[poseidonsvoice]

I thought I would post my impressions of my visit with Denny (Daygloworange) who was gracious enough to entertain me with his cool system out here in Toronto. Lucky for me, Toronto is only 4 hours away from my home in Cleveland.  I was here to visit family friends who live only 10 minutes away from Denny. As such, the visit was fun and easily commutable.

Initially we had planned to audition the new OB-7's he had posted here on AC. Trust me, the pictures don't do them justice! However, there was a slight technical snag so the OB-5's were set up instead. I just wanted to hear Danny R's work so I really didn't mind at all.

Denny's system is set up in almost a warehouse style building, plenty of room for the OB-5's to breath, with an ATI 1202 amplifier, Adcom preamplifier and NAD 3cd changer. Subwoofer duties were taken care of by a the passive radiator subwoofer design of Danny R's as well. I did most of my auditioning with the subwoofer off.

The most recent system I had in mind were John K's Nao II dipoles which is a hybrid active/passive design. An excellent speaker no doubt but requires a little extra financial outlay due to the active design.

The OB-5 with Denny's equipment is a system with transparency in spades even with moderate electronics. I will tell you all that the ATI amplifier is no slouch, it is a very refined piece of equipment. For a $695 amplifier it eclipses many mega $$$ amps I've heard.

Dynamic attacks have a sudden start and stop quality with none of the ringing you hear in lesser designs. That $43 BG planar magnetic tweeter is a real shocker. It sounds as detailed as some of those $200-$400 domes out there but have a 'snap' that is hard to describe. We listened at moderately loud levels about 90 dB at 10 feet away with 100dB peaks.

Let's start from the top. The tweeter is sweet, detailed, extended, incredibly dynamic and NOT forward. It casts a 'soundscape' more than anything else. I think Denny's open setup here is really advantageous. You can easily make out the distance between the vocalist and the microphone as well as any to and fro movements between the vocalist and the microphone. Soundstaging cues, when present are shocking. When its not present, you're dissappointed that the recording engineer didn't take the extra effort to set it up that way!

The midrange is very open, however, voices don't always sound BIG or small. There is variation and dynamic contrasts that is more easily heard with this system.  I attribute a lot of the cleanliness in the midband to the crossover and the dipole arrangement. Simply said, when you go dipole, its hard to go back. The OB-5's here do not dissappoint.

The bass was clean and tight. Given the fact that the room is very large, there was essentially no boominess. Its not the best bass I've heard, and not the most textured,  however, I am of the sealed enclosure/open baffle camp. The cleanest bass I've heard are still from the Nao II dipoles. The Nao II's bass was a bit more agile and more cleanly delineated the harmonics of a bass note. Given the fact that the OB-7's have the new M130X woofers for the bottom end, I'm sure it will be a closer race. Again I would have to audition both to be sure. If you've heard transmission lines and open baffle bass you'll know what I mean. Its difficult to describe and more easily heard!

Denny and I listen to a lot of similar musical genres so it made the auditioning much easier. There were times when we truly forgot that we were listening to speakers especially with great recordings. The OB-5's would make a supreme recording engineers tool. However, they are also difficult to use since they are quite musical as well. You don't want to dissect the music, you just wanna sit back, drink brew and listen with the OB-5's. But make no mistake, they are pretty damn neutral.

Just for the record we listened to the NY Rave CD (awesome!), GRP All Star Big Band, the Dead Man's Walking Soundtrack, Branford Marsalis' 'Trio Jeepy' and Joan Baez 'Play Me Backwards' amongst others.

Denny is a true gentleman and makes fabulous enclosures. I know who I will be ordering from when I'm ready...

Best,
Anand.

[Danny Richie]

Thanks for posting your feedback. I really appreciate it.

[Daygloworange]

Anand,

Thanks for posting your thoughts. I really enjoyed the music collection you brought by. Not a bad way to kill 4 or 5 hours.  

You'll have to bring by the prototype electronics that you've built, and give them a test drive through the speakers. Next time we'll run my Bolder SB 3 as a source, sans pre-amp. The resolution and dynamics are quite a bit clearer than the NAD/Adcom setup.

Cheers

[miklorsmith]

Nice writeup!   

[Daygloworange]

We also had another review from an AC member (Laserman)who came by to listen to the OB 5's earlier this year, and took the time to write about his visit as well. I've copied his post from the OB 5 and 7 reviews thread, and posted it here.

First off, I am a non-DIYer, and admire all you that have the skills and tools to be able to build your own speakers and electronics.   



This weekend my wife and I had the opportunity to visit with Daygloworange (Denny) to audition the OB-5’s he built at his workshop.  The workshop is approximately 50’ x 50’ with 16’ ceilings, an enclosed office area housed within this space, plus assorted shelves, wood, table saws, etc.  IOW, not ideal conditions but not a barren echo chamber either.  Dayglow showed us some of his works, which were absolutely beautiful.  Dayglow is the real deal, a master journeyperson cabinetmaker with a strong interest in audio reproduction.  That is exactly the type of person you want building your speakers if you are all thumbs like me.

Dayglow’s OB-5’s were finished in a black satin stain with slightly curved sides on the bottom cabinet and a curved front baffle.  They looked very stylish and smacked of custom designer quality.  Even though they are tall and deep speakers, the relatively small width and lack of a top, back and sides for the OB MTM area made them WAF friendly.   

As passionate as Danny Richie is in designing great sounding speakers, Dayglow is just as passionate about the cabinets he makes to encapsulate the design.

Okay, so you want to know my thoughts on how they sounded?  There has been a lot written about the sound of the OB design by Danny, Dayglow and others and I won’t repeat it all here but simply state I totally agree with their assessments.   Due of the listening environment of the workshop, we placed the speakers about 7’ apart and sat in a near field configuration ranging from 8’ to 11’.  (I listen to mostly jazz but did have some pop and progressive rock to see how they would sound.) When they were fired up the first thing we noticed was the very wide and deep 3-D sound stage.   (I currently own a pair of Paradox-3s w/ Focal tweeter)  This was the first time I had ever listened to a Neo 3 tweeter and I was impressed how airy and smooth they sounded in the upper frequencies.  The space between instruments became very apparent due to how much blackness developed between them.   I stood up, slouched down and moved side-to-side in my chair to see how big the sweet spot was, and it is very large.  These speakers will disappear as a focal sound point in the listening experience.  My wife used the word transparent to describe them. 

We listened to vocal tracks by Seal, Porcupine Tree, Michael Buble, Lara Fabian, Diana Krall, and Patricia Barber.  These vocal tracks were reproduced flawlessly.  Patricia Barber’s cds have a tendency to bring out the best and worst in a system and in this case it was all positive.  We turned up the volume and they did get very loud.  The only limiting factor in how these speakers ultimately will sound in your listening environment is the amp, preamp, source unit, and room treatment.

It appears Danny’s biggest competitor currently is himself and his design imagination (LS 6 & 9, O-3, etc.)  He is providing many options to consumers through GR Research and his work with other companies 

Danny Richie has developed another fantastic design that Dayglow implemented beautifully.  So if there are any other non-DIYers out there looking for a reasonably priced speaker that will outclass some of the major players, please give Dayglow’s offering serious consideration.  And for you DIYers, I am in awe with how you do what you do.

Laserman

Cheers