[Tyson]

Hmm, if Dunlavy and VMPS are both out, then SP Technology would be my 3rd pick.

[brj]

Except that his $6000 price limit rules out the Revelation.  With their current sale, however, the Continuum 2.5 with some upgrades is a possible target.

Lots of good suggestions posted so far...

[John Casler]

Hmm, if Dunlavy and VMPS are both out, then SP Technology would be my 3rd pick.

The dealer thing doesn't rule VMPS out, we'd love to have Frank on the dealer roster.

[pragmatist]

http://www.northcreekmusic.com

http://www.madisound.com

[JLM]

I'm trying to imagine what a Frank (AVA) and Brian (VMPS) team would come up with (how about an active speaker?).  Or even what a conversation between the two of them might be like.  (Both seem to be old dogs with strong opinions.)  Please don't take it as a slam, I say it out of respect.

[Charles Calkins]

In less than a week Frank has gotten 65 replies. Don't know what he will decide but I for one am anxious to read his final decision. It might be months or maybe years before we see the winner. Hope I'm still breathing by then.

                            Cheers
                            Charlie

[Harry P]

Frank builds awesome gear. This will be interesting. I do hope he decides to take up that opportunity to hear the Sapphire XLs, I'd like to know what he thinks of those, even if they don't meet his full range criteria.

[avahifi]

First of all I am going to evaluate a pair of ACI Sapphire XL speakers that MESHBRO has so kindly offered to loan me over the holidays.  I know they are bookshelf size, but it will be interesting to see what fresh engineering has done in recent times.

Then I hope that Jim Sauk will be able to provide a promised loaner set of his speakers for me soon.  They get very positive comments from the owners, but curiously have not been mentioned in this huge thread.

Finally SPRES has to me made the most sense regarding speaker designs issues so far.

The search is far from over, and the informatiion provided here is really useful.  Keep it coming.

Frank Van Alsitne

[Marbles]

Frank, the first reply you got was for Salk HT3's!!!

Since I knew that you knew Jim, I did not elaborate much or give you the website.

www.salksound.com

For a 3 way, the Salk HT3 are a bargain.

For a two way, the Ridge Street Audio Sason is GREAT.

The best speaker I have ever heard for imaging/layering..and it is made with GRANIT!!!  (since you brought that up   )

http://home.comcast.net/~rothakoustic/Index_Sason/SasonLtd2005.htm

The Sason's only go down to f-3 of 38 hz, so a subwoofer might be needed for the very lowest frequencies.

[mca]

Won't you be going to CES? You could get some pretty good ideas there!

[avahifi]

Sorry, my recent leg surgery has limited my mobility short term to make a CES visit impossible this year.  Next year I hope.

Frank Van Alstine

[figcon]

Hi Frank...I've been at this for over 20 years and what you might be interested in is a very sensitive, highy dymamic system that can replay at realistic live levels, is time and phase coherent, sounds like it is a single driver and has incredible tonality, given everything upstream is capable. If it looks great, that would be a bonus, right?

Go to www.daedalusaudio.com and look at the DA-1, although it's over your price threshold by $850...It's a steal at the price. Also the DA-2 to consider at below your threshold.

Best of luck with the leg.

Frank Goldfarb

[WEEZ]

Frank, in addition to the ones I recommended earlier- and the many good suggestions you've received- I've thought of one more:

www.coincidentspeaker.com

Popular with lower power tubed amps due to higher sensivity and higher impedence- but robust and a large range of sizes and prices.

FYI

WEEZ!

[Tweaker]

Get a pair of VMPS RM2s. You'll never look back.

[orthobiz]

If Internet Explorer and Safari don't work for a website,
try downloading Mozilla. I was able to use my Mac to get
onto the Gap website with it. Mozilla.com.
There's another browser, Firefox, you might try.

What about Harbeth? It's in a box, been around for a long
time, looks like a no-nonsense design that would appeal to you.

biz

[skrivis]

Hmm, if Dunlavy and VMPS are both out, then SP Technology would be my 3rd pick.

The dealer thing doesn't rule VMPS out, we'd love to have Frank on the dealer roster.

Out of all the suggestions I've seen, AVA would probably be able to sell more VMPS products than the rest. BC has done a very good job of marketing and selling his products. For whatever that's worth...

[skrivis]

If Internet Explorer and Safari don't work for a website,
try downloading Mozilla. I was able to use my Mac to get
onto the Gap website with it. Mozilla.com.
There's another browser, Firefox, you might try.

What about Harbeth? It's in a box, been around for a long
time, looks like a no-nonsense design that would appeal to you.

biz

That gets to be silly. I just sent an e-mail to Roy and told him to fix his site; unless he doesn't want Mac and Unix users as customers.

The web site owner should ensure possible viewers don't have to jump through hoops - if he expects them to buy his products.

And... Roy's site doesn't work with Firefox on Linux, so I doubt it will work with anything using the Gecko engine (Firefox, Camino, and Mozilla) on Mac OS X. (The site isn't usable with Mozilla on Solaris SPARC either; it's IE on Windows only AFAICT.)

[John Casler]

Hmm, if Dunlavy and VMPS are both out, then SP Technology would be my 3rd pick.

The dealer thing doesn't rule VMPS out, we'd love to have Frank on the dealer roster.

Out of all the suggestions I've seen, AVA would probably be able to sell more VMPS products than the rest. BC has done a very good job of marketing and selling his products. For whatever that's worth...

Not only that, but I just read Frank's design concerns via the URL he posted earlier and they are very close to those of Brian's new Constant Directivity Wave Guide.

Frank you might find what Brian recently posted interesting;

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=23898.msg211613#211613&highlight=#211613

[skrivis]

If Internet Explorer and Safari don't work for a website,
try downloading Mozilla. I was able to use my Mac to get
onto the Gap website with it. Mozilla.com.
There's another browser, Firefox, you might try.

For Mac OS X users, Omniweb and Opera are also choices. Firefox and Mozilla don't follow the Mac UI guidelines. Camino is a browser using the Gecko engine that actually has a normal Mac OS X (Cocoa) interface. I don't even bother with IE for the Mac since it is a Carbon app and hasn't been updated in years. (I never use IE anywhere; it's an accident waiting to happen.)

Omniweb dates back to NeXTSTEP (I wish Apple had left more NeXT stuff in OS X) and works quite well.

Opera is now free and looks and feels the same on a whole bunch of operating systems. It feels native on everything but Mac OS X.

I use Solaris SPARC, SuSE 9.3 x86, Mac OS X, OpenServer, and Windows on a daily basis. My home machines are a Sun U-10, a Mac G4, and a Windows box. My work desktop machine is SuSe 9.3.

I kind of think my use of UNIX goes right along with my feelings about audio equipment. hehe

Oh, I had an HP 9000 at home for  a while, but found HP UX (PHUX) to be horrible. It's only good if you have a lot of HP test equipment, although it does LVM nicely too.)

Yeah, this was OT.

[skrivis]

Not only that, but I just read Frank's design concerns via the URL he posted earlier and they are very close to those of Brian's new Constant Directivity Wave Guide.

Frank you might find what Brian recently posted interesting;

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=23898.msg211613#211613&highlight=#211613

Ummm.

John, I'll send you a PM on this. hehe