[Jose R.]

H everyone

I have now had the speakers for over two weeks and have been able to run them in and also to play around with various settings.
Initial listening was with a single Tact S2150 digital amp together with corner subs and Tact room-correction.  I was impressed with the detail, speed and imaging but felt the speakers were a bit lean in the upper bass-lower mid region.  This was suggested by my measurement curves showing a broad dip between 400-750Hz.
I then moved on to biamping, with the digital amp running the woofers and monoblock 170W valve amps feeding the panels/tweeter.  Initial results were disappointing.  I tried various permutations without effect incl changing pot settings, toe-in etc.  I then ran the woofers in negative acoustic phase and the low end filled in very nicely (confirmed on measurements) but the imaging suffered.
Brian then told me how to bypass the inductor on the woofers and I added a third binding post (neg) to the woofer panel which allowed me to easily change between the standard setup and a bypass setup.  
I programmed some low-pass digital crossovers into the Tact amp andplayed around with various slopes.  I landed up with a LP crossover of about 550 (24dB/octave) and this has worked well.
The overall improvement has been amazing.  I spent a good few hours listening yesterday and am very impressed with the sound.  The speakers image wide, high and deep.  The detail, imaging, speed and focus are the best I have heard in my room.  
It has taken some time but the results I am now getting fully justify the risk I took in buying these speakers unheard
There are still some other changes I want to try - I am getting another digital amp to run the panels/tweeter and this will be interesting.

Some lessons I have learnt:
1) Tilting the speakers downward does not seem to improve the sound
2) The sound is "best" when setting the pots to 12 o'clock or only slightly off the vertical - incresing the pot settings makes the sound a bit harsh
3) Toe-in on axis seems to work best in my setup - sweet spot is smaller but the imaging is superb and the width is amazing.
4) Having speaker grills on my have benefit wrt focus amd imaging but I need to experiement more - thus far I have had the grills off all the time but did a bit of listening last night with them on
5) The Tact measurements have helped a lot to clarify problem areas at the listening position.  Room-correction with corner-based subs has also improved the sound tremendously.

Some other thoughts:
I suspect that the woofer upgrade may be beneficial - I am only using the woofers between 130-550 but they seem to be a bit "loose".
Capacitor upgrade may also make a difference.

I bought the very basic model as I wanted to limit my investment in case they did not work out for me - If this is the basic sound then I can only imagine what a fully upgraded system might sound like.  Brian has designed a superb speaker for a relatively low price although in my setup I have had to do a bit of tweaking.  I have tested a lot of "big-name" speakers in my system incl Avantegarde Duos, and the RM30's overall are the best I have heard here (with a few caveats).

Regards

Jose

[jimmyp58]

Nice summation Jose.

[jermmd]

Nice Jose.  I'm glad you aren't feeling regret.  My RM30's have the megawoofers and the Auricap upgrades and they too are by far the best that I have heard in my house.  I too have the pots set close to 12:00 with the midrange higher than the treble by a small degree.  The only deficiency I can discern in my speakers is in the deep bass.  I have no problems in the upper bass/lower midrange (by ear, not measurement).  And I swear my speakers are continuing to get better even after 6 months.  I'm sure you'll continue to have improved bass with break in and you will likely be playing with the putty/pots again in the future.
Are you still integrating your subwoofers with these speakers?

Joe M.

[Jose R.]

Hi Joe

I am using the corner based subs with digital x-overs between the RM30C's and the subs, x-over set at 130Hz.  Without the subs the sound is not nearly as good.
I specifically went for the C version because I would not be running the RM30's full range.  
Changing the amount of putty does not seem to make much difference in my setup as I am not using the speakers below 130 Hz.  When I referred to upgrading the woofers, I was referring to the 6.5" front woofers to see whether this would result in a tighter upper bass.

Regards

Jose

[jermmd]

Jose,

First of all, what are you doing up at this hour on a Sunday?

I have a RM30C that I use as a center and I really haven't tuned it by ear.  I just used the same setting I used for the RM30M's I have in the front.  I can't honestly comment on the sound and range of this speaker as I only use it with movies and a sub crossed over at 80Hz (I think).  I believe the woofer upgrade from VMPS includes all the woofers including side and passives.

Your Tact really gives you flexibility with these speakers and, along with adjustable pots/putty/speaker tweaks, I have no doubt that you will be able to tune your setup to audio perfection.  I'm not entirely sure that you can ignore putty adjustment though.

Joe M.

Joe M.

[jermmd]

Oops.  I forgot you were in Africa.

Joe M.

[Jose R.]

Hi Joe

It is a hot Sunday afternoon here!

"Your Tact really gives you flexibility with these speakers and, along with adjustable pots/putty/speaker tweaks, I have no doubt that you will be able to tune your setup to audio perfection. I'm not entirely sure that you can ignore putty adjustment though. "

More things to fiddle with and often leads me to stay up until unearthly hours   As you say however, all these adjustments can get one closer to "perfection" whatever prefection is.

Regards

Jose

[ekovalsky]

Jose, thanks for the update.  Glad to hear you are making progress with the Rm30's.

I recently ordered an RCS 2.2X and a pair of S2150 amps and will use them with my RM/X.  I don't have separate subs at the present time, and was planning on using the sub outs on the bass section of the RM/X and the main outs on the mid/treble section.  When the speakers were built, I had Brian add an extra set of binding posts which bypass the passive low pass crossover to the woofers.  I was planning in setting the low pass filter in the RCS to 166hz at 24db/octave.  After reading your post I will need to experiment with moving higher than 166hz.

Best balance in my current setup, with a digital source directly driving a four channel power amp in passive biamp mod, is with the speakers near the front corners of the room.  L-pads are set to about 12:30 midrange and 12:15 treble.

