It's an honor and a pleasant surprise to have speakers that I build become a topic in this thread.
Pankaj wrote: "Hi O_holter my I was interested in the audiokineses LCS Dreammakers likw what you have I have been listening to a pair of Green Mountain Audio EOS HX bookshelf speakers time aligned and phase coherent. Is room size a big contributing factor for the Dreammakers? My music is a mix of jazz vocals sometimes a little rock but not much."
Just to give a little bit of background, O_Holter's system is unique: Bipolar original-format Dream Maker speakers, with a pair of Late Ceiling Splash (LCS) modules, an invention that I use with the permission of James Romeyn.
Room size does play some role of course, and in particular, the original-format bipolar Dream Makers like to have a fair amount of space behind them to allow a fairly long time delay before the reflection off the wall behind them reaches the listener. This is pretty much identical to the situation with Maggies or Quads or Sound Labs or any other planar.
Originally the LCS modules were designed to be part of a newer system called the Dream Maker LCS system, which consists of a pair of monopole main speakers, and then the up-firing LCS modules would supply the additional spectrally-correct reverberant field energy that would get its recommended 10 milliseconds (or more) of arrival-time-delay from taking the long bounce off the ceiling. Obviously this calls for fairly aggressive radiation pattern control in the LCS modules, but fortunately that's something I'm comfortable working with. So conceptually the Dream Maker LCS system is a bipolar like the original Dream Maker, but instead of the rear-firing drivers bouncing their energy off the wall, we use up-firing drivers which bounce their energy off the ceiling. (If your ceiling is absorptive, you can stand the LCS modules on end and aim them at a wall.)
So what O_Holter has is a system that combines both rear-firing and up-firing drivers contributing to the reverberant field, and apparently the net effect is pretty good:
"They do something special, have never experienced it before. The soundscape becomes much more three dimensional, embodied, fleshed out, poignant; the sound is almost visually present, and this effect covers most of the room. When I walk forward from the listener position it is like moving through the front seats of a concert venue, and then on to the stage itself, the musicians playing around me. Quite amazing. There are SOME things I dont like with reverberant energy, but this execution is mainly for the better. When I turn off the LCS, playing the main speakers (Dream makers) alone, it still sounds fine, but more traditional, flatter, less engaging."
We are working on a "universal" LCS module that can be added to most existing systems, as we think that it can benefit a wide range of systems. So theoretically Pankaj could retain everything the Green Mountain Audio speakers are doing right as far as the first arrival sound goes, and add a generous helping of spectrally-correct reverberant energy that will arrive after a decent time delay from taking the long bounce from the floor up to the ceiling.
Duke
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