[AJinFLA]

Lol

Hanging chads
Btw, what's that little amp in your avatar?

[Bob in St. Louis]

Well, I'm not going to debate polls with a survey data professional. You've got me there. But as I've mentioned, the Circle I placed it in was skewing it to that Circles benefit. Since it was all for fun, I thought I'd give it a nudge the other way. No harm, no foul. I even placed the evil grin smiley in my "Unite" thread, signifying the mischievousness of my intentions.

Oh well. I thought it would be fun.

Bob

EDIT: "Hanging chads".... 
I've wondered about that little amp too.

[roscoeiii]

No worries. And IMHO, the best thing about the poll and the thread is that it will get people thinking and talking about the merits and drawbacks of different designs.

Recently rethought my system as a result of hearing some waveguide speakers from Vapor right there in St Louis (I highly recommend checking their whole line of speakers out), and ended up with a pair of waveguide speakers in my system, which I am immensely enjoying (SP Tech Minis, a two-way with the crossover @ 800Hz!).

Now starting to rethink the subs (REL has my attention for sure...)

[Bob in St. Louis]

That Vapor fella lives right down the street from me. 

[Letitroll98]

That Vapor fella lives right down the street from me. 

I wonder if there are hotbeds of high end audio in some neighborhoods, especially in our keep up with the Jones' world.  Places where, say, a mythical Robert under the Arch has a killer setup and then his buddies decide they need one as good, soon you end up with five posters on AC from that one neighborhood.  I know I have friends and family wanting to upgrade their systems after hearing mine, I wonder how far it might go.

[roscoeiii]

That Vapor fella lives right down the street from me. 

Nice. Check out that Aurora waveguide if you get a chance. Loved it.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Letitroll - I'm actually collecting audiophiles. There are quite a few here in St. Louis.
We've accumulated a very knowledgeable collection of them.
And to answer your question about "Who came first".....Robert under the Arch, or Vapor, the answer would be Vapor. Although by name, it's fairly new, he's been into audio longer than I. ANd as much as it pains me to admit it, he's much more knowledgeable than I. 

Roscoeii - Suffice it to say that I've heard the unit. More than likely, I've heard it before a great majority of the public has heard it. It was so new, I think the glue was still wet.   
But of course I think my speakers sound better than his.
Did I mention mine are OB and his aren't? 

Bob

[roscoeiii]

 

[Rclark]

JT that is the forthcoming Virtue 3.0 next gen amp, 250 watts plus into 4, something like 55 volts battery. It will not be awful.

[youravhandyman]

Look at those poll results.  Bob's so happy right now he would actually listen to a non OB system.  And then do this

[Bob in St. Louis]

  

[TrungT]

^^^^^
Bob, you welcome to listen my "NONE" OB speakers anytime.
    

[Bob in St. Louis]

T....What's up dude?
I'd listen to anything with you buddy. Even a box with a driver stuck in it.   

Bob - (Notice the OB in my name?)

[johnnycopy]

The results of the poll are not the message i would take fromthis post.  The key for me is that a growing group of music lovers are finding ways to enjoy the sonic benefits of OB without some of its historically believed sonic limitations, and with a friendly WAF.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Bob wanted OB to win, and they did. So, he should give himself a big pat on the back! I'd like to see how he'd implement OB in a car. Ha!

I've actually put some thought into this idea.
Since I drive a Chevy Suburban, I'd use a couple Lowthers on small baffles about 2/3rds of the way back, hanging from the ceiling. The OE sub is very adequate, so I'd leave it alone.
Being a Hawthorne fan, I'd rather use those, but the smallest they offer is a 10". That's a bit large to hang from the ceiling of an SUV.
A local St. Louis audio guy has run tubed amps in his vehicles so I'd tap into his knowledge for the amp aspect. I've also been researching a way to use my large library of FLAC in the Chevy, this actually seems like the easiest and cheapest aspect of the endeavor.
I would remove the existing head unit totally, and relocate the HVAC 'head' to the lower section of the center console where the cassette currently resides. I'd be doing away with the cassette altogether, for obvious reasons. The newly vacated real estate in the upper dash area should just about hold a 16:9 screen about 11" or so just about right. Of course it would be touch screen that would be the music server GUI.

