[scorpion]

Well, I'll leave my wife out, at least for the moment. Apart from this I have been using a pair of B200's for about three weeks now. They are in my testbaffles 70x100 cm. My impressions are that they by a margin are the best fullrangers I have had at home. The difference to the Ciare 250's are not that great. Both speakers need frequency alteration. The Ciare's should have notch filters at 2500 (ev 5000) and 8000 Hz. These properly done the Ciares sound terrefic. I should say that the Ciares have more of an 'own sound' which is very easy to get accustomed to, but which is not the best neutral sound known. With the B200's I have used some BFC but calculated with the Edge program (http://www.tolvan.com/). This is a Swedish program that you all should get for your baffle designs. It is unvaluable for our designs. The BFC circuit consists of 0.47 mH and 6.6 ohm resistors. This take down the frequency rise quite effectively. The end result is that B200 is preferred to the Ciares and also to Magnepan 1.5.

Opinion: Ciare 250 bass is better! This is quite amazing since 250's fs is 65 Hz and B200's is 48 Hz. In some way the Ciare 250 harder setup pays off even if the Xmax is .5 mm. In any other respect the B200 is better. But you need bass augmentation for best results. But I could live quite happily with only the B200s.

/Erling

[markC]

Dmason

I'm about an hour north-east of Mark in Burlington. It would be great to have you and Mark visit for some audio, conversation, drinks and what ever else we may get into. I'm sure we could all take away something positive from the get together. Even if it's just a good feeling about the whole O/B phenomena.

[Dmason]

MarkC

That sounds like a must. Your set up sounds pretty enticing. Please try the Aaron Copland Rodeo on it and see what happens.

[-Richard-]

Hi JohninCR ~

Establishing a near perfect solution for the bass integration of the OB
speaker design is very important... right now I have a pair of Omega
Bipoles playing behind my OB panels firing side ways... the peculiar
characteristics of the double configuration of the Bipoles (front and back
firing) does generate fast bass to at least 40Hz... the coil inductor I am
using cuts off the frequency above 150Hz (in 6db incredments above that) ~

The integration is very effective... I was able to release the lower B200's
I was using to gain more bass... once I combined the upper B200 driver
with the Bipoles, I found the lower B200 only thickened the sound without
adding important musical information ~

I do not consider this set-up ideal... however the sound combined with Roger
Modjeski's 45 SET amp now sounds surprising like Steven Rayle's Fi monoblocks
on my original double B200 panels, which Steven was kind enough to bring with
him when he visited me in Ojai a few months ago... the mid-bass and lower midrange
has a startlingly robust sound that makes cellos and voices sound incredibly rich with
tone and timbre... this is the best sound I have heard so far from my OB panels...
Deb and I are both amazed at how fully saturated the sound is ~

So I am terribly interested in your explorations with bass integration... your discoveries,
John, will be an important part of the equation that will effect the next step in perfecting
our OB designs ~

I am deeply grateful for your energy and willingness to share your findings with all of us!!!!

It is impossible to describe the way OB's load the room and the fully ALIVE IN SPACE
THROBBING WITH LIVING ENERGY sound it creates ~

Warm regards ~ Richard ~

[markC]

 Richard, this is what excites me about these drivers-the ability to deliver both micro and macro dynamics to levels unheard before.

[-Richard-]

Hi markC ~

The most incredible sonic characteristic I am now experiencing is the ambient
space of wherever the music was recorded exploding into the room... or if the
recording is constructed of layered musical spaces, than hearing each space
as it appears and disappears in cascading spatial volumes ~

It is impossible for me to adequately describe the effect... Deb and I are right now listening
to music that is an interpretation of Tibetan musical styles (Nawang/Khechog/Karuna Domo
records) ~

Within the mix of this fascinating CD there are several layers of "natural" sound, waves washing
up on a shore for example... Deb just said that she never heard the waves like that before...
"as if we were on the edge of a desolate beach were a wild surf was thrashing about..." "I feel
totally immersed in the sound..." It feels like the sound is everywhere at once..."

The normally hidden layers of this CD are revealed for the first time... layer upon layer
interpenetrate each other in perfect parallel configurations of richly textured sound that
move you deeper and deeper into the opening aperture of the radiant sound field...

When the drum finally appears with its dark incessant pounding you are back 300,000
years to the dawn of our current emerging consciousness... the parameters of your body
lose their edges... you are in the darkest jungle, the overwhelming virgin forests, the
original shore with its teeming life and living seas ~

With my current OB's (augmented by the Bipoles used as low frequency sound emitters)
music takes its rightful place as pure magic... a beaming time and space vehicle that
transports us to new dimensions ~

If anyone is not hearing that with their OB's... you may want to look into changing your amp ~

Warm Regards ~ Richard ~

[markC]

I believe that my amps are doing justice to these drivers, and although I do not speak as eloquently as you, I'm right there with you. The b200's, IMO absolutely need bass reinforcement for a full sound experience. I'm off to bed- you and Deb have a great night.

