[JCC]

Tyee and Response

I will be waiting for your comments when you receive your DA-1's.

Merry Chrismas everyone!!!

[Bill Baker]

Hi JCC,
  I think it would be more important to hear Tyee's feedback. Being a dealer for the Daedalus, many people may take my findings as being biased. I am hoping that any interested parties in my neck of the woods will come by to see and hear for themselves when we have this new dedicated system complete!!

[tyee]

I'll let you guys know how they sound at home when I get them.

[zybar]

Having spent a good amount of time at RMAF listening to them, I can attest to how good a speaker Lou has made.

If I didn't already own a different excellent speaker, I would have gone home with the show pair.

You can't go wrong with these speakers.

George

[tyee]

My Daedalus speakers have arrived! Breakin will now occurr. I'll update in next days

tyee

[Richard Schafer]

Hello Everyone,

I just joined this forum, found out about it by doing some searches to find out more about what other people have to say about Lou's speakers.  I am happy to have found so many who know what a fine speaker he has developed.

I took a risk by ordering a pair of his SR-823 cabinets for my live performances as a soloist singer/guitar player.  I forked out what I thought was a large chunk of money, for me that is, and waited for them to arrive in three months to see what I had purchased.  You see, I am not really, at least I never considered myself to be technically knowledgable about sound and speakers and amps.  There is a whole language among audiophile types that I am just a beginner when it comes to understanding.

So that being said, what I have to offer is simply my impressions of what I hear when I listen to myself amplified through these 823's.  As you may know, the 823's have two 8 inch speakers for lower freq, a five inch speaker for mid freq, and a three inch for the high range.

I have not had ample time to break these speakers in for 600 or so odd hours as Lou says, and I frankly don't really know what to expect when they are broken in.  I do know that they sound extremely accurate.  Let me elaborate on this a bit.  Without having really anything other than an old Yamaha amp/PA system with 2 speakers with 15 inch woofers and a horn that I purchased in 1979 to compare them to, I will say this:

1.) There is plenty of full bass response, a tight bass that is precise, not muddy (for lack of a better word).
2.) The midrange, there is an abundance of sound within this spectrum, which I believe is most inviting and warm to the ear.
3.)  In the high range, it produces a quality which is accurate without pearsing at my eardrums, or jab at my ears. (If that makes any sense).

If I sing and play into them with no effects, just flat sound, I hear exactly what I normally hear of myself singing in the room with no PA, just louder.  The result is that I am able to be vocally precise because of the accuracy of these speakers.  I have already noticed an improvement in my singing ability since I started practicing with them.

Usually, I sit approximately 8 to ten feet away from the speakers which are mounted on tripod speaker stands five feet off the floor.  I try not to turn them up too loud, but I do like hearing only what is coming out of the speakers in front of me.  I find myself totally immersed in sound and can continue in this way for hours at a time without tiring of the sound quality.  Now, I have heard others say that his speakers are easy listening when it comes to ear fatigue, and the way I interpret this is that the ear drum can be pounded on to the point of being physically tired and unable to hear as well.  In cases that I have felt this fatigue, there is a general light-headedness and diziness which I am left with.  My ears have a humm or buzz sensation afterward.  With the 823's, I have not experience any fatigue.

I have finally reached a point in which I can be truly intimate with the audience with a Daedalus speaker system.  I took the liberty of ordering a pair of the 803's as floor monitors.  I figured, why should I treat the audience to the experience of hearing these fine speakers without also having a pair of them pointed in my direction as well?

I am very excited about doing a serious regular gig with these speakers.  The 803's as floor monitors will allow me to finally hear myself during a live venue where there is no guessing about how I am sounding through the main speakers.

I want to say how greatfull and pleased I am to do business with Lou of Daedalus Audio.  I am starting to feel more and more as if I have stumbled upon someone who builds something truly special for those of us who are really into sound and quality sound products.  I try to tell everyone how great these are, but how do you describe great sound?  Most people just have to hear them to believe what you are saying.

Thanks for listening.......

[JCC]

I have finally reached a point in which I can be truly intimate with the audience with a Daedalus speaker system.

Richard - It great to hear a comment from a musician. Your comparison is to live music. Audiophiles generally compare to other audiophile gear. There is is often a huge difference. Many in our hobby don't like realistic sound and dynamics. Instead, the preference is for a mellow and easy to listen to reproduction.

Unlike many other brands, Daedalus is about realistic reproduction.

Regards,

JCC

[Bill Baker]

Hello all,
  I would like to chime in here with my very early initial impressions. Please keep in ming that I have literally less than an hours on my DA-1s as they arrived towards the end of my day.

 First the system: Highly modified Ming-Da MC805 amplifier at 40 watts; ModWright SWL 9.0 linestage; our own "Custom" Jolida JD100;  for the vinyy rig I am using a stock Jolida JD9 phono amp and Thorens TD190 table. I started things off with vinyl.

