[ekovalsky]

Anyone ever thought of building a line array with Manger drivers, supplemented by some fast woofers like the Revelators below 200hz or so?

The 200-20khz range of these drivers should prevent any comb filter effects, and their impulse response is incomparable.

While the drivers are not exactly cheap, the cost is not much higher than one good mid/woofer cone plus one good ribbon tweeter....

[JoshK]

how would they prevent comb filtering with the center to center spacing being quite large? No offense but I think you got the comb filtering vs. freq backwards. The higher the more comb filtering.

[Rob Babcock]

Yes, if I understand the mechanics of line arrays (albeit to a limited degree ) I believe that the smaller the diameter of the driver, or rather the distance between the center of a driver and the one adjacent to it, the less comb filtering you get.  Or rather you'll move the frequency range of the interference up higher.

[ekovalsky]

A Momentary Lapse of Reason.  It would have to be used as a point source.  I've been reading about the Manger and it is quite interesting, definitely something I'd like to hear sometime...

http://www.e-speakers.com/products/manger-loudspeakers.html

I bet these would work very well with separate subs... Nice DIY instructions for them too.

[JoshK]

everything I have read about them suggests they sound like tar, not to diss too bad but given the sources I wouldn't go further myself.

[ekovalsky]

everything I have read about them suggests they sound like tar, not to diss too bad but given the sources I wouldn't go further myself.

Yeah, it may be an example of disassociation between physics and theoretical performance and perceived sound quality.  The measurements here are most impressive.  Particularly if a DSP solution is used to compensate for the roll off at very high frequencies.

I was thinking they acted as planar radiators and thus combing would not be an issue, but particularly at high frequencies they are very much a point source so combing would most definitely apply.

[JoshK]

if you get a chance to hear them and I am wrong, let me know, I'd love to know different.

[ekovalsky]

This Manger/DEQX offering from Overkill Audio is supposedly very good sounding:

http://www.overkillaudio.com/

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/overkill/encore.html

...their impulse response is incomparable.

It certainly looks to be an amazing system.  Too bad it costs $75k !

The Manger drivers are not cheap but at $700ea retail they are not the cause of the astronomical price.  The DEQX and Benchmark DACs add about another $7k retail, and the woofers probably cost less than $1k for the pair.  The Manger heads and transmission line bass cabinets certainly would be very expensive to build, but $75k... come on!

The Encores would probably work great with my TacT gear, as the RCS 2.2X and a pair of S2150 amps would replace the DEQX, four Benchmark DACs, and four channel Belles amp.  

I'd definitely like to hear these speakers.  There doesn't seem to be any dealer network established yet, and I have a feeling there have been very few if any pairs actually sold.

I would not be surprised at all if the show/review pair is the only one in existence.  After getting all excited about the TacT LS1, I was bummed to find exactly one pair was made and there were no plans to produce any more!  I may get them yet if the owner, the TacT UK distributor, ever decides to part with them.

[Danny Richie]

I am not sure what to think of the Manger drivers.

I have had several friends build something with them and have heard them several times never to be impressed. Everyone I know that had them do not have them now.

They are also very sensitive to amplification that will work well with them.

Still some people love them.

[Florian]

I once read a review in the "Audiophile" Magazine in germany. They loved them a lot, but then again they gave the BOSE Lifestyle 38 a 5 Star for quality.  

I think that this is one of those speakers you just have to match right or the dont bloom.

-Flo

[Occam]

I once read a review in the "Audiophile" Magazine in germany. They loved them a lot, but then again they gave the BOSE Lifestyle 38 a 5 Star for quality.  

Well..... thats conclusive. I don't put much stock in reviews, one way or another, unless I've callibrated my own experience with that of the reviewer. How well does a reviewers comments match up with my own experience with the same prdduct. Until I've done that, I don't see how I can judge their comments on a product I've not heard.

I've not heard the OverKill implementation of the Manger/Deqx system, but I have heard comments from 2 I trust who heard them at CES. One, the president of my local audionerd club, who I've been calibrationg against for 12+ years, said ' it was the best system he had ever heard that he could practically fit in his room'. The second is a real reviewer for both print and net who simply said it was 'kickass'

Overkill's choice of drivers and crossover frequencies could truly take advantage of the potential the the DEQX has to offer.

[denverdoc]

Last year at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, I heard the Mangers in what well may have been the Overkill system--after 30 or so auditioning in a day, things become a bit blurred.

