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Model: | Orions |
Category: | Speakers |
Suggested Retail Price: | $5300 |
Description: | 3-way Open Baffle Active Loudspeakers |
Manufacturer URL: | Linkwitz Lab |
Review by Doc Jr 8156 (A) on September 23, 2005 at 13:36:20 IP Address: 163.40.69.160 | Add Your Review for the Orions |
Designer’s Background
Siegfried Linkwitz is an accomplished electrical engineer (retired) with 30 plus years of designing test instruments. He worked at Hewlett-Packard and while there, together with his colleague Russ Riley; they developed the famous crossover topology called “Linkwitz-Riley” which is the most commonly used crossover alignment in the world. To mention Linkwitz as “just another speaker designer” would be an insult. Linkwitz is well known in the engineering society and published numbers of “peer-reviewed” articles in AES (Audio Engineering Society). Luckily, aside from designing testing instruments, Linkwitz passion is of audio. He was the force behind the company known as Audio Artistry (defunct), chief designer of the Dvorak, Vivaldi, and the Beethoven Grands, which won the speaker of the year for different publications when it was available. Linkwitz foray into high-end audio did not last long. The world was not ready for his designs (active cross-over requiring multiple amplifications).Physical Attributes and Design Philosophy
The Orions are 3 way active speakers, open baffle (dipole) using Seas tweeters and mid-drivers and a –pair of Peerless 10-inch XLS. The Orion in many ways broke conventional notions of speaker designs. The Orions are around 46 inches in height, 12 inches in depth (but measured 16 inches on the widest dimension of the side panels) and about 13 inches in width. Tweeters and mid -drivers were mounted on a separate baffle. The 2 Peerless 10-inchers were mounted on an H-frame below the Mid-Tweet baffle. The tweeters used were not ribbons (one notion) but the Orions are flagship speaker. The mid-drivers are 8-inch in diameter (notion #2) unlike the conventional 6-inchers that other designers used to avoid beaming. The 2 Peerless XLS drivers were mounted in a push-pull configuration and one woofer was wired out of phase (notion #3) from the other. There is nothing incidental or arbitrary regarding the Orion’s design. Every component from the width of the baffle to the bracing of the woofer frame were measured and tested and contributes to the overall performance of the speakers. Linkwitz designed every aspect of the Orion with a purpose. He wanted these speakers to stand the test of time. He wanted these speakers perfect. There is nothing in the Orion that the owner can change or improved. Linkwitz tested all configurations and variations, to meddle with his design will only result in degradation.The heart of the Orions is their “active cross-over”. It might be a misnomer to call this component as just an active crossover because it does much more. The “crossover” consisted of 2 separate pcbs, identical to each other. You will not find “magic-capacitors”, “Divine-inductors’ or “World’s-best resistors” in this design. No gimmickry, no hype. The crossover, however, use 2% caps and 1% resistors of high quality (Yageo and Philips). The power supply is a tabletop regulated wall-wart. No garden hose power cords and brightly lighted meters but it was chosen because it will deliver the required power for the design. The “crossover” was housed on a 17-x8-x1-½ black box. No shining knobs, polished enclosure or vibration absorbing feet. Just an ordinary black box that will not win aesthetic competition. The “cross-over” will not command attention (for its looks) but it was designed to do its job and nothing else. There are few (21 actually) components in the “cross-over” that were not part of conventional ones that will send jitters to “purist audiophiles”. These are the OP amps. The Orion “cross-over” use no less than 21 Burr-Brown OP2134 amps. Yes, OP amps. While the purist will cringed from this, it is remarkable why other designers does not utilize OP amps in their cross over design The OP amps are stupidly quieter than any inductor-capacitor combination available, can drive anything, and timelessly stable. This Linkwitz guy knows something eh!
I mentioned earlier that seemingly it wouldn’t be appropriate to call the Orion’s “crossover” as such. The “crossover” designed by Mr. Linkwitz in this application does more than cross the woofers and mid drivers (@ 120 hz) and mid-drivers and tweeters (@ 1440 hz). The crossover compensates for the driver alignment, for the dipole cancellation of both the mids and bass drivers, for the physical offset due to driver mounting and for the resonance of the mid drivers. Another important job of the “cross-over’ is to provide boost for the bass regions so that the bass response can extend to 20 hz (yes, that’s right. 20 hz extension from an open baffle speaker).
Subjective Assessment
In my years in audio, I’ve never heard a speaker as good as the Orions. As I never heard all of the great speakers available, this assessment is based on my experience and prejudice.
