[mlschifter]

You guys are all wasting your time talking about the Ref 1.  It's all about the Ref 2's!!  

I'm telling ya, I'm loving them.  Good work once again Mark.

You got some crazy people over here in this forum.  That ribontweeter guy is insane.  

Brian you also seem like a great guy, I love the sense of humor.  

Take care.

Aaron

Hey Aaron... thanks... I really love the REF Two also...  

Brian is a very good guy... and I'm hopeful I can help out...

See you soon...

All the best...

mls

[shokunin]

Gosh, am out of the office all day and missed all the good action.    Cabinets made by Mark at his factory with that nice birds eye maple 626R's.    

Brian, I hope you'll have those drawings ready.  

[jdoyle]

It's nice to see that this once dark thread has a silver lining.

Maybe Mark and Brian can collaborate on a new speaker... a RM30 (?)perhaps.  I'm really looking for something around the height of an RM2, but not as heavy or wide.  Sort of a taller 626R would be perfect for me.  I'll even put money down on it!  

John

[Tyson]

One other thing I want to observe about the 626R's specifically - they cry out for a good tube amp and preamp.  The tubes help to fill out the specific area that the 626R's are a bit weak, the lower mids.  With every solid state amp I've heard the 626R's on, they sounded a bit weak in this area.  Tube gear fills in the mids and lower mids very nicely indeed.  Jason's 626R's with stock crossover and the HET tweeter sound better driven by tube gear than Wayne's 626R's with the Auricap upgrade and FST tweeter driven by solid state gear.  My rec is that if you get the 626R's, get a good tube amp to drive them.

The RM40's don't seem to have this problem, and I think it is a result of having 4x the radiating area for the mid panels.  With all that extra radiating area, they are able to push are more easily in the lower mids.  I ended up with a hybrid amp and preamp with my 40's and it sounds quite good.

[blkwrxwgn]

You guys are all wasting your time talking about the Ref 1.  It's all about the Ref 2's!!  

I'm telling ya, I'm loving them.  Good work once again Mark.

You got some crazy people over here in this forum.  That ribontweeter guy is insane.  

Brian you also seem like a great guy, I love the sense of humor.  

Take care.

Aaron

CAre to comment on the Ref 2's vs Ref 1's?.........

http://forum.av123.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=617

My review of them.  I have the Ref 2's up front with the Ref 100 center and the Ref 1's as surrounds.

[fredgarvin]

JDoyle, the "taller 626" already exists, its the RM1. One tweeter, one panel and two eight inch woofers. 39 inch. tall.

[hectic1]

You guys are all wasting your time talking about the Ref 1.  It's all about the Ref 2's!!  

I'm telling ya, I'm loving them.  Good work once again Mark.

You got some crazy people over here in this forum.  That ribontweeter guy is insane.  

Brian you also seem like a great guy, I love the sense of humor.  

Take care.

Aaron

All this talk about the Ref 2's is killing me.....After adding the p-tech gear to my Ref 1's I was was sure that I was done for a while.  I guess that I might have to get another set of speakers!!

[shokunin]

Then we must have a  VMPS RM2 vs. Ref2 listening session.  That would be fun!!

[azryan]

John Casler,

Sorry this answer is to a question about 7 pages ago! hehe

I said -"I'm sure it's still awesome (VMPS were 2nd place on my short list of world class speakers to get next), but that's not like some flawless miracle design from the hand of god."

And you asked -"Hey AZ, What speaker is in the front spot of the "short" list?"

The list is gone. I already chose the GR Alphas.
I finished the cabinets a few weeks ago and have never heard better speakers.
But nothing to hide... I never heard VMPS.
Then again... I has never previously heard the Alphas chose what I wanted based on design goals, drivers, x-over, cabinet, and lots of other people's opinions which mattered most to me when they said 'A compared to B'.

I've heard a ton of store brand speakers and not even $20K-and up range designs (Revel, B&W, Linn, Logan) sounded better than my previous Newform Research 645's overall (though some were better in some ways).
The Newforms DO have a few 'quirks' to their design that can 'mostly' be worked around, but it wasn't the prefect speaker I'd always dreamed of (not that a 'perfect' speaker exists. Perfect for me I meant). Many a time has Brian ripped on the Newform ribbon, but it's really good. The line of Neo 8' planars is another clear step better though.