Ultimately I may attempt to move the speakers further out from the corners, which would improve soundstaging.  Then I could add stereo subs in the front corners ...

[Jose R.]

Hi

I recently ordered an RCS 2.2X and a pair of S2150 amps and will use them with my RM/X. I don't have separate subs at the present time, and was planning on using the sub outs on the bass section of the RM/X and the main outs on the mid/treble section. .... I was planning in setting the low pass filter in the RCS to 166hz at 24db/octave. After reading your post I will need to experiment with moving higher than 166hz.
Ultimately I may attempt to move the speakers further out from the corners, which would improve soundstaging. Then I could add stereo subs in the front corners ...

I am not too sure of the driver setup in the RM/X - if you are using the "subs" of the main speaker from the sub output, you can use higher x-overs without too much problem as the drivers are not far apart.
The difficulty I had was the x-over between the 6.5" woofers and panels/tweeter - here I will use x-overs of 500-600 4th order.
With single speakers, one usually has to place them close to front wall & corners for best bass performance but using separate subs gives one the freedom to move the main speakers further out thus optimizing imaging and depth.  With this split, and depending on the characteristics of the subs, one has to play around with x-overs between subs and mains - heavy 15" subs for example probably will not sound good much above 80Hz.  The Tact 10" woofers can however easily go up to 325Hz although I do not like the sound balance with x-overs this high.  IMO, in my room, 160Hz and below works well.
Good luck with the Tact setup and let us know how it goes.

Regards

Jose

[KJ]

I have tested a lot of "big-name" speakers in my system incl Avantegarde Duos, and the RM30's overall are the best I have heard here (with a few caveats).

Could you elaborate a bit more on your perceived caveats?  Curious if they are system dependent, room dependent or just related to personal preferences.

Thanks.

-KJ

[Jose R.]

Could you elaborate a bit more on your perceived caveats?  Curious if they are system dependent, room dependent or just related to personal preferences.

Thanks.

-KJ[/quote]

Hi

The caveats are most likely room/system dependant and also relate to preconceived ideas.  When one has lived with eg certain speakers for a few years, one begins to believe that the way they project music is correct.  A new speaker will behave differently and does not necessarily equate with ones previous experience.  It becomes difficult to know which is more corect or true to the recording.
At this stage, what I would like to improve is the upper bass/lower mids and Brian has suggested upgrading to the Megawoofers.
Also, increasing the panels/tweeter pots or amp volume (in a bi-amp setting) tends to lead to a bit of brightness.  Looking at measurements, these increases seem to be more in the 5Hz+ regions than in the 0.7-4KHz region.  Again this observation is more than likely system and room/setup related.
To put things in perspective, I am referring to a sub $3000 pair of speakers which perform at a level many times this price.  Overall, I am very impressed with them.

Regards

Jose

[James Romeyn]

My three front RM30C's are paired with the '04 Sunfire True Subwoofer Signature EQ & two rear VMPS Bipole Surround SE's.  The $2200 thirteen cubic inch sub has 2700WRMS & an on-board digital EQ for flat in-room response (calibration mic supplied).  I have felt no need for tweaking since spending about 30 minutes sum total installing the sub, calibrating it, & tuning it to the main speakers.  So far, high-pass crossing all five main speakers at 80Hz & low-pass crossing the sub at 65Hz has produced the most-favored results.  Maximum SPL with 5x400WRMS can not be explored without ear protection (3200 cu ft L-shaped room).  Bass output & cutoff seem equal to VMPS's Larger Sub with Megawoofers (in other words, shakes the room boundaries).  If it's on the program, bass fundamentals of the lowest order are heard, with crystal clear attack/decay transients & smooth-as-silk mid-bass you can taste.  I'm hearing the best of almost everything I've sampled in reproduced sound.  It's gotten old & boring trying to find something to improve.              

The sub & main speaker synergy is as close to perfect as I require.  It exceeds my expectations even after sampling the RMX several times (the RMX include no bass mode EQ, just plain unacceptable now that I've sampled it).  Room treatments are the original Corner Tunes by Michael Green with one huge home-made bass corner trap equivalent to the largest cylindrical Tube Trap.  

Has Brian conquered built-in obsolescence?  Will Brian ever supercede the RM30 series of ribbon loudspeakers?  Has Brian shot himself in his proverbial foot?  Because Brian is the wizard he is, he may later build something closer to perfection than the RM30.  Till then I am a satisfied RM30 owner.

[Bob Carver's interesting method for choosing the sub location: The non-calibrated sub is temporarily installed at the primary listener's favorite   seating position.  The subject walks around the room while playing bass tones.  The location in the room producing the greatest quantity of bass will require the least quantity of subwoofer output, & is the ideal siting position for the sub.  Because the acoustic relationship between the sub & listener positions are defined by the room boundaries, they are mirror images of each other.  Swapping the sub & listener position produces the same acoustic result.  The subsequent calibration of the subwoofer will flatten the same room mode that previously magnified the output.  The result is minimum THD & higher undistorted SPL.  The room modes are transformed from performance detractors to performance magnifiers.  Pretty cute, huh?]

[lkosova]

Jim,

I keep getting this sinking feeling that you really like this sub????

I am pleased that you have found audio nirvana......at least for the moment.

Larry

[James Romeyn]

The main reason I like it is probably my room's two huge modes at 30Hz (about 12dB or more) & 80Hz (not much lower in intensity than the former).  Flattening these two modes to virtual inaudibility has been an audio revelation.  

Merry Christmas & Happy Hanuka to all members.  May the coming year bring us a peaceful end to the conflict in Iraq.  My thanks to our military members for enusuring our continued peace & prosperity.