[kbuzz3]

im going with classic prince today, hoping the synth's and drumbeats will help the process. I do reccomend the wired out of phase with blanket approach, as that worked very well with my fostexs. Use of  a break in also helps. But alas ive got to find mine.

Hope that sudden lock in point is not at the 200 hour mark, as ive got a long long way to go it so. After the blankets come off i think ill go with led zep to cleanse my system of gremlins caused by the latter prince catalog.   

I am very positive on this driver however, the fostex break in was a rocky road. If you can live with that im sure the hemps will be equal or less of a problem.  wish i had a basement or garage...that would speed up the process ....

[Louis O]

Hi Bill,

The Black Sabbath will help it a long for sure. The tope end does smooth out after some more time and the bass gets stronger too. I use a mix of bass tones and music and them bass tones again.

Hi kbuzz3,

It won’t be as long as the alnico. Those took forever. In your cabinets the sound will be night and day when they break through. Led Zeppelin 1 on repeat for a week.

Thanks again,
Louis

[schotter]

wow. Right now my new 4.5 hemps sound just right. Could it be I am experiencing their breakthrough as I listen to them? Or is it just me liking my good old drum and bass so much? Bass is boss!

[bprice2]

Hi Louis,

Just want to take a moment and let you know how much I'm enjoying the Super 3 Bipoles with the hemp drivers.  This really is an improvement on an already excellent product.

After taking receipt, I immediately set the drivers up in my garage and blasted FM radio through them for about 75 hours.  I did have a little bit of a problem removing the Fostex drivers from the cabinets.  The little sleeve that fits over the connections on the drivers were really tight and they would not just pull off.  After a while I found that a little twist back and forth loosened them enough to remove.  No problems after that.

My first impression after the 75 hour break-in was very positive.  Bass, soundstaging, and overall dynamics was what struck me immediately.  I have to admit that at the 75 hour mark, grunginess in the vocals was apparent, but I had no worries...break-in was not complete. 

The next 25 hours were a bit harrowing.  The grunginess in vocals also became apparent to me in the higher frequencies.  This continued pretty much through the entire 25 hours leading up the magic 100 hour mark, but I had faith that things would continue to change.

Damn Louis, you are dead on with 100 hours!  I figure give or take an hour or two, everything really came together at the 100 hour mark.  Everything is really coming together now.  I've never heard speakers this good and am proud to say that I own a pair.  All the previous adjectives apply...juicy, more dynamic...these guys just produce more sound.  On some of my better recorded cd's there is no doubt where musical instruments and vocals are coming from...you can reach out and point to them.  Another thing I noticed, as did others, is that everything holds together at higher volumes.  But, I've also noticed how much more satisfaction I get at lower volume levels...there is more sound at lower levels.

Anyway...sorry for the ramblings, but I did want to let you and everyone else know that I enjoy the the new drivers very much and also to say YOU DA MAN!   

Oh yeah, I followed your recommendation on reconfiguring to dipole and am enjoying that as well.

Thanks For Everything,

Brett

[Louis O]

Hi Brett,

Great news and sorry about the delay in responding.

I couldn't be happier with the way the hemp 4.5s are working out. They just do more of everything. In all the cabinets I'm hearing the hemp tone and the added bass and fullness that the speakers are capable of. The drivers can handle more power and more complex music, but not lose any of the low level detail.

Sorry about the terminals being hard to remove and I just pretty much yank them off in one shot.
The break in has  a little of the roller coaster ride in them, but not as bad as the 8" drivers. At 100 they just make the change. In the Super 3 bookshelf cabinet it's very dramatic.

Thanks again,
Louis

[sluntz]

Dear Hemp Users,
I'm beginning to break in some Super 3s.  I've got them set up out of phase and mono in the basement with an old 15 watt Akai receiver playing bass-heavy soul.  I have a hard time judging how loud I can go with them, though.  Is it easy to burn out the voice coil on the hemps in an 8-hour session?
Steve Luntz

[Louis O]

Hi Steve,

No worry at all and they can handle it. I have had them on for a week straight.

Thanks again,
Louis

[j_goughnour]

Please help!  I am interested in trying out a pair of super 3 XRS's with the 4.5 hemp driver, but I am very consered about how bright, fatiguing, or strident these may sound.  I am a fan of what you might call warm sounding loudspeakers with fabric dome tweeters (Spendor's, Harbeth's, Audio Note's).  I listen to primarily jazz, folk, bluegrass... on the system I am putting together.  I know that a 30 day in home trial is offered, but I don't want to waist anyone's time (or money) if these drivers are not considered to be on the lush or warm side of the musical spectrum.  So super 3 xrs owners out there, tell me how they sound!  How do voices sound?  Midrange sound?