I know Brian, and again Tyson here commented on the benefit of the 4 Neo panels in the 40's compared to the single in the 626R, so obviously there's a diff. in just using a few more panels.

In the Alphas using 8 Neo panels and 9 old world useless outdated cones per speaker, the two blend together seamlessly, and the sound is faster and more detailed than say $20K Revel Salons using I think a 4" or 5.25" fast midrange, or my Newforms, or Maggies or Logans, and had commented here that with using many cones the 'speed' is greatly increased.

Nine 6" cones I think is not just 9X faster than a single cone even, as at even loud SPL's the woofers are never being pushed very hard compared to a single cone 'having' to be pushed to the extremes of the magnetic gap to give you those same SLP's.

Like streching one rubberband 9" longer, or stretching 9 rubberbands 1" longer. BIG diff.

I wondered, since it seemed like the people who actually compared the Ref 1 to 626R found the Ref 1 to be at worst a close 2nd, and not some far distant 'not even close'...
How much diff. in speed a single VMPS planar has over that single 5.25" metal cone, esp. as both play into the lower and lower ranges, which are slower and slower sound waves, all the way down to 7' long bass waves where the VMPS needs to, and by all accounts, does blend up w/ an outdated old world useless cone technology?

Conversely, I wonder how much speed advantage is gained in having 9 cones per speaker all playing together, and only up to a range lower than a single ~6" cone typically plays in tons of 2-ways conventional designs?
Or if it 'audibly' still gives up anything to the speed of one (or a few) VMPS planars for the same price?

No one ever talks about the actual 'speeds' we're talking about. They just say 'planars are way faster 'cuz there's FAR less mass', but 'real world' does it matter esp. the lower you play?

My planars blend in perfectly w. my cones IMO, and then I only have a simple x-over on each set of drivers, unlike having far more x-over in the VMPS 3 ways, plus pots that everyone adjusts to taste. Does that not effect the signal in the least? Is that the most accurate design in the world?

Not to rip on VMPS, this is really a response to ribbonspeakers.net's wild rantings.

Most everyone seems to lower the treble pot right from factory setting? Shouldn't the factory setting be whatever is 'anechoicly flat'? Are people toning down the treble the same as tapping a treble control on a pre/pro? Shouldn't the speaker stay flat and the room be treated as it's the cause of 'unflattening' what people are hearing?

Why did Dennis Murphy measure a large but very narrow dip @ 10kHz in the RM-2? That's a very tight/delicate area to put a x-over IMO, and Brian won't post measurements.

I'm still sure the speakers sound great, but I'd really like to know what the designer claims they do more than 'trust me, they're flat' (not an actual quote from Brian).

When I looked at what VMPS kit I could buy for the same price as the kit I bought, I made my choice, but VMPS came in 2nd, and I've heard dozens of VERY costly high end store brands, and read in detail about probably hundreds more, so 2nd place for a speaker line I've never heard should be a nice compliment, and not meant to sounds like I'm saying 'loser' in any way.

In this level of tremendously high end sound quality, we're talking fast detailed, very flat, open, sharp imaging speakers.
Even though designs are often TOTALLY diff. the end goal is pretty much the same, and the sound you hear shouldn't IMO be night and day between any of these designs, so which is more accurate when playing a recording that often has never existed as a 'real life' event (meaning 'sounds combined in the studio')? It's just preference.

I'm sure Brian could go back to using the VMPS neo running only down to 500Hz adding more weight to drums etc. , w/ cones moving air.., but I'd imagine it's more a matter of the single or double subwoofer cones he uses not sounding as fast and/or maybe not playing flat up to 500Hz, plus the x-over being close to the fundamental vocal range.
His preference, but not 'right vs. wrong' IMO.

I think it says a lot when so many people offer up cabinet and driver lay-out designs to a product line. I've never seen that in any other company like I do w/ VMPS.

People saying the smallest neo speaker, the 626R, benefits from the 2nd narrowest baffle.
The RM/X w/ the narrowest baffle has a FAR more costly cabinet than the 40's as the next model down, yet the 40's have bass loading at the floor and middle of the room.
Is the three way bass of the X better? It should be as it's in the far more costly speaker IMO, but then why couldn't the 40's have that same bass layout, and have a super narrow four Neo panel w/ FST tower on top? Best of all worlds IMO.

Or a four 8" bass woofer tower next to a narrow floor standing neo/FST layout.