[Dmason]

Yes, Richard's point is well made; The OB method allows one to peer into the soul of the amplifier, the heart of the system, my conclusion. OB takes the dimensional aspects of SET and strrretches them, widens them, and then somehow moves the listener onto some offset aural plane, so that the third dimension is opened, or "seen," a VERY real aural portal, opened. What is equally amazing to me, is that the Signature 30 is almost as good at doing this. I consider the Sig 30 a "tube" amp, because it behaves like one, VERY like one, in fact, an SET in the upper register, and some ballsy PP in the lower, and because it prefers and needs no active pre amplification to do its thing, allowing Less to equal More. Add even Less through OB, and you get the pattern.

Glad your system is capable of taking you and Deb 300,000 years into the past.

[JohninCR]

Richard,

I need to get Vinnie to build me battery powered rig and head out to the desert to party with you.  We'll raid the cactus plantation, then take a 4WD up to a cave on the high plateau.  Then we'll crank up some OB's flanking the mouth of the cave.  I'm sure you've got the music to make an experience like in "Altered States".  I promise not to regress into monkey form.

[mcgsxr]

I believe that my amps are doing justice to these drivers

I have met MarkC, and have hosted him in my room, with those amps. 

Believe me when I say that this is the most underwhelming statement that can be made about the combination of b200 OB and his amps - I have played around with many amps with my OB speakers (Teac AL-700P stock, Bolder Teac AL-700P fully modded, Panny SAXR-15, Panny SAXR-55, Gainclone, JVC FS-X1, JVC EX-A1, MarkC's monoblocks), and I can honestly say that I have never heard anything like what that combo sounded like.

I have settled on the JVC EX-A1, because for the money and convenience, it works great for me, on my budget.

Hearing MarkC's amps with my b200's changed the equation for me.  I actually found it hard to sit and listen to them, because I knew I would never hear it again... can't afford those amps, no way, no how.  I continue to pester MarkC and his partner in design, for a smaller, lower powered, more affordable solution that leverages the same technology, so that I can PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE have that experience again at my house, on demand!

If Dmason comes up, I am absolutely IN, to come up to your place, and experience that combo again, this time with the addition of IB bass...

The OB speaker thing is a great find, and I am so grateful for all the guidance and free advice found in this (to date) 103+ page thread.

I give back, by posting the ugliest combinations of any speakers made, just about anywhere, and contributing what I find, on my budget.

Happy OB listening to all that have heard the light, er dark!

[-Richard-]

We normally think of art as culture... perhaps more succinctly stated, as the fruit,
and even more so, as the perfume of culture ~

When all is said and done... all the heartaches, the loves that are gained and lost,
all the wars with their terrible and irrevocable mountains of dead and attendant crimes
and endless suffering, all the grasping for power, the cravings for wealth and the endless
searching for meaning, the steady coming and going of the generations of families
blending into each other, what is left after all these spent energies
from any culture is their art forms ~

Painting, music, theater, dance, poetry and the novel to name a few ~

In America we think of art in certain conditioned terms: we study examples of art
in school as so many dead leaves from a dead tree of a dead past... dry, devoid of life,
and distant... irrelevant and for the most part a nuisance to learn about ~

There is another way to think of art: as the still living window into the still thriving energies
of our timeless sojourn on this mysterious planet which refuses to neatly fit into our
paradigms of the real... dashing our religious zealotry and gods to dust, dashing our
monuments to dust, dashing us to dust, as time crushes our meglomaniacal schemes
and dreams to dust and silence, and all of this under the steady gazing of the stars ~

There is no past... no future... only a timeless unfolding of a never-ending present moment
in which all the events that were or that ever will be are captured in their entirety ~

So we can revisit those musical creations of the earliest known centuries where
our musical forms where written down... or listen to recordings of the native peoples who
still practice their songs so radiant with life, still living in the dream time, the spring of our
emergence from some form of sleep into some form of awakening ~

Or we can pass all of the musical forms that we know of through our own lens of creativity
and meld them into our own cultural language of musical form ~

The point here is that art, and music especially, is a time machine... if you have the imagination
to separate yourself out of your own conditioned context of what you think of as "your time"
and allow the music to sweep you into its wealth of energies, its throbbing urgencies, its
constellation of cosmic windings and turnings, its light and fire, then you can step out of your
time as if you have stepped off this planet... transported into the unique dimensions of
seeing and feeling that was the voice of generations that have faded like a mist from this earth...
leaving behind only their art and musical creations to give us a hint of their inner depths ~

Their music is our vehicle of travel... and hearing it all from our OB's is to live it!!!

Here is a very real portal, as Dmason suggests, into other dimensions ~

Warm Regards ~ Richard ~

[-Richard-]

Hi JohninCR ~

Your exciting post reads like a William Burroughs novel!!!!

What fun!!!

