Finally found THE SPEAKER!!!


I have been a HiFi guy starting at 12 years old with my father passing along the love. We would spend almost every weekend auditioning speakers looking to find the perfect system. We purchased many speakers over the years and they all had their pros and cons, but the trade off always seemed to be nuanced and delicate vs. dynamic and punchy. When auditioning speakers people would always ask what kind of music do you like to listen to? Rock, female vocals, classical, etc... We had/have eclectic taste and would listen to it all. Why could't a speaker just play all of it?!?! Anyway my love for music, sound, etc... became my profession as I am now an Oscar nominated Supervising Sound Editor with well over 150 movies under my belt.

For the last 5 years I have been looking for speakers that can play films at reference levels with all the detail and punch, yet when I want to listen to music can give that nuanced and detailed imaging, space, air, articulation without being harsh and fatiguing. I have listened to SO MANY speakers and spent hundreds of hours auditioning everything I could find. I would fall in love with something for music and then try play one of my films at reference level and it just never gave me the impact I was looking for. I get it - hard to move a lot of air and still be nuanced and articulate. There are some excellent compression drivers/horns that can do the impact stuff, but for me they always have that harsh edge when it comes to music. The flip side with dome type tweeters I have found things have to be pushed to the edge to try to give that theatrical impact. Looking for the quick transient response of an electrostatic, with the punch of compression driver type of system.

Then a dealer recommend I listen to some speakers from Wisdom Audio. I have to admit I was pretty skeptical at first. I read about these and it all sounded like marketing to me, but the dealer I was talking with said he was blown away by them. So I reached out to the company and setup a demo. They use planar magnetics which is not exactly new, but is very difficult to manufacture. I asked them to have one of my films available to listen to. I chose one that I knew extremely well that has a LOT of dynamic punch as well as subtle nuance. I live in Los Angeles and the company is in Carson City, Nevada. I bought an airplane ticket and I was off. I was treated to a tour of the factory and shown how the speakers were made. USA manufactured!! Then we spent a few hours listening to all types of music on different ranges of speakers. I LOVED what I was hearing with the music part of the audition. Then I asked to hear my film in their theater. I expected to be disappointed based on what I had experienced in the past. Then it happened... I heard the film play and it sounded AMAZING! These speakers could do it all!!! No compression, no fatigue, HiFi sound and still able to play theatrical film tracks as they are meant to be heard. In fact - better! I called my wife in disbelief that my search for "The Speakers" was finally over! I even called my father to tell him what I had just heard. It was the impressive! I remind you - I do this for a living!

Since we are undergoing a major remodel at our home, my wife expected that the family room was going to be filled with big speakers as she has become accustomed to living with me. With some of these Wisdom Audio speakers, they are actually designed to be flush mounted in the wall. I thought there is no way a wall mounted speaker could ever sound as good as a traditional speaker. I was so wrong!! So not only did I find the perfect speaker, but not big boxes in the room 3 feet away from any walls! My wife was thrilled.

If you have never heard speakers by Wisdom Audio you need to find a dealer where you can audition them, or fly to the factory for a private demo!

Best,
Andrew
drewde
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@invalid

Thank you for your response. I have never heard the Duetta Sigs. I bet they sound AWESOME!!! I am now a fan of the technology.

How do they hold up over time. This is still a concern of mine. I am so used the traditional speaker designs and how they hold up. Any thoughts on how this technology fares over time??

Thank you!
@drewde All your suggestions above are basic to the setup of a home theater system. Most of us on this board know how to do this. In my 5.1 system (separate from my 2 channel system) it is virtually impossible to hear soft dialog without getting blasted out of the room during so-called action sequences. BTW this has nothing to do with any hearing deficiencies as this problem is documented by multi generational listeners. Depending on the movie, I sometimes have to resort to turning on the captions which can be distracting. My opinion, the movie industry is catering to the bling, the masses, the dollars.  
@dukeofdoowop 

DUDE!!! That is an awesome setup!!! Yes I get the upgrade bug part of your post. I think that is half the fun of this hobby.

I love the McIntosh gear. Always have been a huge fan.

One other question... what are the dimensions of your room? Standing waves are one of those nasty things that are hard to tone down.

I have used Audyssey room correction before and have had VERY mixed results. In on room it worked fantastic and another it really muddied up the sound and I found using the basic distance settings for delays and speaker level settings worked better. I think the problem lies more with my room and the software trying to correct for poor room treatment on my part. If it has to overcompensate too much with EQ I find it hurts rather than helps. AGAIN... my personal experience ONLY!!

That being said - the Audyssey has some very good compression settings for just your situation.

Would you say that overall you find the DX hard to hear with films in general?
Is the dynamic range of quiet to loud a separate issue or the main problem?

I don't have your Control Preamp so I found the manual online. PG 37 discusses the Dynamic Volume (dynamic EQ) settings. The Dynamic Volume should help you with the overly loud issues - it has 3 levels of compression depending on your likes.

BTW - I do like the Dynamic EQ. It is basically a loudness contour (Fletcher Munson Curve) setting. When you turn down your level the bass suffers more than the 3k - 4k range and need to be adjusted upward a fair bit... I forget how much but roughly 10dB to sound equal in volume. What does this mean. When you are listening back to at a lower level it will adjust those frequencies to keep the overall tonal balance the same. It should still sound rich and full even at lower levels.

Page 30 of the manual discusses some other surround settings your preamp has. DRC is one of them which will work with the Dolby True HD tracks. It also has a D.Comp setting as well. I am not sure if you can run both D.COMP along with Audyssey Dynamic Volume and I would recommend double compression, but then again... Hmmm... maybe two light compressors would be better than one HEAVY compressor. That is something I would do in my own mixing/editing environment.

If you are running the Audyssey and like how it sounds in general, then lets just start with the settings on PG 37 and set the Dynamic Volume to at least medium. This will be a subjective setting as only you will know if you want more or less dynamic range.

So...

1. Room size
2. Is DX low overall?
3. Is DX fine, then things get too loud during action scenes. Too much Dynamic range?
4. When you ran the Audyssey calibration, how many sample points did you do?

Best,
Drew


Thank you for your response. I have never heard the Duetta Sigs. I bet they sound AWESOME!!! I am now a fan of the technology.

How do they hold up over time. This is still a concern of mine. I am so used the traditional speaker designs and how they hold up. Any thoughts on how this technology fares over time??

Thank you!




The foam that is between the clamps and bass foils deteriorates and then they can resonate very bad. There is a diy fix for this, but the current foil manufacturer frowns upon this if you ever want then replaced.