Speakers for leading edge, transients, speed and big sound

Jay's Audio on Youtube announced this weekend that Von Schweikert speakers are comparable to Sonus Faber and Magico if they had a baby, high resolution, huge dynamics, huge soundstage and musicality.  Even the new VR 30 speaker with a pair of 10" VS subs can fill a large room or balance a small room with the adjustable (not in DSP/digital domain) subs permitting easy speaker placement and fundamentals to shake your room. 

@faustuss Wrote:

faustuss

127 posts

05-06-2025 at 02:58am 

@ditusa Bill Woodman who founded ATC in 1974 solved this problem by using "underslung" edge wound voice coils in a longer and tighter gap which eliminated the "offset" issue while reducing distortion up to 20dB throughout the driver's frequency range. In addition, this reduces the usual swings in impedance as well as radical changes in phase angels resulting in flat impedance response without resonances. The caveat being the need for enormous magnet structures along with considerable reduction in efficiency. Essentially though, you could use any type of amplifier typology to drive their speakers without harm to the amplifier but to get the speaker system to come alive you need minimally a hundred watts high current solid-state power.

Thanks for the post. Remember Bill Woodman and Edmond May see here. 

Mike

Here's a Meyer Sound story FWIW. 

Around 2010 the studio I worked for was looking for monitors for a new room. We demoed a few contenders including a 15inch Meyer horn system. I don't remember the model but they were in the $25k range. We played both good and bad recordings in the testing to make sure we could hear the difference. The Meyers sounded fabulous on everything, even the known bad recordings. For that reason we chose another brand but that was for studio use. For home listening, they might be perfect. 

@ditusa Lovely! Thank you so much!

"This profile opened with the assessment that Ed May was one of the most accomplished acoustic engineers of the past half century. This may seem to be overstating the case since the body of his published work is actually quite small. Nonetheless, the quality of his work, sheer output and influence in the industry speaks volumes. This is best exemplified by the quote at the end of this profile. It is by Bill Woodman, founder and senior designer for ATC Acoustic Engineers of Cotswold, England. ATC is one of the most respected manufacturers of high-end studio monitors and home speakers. Even though he never met Ed, here is what Bill had to say in a 2000 interview:

"The man who inspired me mostly, in truth, was Ed May, one of the very early designers at JBL. A lot of the thinking he incorporated, we've incorporated into our design. All one can hope to do is better engineer what is already known""

Thanks for the post. Remember Bill Woodman and Edmond May see here. 

Mike

@larryi wrote:

A local builder uses quite sizeable horns and compression drivers that can go extremely low.  I recently heard a system where the crossover from compression midrange to woofers was set at 180 hz with a very shallow 6 db/octave slope.  The compression drivers were quite pricey, and if this were my system, I would insist on a higher crossover point and/or a 12 db/octave slope.

That sounds extreme. I’m not aware of compression driver that goes that low, let alone comfortably (not least with a 1st order HP!), but there may be some field coil drivers to challenge that. The permanent magnet JBL 2490H is a  3" exit compression driver that can be crossed at ~300Hz without any issues, and the Community M4 is a 4" exit and ~40 pound beast that can be high-passed at 250Hz. Both have a sensitivity around 115dB’s and 200W continuous power handling, so about the ultimate in high SPL pure midrange compression drivers around. 

And definitely; on the face of it I’d use steeper slopes as well in the context lined out by you, in addition to raising the crossover frequency. 

@devinplombier wrote:

Thank you for your response. Your point about "hifi" bass and what it is / should be about is well taken. I do agree in principle, but I do like some slam too, and I’m not resigned to the two being mutually exclusive.

It’s not that the JBL K2’s don’t have "slam," far from it, but it’s the way they do bass overall that’s interesting and that differs from the typical low efficiency segment of "hifi" speakers with smaller woofers. Where I heard the K2’s I didn’t find them to be anemic in the upper bass/lower midrange per se as pointed to in another post, but rather what struck me was the coherency into the power region here, and how the bass was more articulate, tactile and less "bassy."  

In any event, I was curious about this:

"to those of us who are not bothered by larger size and that dare to look outside the accepted brands, hifi segment and high price dogma, not to mention embracing actively configured speakers, there are even better options out there - and cheaper to boot."

Wondering if you would care to elaborate on some specific options you have in mind? Thanks!

A pair of active Meyer Sound Acheron 80/100 cinema series speakers are a more refined sounding package than the K2’s and Everest’s, and they’re cheaper - even with built-in amps and crossovers. Pair them with the dual 18" Meyer Sound X-800 subs and they’ll run circles around the Everest’s in every regard, still being the cheaper solution. A pair of Stage Accompany M57 speakers, outboard actively configured and with high efficiency subs will leave the K2’s behind in quite a few respects, while being much cheaper. A pair of dual 15"-loaded, actively configured ATC SCM300ASL Pro are great speakers, and cheaper than the K2’s even with ATC outboard amps and crossovers. My own setup of outboard actively configured EV cinema speakers with large format horns, JBL alnico tweeters and tapped subs do things a pair of K2’s and Everest’s can’t equal - way cheaper, and yes, you’ll have to take my word for it. Vitavox Thunderbolt and Black Knight systems, outboard actively configured and horn subs augmented are dynamite setups. There are many more solutions, but what goes through it all is that they’re actively configured.