Warm Regards ~ Richard ~

[markC]

Mcgsxr

You have given back more than you take credit for. If it were not for our previous get-together, I would likely just be reading these posts with some interest rather than, ( I hope), contributing. I'm a "show Me" type of person, and by auditioning your o/b's, you did just that. I heard something different and "oh so close" that day, that I just had to pursue it.

[EProvenzano]

I've tried pouring over this absolutely MASSIVE thread but can't seem to find the information I'm looking for.

Has anyone attempted bass augmentation with sealed or ported subwoofers and been very satisfied with the results?  IB or OB subs are not an option for me. 

What has been the most popular low pass xo point for subwoofer/B200 combinations?

Thanks !

[oldtimer]

After several months of trialing different drivers and different alignments, I have settled on a 10" Vifa woofer in a 62.5ltr BR box tuned to 23hz I have mounted the drivers in a push/pull arrangement. This gives me the speed and cleanness needed to mate with the B200. I am crossing them over at 150hz, and this acts as a bit of BSC, filling out the upper bass/lower midrange area, giving a very smooth, well intergrated bass. I have made the boxs (Stereo subs) out of 36mm MDF heavily braced, and the bass is very decoupled from the room, and if just floats. It is by far the most musical sub I have ever heard, which in part is a function of using a low excursion driver in a sub situation.

Happy listening
Nigel

[opnly bafld]

Hi Nigel,
Is that 62.5 liters per driver? 2 woofers or 4?
I have 2 Vifa PL 10" drivers in two 2.4 cu.ft.(@68ltr) BR boxes tuned to 27hz.
Right now I am using them x-o at 150hz/24dB to Fostex Fe107Es (sealed box, drivers front and rear that can be wired bi/dipole) I like the sound of these subs a lot.
Don't know why, but have never tried them with my OBs. (probably because I am/was trying to get the lower bass the dipole way)

While we are on the suject has anybody heard/used Ed's Hornlines with OBs?

Thanks,
Lin

[oldtimer]

Hi Lin. Thats 2 drivers per 62.5 ltrs.  These drivers are used in the Oris horn sub, and give very good results.

Happy Listening
Nigel

[markC]

I too have found that the low pass needs to be above 100hz. Not as much as 150 for me, but rooms and acoustics and.... It's also become very apparent that different recordings need different EQing. Some discs are around 100hz while others need up to about 130 or so, (at least according to the setting). Main thing is whatever the frequency setting, it usually needs to be adjusted from recording to recording to get it "just right". Sad, but true, the more refined our systems get, the more flaws are apparent in the recording.

[-Richard-]

Hi MarkC ~

I just read with interest that you are hearing the need for variable settings of your low
frequency speakers with your B200's in OB... or at least perhaps 2 settings... one at 100Hz
and another at 130Hz ~

Just to open this topic up to further discussion, I would like to share with you that I am
not experiencing this kind of noticeable lack of a seamless merging in the gestalt of the lower
frequencies with the natural point at which the B200 begin to fall off ~

What I am hearing is astonishingly coherent... a totally seamless projection of sound that
is entirely convincing ~

There could be several variables operating here: Deb and I may not have the same sensitivity
in the accuracy in our hearing as you do... admittedly that is always a real possibility...
however let us put that aside for the moment to look at my set-up ~

I am using Omega Bipoles (billed as full-range speaker but here pressed into duty as a bass
augmenter and partner to the B200's in OB) to fill-in the lower frequencies up to 150Hz
which diminish in 6 db per octave increments above that using a cheap coiled copper
inductor... the Bipoles use small, hence fast, Fostex drivers in the front and back of the
cabinet which throw the sound in both directions equally, in a characteristically dipole pattern...
I have them facing to the sides... not firing front to back ~

The Omega Bipoles are rather more opaque than the extraordinarily electrostatic-like
transparent sound produced by the B200's in OB configuration ~

The result however is a blending that has a similar effect  that some speaker designers
build into their sound... like Harbeth for example... they definitely bump up the lower
presence region to create a thoroughly warm lower mid-range presence which is very
effective and highly seductive... it allows the human voice to float with intense intimacy ~

The lower frequencies appear as a fully saturated foundation to the music that produces
a thoroughly beguiling warmth, fully fleshing out an articulate highly refined musical
presentation that enhances perfectly the more transparent upper frequency material ~

I am convinced by this simple experiment that the B200's in OB are capable of being
united with a number of lower frequency enhanced treatments that can create the illusion
of a perfectly coherent blending of the full frequency spectrum... the limitation being how
far down one wishes to go ~

I would like to point out that I am not hearing the lowest bass in this setup... the Bipoles
are set on the floor to reinforce the bass and go down to perhaps 40Hz ~

Warm Regards ~ Richard~

[opnly bafld]

Hello MarkC,
Once the x-o point to blend the "bass augmenter" (whatever form it takes) with the main speakers that sounds good to me is found, I have 90+% of the time been able to adjust the level of the bass +/- to compensate for the variations in recordings.

FWIW    YMMV  etc....

Lin