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Leaving Las Vegas....CES thoughts

70.107.4.86

Posted by jweiss on January 9, 2006 at 18:49:29

Just returned from the CES show last night where I tried to help out Steve Schell and Rich Drysdale in the Cogent Room. And Ron Welborne, too, as his amplifiers powered everything but the sub. I will say a few things up front- being a supporter of what Cogent is trying to do, I am anything but unbiased. In fact, I was planning on doing a full blown show report, but I think that unwise. Needless to say, if you are a fan of 6 inch ceramic drivers and exotic dome tweeters, you would have been in a state of permanent Nirvana at this show. After a while, I realized that several Scandanavian and Northern European companies produce virtually all the little drivers for these high end systems, and the main difference between speaker offerings lies in the enclosure, finish, and even the crossover.
To give you an idea, in the Temple of High End Esoterica, the Kondo/Audio Note Japan room, you would have found the Gakuon (sp?) amplifiers at something like $160,000 per pair of mono blocks, driven by an $80,000 preamp, all driving a pair of very unassuming, simple wooden direct radiator enclosures with a 10 inch woofer and a dome tweeter. These speakers were made by Art Audio in Scotland. Sounded OK. What I found interesting, with speaker designer and salesman explaining, was how the CROSSOVER dictated the price. The speaker comes in three models, at 5000 British Pounds, 9000 Pounds or 18,000 Pounds. In each version, the enclosure and drivers remain EXACTLY the same. In the middle version, you get better caps and wire. In the most expensive version, you get silver wire and silver caps. Plus fancy silver binding posts. That's roungly $26,000 for a crossover upgrade. If you think that odd, next door one could listen to a mini tower with two six inch ceramic drivers and an inverted dome tweeter for $69,000 the pair. When I asked the salesperson where the costliness was located, he informed me, "there are over 400 screws in each cabinet." Kid you not. I did not see him blush either. Go to the WAVAC room in one of the online reports to see these wonders. Driven by nice 833 SET amps, by the way.

Enough of that. The reason for my post is the reason I went to Vegas, to hear and see what Cogent has done. To say its impressive is an understatement. Actually, everything one could say about it is an understatement. These guys have rendered a gaping vent in the side of "high end" speakers that will never be closed. Once people hear a real field coil bass compression driver on a properly designed horn for hi fi use (and not pro sound or theater use) it really is shocking. It certainly was for me. The clarity and dynamics are astonishing (and I am accustomed to listening to two Altec 515 woofers per channel in horns, not six inch woofers in direct radiators.) The system comprised the DS 1428 midrange field coil driver on a conical horn designed and made by Cogent (replaced the LeCleach horn used previously) covering 300hz on up. These midrange drivers sound so good, so utterly natural and effortless, that they actually constitute an improvement on the original RCA driver that inspired them. From about 60hz to 300hz the DS 1448 driver on a J horn presided. Below that, Big Ed, the Cogent true hornloaded subwoofer, with 15hz flare was used. Big Ed uses a 15 inch, field coil woofer. Crossover from sub to bass horn was electronic, and sub was powered by a ss amp after Steve's OTL tube amp went awry. Ron Welborne's 300B monoblocs powered the upper range horns, which used a large, simple 6db slope crossover. Ron also had his ultrapath, battery powered and remote controlled preamplifier in the loop.

I hope that gives at least a preliminary idea of what Cogent had to show and how it was implemented. I could go on and on about stuff I heard, but as Mom used to say, "If you don't have anything nice to say...."

Jonathan

www.oswaldsmill.com/tasting

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