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In Reply to: RE: Surreal Speakers: Made to order, one superb pair at a time posted by Rushton on November 22, 2014 at 11:48:20
I read they need an amp for the full range and one for the subs. From their site:Frequency Response: 25 Hz to 22 kHz
Sensitivity: 94dB (Field Coils 98db)
Monitor Impedance: 8 ohms* or 16 ohms (Field Coils)
Sub-woofer Impedance: 1 ohm
Crossover Frequency: 133.5Hz
Six (6) 10" Custom sub-woofer drivers per side
Recommended Monitor amps: 6-100 wpc
Recommended Sub-woofer amps: 300-1000 wpc (Two custom Class G amps included) or single Crown 4002xti stereo sub amp, your choice.
So yes it is included in the price it seems but still. A bi-amp scenario is required. I'm all on board with the potential coherence and image from a single driver speaker from 100hZ up. My HF hearing is good enough that I don't need HF driver "zing".Also at $20K you can see why such a large percentage of single driver speaker owners make their own. This design leans heavily to DIY and the subs can be in the same or a different cabinet. Bass is easy compared to trying to get great sound from say 100-20K. Especially when you can use multiple cabinets and locations as you can when you DIY. Anyone know the FR driver used? How much is it?
The Crown sub amp option which may cost more or less, they don't say is an amp you can get for $900. However since they say the subwoofer impedance is 1 ohm and this amp won't drive a one ohm load I wonder what they do when they use the Crown? I guess they wire it 2ch stereo w/3 drivers per side. If the subs have an 8 ohm DCR or near that would work. But if I'm spending $20K or near I don't want one of those piece of shit Crowns in my audio chain. They have a noisy fan too, I wonder how they deal with that on this high power amp that weighs in at 18 pounds. They better upgrade the shitty power cord it comes with. They need a lot of current fast with that amp design.
ET
Edits: 11/23/14Follow Ups:
I heard the version with the Lowther field coil driver. I believe that the drivers go for something like $5,000 per pair. I don't know about the current prices for AER field coils, but, about five years ago they were in the $4,000 per pair price range. The Lowther-based model I heard had a very nicely made head unit with a tapered back chamber for the driver (not a typical DIY construction). The sound from this unit was MUCH better than what I have heard with any other Lowther implementation (I have heard the field coil Lowther in an open baffle and found that WAY too peaky and shouty).
I too have some concern about the quality of the Crown bass amps, but, bass from the speaker I heard was really quite good. Thus, it may be the case that, as good as this speaker sounds, it could be upgraded with a different amp. Another possible area of improvement might be the field coil power supply. I have heard remarkable improvements with Western Electric field coil 555 drivers when a really good Tungar power supply replaces a solid state power supply. I also heard an improvement to a Feastrix system with an upgraded Feastrix field coil power supply. It appears that poswer supply is a big deal with field coil drivers.
The bass driver configuration of this speaker is not something one finds in conventional speakers. The drivers are paired facing each other in a vertical array, with a baffle directing the backwave of one driver toward the forward direction, and another baffle directing the output of the other driver in the opposite direction. I believe the two facing drivers are in opposite phase so that the acoustic loading of the driver is sort of like an isobaric arrangement. This is NOT an arrangment that one would find in a typical DIY speaker.
The overall construction/appearance of the speaker itself is quite good and certainly not "homemade" in character. The bunch of extra boxes--the active crossover, the crown amp, the field coil power supply--do have a DIY character to them that is not as appealing as it would be if these components were more neatly packaged in a single chassis.
In terms of what I heard, I like this speaker a lot. Someone looking for an extremely dynamic and lively speaker that avoids most of the gross tonal problems with fullrange and horn systems, should give these an audition. For my taste, there are WAY too many analytical, thin and bloodless speakers, or their opposites (the rich sounding but dynamically constrained speakers) on the market and this is a terrific alternative.
"I too have some concern about the quality of the Crown bass amps, but, bass from the speaker I heard was really quite good."
A definitive observation if I ever heard one. Have you considered going into politics?
Eye-yie-yie.
I only care how something sounds, it doesn't matter to me how the maker got to the result. Sometimes, the cheap part is better than much more expensive alternatives in a particular application. I know a builder who was upset when a cheap conductive plastic volume pot went out of production because he much preferred the sound of this pot to all other alternatives and used that pot even in his quite pricey top models of linestages. What I don't know, with respect to the Surreal Sound speaker, is whether the cheap Crown amps happen to be a felicitous match for the speaker, or a cost cutting compromise, and that even better performance can be achieved with a different amp.
LarryI, I've listened to these speakers in all their iterations over the past couple of years. The key was finding something that will drive the 1 ohm load presented by the woofer array. Ralph (founder and engineer who designed these) determined that a high output switching amp allowed him to get the results he was seeking to achieve while doing so at some reasonable cost.
The Crown 4002xti at 1,000 wpc has been a decided improvement over the custom Class G amps they started with (and still offer). The additional virtue offered by the Crown is extensive control over choices and combinations of crossover point, rate of filtering, EQ, signal delay and other factors that help the driver arrays match most effectively to a given room's acoustics. This is not a trivial virtue. I've been told that you can move further up the Crown line and there may well be alternatives from other manufacturers that one could substitute. They key in making another choice is also finding something that allows you to control so many of the frequency and phase characteristics.
When you next get to listen, ask Doug to let you hear some different control profiles he's experimented with.
LarryI---
I would be more than happy to host you for a listening session. Please PM me for more details. Thanks,
Doug
+1--Crown/Amcron etc Amps/Pre's were the worst POS I've ever owned.
Des
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