[flintstone]

The Salk ribbon, is a tweeter ribbon.... They use a cone for midrange reproduction. I think some of you guys are a little confused regarding imaging 


Dave

[PMAT]

A large sweet spot is what I want. The aesthetics of the Salks is what I want. The slim elegance of Songtower type cabinets is a plus. The HT3 and the RM-40's are way too expensive anyway. I've heard 3 different VMPS monsters and own one. I have never heard a Salk product. I got sold in my head that ribbons were better but mine are hard to live with. Newer versions have waveguides which were probably necessary to fix problems like mine. I sold my brain on the Songtower design, then up popped the ribbon again, that's all. I guess I should just listen to a pair in my area, but expectations get so high that what you hear on the first visit isn't what you hear after living with them. For those of you helping me with my psychosis ,I guess I should share that my Home Theater system is Nautilus metal domes, I have Linaeum two-ways, I have Linaeum dipoles,I have concentric fabric domes in a two way, and I had a large pair of AR's that had a foam dome in MTM that did some great things.

[ctviggen]

The Salk ribbon, is a tweeter ribbon.... They use a cone for midrange reproduction. I think some of you guys are a little confused regarding imaging 


Dave

Why would you say that?  There are several songs I use for imaging.  I close my eyes and imagine where the singers or instruments are.  If I can tell where they are (or their positions are clearer in space) with one item (say, speakers) than with another item, the former has better imaging.  There's not a lot to confuse one with imaging. 

[flintstone]

The Salk ribbon, is a tweeter ribbon.... They use a cone for midrange reproduction. I think some of you guys are a little confused regarding imaging 


Dave

Why would you say that?  There are several songs I use for imaging.  I close my eyes and imagine where the singers or instruments are.  If I can tell where they are (or their positions are clearer in space) with one item (say, speakers) than with another item, the former has better imaging.  There's not a lot to confuse one with imaging. 

The ribbon tweeter in the Salk speakers has very little to do with imaging, except when it's playing it's small part....that was my point. The larger part of music, is reproduced by the other drivers....non-ribbon.

Apples to oranges.....the VMPS uses planer midrange.

I wasn't trying to state which speaker images better (I don't know that)....just that it had nothing much to do with ribbons (at least in one the speakers in question)


Dave

[Nuance]

I think you have to 'blame' /'Thank'    Nuance for that development. I believe after all the time spent on his speakerquest with funkmonkey, and Craigsub, he had pretty well settled on the original Songtowers, but wanted that little bit more. Something a little different. He spoke to Jim and Dennis regarding the swap, and they came up with the ST RT. I'm sure he'll jump in if I have it wrong. I think he's addressed what he felt were the sonic differences in prior posts.

  Yeah, I guess I am to blame.  I contacted Dennis and Jim about a ribbon ST right at the time they were already entertaining the idea of it.  I guess mine were the first, and they are amazing to these ears. 

My comparison (sort of) can be found in my review of the SongTower RT's found at the link below.
 
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=59166.0

The SongTower RT's image very well in my opinion. 

[R Swerdlow]

To answer the original question, I think we shouldn't confuse the issue by discussing speakers that don't have the LCY ribbon tweets.  For Salk, the SongTower RT, HT2, and V3 all have that same LCY ribbon.  The HT1, HT3, and QW have the G2 tweeter.  While they are very good speakers, the G2 tweeter is quite different from the LCY and they may have different dispersion qualities that may significantly affect imaging.

I own a pair of SongTowers with the standard Hiquphon OW2 dome tweeters, and I have heard a single version of the SongTower with the LCY ribbon.  It was the prototype that Dennis Murphy used while designing the crossover with the LCY tweeter.  Because it was only one speaker and not a pair, I can't compare the imaging of these two speakers.  But I can compare the other sound qualities of these two speakers that were apparent while listening to single copies of each.

I thought the ribbon tweeter SongTower sounded somewhat cleaner or less noisy than the dome tweeter SongTower.  I only heard this on quieter music that featured a single singer or unamplified musical instrument like a piano.  Louder music masked this difference.  Overall this difference was, in my opinion, subtle.  I am 59 years old and have ears typical of men of that age.  Your high frequency hearing may differ.

Now about imaging.  First of all, much of the excellent imaging of the SongTower comes from the fact that the 5½" SEAS midwoofer is crossed over to the tweeter at about 2500 Hz.  This crossover frequency is similar (if not identical?) for both versions of the SongTower.  At this range, the midwoofer's off-axis dispersion is excellent.  The response measured 60° off-axis at 2000 to 2500 Hz is less than 3 dB lower than the on-axis response.  This is much better than most other speakers I have known.

