I updated the list with a few questions of my own.
I know the answer to a few of these, or think I do . . .
3) What happens if I ditch the fuses and why do you use the fuse holders that you do?
Mark Winey said he runs his 3.7's without the fuses, and says there's a slight increase in transparency. (At which point the ever-skeptical Wendell asked him if he'd tried it in a blind test.) However, he warns that you have to know what you're doing or you can blow up your speakers! Which of course is why the fuses are there.
4) Quality Assurance process
They have a dedicated QC facility where they test the speakers that go out and they were filling a QC engineering position when I was there. Of course I was only there briefly but wearing my engineering hat for a moment, I'd say that the manufacturing operation seemed well-managed and very professional. This is not a large company but neither is it a garage operation. They also address QC problems in R&D, for example, Mark, who is an engineer, led the engineering effort that resulted in the improved adhesives that solved the delamination problem and they used a company that does life cycle testing to verify the result. They say they haven't seen a single case of delam since they changed to the new adhesives.
11) no model between the 1.7 and 3.7, no model between the 3.7 and 20.7?
They used to have an intermediate model -- the 2.x -- but apparently it wasn't different enough from the 3.x so they stopped making it. Not sure what they'd put between the 3.7's and 20.7's?
13) crates for shipping? how much shipping damage do they see?
Wendell told me that they came up with an inexpensive crating option and no one was interested!
16) new Tympani model?
Mark told me that a final decision hadn't been made, though that was a while back. They were definitely considering it.
23) why MDF?
If you look back years ago when they went from wood to MDF, there was a brief discussion about it in one of the magazines. I don't remember the details or I'd fill you in, maybe someone else can. But of course it's been a popular baffle material. Jim Winey is also on record as saying that metal would be better, but of course that would add substantially to the cost, as would other exotic materials that are sometimes used in planar baffles.
24) why the dearth of information regarding what has changed from the older model to the newer model(s)?
Sometimes, trade secrets are involved. Forex the clever 2.5-way arrangement in the 1.7, which we know about because Peter Gunn opened one up and drew a schematic. Wendell also dislikes marketing on the basis of meaningless specs and impressive-sounding components that don't do anything. He believes that people should buy on the basis of sonics, and that third party reviewers do a good job of hearing the differences.
27) what do you see as the biggest challenge to planar speakers in the future other than a shrinking dealer network?
By chance, Wendell addressed this issue with some of us today in an email discussing the positive .7 show reports: "Dealers tell me that floor-standing speakers continue to decline in market share. Blue Tooth speakers are becoming the McDonalds equivalent and are taking over a huge part of the market. They are small, easy to use and sound quite good (considering). That puts a lot of pressure on high-end speakers to have a cost/benefit ratio that will motivate customers."
Well, the answer is a Bluetooth Tympani, of course.
31) will we see the all foil MMG that was thrown out to the inmates on Audio Asylum?
It seems they decided that it was too expensive to give the MMG a quasi-ribbon woofer. But the .7 would seem to be close.
32) what do the big 3 (two Winey, one Diller) use for their own personal stereo systems?
Jim has 20.7's in a surround system; when I spoke to him, he was raving about the Ayre DAC and had been experimenting with Audyssey because people had been asking about whether it worked with Maggies (it does). Mark has 3.7's at home and Mini Maggies in his office, which sounded spectacular when I heard them. Funny, but I've never asked what Wendell has!
35) actual dipole subwoofer (not just the DMW)
I can't answer this one but it's funny that you mention it since I was wondering yesterday whether you could make an H-frame dipole line source quasi-ribbon woofer, a column that would sit against the side wall.
