Has anybody had experience with the Orions?

Hello Jose
I heard very good things about the Bethoveen designed by Mr. Linkwitz. The special thing about his design is the active Crossover at line level which buffers first and then separates freq. while correcting the drivers function to be finally perfectly flat, this is done by a complicated array of opamps at line level, you can see a functional diagram at his site, extremely interesting.
The part that atracted me the most to this design was the use of one amp per driver directly connected to the speaker terminals, avoiding coils etc. In his triamped system he recommends simple chip amps (Gaincard style) for each driver, I was of course thinking of using tube amps for mids and tweeters but gain discordance was a problem, and I didnt want to tinker with such a complicated and succesfull active Xover desing.
I lived for a while with Lowthers on open baffle on top of Altec 416, Bazzilla style (bought the plans but strayed from the original design) and realized open baffle is not my cup of tea, at least untill a get a bigger room!

I've had an interest in the Orions for some time, but haven't had a chance to hear them yet.

One criticism I've heard is that they (any dipole type) sound "big" all the time...even when the music doesn't call for it. Has anyone noticed this characteristic? How does the sound differ relative to a "conventional" speaker...say a Vandy 3a sig?

Fishboat,

The Orions definitely do not sound big all the time. I listen to a fair amount of solo guitar and lots of string quartets and the aural perspective is always size appropriate. I hated the way full size panel speakers made a guitar sound like it was six feet long. Now, extremely live rooms may mess things up as will placement too close to the back wall.

Tim McTeague

Fishboat:
"One criticism I've heard is that they (any dipole type) sound "big" all the time.."
Gradients are dipole only below 200 hz and i assume Orions are some where around that, being that you get the advantage of less standing waves than with any other boxed speaker (omnidirectional radiation bass enclosure).

Gradients are dipole only below 200 hz and i assume Orions are some where around that

No. The Orions are open baffle from ~2,4kHz to ~40Hz. Now they have a back firing tweet too (the tweet used has its own back chamber).