One thing that was not forgotten, is the absolute astonishing amount of detail rendered in a musically natural way this driver was capable of. Maybe twice in my life reproduced music has literally brought tears to my eyes, this was one of them--hearing Jeff Buckley's rendition of Halliluyah (or however its spelled).  The natural acoustic decay of some bits and pieces in this song was an absolute revelation as I had admired Jeff's work before, but had never fully appreciated the totality of his craftsmanship.

There was a log book to record comments in, and I well remember writing something to the effect that this was it, the creme de la creme--and believe me with systems like the big Dali Megalines, Grand Utopias, Avalons, etc there under display, there was plenty of creme.

I sort of forgot the experience until seeing the Overkill review at 6 Moons and had i known of the DIY acailability of the driver, might very well have gone down this path v. the dipolar ribbon/mf array. Methinks they would be too pricey to do a full top to bottom array, but are certainly on my short list of next projects--an Orion type project using this driver and some dipolar bottom fill,  all DEQX driven as one unit can switch between 4 fully optimized systems on the fly (if you can assemble the relays).

[ekovalsky]

Last year at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, I heard the Mangers in what well may have been the Overkill system--after 30 or so auditioning in a day, things become a bit blurred.

One thing that was not forgotten, is the absolute astonishing amount of detail rendered in a musically natural way this driver was capable of. Maybe twice in my life reproduced music has literally brought tears to my eyes, this was one of them--hearing Jeff Buckley's rendition of Halliluyah (or however its spelled).  The natural  ...

Denverdoc, is this what you saw  ???



It is the Ovation model which is the oldest and lowest end of the three Overkill systems.   Apparently its performance far trails the two newer models -- the top of the line Encore (featured in the 6moons review) and the Prey (the head of the Encore mounted on a stand) coupled with the Predator transmission line subwoofer(s).

These systems are very expensive -- and this is not helped by the current USD exchange rates.  But they represent a better value than a lot of other ultra expensive speakers.   Derek Wilson really didn't spare any expensive in building these.  The bass uses a very high end woofer with elaborate transmission line loading in an extremely heavy enclosure built with lamination and finished to the highest grade.  And, on the Prey and Encore models, the Manger is built into a highly engineered enclosure which lets a single driver perform optimally with a higher than rated sensitivity.  Its egg shape seemed quite odd at first but the physics behind it is very sound.  The Manger models at http://www.e-speakers.com need three drivers to work optimally with the ZeroBox design, and the two side drivers add nothing to sensitivity.

I also really like Derek's approach of foregoing the usual passive crossovers for a biamped DEQX-based system.   It doesn't hurt than gain for the Manger and woofer sections is within 1dB.  Compare that to the Dali Megaline, for instance, where the difference in sensitivity between the line of woofers and the true ribbon is over 9dB -- meaning the signal to the woofers must be attenuated by that amount (for a digital system) or extra gain must be provided in the line level crossover for the ribbons (for an analog system) to balance SPL of the woofers with the ribbons.  In the Megalines the implementation is the latter, meaning there an extra gain stage inserted into the signal path for the ribbons.  In my VMPS speakers I have the opposite problem, the woofers are much less sensitive than the planar line  -- the TacT is performing a lot of attenuation on the planar drivers to match sensitivity to the bass section.

Hopefully I'll get to hear one of these Overkill systems sometime this year.  Few if any are currently in the USA and there is still no dealer network.  If Overkill's policy of no discounting is firm, he will probably have a very hard time signing dealers up.

[denverdoc]

Eko,

Yup, thems it. Though I am glad that i didn't have to ID them out of a line-up   as memory is a fickle thing, but do remember the star shaped driver, thinking this really is the star of the show in some ways. Now for throwing an unbelieveably wide and deep yet super detailed image the Megalines won that hands down, and the best value of the show where I had to really stop myself from pulling out the checkbook was Klaus's Odyssey room. That he had two of my favorite all time albums in a very small collection of vinyl didn't hurt either--it was a nice place just to go and listen to some tunes sounding very musical. Usher speakers were a close runner-up for overall value. But I digress........

 Now according to 6 Moons a big chunk of the magic of the Overkill has to do with all the effort to prevent back wave reflections from muddying up that very coherent driver --hence i thought why take the trouble to get a practical equivalent in material sciences degree and just go dipole  

Thats my next project and in some ways even more interested in it than the current project. Well come out to RMAF next year and have a listen, if you can't find a dealer in the meantime. Was tons of fun and this years event will be bigger still as CEDIA is in Denver the following week.
John