Thanks in advance!

[bprice2]

Please help!  I am interested in trying out a pair of super 3 XRS's with the 4.5 hemp driver, but I am very consered about how bright, fatiguing, or strident these may sound.  I am a fan of what you might call warm sounding loudspeakers with fabric dome tweeters (Spendor's, Harbeth's, Audio Note's).  I listen to primarily jazz, folk, bluegrass... on the system I am putting together.  I know that a 30 day in home trial is offered, but I don't want to waist anyone's time (or money) if these drivers are not considered to be on the lush or warm side of the musical spectrum.  So super 3 xrs owners out there, tell me how they sound!  How do voices sound?  Midrange sound?

Thanks in advance!

I'm not an XRS owner, but I'd go for it.  Check them out.  What do you have to loose?  I love my Omega Super 3 Bipoles with the hemp drivers.  I would imagine the XRS's have a similar sound.  My speakers truly sing with jazz, folk and bluegrass.  I don't know about "warm".  Warm sounds like coloration to me and I assure you the Omega speakers do not color...at least not in my opinion.  They do reproduce sounds that I would consider accurate.  Voices have uncanny clarity and the midrange is full. 

I've had issues with brightness, but I believe that I have mostly tamed it and what is left is going to require more work on room corrections.

[DaveC113]

Its tough to compare these to conventional speakers. They aren't "warm" but at the same time are absolutely non-fatiguing. I can listen to the XRS for hours. The midrange is the strong suit of these speakers, IMO... voices and acoustic instruments are very accurately portrayed. The detail is very good, to the point that they do no favors to poorly recorded music. They are fast with very accurate rhythm and dynamics... percussion instruments are defined precisely. They are also phase and time accurate because there is no x-over which produces excellent imaging, soundstaging and a clarity that makes for a very realistic sound.


Possible downsides:
Its a 4.5" driver, it can only move so much air. Maybe not the best choice for large rooms. Maybe an 8" driver would be better for larger spaces? I will say you will probably be VERY surprised how loud and how much air they can move for their size. My friends can't believe the little drivers can do what they can.

Bass extension... these aren't true full-rangers. Again, you'll be surprised how well they can do with bass once they are broken in.



Value for money with the XRS are spectacular. Buy them, I can't believe you'll find anything better for the money.

My system: Yamaha Burner as transport->Audio Alchemy DTI/XDP jitter reducer and DAC->Trends T-amp, battery powered. Adire 10" xbl^2 sub.

[ikakenewa]

I've got the Super 3 XRS's and, as you may have read on some earlier posts, have had, like all of the great loves of my life, some ups and some downs!  Louis himself says it best when he says that the XRS's are an unforgiving speaker, and if you read much about the single driver philosophy you know that that directness is exactly what many listeners love about single drivers: no crossovers to color the source, no "engineering" to make the source sound better at the speaker, something very pure, direct and present.

We all remember when it was fine to throw a cruddily mastered Boston lp onto our Technics turntables and cranking up the pot on our Circuit City JVC and listening to our Cerwin Vegas thump and bump and thinking it just didn't get any better. Then we had the opportunity to play our same BOston record on someone else's hi fi system and we heard the record differently.   Then we played the same record on a SUPER system and realized, sadly perhaps, that the record sounded, well, like crap, not because the system was bad but because it was so good: it emphasized the poor commercial mastering of the lp, something that had been hidden or veiled during our earlier listening sessions on our Tech/JVC/CV combo.

The XRS's, and all single driver speakers I suspect, are the end result of many listeners' attempts to strip all the muck away and attain a least the illusion of the purest sound available. It's a valid philosophy, imho, and is why I'm both keeping my XRS's after entertaining the idea of selling them and also urging you to research the 'single driver theory' more before purchasing some.  I'm pretty sure we all know the danger of recommending a piece of hi fi gear unconditionally and the XRS's haven't changed my mind about this reflex of caution.  They are beautiful, killer speakers that will engage your heart and your mind and really make you think long and hard about what it means to be so deeply enthralled by various performances of recorded music. They are also brutally direct in some instances and, again imho, in no way should they be called "warm". I recently had the chance to listen to some very highly regarded Spendors on my system in addition to some brand new Quad 22ls and both sounded quite a bit "warmer" that my XRS's, but also muddy, confused and bloated after my lean and mean XRS's.

I recognized then and their that I'd gone on a hi fi diet and wasn't about to dive back into the overly sweet and rich land of crossovered speakers.

BTW, some well-recorded acoustic music sounds so bloody good on my XRS's that it's creepy.

Also, these guys' blog is pretty informative: http://singledriver.blogspot.com/

Food for thought.