I'm still waiting to see the right cabinet/layout in VMPS for the right price point. Just my opinion though.
But to ribbonspeakers.net -there's more to a speaker design than just fast planars IMO.

[John Casler]

And you asked -"Hey AZ, What speaker is in the front spot of the "short" list?"

The list is gone. I already chose the GR Alphas.

Yes, I found out.  Someone sent me the thread and URL.  Looks like a very cool speaker.

I like the big stuff too  

[Brian Cheney]

We tested the Neo 8 panel and rejected it.  There are gross nonlinearities below 1500Hz, and it becomes beamy at 5 kHz, which is certainly a narrow range of optimum performance.

The Neo 8 also suffers from a honky coloration which did not yield to crossover. Its metal diaphragm is quite noisy, another major problem.

If you like your GR Alpha now, imagine whiat it would be like with a good panel.  Sorry, we don't sell raw drivers.

[Ravi]

Mr C, I'm sure you must have received very early version of the Neo panel, because having heard the Alpha and RM40, I'm telling you that the Apha is no more colored than the RM40 with its "good panels".  I actually slightly prefer the midrange of the Alpha to the RM40.  However, my listening was brief, and I hope to listen longer to the RM40 on future audio gatherings.  And the "wall of sound" effect of the Alphas was quite a bit superior, it being a line array after all.   The bass on the Alphas was also quicker and more tactile.  I would still love to own the RM40s though, as I would the Alphas if I had a room that large.

I've read on the Mad boards that the newer Neo8s are quite a bit better than the first releases.

[Brian Cheney]

At this year's CES I talked to David Graebener, who agreed with me that the Neo 8 had not turned out well.  The execution of his design by Daichi in the Philippines was poor, and done at the low quality level. There is little similarity to our panel, which costs nearly five times as much.

I have full measurements on the Neo 8, plus a long letter to BG complaining about it.  They did nothing.

[azryan]

Thanks Ravi,

Those are the first comments I've ever heard on sound quality between Alphas and the RM-40. Something I wish I could hear myself sometime, and could only go by design goals, drivers, specs, etc. when I chose which speakers to buy.

I think as all accounts of both speakers are pretty much always raves from everyone who hears them, there is no 'loser' speaker between the two, just totally diff. designs which their own specific design trade-offs.

Brian,

Jeez.... You're not as bad as some others, but you really like to take the low road when you post sometimes, and I have to say that's part of what put me off to your highly regarded line of speakers.
And your last posts only re-confirms those feelings yet again.

I made a lot of comments on your designs, and asked a lot of questions in my last post. NONE of them insults, but not all flattering, yet I think some important questions that've never been answered by anyone.

Your responses to any of that?... Nothing!?! Ok, fine. Your choice.
But it's not the first time I've posted these types of comments and you've ignored them.

But then this isn't the first time you've insulted the Neo 8 as a driver (just like you've insulted the Newform ribbon many a time also). Always, and this is the important part... disregarding their 'actual use' in specific speaker designs.

Clearly the Neo 8's only came up here since I mentioned the GR Research Alphas (which I was asked about).

As B-G rates the Neo 8 from 500Hz-20kHz.... it sucks in it's freq. response. There's no question about that. You're 100% right. And you're plenty happy to leave it at that.

But in the Alpha it's NOT run down to the 500Hz. It's 1275Hz x-over is flat into the CSS woofers.
The other problem is that it has a sharp peak @ ~ 16kHz, BUT this is in a single driver.

Again... as used in the Alpha (and you KNOW this already which is what makes your 'technical/factual' looking comments all the more deceptive and underhanded IMO)....
the LINE of eight Neo 8's forms a gap between each open planar area, and this gap is just about the perfect length to produce a natural combing effect (i.e. -a 'dip') right at the 'peak' of each single driver flattening out that peak in the Alpha's actual output!

Boom... no 'beamyness', and pretty flat response as it's used.

I knew full well this aspect of the design before I chose them, and think it was quite clever how Danny took what's on it's own a planar w/ poor freq. response, and without adding any thing to the x-over made a line of them very flat, and used the driver as an extended tweeter.

Your planar is wider and used as an extended midrange design.

It has the benefit of no x-over in the typical 1,000-3,000Hz area, but...

It's too wide to not beam at higher freq. so it needs a tweeter of totally diff. design just to fill out one last 'audible' octave.
And the only measurement I've seen of that shows a narrow but deep dip at the x-over point. An area of delicate high freq. harmonics that it clearly audible.
But this'll be ~ the 4th time you've not commented about that.

