High Efficiency Speaker Asylum

Posted by Dan_ed (A) on July 04, 2007 at 08:52:34

In Reply to: RE: my new Titans are born! posted by Saturntube on July 04, 2007 at 07:54:14

Thanks!

The Acapella driver does cover the 750-30KHz range as advertised. It has a very nice mid-range presence and does a fantastic job with voices. Does a wonderful job with horns and saxophones. There is some noticeable horn coloration around 1kHz, especially noticeable with that band of the piano, but not unpleasant. I'm not sure if this is a result of the 1" throat or the crossover pole around 700Hz.

The Edgarhorns are much more forward in the mid-range. No horn coloration that I can detect. I haven't heard them do the sax and trumpet as well as the Acapella but I'm reduced to using my CDP (phono stage power supply is being tweaked) so I'll reserve judgment until I get my analog source running again. Yes, I'm using the 2441's. The Fostex go way over what the Acapellas can deliver in the HF. Maybe thats because they're more efficient or just the benefits of having a 3-way? I do know that Acapella pads the driver down so that it better integrates with the woofers and they fold the upper woofer into the mid-range a bit to help smooth that high xover point.

The bass of the Acapells is very impressive. Fast, tight, tuned. And those 4, 6.5" drivers easily get into the 20Hz range. They don't have the chest slam like say an Aerial 10t, but still do a great job. At first I was a little disappointed with the EV 15B's I'm using in the Edgarhorns. I've learned this morning that the fiberglass I stuffed in the rear chamber was holding them back. Once I removed that they really came to life. For a large driver they really don't give up anything to those smaller woofers of the Acapellas. And I think the LF is more pure with the 80Hz cabinet.

I'm sure we all know that the Edgarhorns require a pretty good size room just to get in the door. Mine tip the scales around 330 Lbs a piece. More than twice the Acapella. Not to mention that you really need the Seismic horn to get down into the lower registers. I'm using a Nick Doshi modified Lectron JH50 push-pull amp to drive the Edgarhorns and it's evident that they can be driven by much lower powered amps. The only requirement is that the amp needs to be quiet. The Lectron used to be fairly quiet until I hooked it up to these super efficient drivers. The tube rush is evident but not unbearable. The Partridge iron in the Lectron makes it worth living with a little more noise.

I believe that Acapella fudges their efficiency numbers. They can be run with SETs but I quickly ran the Lectron (50 watts/ch) to compression. They really open up beautifully with 100 watts or more. I use Rogue M150's with them and they just loved the extra juice. The dynamics just took off. I'm sure they would really shine with more refined amplification.

Both the Acapella and Edgarhorn are very competent and enjoyable speakers. I think the Edgarhorn is better integrated and is less colored. I'm really glad to have had the opportunity to hear both of these speakers in my system.