 My first impressions of these speakers was scary. I found the midrange to be a bit congested and the highs not what they should be. The bass, on the other hand sent a cuncussion through my chest and my speakers are fresh with no break in and just spent the last 12 hours in a 24 degree Fed. Ex. delivery truck. Talk about a "cold" speaker. If the bass gets any better, I'll be in heaven. I have spoken with other owners who are experiencing the same congestion within the midbass on up in the early hours. I am not worried as I am very use to breaking speakers in. Overall, I see sonic nirvana in the light.

 I have not yet played with cables and currently using Clarity Labs Foxfire interconnects and Emberglow speaker cables. I think this is where the speed and authority in the bass is coming from.

 I do have to agree that the DA-1s are a different flavor from what the normal "audiophile" definition would indicate. I find them to be a speaker that translates the music in the same manner as being at the live venue. They are not analytical, booming bass, articualte, yada, yada, yada...... they are REAL. I was thrown off at first but I can see the direction these speakers are heading into. Despite my short listening session with these speakers, I found them to give me the sensation of "being there". I was almost tempted to offer the artist a glass of whine as I felt she (Jennifer Warnes) was there in the room with me.

 I will throw in a Hybrid 100 watt amp to break these in for about 200 hours and report back every 50 hours or so.

 Okay, I have to go. I don't normally work on Saturdays but I need to go  fire the system up and crank the hell out of these speakers. I'm sure I have some paperwork to do or something.

[Bill Baker]

Okay, I have get this in here. I was mistaking about the congestion I was experiencing with these speakers during the half hour of listeing. I have returned to the showroom for more listening while I did some paperwork. I fired everything and let warm up about 10 minutes. Everything sounding distorted and congested. Something is not right here. Switch to CD...nope. Switch to tuner....nope, try a different CD player....... nope.

 As I sit and scratch my head, I decided to turn the system down to a lower listening level. Hmmmm, this sounds pretty good. Long story short. I didn't realize I had stuck some cheap chinese input tubes in the amp (for bench testing and biasing) that were pulled originally from another amp due to being very sensitive to microphonics. You could tap on these tubes and hear a ringing for about 10 seconds. At the higher volume levels I have been listening at and the amount of bass coming from these speakers, it was causing these tubes to vibrate and go to shit quickly. I pulled these tubes and installed some NOS RCA ECC82s I had laying around..... now we're talking. I feel so much better now and the speakers are also much happier.

 Well, I have to go to the mall with my little ones for a while so I will report back a bit later. I was supposed to leave a while ago but cannot pull myself away from th emusic. I find these speakers to be very unique and will post my findings and some other thoughts on a new thread on my forum in the next few days.

 Hopfully we will receive more feedback from other DA-1 owners in th enext few days as they get some hours on their setups.

[figcon]

Hello everyone.

This is my first time posting on AudioCircle although I have been following the Daedalus posts for a few months now. Thanks for all the information you all have posted on these wonderful speakers. JCC's review, which, along with Lou Hinkleys general ideas about speaker building as posted on his web site, had a lot to do with my decision to purchase these speakers.

After living with my pair of DA-1's, beautifully finished in the cherry veneer and walnut fronts, for over four months, I feel ready to make my views of the speaker known, for what it's worth..

A little history would tell you that I have been an avid audio hobbyist for the last 25 years and have covered much territory on this journey. I even dabbled in it as a business, becoming the first and only importer for the Supratek line of Preamps and amps in the USA from 2000 to 2001.

My first high end system was built around DCM Time Windows, which in their time, were a high end audiophile product. On to Thiel 04A speakers...to Thiel 3.0's and 3.5's...to Proac Response 2's...to  Legacy FOCUS speakers.... to B&W 802's.... to Reference 3A MM mini monotors.... to Beauhorn horns with a few different SET's amps....to Dbl stacked re-built Quad 57s with the incredible sounding Altec 1570B triode amps.... back to Reference 3A Royal Virtuosos and now back to a multi driver speaker system, the Daedalus DA-1's. There were a bunch more speakers in between these, but this illustrates a quest which has been fun, and at times frustratiing. My wife tells me I am an equipment hound, always on the lookout for something new. I tell her I am on a quest for sound which is good enough for me...That simple.

Well, after four months of owning the DA-1's, and in this room, which is a big deal with these speakers, I have the best reproduced sound I've heard anywhere yet. In fact, I am absolutely thrilled with the sound I am getting out of this system and the DA-1's are the main reason.

