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Danny Richie "fixes" the Linkwitz Arion loudspeaker

For some time now I have been directing those interested in loudspeaker design to Danny Richie’s GR Research Tech Talk Tuesday videos on YouTube. Here is his latest: an examination of the Linkwitz Arion loudspeaker. You may be asking yourself: if Siegfried Linkwitz is the genius he is touted to be, how is it Danny found the Orion to be lacking, and was able to find solutions for it’s failings? I’ll leave that to you to answer. In the meantime, after watching and listening to this video, you may want to watch all the Tech Talk Tuesday videos. They may just make you a more informed loudspeaker consumer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCA-eSPUkJA.









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bdp24's avatar
bdp24 OP
9,788 posts
 

@clio09, interesting that both Roger and Bruce Thigpen ended up going with an 8" woofer in a small sealed enclosure to mate with their respective planars, Roger’s ESL’s, Bruce’s magnetic-planars. I deeply regret having been unable to hear Roger’s ESL driven by his direct-drive OTL amp. Now THAT’S the way to make a loudspeaker!

Danny Richie uses a pair of OB/Dipole subs up front (each sub having a pair of 12" woofers), and a pair of 12" sealed subs in the rear, with the rears in polarity opposite that of the fronts.

clio09
3,355 posts
 
Yes I have been watching some of the tech talk videos and decided to try using an OB sub but I decided against the GR model due to having to use the dedicated servo amps. I prefer to work with what I already have on hand and purchased the OB cabinets for the Linkwitz LX521 from Madisound. I will stuff them with some Dayton Audio drivers that will work well in them with little EQ. I do intend to use them with the sealed subs I made with Roger (he liked 8" to get the cabinet smaller, but pointed me to some nice 10" drivers as well that are higher in mass but still fast enough in a small enclosure) so will try reversing the polarity on the rear subs.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24 OP
9,788 posts
 

Great @clio09. The Madisound OB frames are real nice, made of Baltic Birch. Does Madisound sell the LX521 OB/Dipole woofer frame alone? I installed my OB/Dipole woofers in the same style frame (Danny refers to it as a "W", others an "M", and Madisound a "V". All the same thing ;-), not the more common H-frame.

One thing to consider is adding a second layer of BB or MDF to each side panel, to stiffen them up and lessen their resonance. And a sidewall-to-sidewall brace can be installed on the "open" (typically front) side of the frame, again to add cabinet stiffness and therefore reduced resonance. Another tweak is installing a layer of ASC WallDamp between doubled-up side walls, again to reduce resonance.

Brian Ding installs a 6dB/octave "shelving" circuit into his Rythmik A370 plate amp when used in an OB sub, to counteract the dipole cancellation inherent in OB woofers. That’s an easy filter to construct, just a couple of parts.

clio09
3,355 posts
 
Yes you can buy the sub cabinet separately, $300 per pair and free shipping.
jafant's avatar
jafant
19,593 posts
 
bdp24

an 8" woofer is where its at- Apogee Slant 8 was a sweet speaker, as well as, my Thiel Audio CS 2.4 SE loudspeaker.  Back in the 1990's Infinity made the CS 3008 floorstander that was pretty good.

Happy Listening!
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