[virtue]

Danny Burns at DBA audio in England, where factories for making F1 cars are more common than Burger King, sent me some amazing pics today and I urge him to post more here:



He also has a new top-secret headphone accessory that sounds AMAZING.   He can spill the beans if and when he likes.

[dba]

Just some teasers for now people, all should ( ) be ready to ship by next weekend.

We have 9x Melissa tops, all but one are single sided, mounted on marine-ply and they've all endured our lengthy lacquering process....the reason for the poor res pics, i've not completed micro-polishing any of them yet, some late nights i feel this week!

One really quite special top has Textreme weave on both sides, checker on one side and diamond on the other;

[dba]

Heavy vs Fine....600gram vs 120gram, simple strength vs intricate detailing....be careful though, many people have hit their noses on the surface when taking a closer look!





*Please note these need micro-polishing and waxing to achieve the final glass-like finish...

[dba]

Now for something a little more exciting, well, it is Christmas after-all!!!

We currently have a project that uses layering of carbon circles to achieve radial strength, can't say who the client is but it'll be interesting in 2012...anyhow, i thought they'd also look good as a ONE or TWO (or possibly THREE ) jacket, to me its an homage to Christmas as the jackets look like they have baubles in them






Each of the 7 are unique, ones very unique as it spun off the machine polisher today and lost a couple of its corners - i'll see if i can revive that one for a very special price





*Please note these need micro-polishing and waxing to achieve the final glass-like finish...these WILL pop by the end of this week

P.S. if you have any Grado 'i' headphones (60i - 425i) then we have something very special, the top picture shows some doughnuts top right - soon to go to print with these, Grado's sound great but with these they sound far better, its all about the ease of flow 

[Rclark]

 In the next few months after my system is well complete, I will probably hit you up for some carbon fiber on my Two.2. As it is a keeper, it deserves a shell like that.

 However, I will want mine knobless with a built in clip light led. 

 Please say you will be around making parts for the dac and the Three as well 

[virtue]

We're gonna keep trying until the last nickel is gone.  If you keep buying my Sensations, the may be a while, we'll see.

The subtext to all of this is that I've raised the bar and haven't been able to clear it yet.  Virtue is a money losing operation and until we have products that can be built flawlessly in large numbers and sold internationally, the only way to stay alive would be to charge a fortune.  Others do that; I'm not going to.  It's go big or go home.

Every time an engineer comes up short -- I'm forced to think more creatively and dig deeper, and trust me, that's going on right now.  But it will still be a few months before I know ANYTHING at this point.  Even negotiations over the M2 are stalled and frankly, I just don't think my OEM wants to do it badly enough.  They're either going to be eager or we'll have built our last CD-player for a long time.  We'll see. 

Fortunately, with the right speakers, Sensation is hard to beat -- I'm listening right now.  A great listen at a fair price.   

Enjoy the sweet tunes and the turning of the leaves.  RCLARK, you're awesome.

[OzarkTom]

Another great loudspeaker is being released this week by Anthony Gallo Acoustics. These Classico II's should really sing with the small Virtue One's and Two's. These will be a major giant killer with the Virtue amps since they do not use any crossovers. Crossoverless speakers are so quick and fast and soundstage is huge. Vocals are always the best on crossoverless speakers. These Classico II's will match up with the Virtue amps perfectly.

Check these specs out. Retail is $1295 a pair.
http://www.roundsound.com/classico-cl-2-specs.html

[tabrink]

Tom,
Those Classico II's are gorgeous. 
Been keeping an eye  on the  the Vapor Breeze  but these Anthony Gallo speakers are sweet.
Like the spec on the Breeze slightly better.
With Virtue products supplying the juice either would be spectacular!
 

[sharpsuxx]

I have heard the Breeze I was quite impressed.  These look interesting in the same price range.

[OzarkTom]

Tom,
Those Classico II's are gorgeous. 
Been keeping an eye  on the  the Vapor Breeze  but these Anthony Gallo speakers are sweet.
Like the spec on the Breeze slightly better.
With Virtue products supplying the juice either would be spectacular!
 

