The Alon/Nola sounded good when set up with the manufacturer's instructions. But they really started to shine once I eliminated the passive crossover boxes and the ancient Dahlquish active crossover. Again, a case of a great speaker held back by electronics. My pair (bought used at 25% current MSRP) is the version 2. Subsequently there have been revisions to 2A, 3, and now 4. Each time there are changes to the crossover, i.e. replacement of coils and caps and with version 3 the additional of an anti-resonant platform for the passive crossover boxes. Price for each upgrade has ranged from $1000-4000. Version 4 introduced new midrange drivers at a cost of $8000, including a jig to modify the cabinet to fit them. I am not at all certain they are a true upgrade, but rather a new source which may be less expensive or easier to obtain. Needless to say keeping the speakers up to date would have cost me a fortune; money was much better spent on upgrades to my TacT gear and more channels of amplification! HP on the other hand gets every upgrade that becomes available, but of course he probably isn't paying for them out of pocket.
MikeyMouse,
I understand about trying something new. But you have transducers that are true gems. The electronics (DAX and passive boxes) are outdated. I wish you could here what the Divas could do with a DSP tri-amp setup, using steep crossovers with a dedicated amp on each driver and perhaps most importantly proper time alignment. Room correction would be a freebie and would certainly be beneficial in the low frequencies, although properly set up dipoles require much less correction than other types. Although the Divas have strong deep bass, they do benefit from a subwoofer IF AND ONLY IF the bottom two octaves are filtered from the full range signal thus freeing the Diva bass panel from large excursions. I formerly had a pair of Muse18 subs with personality cards designed for the Divas, before more sophisticated DSP options were available.
In case your primary audio source is redbook, a TacT RCS 2.2X with three S2150 would be ideal, each amp could be safely connected directly to the speaker (bypassing the passive boxes and eliminating the DAX). The Lyngdorf TDAI2200, reviewed in the current TAS, has the same amplifier design as the TacT amps just different DSP to not infringe on Boz's patents. With a digital signal these amps approach the quality of the best analog designs. With fairly inexpensive modification, they perform with the very best -- while also offering room correction, crossovers, time alignment, and cool operation.
Although I have no experience with it, the DEQX with three amps of your choosing may be great too.
DU,
Hope you're doing well! Lots of changes since your visit, I now have four fully modded TacT amps doing all the work thanks to an amazing 1MB freeware download from France. The RCS 2.2X is just a digital signal hub and tone generator. I've also moved the speakers to a short wall arrangement and optimized placement of the room treatments. No changes are planned at this point as I'm content