Maybe that measurment is wrong, but you have no measurments to back up your claim of your RM designs being dead flat, and I've not seen you explain why Dennis Murphy measured what he did, or how some say you'd need a HUGE slope in that super high x-over area to not have dip problems.
These aren't insults, they're just questions I've asked several times.

Your planar plays in areas where some find a cone which can actually move air you can 'feel' to be more realistic.
Right and Wrong? No, just preference IMO.

Being a midrange planar the VMPS Neo has to have both a low pass and high pass x-over on it.

Plus the low pass on the conventional woofer cone/s. Plus a high pass on a ribbon tweeter that also has a transformer on it right? To raise it's imp.?

Is that the most signal purity there is? No, but again.. no right and wrong. And no judge of sound quality of your speakers. Again... unheard they were 2ND on my short list.

"There is little similarity to our panel, which costs nearly five times as much."

So you take a MASSIVE loss when you sell a replacement VMPS planar for under $60 to someone who damaged their own speakers? The Neo 8's are $60 too.

I've heard you say how cheap you can buy the Neo 8's in bulk, but duh... we're not buying them in bulk, and I'm sure you're getting a bulk price for your planars too, and both of you make a profit as neither of your companies are charity work.

No one here knows how much your planars cost you, so your '5 times as much' comment is just a smack talking cheap shot IMO.
There's no reason to sink so low.

His planars are cheaper than yours... could I say your posts are 'cheaper' so you're even?

Cheaper just means a much better value in this case IMO.
Same for Mark's Chinese cabinets that by all accounts are high quality, and cheaper/better looking than VMPS IMO. And I'm not alone in that -for sure.

Since you brought up price as an insult, what VMPS kit could I build for the $2.5K I built the Alphas for?
Certianly not the RM-40's.
The RM-2's at most, and how many would call those two a fair shootout?


Another speaker designer who wanted to even more harshly insult Danny's Alphas commented on how the CSS woofer has an F3 of ~50-60Hz, meaning Danny must be lying about a flat response down to 25Hz in the Alphas, so before you or anyone else would bring that up again here too...

He's explained that the driver has a rising response (which again... on it's own makes it a poor freq. driver), but in the Alphas his x-over rolls off that rising response to flatten it out, which then lowers the F3 a great deal. Then it's ported to further extend the response.

IMO, the Alpha's which are fairly flat top to bottom, though not what you'd call 'dead flat', are a great example of refined and a 'less is more' approach to speaker design.

Best speaker in the world? Better than VMPS? Who knows. Who cares. Doesn't matter.

At least Danny is totally open about his designs, and posts measurments on them all.

From what I've seen... all his other speakers are pretty much 'dead flat', yet by all accounts the Alphas are by far his best speaker.

Slightly less than flat freq. is only a very slight tonal character.

How flat are VMPS when everyone adjusts the pots on the back to 'taste' not to an exact technical spec.?
Do the VMPS all come from the factory set 'anechoically flat'?

Then there's all the other benefits of the design that most speakers can't touch incl. the 40's or RM/X in certain aspects.
Not to make this a pissing contest.

I wanted to talk about VMPS vs. conventional cone/dome designs really. Which was the gist of this thread, NOT the Alphas.

I DIDN'T mention Alphas in my first post, and only Complemented VMPS for being my 2nd choice speakers.

Why don't you try addressing all the VMPS issues I brought up instead of only posting misleading facts about other speakers? You do that far too often IMO.

[Brian Cheney]

Lets see.  I feel the Neo 8 is a poor performer.  You have all sorts of reasons why that's not so.

The designer of the Neo 8 isn't happy with it either.  What say you there?

The cost of the Neo 8 in bulk is about 1/4 that of our panel, not counting the work and parts we put into it after we buy them from Canada.  We don't sell our panel.  We charge $60 to replace it, which is cost.  We don't feel it necessary to gouge the customer on parts.  You pay $60 for the Neo 8, and $50 of that is markup.  

To get the frequency response measurement on the RM 1 that was published, the measurement would have to made above the tweeter.  I believe the person measuring the system justified that nonsensical choice by saying that was his "listening height".

You can manipulate measurements just as you can manipulate listening sessions.  

You have a right to your opinions.  I haven't heard any of the GR speakers and don't comment on them for that reason.  The only way to extend system response below driver resonance is with active equalization, not passive crossover manipulation.

