Emerald Physics CS2 loudspeakers at RMAF...WOW!!!

MarkR7 · « **Reply #40 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 03:29 am »

I will certainly backup the commentary here about the Emerald Physics CS2s. They first caught my attention on Friday as soon as I walked into the room! Needless to say, I went back there multiple times.

Let me first go on record as saying that I was quite unimpressed and generally suprised at the mediocre sound quality that I was hearing throughout RMAF, even more so on the mega $$ systems. Practically nothing there made me wish I had it over my current system.

Back to the Emerald Physics.... as eluded to earlier, the system was set up using NO room treatments whatsoever, playing through iTunes on a laptop to a tubed USB dac, thru a Modwright 36.5 pre, the Behringer active crossover, and ultimately through a pair of small Bel Canto stereo amps. Audience PowerChords, Purist Museus, and generic ICs were used to connect everything together! For me, this was the best sound experience at the show; as stated earlier, it was stunning!

The dynamics, lack of distortion, extreme speed, superb midrange, awesome depth, transient response, and ultimately, the musicality of these Emerald Physics was shocking to say the least, especially at this price point, but even at higher price points. WOW! is an understatement. Will I be trying these....you betcha!

MarkR7 · « **Reply #41 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 03:31 am »

BTW, it was nice to meet Chris (Lonewolfny) and Jeff (Captain Humble) and it was nice to see Tom (TomS) again!

Cheers Gents!

zybar · « **Reply #42 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 03:32 am »

Quote from: MarkR7 on 15 Oct 2007, 03:31 am

BTW, it was nice to meet Chris (Lonewolfny) and Jeff (Captain Humble) and it was nice to see Tom (TomS) again!

Cheers Gents!

Mark,

Sorry I missed meeting you, maybe next time.

George

MarkR7 · « **Reply #43 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 03:36 am »

I was looking for ya, George! I even wore my Bears shirt on Saturday!

brj · « **Reply #44 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 03:53 am »

Quote from: kyyuan

Quote from: brj
I spent about 45 minutes in the Emerald Physics room today, and have to say that I was impressed as well. Unfortunately, I forgot my discs today, but he had one on that "some guys had given him" that sounded suspiciously familiar... it turned out to be the NYAR disk!

brj...you mean no other attendees had Heart with them? he he he....sorry -- had to put an Art on ya. Hope all is well.

You're killin' me!

No, the Heart CD - only ever used for demos - did not make the cut of CDs to leave out when all the others went into storage!

I intentionally looked for the Merlin room with your system in mind, and based on the demo, I'm guessing that you're probably liking your recent upgrade. Shoot me a note sometime and let me know how it turned out, although your room would be great or the CS2s!

arthurs · « **Reply #45 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 03:58 am »

Congrats to the Emerald guys, sounds like a heck of a showing!

Ken - why do you insist on making fun of Heart? I really don't understand it...and certainly don't think it's a very nice thing to do to Brian...

Kishore · « **Reply #46 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 04:13 am »

Ahhh, secret has finally got more publicity (Srajean & Duke were right on the money earlier on about Clayton's speakers)

. I guess CS2 fit the room right...and will be good for many of our average listening rooms (compared to earlier bigger speaks).

George looking forward to your feedback once you set them up in your room. I think for the $$, they will be hard to beat- and may give your 5A some spankin' ..let's see.

Wondering how they would compare to vmps RV60..

Anyways I will be shocked if Emerald Physics does not have a forum here on AC aa

Clayton-glad to see you will be more busy

Cheers,
Kishore

zybar · « **Reply #47 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 04:51 am »

Quote from: brj on 15 Oct 2007, 02:45 am

George, I was hoping to run into you today - sorry we didn't connect!

Brian,

Sorry we didn't connect today as well. At least we finally met face to face at Cool River last night.

Let's talk on the phone soon.

George

zybar · « **Reply #48 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 04:54 am »

Quote from: Kishore on 15 Oct 2007, 04:13 am

George looking forward to your feedback once you set them up in your room. I think for the $$, they will be hard to beat- and may give your 5A some spankin' ..let's see.

Anyways I will be shocked if Emerald Physics does not have a forum here on AC aa

Clayton-glad to see you will be more busy

Cheers,
Kishore

I agree that an Emerald Physics Circle would be a nice addition in the not so near future.

It was great meeting and talking to Clayton these last few days and I think he will fit right in here at AC.

George

zybar · « **Reply #49 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 04:56 am »

Quote from: Charles Calkins on 15 Oct 2007, 12:44 am

Well George is at it again. New speakers. Maybe new electronics? Never seems to end. Sure do enjoy reading his posts. Wonder when he will quit changing gear and say "I'm satisfied" In my lifetime? Probably not.

Cheers
Charlie

Charlie,

As much as you can count on me trying new gear, I can count on you to comment on the fact that I am trying new gear. aa

Sorry you didn't make it out to RMAF, we missed you.

Maybe next year...

George

Bigfish · « **Reply #50 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 12:36 pm »

Quote from: TomS on 14 Oct 2007, 10:29 pm

They were using a stereo pair of Bel Canto ice amps vertically biamped playing to seriously loud levels without issues. Not sure which ones though.

