In Reply to: RE: Heard a reference level planar speaker last Saturday posted by jazzbeat on May 14, 2012 at 15:28:17:
Well, to begin with, I'm told that one of the reasons Apogee failed was the high cost of warranty repairs on failed ribbons. There's a post about that somewhere here on the Asylum, not sure how to find it.Add to that, people who have built DIY midrange ribbons and report that they have to replace the ribbon every year or so.
Add to that, discussions I've had with speaker designers who confirmed that ribbons suffer from fatigue and eventually fail when driven at realistic levels. Fortunately, few audiophiles listen at realistic levels, me included. See the recent thread on that: Satie was the only one of us who did. If you baby your ribbons, they should last indefinitely. Also, I'm not sure how Apogee-style quasi-ribbons hold up compared to all-metal ones. But they apparently did have a lot of failures, since that's what they were using at the demise of the company.
I've heard varying things about the Analysis, which is inspired by the Apogees, but not the same. The Apogees themselves were made over many years and comprised many models. I've heard Apogees that I didn't like. I've also heard good things about some models that I haven't heard, and have no reason to doubt them.
Maybe these measurements will help clarify why I didn't like the Apogees that I heard. They're from Martin Colom's comparison of the Duetta II, the MG-IIIa, and the CLS.
Here's the Duetta II:
And here's the MG-IIIa:See why I might prefer the IIIa?
This is the kind of voicing problem I heard in the Apogees I listened to. Again, I'm not saying they affected all Apogees. But it's why I heard what I did, and made the comments that I did.
Edits: 05/14/12
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Follow Ups
- RE: Heard a reference level planar speaker last Saturday - josh358 16:07:54 05/14/12 (0)