You seem to be quite an unpleasant individual.  Why do you come to our forum at all?  As for me, I can be quite surly, or nice, depending on my mood.

[Horsehead]

Hi Ravi- just wondering if you or your friend heard both the Alphas and RM40s together?  http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=2807

azryan- Dude, you need to blow your nose- all the sawdust you inhaled from building those Alpha kits is affecting your brain.  No need to get so defensive about the Alphas.  You worked hard, they sound great, sit back, pop a beer, listen, and smile.  Brian was commenting on the Neo 8 driver- never said anything about the Alphas.  He found flaws and rejected it, and according to him, the designer of the panel ain't too proud of it either.  

BTW- any other speakers designers/manufacturers using the Neo 8 panel?

[brad b]

You go away, you come back, and the negativity of this thread just stinks!  I think I would be O.K. if Brian had just indicated that for his design, the driver did not work.  I think the 626r's are a great little speaker, but damn, the communication lately on VMPS products has given me a sour taste, and I think the product line will suffer due poor communication.  Too bad, and just MO.
Brad

[TheeeChosenOne]

I actually find Brian's honesty refreshing!  

After all, I think we're all here to cut through all the B.S. that is found all-too-often in audio.

Has anyone ever visited a a Ricer vs. Euro vs. American auto racer debate thread?.............Or an Xbox vs. PS2 vs. Gamecube thread lately?  It's a riot--with engineers, software developers, and users entering into a no-hold-barred fray.

[fredgarvin]

Any negativity in this thread belongs to the whiny apolagists for their "sensitive" friends and for the morons trying to hi-jack this forum and fill it with another mnf. You cannot beat vmps at its' price points. Period. Yes, there are many other very nice speakers. You built your own? Whoopee. VMPS chooses the best components based on performance. You don't agree? Bugger off and find your own troll-filled forum and find a life. Hey Ribbonspeakers, don't worry you wont hurt my feelings I enjoy your perspective! And I don't think for a minute that VMPS has to worry for one second about loss of sales because of a few estrogen enhanced would be males who apparently equate their speaker choice with their stunted, inadequate gender related organs of social incompatability. Did he hurt your witto feewings? ah... and whats wrong with posting when drunk! Have some fun!        Go ahead have at me...

[James Romeyn]

Jim, the only thing you can do is nitpick at my spelling?  Damn, do you have a crowbar shoved up your ass?  How anal retentive can you get.  And yeah, check the spelling in that.

The phrase, "Stupidly ignorant" is a stupid phrase fit for an old stupid man like yourself.   It fits you perfectly.

You should stick to being a fireman.  You not only don't add anything to audio, you give it a bad name.  Sell your B.S.  somewhere else.

As the rulebreaker above has proven he or she can't spell, we must forgive it for not reading either.  There is the little matter of the rules the rulebreaker agreed to when joining the forum.  The rulebreaker tells us more about his or herself than any other narrative could hope to.  Please, children don't try to imitate the rulebreaker at home.  I think the rulebreaker watched Jackass the movie one time too many.  It's always comforting that when there are no facts to back up one's position, there is the rulbreaker's method of personal attacks as a convenient back up.  How clever, & oh so pleasant to read.  I am so glad to know that the only flaws fit to have are the one's the rulbreaker exhibits, i.e. spelling, grammar, ad hominem attacks.  It's nice having one's life surmised by someone who never met you, someone who acts so badly they must keep their identity hidden from the world.      

To members not jacked up on testoserone, or possibly alcohol or drugs like the rulebreaker above appears to indulge in, I propose a truce.  I sincerely apologize for not thinking of this earlier to explain the preference for a lesser speaker (the Onix).  Linn's Ivor Tiefenbrun suggested in the '70s the "audio hierarchy".  It suggests that downstream components must be equal to or lower in quality to those upstream.  If the upstream components (source, amp, cable) were of lesser quality, the lower quality speaker would show less of the flaws, while the ribbon would bare them all.  I have heard recievers sound great with the VMPS ribbons, but it's possible that with certain components someone might prefer the a lower fidelity speaker.  Think about how a '67 Beetle might handle with $1000 race slicks vs. some good OEM bias ply tires.  Does that mean the bias plie tires are "better".  On the Beetle yes, on Coultard's F1 car no.  May I humbly inquire what type components were used in the original comparison?