Guys:

Would you mind explaining the signal path? They were running from a source to a DAC to a Preamp then to two Bel Canto Biamped Stereo Amps. I am sure the explanation is simple but since I am realatively new to this hobby I wanted to ask and learn. For example George has two mono tube amps and is considering additional amps to power the tweeters. I guess my question, is the preamp feeding a crossover with the lower signals then pushed to one pair of amps and the upper signals pushed to the other pair?

Thanks in advance for teaching this old guy something!

Ken

TomS · « **Reply #51 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 12:40 pm »

Mac Mini USB -> USB tube DAC -> Modwright LS36.5 -> Boehringer DSP Crossover (4 of 6 output channels used separated into mid/upper and woofers -> 2 left upper/lower channels to Bel Canto stereo amp and 2 right upper/lower channels to another Bel Canto stereo amp. Hope that helps.

mcullinan · « **Reply #52 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 01:32 pm »

Tom,
Are you still purchasing the LS-9s or going to switch to the Emerald Physics CS2?
Mike

TomS · « **Reply #53 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 02:00 pm »

As I said, I've already purchased AV123 LS-9's, which is pretty exciting to me. I'm just waiting (relatively) patiently, like everyone else, for them to ship to end customers. Plenty of LS threads elsewhere talking about them, so I'll just leave it at that.

JoshK · « **Reply #54 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 02:05 pm »

Quote from: TomS on 15 Oct 2007, 12:40 pm

Mac Mini USB -> USB tube DAC -> Modwright LS36.5 -> Boehringer DSP Crossover (4 of 6 output channels used separated into mid/upper and woofers -> 2 left upper/lower channels to Bel Canto stereo amp and 2 right upper/lower channels to another Bel Canto stereo amp. Hope that helps.

So one of the 15"s was running with the waveguide tweeter as a mid in a passive xo and one 15" was running as woofer? I was curious how they configured this because if both 15"s were running all the way up to 1K to cross to the tweeter then you'd have some pretty noticeable combing due to the extreme center-to-center spacing. As only a two way I was wondering if this was really 2.5 way where the lower woofer is doing LF support only.

TomS · « **Reply #55 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 02:12 pm »

My understanding is the two woofers in each panel are driven together, with no passive components, thus a single channel from the active xo drives both woofers, and another channel to the 1" compression driver with a 12" waveguide on the top end. Crossover is about 1200hz 48db/octave but he didn't share all the details.

gitarretyp · « **Reply #56 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 02:16 pm »

Quote from: JoshK on 15 Oct 2007, 02:05 pm

So one of the 15"s was running with the waveguide tweeter as a mid in a passive xo and one 15" was running as woofer? I was curious how they configured this because if both 15"s were running all the way up to 1K to cross to the tweeter then you'd have some pretty noticeable combing due to the extreme center-to-center spacing. As only a two way I was wondering if this was really 2.5 way where the lower woofer is doing LF support only.

I've been wondering the same thing. The dsp could probably correct the combing on-axis, but the power response would be quite bad. Since it's only an active two, the only way i see it working well would be to have a passive low-pass on the lower woofer, perhaps rolling it in as the output drops off due to dipole effects.

TomS · « **Reply #57 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 02:42 pm »

Rather than speculate too much, the easiest thing would be to ask Clayton to walk it through. He was very accommodating so I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem. I was so wrapped up in the sound I didn't ask much about the science. That is indeed rare for me

sleepysurf · « **Reply #58 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 02:46 pm »

I, likewise, attended RMAF. Of all the rooms I heard (unfortunately, only time for about half), the MBL and Emerald Physics stood out above the rest. I agree the latter, at it's price point, was incredible! I had created my own demo/test CD, with music I know and love. The CS2 compared favorably (arguably yielding cleaner detailed bass) vs. my ML Summit setup! My only criticism is the stark black minimalist design has low WAF, but ohhhhh, that sound! Will be interesting to watch the further development of his three-way design.

anubisgrau · « **Reply #59 on:** 15 Oct 2007, 03:16 pm »

Quote from: JoshK on 15 Oct 2007, 02:05 pm

So one of the 15"s was running with the waveguide tweeter as a mid in a passive xo and one 15" was running as woofer? I was curious how they configured this because if both 15"s were running all the way up to 1K to cross to the tweeter then you'd have some pretty noticeable combing due to the extreme center-to-center spacing. As only a two way I was wondering if this was really 2.5 way where the lower woofer is doing LF support only.

no, the eminence woofers are for sure in parallel - that's a classic OB bass thing. i don't which BMS compression driver is used in CS2, but whatever he uses it goes really low - deeply into a midrange territory. could be it's one of the BMS coaxial compression drivers which is actually mid and tweeter together.

i'm a bit confused with behringer being mentioned - i've thought that emerald is EXCLUSIVELY using DBX products, at least known as an industry standard.

LBNTL has anyone had a chance to check the "sock" that covers the baffle and drivers? i have 3 cats at home and if it looks like a big piece of clothed furniture they will start playing with it sooner or later. naked drivers are less of a problem.