I have been lucky enough to hear the Orion loud speakers over the weekend and I have spent the last week gathering my thoughts about them.
Steve was very kind to let me come and listen to his setup; you can find all the details about his setup at the website below. But the basics are: Denon DVD 5900 (called A11 here) + 2x aska100 amps + 2x amps of Steve’s own design.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~wallaroo/The first impression I got from these speakers upon walking into the room was that they were very nicely finished, Steve had obviously put a lot of effort into their creation and not only was their construction sound and paint job perfect but they were coloured to match his room so they fitted in perfectly. Naturally the Sea’s drivers that power the Orion have that awesome look, with the magnesium and brass finish.
Certainly the room would be an excellent home theater setup, with a very sexy projector overhead, my girlfriend later remarked that we needed one of those! I do, however, think that over all the room was less than ideal for audio. Most of the walls were bare, and the doors were glass paneled not to mention a large window with little in the way of covering. There certainly would have been reflections all over the place reducing the clarity of the sound and the ability of the speakers to image.
Steve also does not believe in ‘minor’ tweeks such as inking the edges of CD’s and even using the pure direct option on his 5900 (a11) Which I find makes all the difference at this end of the scale.
Having said that the speakers were very clear and imaged reasonably well, for the room they did very well indeed, I can only imagine what they might sound like in an ideal environment. They were certainly a level above my system but I was not totally blown away by the performance. For example it was possible to tell the way a piano was facing on a well recorded disk, but that required intense concentration to figure out rather than being obvious. I blame the room though.
It has been said that the Orion’s major flaw is their inability to play loud enough. Steve confirmed this… In his small room the woofers would bottom out at just over 103db in room volume. Which is a fairly decent listening level but it’s not really ‘enough’ for that slam to the drums I feel is important. It has also been said that they have the most accurate bass with the dipole XLS woofers; I didn’t feel that this was the case. The bass was certainly very nice, and yet again it’s certainly the room causing problems but I think there was a 60hz (educated guess) or so peak causing problems. Also the frequency response isn’t ‘quite’ full range. (-6db at 20 Hz.) I personally am used to a more extended lower end… And I certainly noticed that there was a little something missing from kick of drums.
I could in no way fault the mid range. The sea’s magnesium driver is obviously wonderful.
The sea’s excel tweeter is fairly good over all. Never sounding harsh or strained, it always played clearly and well. Though I did notice cymbals, although being clearer had less air than I’m used to surrounding them. This would be explained by the 20 kHz upper limit on these drivers. I am a believer in perception of greater than 20 kHz frequencies, now that I have extensively heard super tweeters.
Overall the Orion’s are awesome, but I feel they can do much better given the chance and unfortunately Steve was still getting around to completing his system.
As for being the best speakers I have ever heard, as a lot of people have said about them…. Nope.
Definitely more impressed by the WAR Reference Ones which also were not in the most ideal room but had better hardware driving them. At the same price its difficult to decide because i dont feel the Orions were given a proper chance... *sigh*
