5.  How about 5 or 6 GR Research 12 inch servo woofers per channel mounted on their own baffle.  Driven by two servo amps per channel.  Another baffle would have a line source of 6 BG 10 planar mids and 10 Beyma air motion tweeters, 20 BG Neo 3s, or even a line of Raal Ribbons.  Modified Behringer xover on the bass to make sure all those woofers are dead flat at your listening postion. I don't know any speaker on the planet that would be better.  The usual bracing of the magnets, no binding post sound, super wire (options for the best wire and crossover parts in the world), diffraction control, etc.   Dead flat frequency response at your listening seat from 15 hz to above 20K!  Massive!!!! controlled bass, but because it is totally equalized you could even have this speaker in a relatively small room.  Totally tweak!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  $25,000 plus. Imagine what the big speaker companies would charge for something like this....certainly $100,000 plus.  But nothing exists like this......5 or 6 open baffle servo woofs fully equalized?  Over 100db sensitive planar and ribbon line sources....no binding post sound.....worlds best xover parts. 

We will also be doing custom work.....so if you want a Coax driver (Beyma, P-Audio, etc.) on top and the servos on bottom, no problem. Or how about a coax on top and the two Alphas on the bottom. Or how about a full range Tangband on top.....or the Beyma AMT on top, or say a great 7 inch Audiotechnology woof and RAAL tweeter on top.....or BG 10s from 200 to 1K and Beyma AMT on top, or separate open baffle or sonotubed subs....if you can imagine it....we can make it. However, all speakers will be open baffle except for sonotube subs......boxes be gone!Check out the woodworker that will be making these beauties: http://www.machneecustomwoodworking.com


We will have protos of the #2 and #2.5 speakers above done very soon and will be showing them in the bay area to anyone seriously inclined. I can bring them to your house and A/B with your current speakers. So, if you live in the bay area and are interested, please let me know and we can talk about your needs.

I will have some pics of the protos sometime in the next month or so. Not painted, but will give you some idea of the basic form.....they will be sweet!


Any time you have a speaker in a box there is air pressure loading that driver. That air pressure prevents the driver from breathing freely. A woofer up to 200 hz or so in a box can be very uncolored if the box is made super strong and has good internal damping material. However, running a speaker in a box above 200 hz causes the midrange to sound compressed and veiled (especially if it is a two way as there would be mucho pressure behind the driver). Now this compression/veiling can be very subtle as there are some seriously great speakers that have midranges in a box....but if you take the same speaker and remove it from the box (like Nola does)....it will most surely sound more open and pure. Boxes produce some level of box sound. Look at how most all manufacturers of high end box speakers go to serious lengths to make their speakers heavy, dead and sometimes curved for they know that if any part of the speaker box vibrates then the sound is smeared. Having an open baffle speaker simply gets rid of the box problem. No box to vibrate and no air inside to load the driver or sound to bounce off the back wall of the speaker and reflect back to the driver. Open baffles allow pure sound. However, the baffles have to be made seriously dead and be super braced as there are no sides to brace it like a box has. A minor problem with running drivers open baffle is getting good bass. Two ways to overcome this problem and get great bass are to use several large high Q drivers or several high Q servo woofs. Open baffle bass is usually considered cleaner/clearer sounding than box bass but produces less low bass and a less explosive sound per amount of woofer used. So, more woofs are required for serious slam and low bass. Danny Ritchie will have 8 inch open baffle servo woofers soon that will allow a smaller baffle for those that want a smaller sized speaker.

Bi or Tri-amping with a highly modded digital xover has many advantages over normal passive xovers:
1. you can set the xover frequency anywhere you like and at any xover rate so you can use drivers exactly in their best way but also extend the bandwidth of a driver by xing it over faster/steeper.
2. no exotic super expensive passive components are needed. How about a Dueland silver cap.....can cost thousands of dollars.
3. Driving the speakers directly gives a damping factor that is through the roof. You just have to hear your woofer directly connected to the amp instead of through coils and caps to know what I mean. Direct drive is seriously great.
4. Having separate amps on the woofs, etc. allows way better transparency as there is reduced back EMF on the upper drivers. The woofers create lots of back EMF and even in a speaker that is bi-wired, there is still interaction with the midrange and tweeters.
5. full eq of your speaker is now possible and full eq at your listening position. There are tons of reviews by people who have done room correction and especially bass correction and the sonic difference is night and day. Below 400 hz your room interacts with your speaker to create a very non linear response. You can use bass traps, move the speakers around, etc, to help this but in the end you still have non linear response and somewhat muddy sound. Once you have eqed the speaker so it is flat at your listening position......the sound is way more real and clear sounding.
6. You can use amps that are best for the frequency ranges you need. Some amps do great treble but no so good bass. Some great bass amps (like the big Ice Power jobbies I used to sell) have somewhat rolled off highs.
7. You can time align the drivers even if they are all flush mounted by using digital delay.

However, you are adding an A to D, D to A and analog stages to the mix when you are using a digital xover. Also, you want the conversion to be at least 24/96. So, you need to seriously modify a xover to get super transparency through. Stock Behringers, DBXs, MiniDSPs, and even the good DEQX are not serious high end pieces and the mod that some manufacturers sell with their Behringer is not a very serious mod. If you want seriously great sound then you need to get seriously tweak.

We will have amps and cables that could be sold with the speakers (and probably sold separately too). I have an idea for a 30-60 watt zero feedback solid state amp (1 meg bandwidth and .02% distortion) that could be used for the mids and highs.  A basic stereo version might be around $1000 with more exotic mono versions going for something over $2000.   All subject to evaluation.