First time I had a set-up that is utmost satisfying without using megabuck cables and power cords. The Orions were accompanied by 4 pairs of DIY interconnects using Radio Shack RCAs and 12 cents a foot video cables. My speaker wires are nowhere near the value of my previous ($500-$1100 per 10foot pair) and I’m not using highly regarded amps with digital supply, linear power supply or glass bottles. No voodoo, no magic but the satisfaction these speakers giving me is immeasurable.
There are several unusual things that the Orions can do that I’ve never heard from any other set of speakers I heard and owned:
a. The Orions convey music as it is, and how it is intended to be. The dynamics of the music does not suffer in lieu of the volume level. When a song is fading (ending) the Orion’s dynamic presentation remains the same but you will hear that the performers are moving away from you farther and farther till you hear no more. I’d never experienced this in any other speakers, never.
b. It is very disturbing to one’s acoustical memory and beliefs how the Orions produce music. When listening to trios, quartet or big bands its like listening to “4” speakers at once, all timed and phased-aligned. The coherence and integration of the Orion’s drivers gave me goose bumps. Imagine listening (closed-eyed) and be able to discern the illusion that its like the soloist sound or vocals from the material you are into is coming from 2 different set of speakers up-front and exactly in the middle but the accompaniment (rhythm section) are coming from 2 other different sets of speakers on the sides all integrated and weaved seamlessly from each other. Amazing.
c. In some materials, the Orions will startle you. There will be instances when you can hear sound coming from your sides, 90 degrees from a source, like a headphone. The 3d effect of the Orions is something to behold. It will produce the wall of sound that other great speakers can do but what is different is that, here are no wall boundaries for these speakers, provided that they will be set-up as recommended by the designer.
d. Another unusual illusion that the Orions can deliver in spades is that there is no “sweet spot” for these speakers. You can walk around and hear the same thing as you were in the center. You can stand directly in front of one speaker and still hear what the other speaker is doing. My audio room is sandwiched between 4 rooms and no matter which room you go (aside from the audio room) the sound that you will hear is like the sound in the audio room, lifelike. No roll off highs and muffled lows, vocals are clear as if you were in the room where the speakers are. Unbelievable.
You might notice that I never went to specifics regarding the sound of the Orions. I never mentioned specific recordings or material that sounded great using these speakers. No matter what you throw at the Orions whether pop, rock, hip-hop, classical, jazz or even the ordinary spoken material everything sounded wonderful and life-like. Jazz trios had the intimacy, pop had the sway, big bands had the swing, rock had the bite and classical had the grandeur and subtleness when called for. The voice of the Orions are big, bigger than their physical dimension will portray and bolder than what deemed as conventional. The Orions speak the truth.
It was well known that great speakers should be able to provide the illusion of either bringing the “performers in your room” or “ bringing you to the venue where the performance was recorded”. The Orions did neither……….but BOTH!
There was a mantra that Orion owners keeps on mentioning, “When you own the Orions, everything else is irrelevant”. I did not believe this at first, but I guess they heard what I’m hearing………………………they were right!
Associated Equipment:
Teres 160 with Origin Live Illustrious arm (analog)
Ah Njoe Tjoeb CDP with Siemens 7308 and Upsampler (digital)
K&K audio SE transformer coupled phonostage
Lundahl 9206 step-up transformers
S&B TX 103 step-up transformers
Tribute Cobalt Core step-up transformers
ATI 6012 SS amp (12-channels, 60 wpc in 8ohms)
Bent Audio NOH preamp
Transcendent balance power supply.
Accessories:
Radio Shack RCA cables constructed from cheap video cables.
Sound King Ofc speaker wires (zip cord)
Dayton connectors
Stock power cords for the amps
Faith…trust…but no pixie dust.
Product Weakness: | Not enough exposure. |
Product Strengths: | Life-like musical presentation. Big musical voice in compact package |
Associated Equipment for this Review: | |
Amplifier: | ATI 6012 |
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): | Bent Audio NOH |
Sources (CDP/Turntable): | Teres 160/AH Njoe Tjoeb 4000 |
Speakers: | Orions |
Cables/Interconnects: | DIY |
Music Used (Genre/Selections): | Big bands, classical, jazz, pop, light rock |
Room Size (LxWxH): | >24ft x 16 ft x 8 ft |
Room Comments/Treatments: | minimal treatment |
Other (Power Conditioner etc.): | Transcendent balance Power |
Type of Audition/Review: | Product Owner |
Follow Ups:
... and the reviews are equally good from DIY speaker builders who have built Orions themselves (DIYers often prefer their own designs and nit-pick other designs).The dipole configuration reduces the effect of the listening room which gives the speaker designer an advantage over monopole speakers. (An especially big advantage in the bass quality in most rooms ... although dipole midrange can sound artificially "spacious" in some rooms to some listeners).
