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Orpheans now sound totally fabulous with improved dynamic range on phono

Posted by kurt s on July 3, 2007 at 10:36:31

I received a new cartridge for my turntable while waiting for my Koetsu Urushi to be retipped. That Urushi's suspension was worn out and was causing less than optimal sound through the Orphean horns with a lot of shout and other bad vibes.

So as a backup cartridge, and to see if I can live with less expensive cartridges, I bought a Benz ACE low output MC cartridge. After just a couple hours of breaking in on a warm evening, it started opening up already and sounding awesome, way more performance than I expected for a $550 cartridge. I actually think this cartridge's performance is better already than some $3000 cartridges that I had about 10 years ago. So obviously the good news is that analog progress has not died and we are getting more for our money today than a decade ago.

I know that maybe this belongs in Vinyl Asylum, but those people give me a headache sometimes.

If my Urushi doesn't return in absolute awesome condition with awesome performance that a modern expensive cartridge should produce, I might sell it and just keep this affordable Benz. I think it's that good.

Anyway, now that I have good phono to test out the highly resolving and dynamic capabilities of the Orphean horns, I can say these are the best speakers I have ever heard. I haven't heard them all, but still these are the best I personally have heard.

After some careful tweaks on the crossovers, the active and passive part, and so on, I have a very neutral sounding speaker with huge dynamic capability and low distortion from 250 Hz - 20 KHz, and not too bad at 30 Hz - 250 Hz either, really. I could still improve the bass, that's still the weak link, but I find it acceptable.

On top of that, the imaging is better than I knew there before. The new cartridge is proving excellent in the area of detail and imaging and the Orpheans are delivering it. The point source over a broad frequency range is proving its advantages there I think.

The only thing about these speakers that I find negative is that I do have to sit in the small sweet spot. They beam the highs, and they don't sound like much when I'm sitting on the sidelines. It's a one person speaker. The Oris horn and the Avantgarde DUOs were about 3 person speakers. But these sound a lot better than either of those IMO when you're in the sweet spot. I think the BMS 4592ND is a superb sounding driver when tamed. I believe Bert mentioned that a newer version of the BD-Design Orphean crossover will be out for the latest version of this speaker.

I think I can recommend this speaker without too much hesitation now. It's much more affordable if you can build your own bass cabinets. Make sure you get all the info about the latest crossover changes, though, if you decide on these.

Since they are so revealing, the crossover component sound is pretty crucial. I like the Duelund copper foil caps in there. I think the silver ones are insanely priced, and I don't really know if that would be worth it to most people.

If you do buy these, it will require a smooth and revealing amplifier and source to get the potential out of them. Harsh components will sound harsh. Harsh recordings will sound harsh, although not excessively so because it doesn't add much harshness itself when played at medium to medium loud volume levels.

And one other limitation is that it does not go to VERY loud levels cleanly, just to loud. You shouldn't be playing it that loud anyways for your ears sake.

I think that about concludes my saga of the Orphean horns. The bassbins might be addressed later, but still I like it.

Kurt

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