How you ever went back to a point source speaker after the ML’s Mr. Porter I’ll never know.
Can you please explain to me why the 6” woofers are ‘more in need of
what tubes do’? Never heard that before although I don’t doubt you for a moment!
Also, you mention the caps in the base are ‘to make the crossover operate properly’. I though the caps are to protect the ribbon from DC current back to it?
Regarding the lower crossover point with a stepper slope, if I’m not mistaken, my Apogee Stages crossed over at 800HZ at 6/12DB & My Apogee Studio Grands crossed over at 600HZ same slope with much smaller ribbons. Why can’t the Dali ribbon which is 91” tall do 800 say at 24DB?!
I will look into replacement ribbon for peace of mind because I don’t ever see me selling these speakers since that can’t be topped. Period.
Do you have any comments of me adding 3lbs of stuffing to each cabinet?
BTW- I did have them crossed over at 60HZ at 24DB with my subs, but didn’t like the bass. So now I’m running them full range & blended the subs in up to 50HZ. WOW is all I can say.
I understand your comment about the difference between line array and point source. That is exactly what I miss about moving from Dali Megaline to Focal.
That said, the Focal is a better speaker, and should be considering the difference in cost. There is no perfect speaker, all are a compromise and overall there are at least half a dozen speaker designs that quality for best of best and dozens more that are almost in that category.
My comment about the 6” woofers refer to punch, power and foundation that makes music satisfying. It’s impossible to get 6” woofers to punch like the Focal 16” field coil but big powerful tube amps help close that gap.
If you use solid state on the Dali woofers you are likely hungry for more slam and weight and crossing the sub higher provides some of that.
If you look at Dali chassis and rear port design the free air resonance is about 35 HZ. It’s very difficult to get the speaker (any speaker) to continue output below that natural physical restriction.
Dali does an EQ that partially corrects that but it’s not possible to get it linear to 16 HZ like the Focal nor should anyone try.
Your comments about crossover points probably relate to this as well. When I ran my Megaline I had them operating full range and then brought in twin JL Audio F212 subs at 24 DB per octave at 30 ~ 35 HZ and no phase or EQ dialed in on JL sub controls.
The way I choose to run, the Dali operates on it’s own and the subs do the same. At this low frequency the Class D amps in the subs don’t seem to effect the sound of the Megaline woofers, provided you filter the Class D amps at AC level and preamp level.
I had a buffer built so my preamp could not “see” the Class D subs and used Purist AC cables with network boxes.
The caps in the bottom of the Dali are part of the crossover and are supposed to protect against someone hooking up the crossover or amps in reverse. In other words, when someone puts woofer signal into ribbons the hope is to block signal before damage. These caps are always in the circuit and part of crossover frequency.
You ask about comparing Apogee versus Dali ribbons. These are two completely different designs. If you put big power into the Megaline, even with stock crossover and room light is shining on ribbon surface, you can frequently see the ribbon shimmer side to side, partially out of control.
I think it’s a miracle Dali designed such long ribbons and keep them operating perfectly but I would not want to exceed factory specs on range they operate in, any more than I would consider passing red line on a car engine repeatedly.
I have no comment on stuffing cabinet, I never tried that. The cabinet does seem a bit lightweight when you knuckle tap on it but I loved the sound so much I left it as is. Think hollow body guitar versus solid body :-). I believe Dali took this into consideration in the overall design.
I had plans for even more mods and upgrades on the Megaline before I changed over to the Focal. One included replacing built in spikes for Still Points. Also wanted to change those caps we’ve been discussing, the ones in the base of the speaker. Better quality could drastically reduce distortion on ribbons but suspect it would wind up needed a separate box wired up outside the chassis to accommodate.
Also wanted to go further on the Dali-Tutay crossover, I was at third generation and was still coming up with design changes that were significant to sound. The last thing I did was drastic, 1% copper foil Teflon caps for Tutay crossover. The caps were a fortune to get built but was amazing upgrade.