So yea....to answer your question, I've put some thought into implementing OB in my vehicle.

It's all about the money though. 

Bob - Big ideas, small wallet.

[DS-21]

OB bass rules!   IB is right there with it, very close, but OB is much more practical in many home based situations.  My guess is that many who are not voting for OB haven't heard it implemented correctly (that will likely stir the pot  ).

Do you think Siegfried Linkwitz implements it incorrectly?

How about Gradient?

Or for that matter AJinFLA?

Yet some of us have heard, inter alia, Linkwitz's latest Orion (in one instance, set up by SL himself, albeit for a show) and Audio Artistry Dvorak, as well as the Gradient Revolution and Gradient dipole subs for the Quad ESL-63, and a speaker designed and set up by AJ for a show that used a dipole 12" coax and 18" woofer. (True, AJ's speaker was my favorite in that gathering. That had nothing to do with the bass, though; nothing else there even attempted a controlled pattern in the midrange.)  And still don't prefer having two wide loudspeakers jutting out into our rooms when an equal or better result can be had with mains running without highpass filters and multiple smaller box subs placed inconspicuously inside furniture and along room boundaries.

That said, while I've not heard it, AJ's latest idea - combining an OB woofer with a close-mounted closed box, with a level control on one or both to change the summed radiation pattern from dipole to basically cardoid in the modal region, handing off to remotely-located closed-box woofers in the first-mode region - is really fascinating and a very smart application of physics. I'd like to hear it.

I don't buy the idea that one needs different setups for different types of music, though. To my mind, accurate reproduction of the bass encoded onto the disk/file/stream is accurate reproduction of the bass encoded onto the disk/file/stream, and if it takes on a certain color that's because the artists and engineers intended thus.

To put it another way, people who think the way I do would rather focus on the music than what different changes to the audio system will to do it.

Others like to fine-tune, and the act of doing so gets them closer to the music. But it's just a different mindset.

That's not a criticism by any means. Just an observation.

I've actually put some thought into this idea.
Since I drive a Chevy Suburban,

That's not a car, it's a lorry.

[JohnR]

And still don't prefer having two wide loudspeakers jutting out into our rooms when an equal or better result can be had with mains running without highpass filters and multiple smaller box subs placed inconspicuously inside furniture and along room boundaries.

What does placement or size of the speakers have to do with it? 

I don't buy the idea that one needs different setups for different types of music, though.

Neither do I. I tried monopole at the bottom and preferred without. But AJ has undoubtedly explored it much further than I did, I look forward to reading more theory when he cares to divulge.

[DS-21]

What does placement or size of the speakers have to do with it? 

Because practicality and aesthetics matter. And because placement is key for bass.

To some (my camp) given equal performance, a visually unobtrusive system will be preferred to a visually prominent system. Others like to see their gear. That's a value judgement, of course, and except as to one's own home nobody is right or wrong.

The relevant point, however, is that an OB system must be prominent in the room, because of the inherent placement demands.

A system based on boxed units need not. And given that a properly set-up multisub system can provide better modal-region smoothness than an OB pair, and be considerably more efficient, and be aesthetically unobtrusive, IMO that's the winner.

PS: I dipped down to the OB forum. As a long-time user and preferrer of Dual Concentric and coincident drivers, your planar coax waveguide experiments are way cool!

[JohnR]

The relevant point, however, is that an OB system must be prominent in the room, because of the inherent placement demands.

Yes, that is true.

given that a properly set-up multisub system can provide better modal-region smoothness than an OB pair

You keep saying that, but your measurements don't support that claim - or rather, they don't look like they are detailed enough to, as they look quite smoothed - 1/3 octave? I was going to ask if you could generate decay plots (as per the Bass Integration Guide) - something I'd be interested to see when you get the new interface running, if you'd care to.

 

[dflee]

I have been following this thread as it has developed and enjoyed every post. I didn't vote because I haven't heard all the categories to make an opinion. But thanks Bob and others for the input.