One alternative to a dipole confiduration is near-field monopole speakers with a parametricially equalized subwoofer (also nearfield). That's what I use -- but bass equalization only works for bass peaks at one listening seat ... while the dipole effect works for the whole room and can reduce the effect of both bass peaks and nulls.
The smaller the room, the bigger the inherent advantage of dipoles.
Cone driver dipoles using excellent drivers, as in the Orion, should have significantly lower distortion levels than planar dipoles too.
"The smaller the room, the bigger the inherent advantage of dipoles"Would you say then that a speaker like the Orion is less well suited for large spaces with very high ceilings? In a larger space would a more traditional monopole have the advantage?
I'm looking for speakers that handle the complexity and dynamics of large scale classical music without getting muddy, yet that also maintain the organic body of the sound.
The room sizes I've used are rough estimates based on my experiences -- I didn't measure all the rooms involved:
In small (up to 200 square feet) and medium-sized rooms (200 to 400 square feet), reduced excitation of side-wall-to-side-wall and floor-to-ceiling standing waves gives dipoles an inherent advantage over monopole speakers in the bass frequencies.In very large rooms (over 800 square feet) rough bass frequency response is not often a problem -- the problem in those rooms is usually generating enough bass output.
In large (400 to 800 square feet) or very large rooms (over 800 square feet) greater room reverberation times (compared with smaller rooms) can make dipole speakers sound artificially "spacious" in the midrange frequencies. I often don't enjoy dipole speakers for that reason -- but I know others who like that effect. This may have much more to do with dipole speaker placement in the room rather than inherent in a dipole design, but that's been my experience.
I do enjoy dipole bass because it reduces the room's effect and bass instruments usually sound much more lifelike. You can still get a nasty bass boom from the front to back wall standing waves but hopefully you can move your listening seat forward or backwards by a few feet to reduce the problem.
A tall ceiling (over 10-12 feet) could compound that problem (with all types of speakers there is often too much reverb with tall untreated ceilings). Remember that dipoles are not completely directional.
The best sounding speakers I've ever heard in an ordinary home were Legacy Whispers which have dipole bass up to 200-300Hz.
Thanks, that's a really informative post.
> Would you say then that a speaker like the Orion is less well suited for large spaces with very high ceilings? In a larger space would a more traditional monopole have the advantage?No.
Within its dipole range of operation a speaker like the Orion differs from a direct radiator in the following ways:
1) There's more off-axis roll-off to the sides and top generates weaker first reflections than a direct radiator.
2) The reverberant field is weaker for a given on-axis SPL which means you hear more of the direct sound.
In a large space the reflective surfaces should be farther away and the reverberant field will be weaker so the gains are less from these characteristics.
However,
3) Bass is still directional. It excites room modes less.
4) Bass power response is more in line with the other frequencies.
These effects should still be significant in a larger space.
The problems you'd run into would be from the Orion's output limits becoming significant if you decided to listen from farther away than you would in a smaller room.
From the Linkwitz site:
- Room size: > 180 ft2 area, > 8 ft ceiling
- Speaker placement measured from tweeter: > 4 ft from wall behind it, > 2 ft from side walls, speaker separation > 8 ft
- speaker separation > 8 ft
- Listening distance 8 ft to 18 ft
- Room acoustics: Fairly live with RT60 of 400 ms to 700 ms
I built a pair of Orions, have lived with them over two years, and agree with Doc Jr's comments.> You say the cross over provides equalization so that the woofers provide true 20 Hz response. That means a big boost at the lowest frequencies.
The Orions have poles at 20Hz, Q=.5 meaning they're -6dB @ 20Hz and -3dB @ 30Hz. In-room numbers are very similar because velocity sources are not subject to room gain.
> Does the speaker (or the amp) appear to run of out power at the lowest frequencies when you turn up the volume?
The short answer is no. I find the Orions sufficient to reproduce full-scale orchestral workds at realistic levels an techno/rock beyond 90dBC SPL.
At the top of their range the woofers are very sensitive: 98dB/2.83V/1 meter at 120Hz. At 60Hz the number is still 92dB/2.83V.
The real issue is excursion not power. 60W per woofer is sufficient to reach linear limits at 20Hz. This can be used as a fail-safe to prevent damage - a small amplifier like Siegfried's ATI6012 will clip at low frequencies before bottoming the woofers but still have ample output at higher frequencies due to the sensitivity. Since the Orions are fully active the bass amp can clip without any effect on the tweeter/midrange. After thinking about this some I thought it was really slick.