I have a pair of the Classico II's coming in next week, I will let you know how they sound. Once you hear vocals on a speaker with no crossover, you will never want anything else.

[srb]

I wasn't going to post a speaker question because this was a topic about DBA Carbon covers for the Virtue amps, but it seems this is now become a speaker topic, so .....
 
How does the high frequency transducer in the Gallo Classico that can only play down to 3KHz, work without any crossover whatsoever, not even a single high-pass capacitor?
 
Steve
 
 

[OzarkTom]

Gallo uses a high pass filter on the Classico !'s with the dome tweeter, but nothing on the woofer-midrange. The other Classico's and Stradas have nothing. Anthony Gallo has worked on this same CDT tweeter design since the early 80's, so I guess he should have it perfected by now. I believe it is in at least the seventh or eighth mod.

More and more companies are bringing the no-crossover design out now. Totem has brought out the new Element series, but the small monitors are $6K. That is a little rich for my blood.

[srb]

More and more companies are bringing the no-crossover design out now. Totem has brought out the new Element series, but the small monitors are $6K. That is a little rich for my blood.

The Totem Element series have no crossover parts in the woofer section, but they all have some type of a crossover for the tweeter section.  Having no low pass filter on woofers is nothing new.  Reference 3A has been doing this for years, having the woofer roll off naturally with only a single capacitor as a high pass filter for the tweeter.
 
My question still stands -  how is Gallo able to have no crossover parts in the tweeter section?
 
Steve

[OzarkTom]

The Totem Element series have no crossover parts in the woofer section, but they all have some type of a crossover for the tweeter section.  Having no low pass filter on woofers is nothing new.  Reference 3A has been doing this for years, having the woofer roll off naturally with only a single capacitor as a high pass filter for the tweeter.
 
My question still stands -  how is Gallo able to have no crossover parts in the tweeter section?
 
Steve

Anthony Gallo is the one to ask that question, I am not a speaker designer.

[mamba315]

From the Strada review on 6moons:

"All told, the Strada is the forthcoming Reference 3.5 without its sidefiring 10-inch woofer. And without the ultra expensive TRT Stealth bypass cap which gets 'downgraded' to a still very expensive TRT Dynamic. These caps aren't crossover caps but simply bypass the paralleled DC-blocking capacitors which protect both the CDT's matching transformer and the electronics driven it during clipping. "With the mechanical and electrical OPT® refinements, these speaker designs became so tautly tuned that every little thing was audible to matter very much indeed. This is a tiny .47uF bypass capacitor but its quality was instrumental. Once I'd heard the TRT part, I couldn't not use it, expense be damned."

What that means I'm not sure, but it seems clear that there is something between the binding posts and drivers besides wire.

[RDavidson]

Been lurking around the threads a little bit. Gonna get Old Skool on you guys. EPI 100's. Acoustic suspension, utilizing an 8in woofer and a 1" (I believe) Inverted Air Spring tweeter (first inverted dome ever). Woofer runs full range. Just a capacitor used in the signal path to the tweeter. Designed by Winslow Burhoe back in 1967 and were produced in 3-4 different versions from then and into the late 70's / early 80's. Might not be the first speaker with this type of design, not really sure. However, I believe Winslow pioneered the idea of engineering woofers and tweeters as a system meant to work together in order to minimize the crossover as much as possible. This approach is more complicated than "traditional" speaker building techniques. Before his designs, most speaker manufacturers just produced woofers & tweeters, then tuned them via the crossover and box design.....which is still very common practice today. Anyway, they still sound absolutely wonderful today. Maybe not the last word in all things audiophile, but they are musical, very quick and dynamic, and just plain fun. You can roll caps in these things if you want to. Very easy tweak. For the prices these can be had for on Ebay these days, they are an absolute steal. Running 1 semi-original pair (1st gen woofers with 2nd gen tweeters) in my living room system and have a second set of parts (2nd gen woofers and 1st gen tweeters) to build a pair from scratch with nice wood etc. etc.. The originals are kinda funky, especially in the old vinyl wrap, but don't let their looks scare you. They're awesome.