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Home » Audio » General » Single driver/single ended/George Brienes/Martin King
| Single driver/single ended/George Brienes/Martin King [message #999] |
Sat, 23 October 2004 15:59  |
Manualblock
Messages: 4973
Registered: May 2009
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Illuminati (13th Degree) |
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Hi All; Last night I had the opportunity to audition the two august gentlemen's collaboration on a single driver transmission line Fostex speaker. Driven by the top of the line Decware el-84 SE amps. This is a new speaker that uses the Fostex 6.5" driver full range in an acoustically dead cabinet of some size with a passive compensation network attached. I know very little about this aspect of the hobby so I have no particular opinions or bias's either way. I brought along some of the CD's I have on the player recently to use as source material. These consisted of the JVC XRCD version of
Blue Mitchell's "Blue Moods", re-master.
Mosaics,Duke pearson's compilation.
Wynton Marsallis's new,"The Magic Hour".
Paquito D'Rivera,"The Clarinetist".
Charlie Haden and Kenny Barron's live album,"Night in The City".
The Frank Kimbrough Trio's"Lonely Woman', from Mapleshade.
Tommy Flanagan,Red Mitchell,Elvin Jones"Super Session".
Here's my story; We listened to cuts off each album; no intteruptions except for short break here and there. The sound was good, very smooth and plenty of good musical bass. On the re-masters the instruments were clearly defined, not a lot of highs on this material but enough to allow you to fill in the blanks. While the music sounded real, I thought it was lacking weight and body. And the impact you get with live music was minimised; but the sound was very pleasant and at some points delightfull.
My hosts seemed perplexed slightly though. So after a hour of listening I asked would they like to put some of their music on, I would be interested in hearing it.
They favor more pop jazz, the first piece was Dianna Krall "Live in Paris". This is a nice mix of pop/jazz riffs and some ballads. I happen to enjoy her voice but am not a huge fan of her playing. Well; the system came alive, huge difference in tonal quality. She appeared dead center and bigger than life, but very real and 3dimensional. We tried another cut from a guy I had never heard, Jonathan Butler, a guitarist in the mold of Earl Klugh; who sings on the album as well.
The music spread out and deepened and just was huge! Much more energy and as the mastering guys say "HOT". Very high energy. Lots of sharp highs and crackling bass. Crisp and defined beyond anything I have ever heard in a live venue. The guitar had a personality; it lost that generic sound, the cymbals shimmered and changed in tone depending on where the stick hit them.
Now I have never heard of either of these men who built this speaker. I turned to my friend and said, these speakers love this music. He was surprised to say the least. He asked why I said that. It seemed obvious to me. It turns out that there are forum's that follow this design and in fact that is the music they use to tune the system.
I went home and put some of my music on just to see. The real thing was back, live and articulate but normal sounding without the pyrotechnic's. My CD's are primarily Jazz from people who are not associated with anything other than jazz, not pop or cross-over or fusion. And they are very well recorded. You can't fault JVC XRCD or ENJA, or the people who do Wynton. It's an older sound.
My point: On the jazz albums the music was flat
On the pop albums it was dynamic and hot.
On the SD Fostex my music sorta died ;On my Pi 4's they breathed. What do we have here. I would have liked to hear these cuts on my system and I will do that some time. My opinion as of now. These Tansmission line Fostex; If you like Dianna or Jonathan run and get them. They are 850$ delivered or you can get plans and build. They flatter that sound to an amazing degree. Could I live with them; I don't know. But I know that in this story there is some kind of lesson.
My last system consisted of Spendor SP1's and the EAR SE EL-509. Spencer Hughe's, the man behind Spendor was also involved in mastering the London Philharmonic for the BBC and in fact they used his speakers for monitors and quality control. The SP-100's are still the best classical speakers in the world bar none. But they don't do the other stuff that well. JBL 300's are still the best rock speaker ever. Where is the all-in-one speaker? Why do all speakers favor certain type's of music?
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