn't want to be constantly bugging Duke because his step-father had just passed away and I felt he needed some space. Admittedly some of this was me needing to get used to speakers that are more efficient than the Omegas. The Planetariums are 96db efficient, and I was finding myself diddling with the volume control on my preamp trying to find the listening SPL was I was used to. This was an exercise in futility because of the bass issue. I am also convinced that break-in was a major contributing factor along with the fact that I am very sensitive to the way certain instruments sound -- especially the saxophone and piano. It was the latter that was giving me problems in particular. Piano notes below middle C were very disappointing. With the ports open on the speakers the low piano registers were bloomed and fuzzy. If I plugged the ports those notes lacked presence because the feel had gone out of them. Trying to compensate for that with the subs was also problematic and there is no question that I was getting very frustrated by this. I was starting to feel some pangs of regret about buying the speakers. But I was not prepared to throw in the towel and wanted to give Duke a fair opportunity to work through this with me.
On Wednesday, June 2nd I called Duke and left him a voice message and he promptly returned my call. We spoke at length about what was dogging the sound. He was very concerned that I wasn't happy with the speakers and suggested if we can't figure this out and resolve the problem that the speakers should be shipped back to him for inspection and tuning/adjustment as necessary. He went onto say that if he could not resolve the issue to my satisfaction he would take the speakers back. Both were very generous offers, neither of which I was expecting. And I want everyone reading this to know that my preference was very much to keep the speakers. I said as much to Duke. I was hoping that we could sort things out while the speakers were here, because I didn't even want to crate them up and ship them back to Duke unless it was absolutely necessary.
Duke made a number of suggestions on how we could get the boominess out of the bass and restore balance to the sound. A few of them I had already thought of but one I forgot about was to shorten the port tube. I did just that and my initial listening tests had me thinking that the bass was still a bit too pronounced and boomy. So I plugged the ports and made some adjustments to the subwoofer amp. Initially I thought it sounded good but after extended listening sessions I concluded that the bass was a little too rolled off and trying dial up the subs to cross at 70Hz or more wasn't an effective fix. Duke told me that the 12" driver extends down to about 70Hz ported and 90Hz sealed. I have no reason to doubt him but it sure sounded to me that they extend a little lower than that. My Omegas went down to about 40Hz ported. Over the next few days I was making small adjustments and then doing some critical listening for a few hours or more. I probably gave Duke some mixed feedback, which didn't help. There is no doubt that I was having a hard time pinning down what was happening because some of what I was hearing wasn't consistent with the changes I was making.
I know this sounds pretty bleak but it all worked out very well in the end. The issues were resolved through some common sense and a few basic adjustments. First was simply to allow more time for sufficient break-in.
Over the past week the bass began to tighten and focus nicely all by itself; the excessive bloom went right out of the sound. Had that not occurred I am not sure that I would have been able to achieve properly balanced sound. I was now able to determine what to do with the ports: go full length, shorten them, or plug them. I have reduced the port length just as Duke had originally recommended. Consequently this allowed me to dial in the subwoofer amp and get things balanced. Right now I have the crossover frequency set to about 60Hz and gain is at 11:00 on the dial. I am not using any bass EQ or phase adjustment. Another simple adjustment was to merely back off a touch on the volume control of my preamp. I am not listening at a lower SPL than I was used to with the Omegas. On the contrary, part of the problem for me is that I was listening at a
higher SPL with the Planetarium Alphas than I was with the Omegas. I knew Duke's speakers were a little more efficient, so I backed off the volume control a bit when I uncrated the speakers and hooked them up. But I didn't back the volume control off far enough. The other thing that I did was used my Ray Samuels Audio F117 Nighthawk to level match my phono preamp with my other sources. They are not spot-on matched but they are close enough that I know wild swings of the volume control when changing sources should not be necessary. The final tweak was to slightly toe the speakers out from the recommended 45 degrees. I find that this provides a little more fill in my small space.
I have only had a few days of critical listening under my belt with these tuned settings. But I am thoroughly pleased with the results and have no doubts that all of the effort was well worth it. The sound is nicely balanced now and I can easily hear and judge the speakers as I get to know their true character over time. Here's a rundown of the albums I listened to, some were on CD and others were on vinyl, in judging the performance of the speakers:
While the Planetariums have many strengths once they are broken-in and properly set up, those that really stand out to me are dynamics, imaging, soundstaging, and upper midrange/treble response. And you really have to hear it for yourself in order to fully appreciate it. I have never heard cymbals and hi-hats sound as life-like and real on any other loudspeaker as they do here. And the dynamics of the Planetariums really bring properly and well-recorded music to life. I can't count the number of times where a particularly dynamic passage would play that caused me to sit up and take notice, instinctively turning my head to pinpoint the location of the sound in the soundstage. I have not had that kind of listening experience with any other speaker. The midrange response is nothing to sneeze at. While I think the Omega single driver ALNICO hemp cones get the midrange nod over the Planetariums by a small margin, Duke's speakers perform quite admirably in this regard. People who have never heard Louis' creations would very likely think that the midrange coming from the AudioKinesis speakers flirts with perfection. While the bass initially gave me fits I can also count it as a big positive, and choosing the integrated subwoofer design of the two-piece Alpha system was the correct decision. Best of all, the occasional stridency that I was hearing with the Omega MaxHemps is gone. The top-end of the Planetariums is not only more extended, but also smoother. And that was a major objective in making this change. I am happy to report mission accomplished.
That's all I have say for now. I want to express my thanks to Duke for staying the course with me. I was confident that some tenacity and continued persistence would pay big dividends. Hopefully Duke doesn't think of me as a bitchy customer from hell.
I want to buy a pair of subs from him so perhaps that will make up for my occasional bouts of speaker nervosa.
--Jerome
Note: I have edited this post for clarity, to improve readability, and correct grammatical errors.
