electrostats vs ribbon drivers

Kkm and Johnk have either one of you hear a soundlab speaker?I know the sizzle sound you are refering to but on the soundlab that is adjustable to where it is heard then backed off;on my m2;s I cannot hear sizzle at all when properly adjusted.

Hi Ack, You are right regarding the looks: exactly like
Apogee. I remember the name 'Omega' but was no sure if this name refers to one of the (speaker) models or to the producer.However there seems to be some Australian guy who produce all the ribbons (low,mid and tweeters) for the Apogee. To complex for an amateur so I give up. But it would be very interesting if the Greek(s) and the Australian would try the revival together.

Regards,

just to give you a bit of correct history. The only patent issue Magnepan had with Apogee Acoustics was with regard to the Apogee DIVA ribbon tweeter. This was circumvented by backdating the serial numbers on the DIVAs. Apogee did not go out of Business because of Magnepan. I have/had contacts to the inner circles of ex-apogee and the story was the high competition and demand for more commercial speaker systems. The downfall came with the Apogee GRAND. The engineering and production cost were to high and the numbers sold too low. Had nothing to do with Magnepan. The models that Magnepan has/had only employ in some cases an actual ribbon. Just for history purposes i have/had several models from both companies Apogee (Caliper Sig, Scintilla, Stage, DIVA and The Grand) as well as Magnepan 0.5, 1.6 and two pairs of 3.6s.

Cheers

Hi Florianw, I got this patent story from some of the 4
Magazines for which I had subscription then (30 years ago?). Whatever the cause of the downfall we all regret the fact that Apogee is out of buseness. I can't remember The
Grand however. Would you care to tell us something about? I
myself am not able to imagine something better than Scintilla. BTW I am not sure what you mean with 'Just for history purposes...' I would like to have Scintilla for
one purpose only : listening .

Regards,

Hello Nandric,

sure, i can give you a bit of an overview: The first model was called the "Fullrange" which is until today the largest model they made which employes only ribbons (or planar magnetic bass / people agree to disagree on this point). The Scintilla came second and was a bit of a Fullrange cut in half but with a unique midrange tweeter system that sat in the same slot. With one large pure aluminum ribbon in the middle and 4 ribbon tweeters around it. Later came other models such as the Caliper and the Duetta (smaller 2 way systems) followed up the new replacement 3 way Apogee DIVA (never reached the Fullrange) in sound tough. Although i only allow myself this remark with respect to other Apogees. Later came some hybrid models and the smallest Apogee called the "Stage". The hybrids such as the Mini Grand and the Studio Grand where hybrids where the bass panel stopped at around 70Hz and a subwoofer was employed. These are generally very good and capable of higher dynamic swings and could be used on lesser powered amps. In the early ninethees Apogee developed a speaker called "The Grand" which is a 4 way fully active ribbon speaker. Tweeter ribbon, midrange ribbon, woofer panel and basically a Krell Master Reference Subwoofer below it. Its about a 1300lbs without the packaging and comes with 4 built in krell mono amps for the subwoofer and (user selectable) woofer or tweeter. The customer has to apply additionally 4 channels of amplification so the system uses a total of 8 mono blocks to fire the speakers. Comes with built in displays and computer systems to adjust the rake, user presets, phase etc.... of all the drivers individually. About 7 pair or so were ever made costing over 85000$ in the early nineties. Extremely rare and to my ears the absolute pinnacle of sound. I had a Scintilla before and have friends who have them. An extremely good speaker and less space consuming then the Fullrange or Grand. Graz in Australia makes the spare parts in very high quality and excellent customer service. He even make a new Scintilla which can be driven by tube amps. :-)