A speaker driver's excursion quadruples for the same output level with each octave decrease in frequency. The voltage to get to that higher excursion remains constant until the driver rolls off due to its mechanical parameters. Even with a substantial boost to overcome that(up to 14dB on the Orion) you run out of excursion at low frequencies before power becomes an issue.
Dipoles also require an additional doubling of excursion and 6dB per octave boost in amplifier output to compensate for the progressive cancelation where the out-of-phase front and backwaves meet; this furthur limits output.
Bass limits at xmax (approximately the motor's linear limits) are about 82dB (meaning an attempt to play 88dB since the woofers are 6dB down at that point) @ 20Hz (woofer xmax), 100dB @ 40Hz (woofer xmax), and 109dB @ 80Hz (midrange xmax). Suspension travel should allow for another 3.5dB before the woofers bottom. This is not an issue because most music has little last octave content. Two exceptions are home theater LFE and perhaps organ music.
> As is common with subwoofers that respond well to 20 Hz, do you sense the acoustic of live recordings?
Yes. I think the real issues here are that low frequency extension allows for higher damping without compromizing output in the second octave which provides the musical foundation. It also reduces group delay at those frequencies so the sub-bass integrates better with bass and mid-bass.
> A dipole speaker suggests that careful placement is required (as anyone who has owned Magnepans has learned). How do you have these placed? What surface is behind them, and how far back is it? Have you found that some of the unique effects you report depend strongly upon placement? Do you have the speakers toed in? By how much?
Planar dipoles are a different beast. The Orion and Audio Artistry speakers cross-over to a conventional dome tweeter arround 1.5KHz and have some rear-wave attenuation above 700Hz due to the midrange basket structure. The Orion's rear-ward output stops. The planar membrane is also large compared to the wavelengths of higher frequency sounds so conventional planar dipoles become increasingly directional at high frequencies meaning the direct sound needs to be aimed more carefully and the reflections are louder relative to the reverberant sound than they are on a speaker with wider horizontal dispersion.
My thoughts prior to building my Orions were that the midrange should be like that of an ESL (which I really like) but that these differences would allow for a wider sweet spot with fewer placement problems. This seems to be the case.
My room is 13x19x8', the front half of the right wall has a short opening over my kitchen counter, and is mostly open after the middle of the room. It's carpeted, lightly furnished, untreated, and otherwise normal apart from an 87x49" projection screen a couple inches off the front wall. I have my tweeters 4' to front wall, 2.5' to side walls, and 8' apart. I listen 11' from front wall (7' from a line drawn through the tweeters per the documentation package recomendation) and 8' to back wall. My tweeters are aimed at the listener (30 degree toe-in).
Placement does not seem to be critical. Sitting closer (as in with the recomended equalateral triangle configuration) seems to help some with the wrap-arround sound stage.
Thanks Drew. Now its more clear to mee what the orions can do technically. You have a great website man. Godspeed.
Has a reveiw of the Orions. Pretty much agrees with all your points.
For everyone elses info that review is reprinted on the Linkwitz website.http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Orion-TSS-review.pdf
Davey.
I hope you and the Sensible reviewer are one and the same...
Jon,
Gregg Strauss did the review for sensible sound, definitely not me. I was done building my Orions when I read his review and somehow validated his points. Truly amazing speakers. Godspeed.
I've been thinking about building a pair of Orions for about a year now. In that time a new-to-me house has come into the picture. Do you have any thoughts on how the Orions would fare in a 16x22 room with a cathedral ceiling?I'm also looking to audition a pair of Orions in the Milwaukee-Chicago area...anyone open to a visit?
Wow! What a puff piece. I have to hear these speakers some day. I would really like to get out to sea ranch and with my own electronics, hear these speakers. The Beethovens were nothing short of incredible and there was another system above the Bee's that I just heard about the other day. Like you said, AA was way ahead of it's time, too bad. I would like to have heard a Wilson/AA shoot out, but I am pretty sure which one would have won (having heard the Bee's and the WP's many times).
You say the cross over provides equalization so that the woofers provide true 20 Hz response. That means a big boost at the lowest frequencies.Does the speaker (or the amp) appear to run of out power at the lowest frequencies when you turn up the volume?
As is common with subwoofers that respond well to 20 Hz, do you sense the acoustic of live recordings?
A dipole speaker suggests that careful placement is required (as anyone who has owned Magnepans has learned). How do you have these placed? What surface is behind them, and how far back is it? Have you found that some of the unique effects you report depend strongly upon placement? Do you have the speakers toed in? By how much?
You'll find the answer to every question on the Linkwitz Lab web site.http://www.linkwitzlab.com/faq.htm
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/rooms.htm
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