If a primary tone is somewhere in the midrange, say about 500 Hz, the 1st harmonic overtone is double that at 1000 Hz, and the second is at 2000 Hz.  All these are in the range of the midwoofer, not the tweeter.  For that primary tone at 500 Hz, the tweeter only starts contributing with the 3rd order harmonic at 4000 Hz.  The OW2 dome tweeter begins to get narrower dispersion only above 10 kHz.  In this range, we are only hearing harmonic overtones well above the primary music tones.  For the LCY ribbon tweet, I'm not sure at what frequency range it begins to loose off axis performance.  I do know that it is said to perform better at this than most other ribbon tweeters (hence my comment above about limiting this discussion to speakers with the same ribbon tweeter).

So my main point is that while the dispersion of a tweeter is important, the dispersion of the midwoofer is more important for good imaging.  I think that both versions of the SongTower will image very well because that is how Dennis intended the midwoofers to behave below the crossover point.

The choice between the OW2 dome or the LCY ribbon tweeter is yours to make.  I think you should base that on your preferences between very clean (for the OW2) or ultraclean (LCY) sounding tweeters, and their respective prices.  I would worry less about differences in imaging, and I would ignore any previous experiences with poor dispersion of other ribbon tweeters.

[PMAT]

Thank you for your clear assessment and opinion Mr Swerdlow. Very helpful.

[doug s.]

pmat, did you get waveguides for your rm1's?  do you toe them in so they bisect in front of the listening position?  these two things will get you good imaging, w/o having your head in a vice, imo, based upon my listening impressions of the rm40's, both with & w/o waveguides.  (w/or w/o waveguides, they should be toed in so the angle bisects in front of the listening position, imo.)

i used to own coincident victory's which have ribbon tweets; the imaging was about as good as it gets, & no head-in-vice effects.  i own a pair of piega p5 ltd mkll's w/coax mir-tweet ribbons - same thing:  superb imaging, no head-in-vice effects...  (but, i am presently listening to oris horns...     )

doug s.

[PMAT]

Yeah Doug, I've done every set-up recommendation from Vmps and moved them all over the place. There are no waveguides for RM-1's and I won't ever buy another VMPS product, so I'm looking at the Salks for a variety of good reasons. I think the Songtowers fit the bill, we shall see.

[doug s.]

Yeah Doug, I've done every set-up recommendation from Vmps and moved them all over the place. There are no waveguides for RM-1's and I won't ever buy another VMPS product, so I'm looking at the Salks for a variety of good reasons. I think the Songtowers fit the bill, we shall see.

i have never heard the songtowers, but from what everyone says, i suspect they are the real deal.  if i were buying 'em, i would definitely go for the ribbon iteration over the dome iteration; while i like dome tweets, i like ribbons more...  but, i would query jim salk about his v3's and qw's first - they are a bit more $$$ than the s-t ribbons, but not that much more...  he would steer you in the right direction, based upon your room, equipment, musical tastes, etc...

doug s.

[fredgarvin]

It occurs to me that although the op used the term 'imaging', I believe he is really talking about 'dispersion'. The planar midrange of his RM1's have the limited dispersion (especially vertically)characteristic of planars. This is what he is hearing imo, not the ribbon tweeters.

[AliG]

Boomy bass from the Salks??
Everyone that came to my room listening to the HT3 told me that I have one of the most punchy and dynamic bass they have ever heard, that included guys who owns  $50k JMlab Nova Utopia, $20k Egglestonworks Andrea II, Von Schweikert VR-4SR MKII, Usher BE-20.

My experience told me that when you compare speakers, it is very important to bear in mind that different speakers need different room/placement to sound at their best. This is exactly the reason why people should not based their judgement purely on what they were hearing during audio shows like RMAF. If you find boomy bass, then it's either the room is too small, or your speakers are placed too close to the wall, or you are not sitting at the right location, or you need some extensive room treatment, or the electronics you used weren't good match with the speakers. And don't forget that 'boomy bass' will smear the midrange and top end which means you'll hear less details and less precise imaging, hence your statement that the RM40 bested the HT3 in every other aspect. Because the 'bass' will determine what you hear in "every other category'.

This is not a knock on the VPMS RM40 speakers, from your writing, I'm sure that the RM40 sounded better to you as they are currently being setup. Most people that I know do not have the time and patience to continue to tweak their system in order to improve the sound. Most people just want to buy a complete set gears, have them set up quickly and expect them to sound great the first time. There is nothing wrong with this approach. What I am saying is, if you care to take the time to 'optimize' the HT3 setup, you may well end up with the opposite conclusion. But I can also understand if you decide to 'throw' away the HT3 based on what you have heard so far. I mean, if you are already happy with RM40, why cause more stress for yourself by embarking on endless comparisons between speakers.

So far, I think the Salks beat the RM40s in low bass, but the bass is boomy, so I'm not sure that's a plus.  Otherwise, I think the RM40s best the Salks in every other category.  I think the bass is so boomy on the Salks as to be unlistenable; however, I haven't been able to spend any time positioning these speakers, and I think they may take different positioning than the RM40s, but I just put the Salks in the RM40's spots.