As Lou mentions on his web site, real music is dynamic and these speakers are extremely dynamic in both a micro and macro sense. There is something to be said for speakers that are designed electrically to be easy to drive, but yet will take a lot of power. That something to be said are dynamics that are to the point of sounding real. For instance, last Wednesday my wife and I had the privilege of hearing Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Joe Ely and Guy Clark play an acoustic set at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville, NC. The venue seats about 6,000 and we sat in the 9th row, pretty much in the center. They each took turns playing a song on solo guitar with only occasional help from one of the others. Of couse they were all plugged in, but we noted the great sound they were able to produce in this venue. It really sounded good, as did Leo Kottke at another great place here in Asheville called the Grey Eagle a couple of months ago. Well, when we got home and decided to do a little comparative listening, the sound was not far removed from the live perfomance. In fact, timbre and dynamics were every bit as good as live. Of course, listening to the stereo isn't anything like a live event as there wasn't the eye candy to enjoy, or the wonderful, funny as hell, stories these fellows told, which made the event special. However, sound wise, there just wasn't that big a difference between what we heard at the show and what we are able to reproduce in our home right now. In fact, "imaging" was probably better at home as the mix at the auditorum had their voices coming out of both left and right speaker while their guitars were pretty much localized to the center of the hall.

The DA-1's are also more transparent than any other speaker I've owned, including the Ref 3A's and Beauhorn's, which probably tied for the previous best. They are also the most perfectly balanced speaker I've heard and the most beautiful to listen to because of this. Tonally they are similar to the Quads, but are much smaller, subjectively more attractive, image better and will play much more loudly.

Soundstaging is as good as any I've owned, which again would include the Ref 3A and the Beauhorn's. A good example of both of these would be Chet Atkins on his "Almost Alone" CD. On track 6, a Slack Key guitar piece called "Pu, Uana Hulu", Chet is off to the right in the soundstage and until now, had occupied a fairly narrow space where his guitar and moaning/breathing originated in a single space. With the DA-1's and the Altec amp, the sound is now spread out where you can more clearly here the mix with his guitar playing and moaning/breathing now occupying distinct spaces in the soundstage. This is not to say that the speakers are "ruthlessly revealing" because of a tilted up tonal balance. They simply recreate this music with more transparency than I have heard before, but with such a beautiful tonal balance and such real dynamics. The sound sounds real...

If there is one aspect of performance that most audiophile speakers do not deliver the goods on it is the ability to play anything you want to, as loudy as you want to, assuming you have the amps to drive the speakers. Again, the DA-1's will not dissapoint. They will play as loudly as any speaker I've previously owned, which would be the Legacy FOCUS. My test here is a Reference Recordings CD called "Holidays & Epiphanies" the music of Ron Nelson. This music, which I think is a must own, is played by the Dallas Wind Symphony and is real dynamic stuff, including some real impressive sounding Timpani's at various times throughout the track and especially toward the finale of the track. The sound here is glorius in its timbre and scale. All who come here want to listen to this piece, particularily track 2, the Sonoran Desert Holiday. My wife, who normally could care less about music played on the stereo, asks to be played this piece on a regular basis. In a large 18 x 24 ft room, with plenty of power provided by the Altecs at around 175 triode watts a side from two 811 output tubes's, or the bargain priced NAD C272's at 300 watts a side, the sound here is spectacular. Also, if you like AC/DC, as my 5 year old son does, they sound just great on these speakers.

Obviously, I like the DA-1's a lot. In fact, I love them. They just push all of my buttons. They look great, sound great on every kind of music I like to listen to, play as loudly and dynamically as any speaker I've heard and are priced more than fairly, especially if you consider their birch ply cabinet, construction techniques and level of finish.  

There are a few caveats regarding the DA-1's. The speakers like current and although they might seem like a good match with SET's because of their high sensitivity, make sure you listen to this combo before you make a purchase decision. I've not heard them with SET's, and they might sound good, but as a multidriver speaker they also might not work as well as some alternatives with at least some damping factor.  Also, make sure that the room you might situate them in will support them properly. They play big and seem to need room to breathe. I have them situated approximately 5 1/2 ft from the wall in back of them, about 3 feet in from the side wall with an absorption panel adjacent on the walls and about 13 ft apart from one another.  I am about 13 ft away from them. I have only heard them here, so Lou can probably better help you in this regard. He is busy, so if you contact him, try and have patience. The speakers are worth it. One last thing is to make sure your preamp and amps are quiet. If not, the high sensitivity of the speakers will reproduce noise. I installed attenuators on my amps to deal with the noise issue with no discernable harm done to the sound.

I am not in the habit of writing "reviews", so I hope this information is helpful to those interested in the speakers. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail at figcon@bellsouth.net or through this forum. I don't go to AudioCircle on a regular basis, although I will try to do better in this regard.

FIG

[JCC]

Well, after four months of owning the DA-1's, and in this room, which is a big deal with these speakers, I have the best reproduced sound I've heard anywhere yet. In fact, I am absolutely thrilled with the sound I am getting out of this system and the DA-1's are the main reason.

Hello Fig,

With all of the speakers with which you compared the DA-1's, that is quite a complement. Your comparison's to the Quads was particularly interesting.

Anyway, I agree - The DA-1's are just plain outstanding.

Regards,

JCC

JCC

[JCC]

There is a new and glowing review of the Daedalus DA-1 on Positive Feedback.

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue20/daedalusda1.htm

As a side note, Lou Hinkley from Daedalus recently told me that he would be demonstrating his new center channel and rear's at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest.