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Horn-Loaded Speakers
Topic: Cessaro modify G.I.P?

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 05-05-2011
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The Japanese maker/reseller G.I.P:

http://www.gip-laboratory.com/

http://blog.audio-life.nl/2011/01/western-electric-gip-laboratory_16.html

… looks like came up with a new loudspeaker. I do not know a lot about the company. They did a lot of WE replica and it is all that they were famous for. What kind sound they advocate is unknown to me.

The new speakers that they have looks like 3 ways. The bottom is the most interesting. It looks like they have throat with two 15 inchers with a short W-like horn. This configuration never worked; in fact it is more or less a direct radiator. However, it looks like G.I.P did something with back exit of the bass horn. I do not know what it is but it might interest. It looks like they are trying to manage the coupling that speaker has with back wall. That is very cool idea. I personably would not explore it as I do feel that a loudspeaker must stay far from a wall, still the fact that somebody is looking into it I find it as a good sign.

GIP_Speaker_1.jpg



GIP_Speaker_2.jpg

Sure it is impossible do not mention the elephant in the room - the new G.I.P speaker is insultingly gorgeous.  It is arguably the prettiest loudspeaker I have seen with very high balance between functionality and attractiveness. The G.I.P folks might be congratulated. If they use good MF and LF drivers in the thing then it might be very good package. Sure for full sound the LF section will be needed but even as is it might be “enough”.

I hope he G.I.P will not set absurd price for the thing as it become fashionable nowadays. If they are smart then they would set a “moderate” price of let say $20K and if the thing sounds reputable then it might become the most popular and the most saleable horn loudspeaker-package in the world. I am not kidding. In my estimation this product has many features that would very much distinct it from anything else. The G.I.P folks need to find a good sales pimp and if they do then you will see this devise in many homes.

Rgs, Romy the Cat


Posted by Markus on 05-06-2011
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Interesting take on the Altec 820. No way can this be done for 20k. Looks like dipole bass with some attenuation for mid frequencies.

Wolf von Langa has a faintly similar take on the Altec 820: http://www.holgerbarske.com/allgemein/fremderregt/#comments

Posted by Romy the Cat on 05-06-2011
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I have seen that people online react surprisingly to my post above.  Hey are accustom that I am hyper-demanding and tough for production of DIY speaker attempts but above I suddenly proposed to  relatively mediocre speaker to become the become the most popular horn speaker in the world. In particular the speaker of the company that never did anything but imitating others.

Still, I feel that GIP did hit the jackpot in here. You see, it is not about the good speaker but a good package and I think the package the GIP offer has many properties of very winning configuration. Again, of course it will not be any Super Sound from this devise but it might be very a very good Hi-Fi package that might get more popular then Altec 7/16 and Klipsh horns combined.

I am not sure that GIP is the company that might have interest mass production. It appears to me that they are a shop that breeds own style of kinky vintage devotees and that they are not looking to move 50-70 speakers per month. For this model it feels it is unfortunate as in GOOD marketing hands this new GIP speaker might be a phenomenally successful product.

Let take a look what GIP might do. The speaker has a very none-expensive box, the box that very cheap to do. The retail of the pair of the boxes would be around $700-$800. If those boxes are mass produced in China or Russia then it would be under 100 per of boxer, the shipping will be more expensive. So, the manufacturing need to deal with pre-car and pre-drilled making of the thing in China, shipment disassembled and then assembled by US or European or Asian reps. So, I think the wholesale of boxed will be in vicinity of $120-$150.

The Midrange horns are expansive to make. Rattail they are around $1500, in wholesale 60% off. With mass production and cutting the horn with CNC Machines the cost of those horns will be negligible. If to cut 1000 horn then I think it will be $80-$90 per horn – the chunk wood for the horn will be more expensive.

4 drivers. The bass drivers they use looks like Altec 515B or ceramic version 515E. Those low resonance drivers in W-horn configuration have very idiosyncratically-unfortunate sound but it is not a conversation about sound.  Altec 515 retail now around $3000-$3500 for 4 drivers but I think in wholesale and with order by large party then can get 300-400 per driver. So let consider that bass driver will be $1500.

The MF is the bitch.  There is nothing better and secure then default JBL 2440, there is a shit loaded of them and they are chip. I am sure that in wholesale then can get $500 per pair of them.

The tweeter, I do not know what they use, let call it $1000 tweeter.

So, what we have?  Adding let say $500 for hardware, posts, labels, crossover and the rest of the thing we have the self-cost of around $3K.  Include into this paying off the bribes and extortions to media advertisers, given up a dozen of speakers free to each industry whore who would like to and performing many other industry ballets, recover the shipping damans and so on we still have a speaker that is ready to do under $5K.

Then the wonderful thing about the new GIP will happen. The configuration of the package that GIP offers is very scalable. For $20K a person would have a basic Volkswagen package. If a person would like to pay more for finish then no problems. If a person would like to have more sophisticated sound then JBL 2440 then GIP might put in this WE replicas (presumable they sound more sophisticated) and whatever else they might imagine. A person might add for a dedicated LF section or for back end adjustability package. The electromagnets are fashionable among the Morosn nowadays, so GIP might add the electromagnet options.

I mend the speaker is very small, very attractive looking in my view and will deliver result much better than typical Hi-end crap that industry sell for $100K. In a good marketing hand the new GIP might ignite some kind of “little horn revolution” in the industry. The industry need to reinvent “fake revolutions” each 18 month, to keep the Morons milkable. I do not follow what industry do nowadays but I do not think that they have the “revolutionary package” in their disposal. In right marketing hands the  new GIP might become suck a package.

Rgs, Romy the Cat

Posted by Romy the Cat on 05-06-2011
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 Markus wrote:
Interesting take on the Altec 820. No way can this be done for 20k. Looks like dipole bass with some attenuation for mid frequencies.

Markus, the price of this thing might be anything they want. They can set if $100K and it will be fine as well but it will make no impact to horns publicity – it will be just another speaker that no one need. Do not forget that I am not taking about sound/price correlation but about the concept of deliverable package. The price of this speaker, if they want the product made difference might be well under $20K If I run the show for GIP I would make first year of $9.800 in the Volkswagen version and would give it up practically at the cost.
 
In my view the whole idea is that the speaker is very simple, robust and shell deliver some kind of semi-acceptable result for very little or no efforts. Again, if I run the marketing for GIP then I would supplement the GIP speaker with some kind of table radio like Denon M31 and sell it as a package. Perhaps some kind of bi-ampling configuration might be employed as well.

Think about it as Bang & Olufsen of Bose of High-end adio. The kind in it that it is horn, it looks great, it feels Hi-Endish and any person who would like to buy better speakers then his flat TV shall step-in and perhaps step-over of the speaker like GIP’s new speaker.  The GIP’s new speaker need to be sold in public stores not specialized Hi-End stores. – I am thinking about Sam's Club and Costco…. The point is that nothing like this available before the market is very non-saturated for it.

The caT

Posted by Paul S on 05-06-2011
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There has been a low-ish buzz in the hi-fi rags for a while now, to the effect that perhaps we should reconsider "neutrality" and return to the musical-instrument-type speakers of yore.  Of course any sea change is good for the Hi-Fi Industry, just as it is for the automotive industry, etc.  Not to mention that there are actually smatterings of insight mixed in with the group-think pimp drivvel about the part of the speaker in sound reproduction.

As for the speakers in question, how I wish I could have these, or Hartsfields, in my listening room!  My wife would think she'd died and gone to Heaven!  But it is perfectly analagous to using a '52 Packhard as an everyday driver; you must simply accept that you will make certain performance "concessions" along the way as you enjoy the ambience.

Obviously nice is the fact that these things need not be reverse engineered for sound objectives, per se, but they can be made to look and "feel" however the designer wants them to.  Hamptons, Newports, Yorkshires, Mid-Century, etc., etc.  I actually well remember when it was like this, before AR and Quad came along.  Personally, the pull of nostalgia is not 20k strong for me, let alone the 40 or so they will likely want for these.  Very nice, however!

Best regards,
Paul S

Posted by Serge on 05-17-2011
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another horn speaker. time aligned!

Posted by Wojtek on 05-19-2011
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WTF Roman , you trumpeted this as a very nice and sensible solution and now you suddenly don't like "LA Profile" ?.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 05-19-2011
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 Wojtek wrote:
WTF Roman , you trumpeted this as a very nice and sensible solution and now you suddenly don't like "LA Profile" ?.
Sorry, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

What I trumpeted? What I find as a sensible solution and what LA-Profile has anything to do with it? Are you juts catapulted from another planet? What LA-Profile has to do with GIP new speaker? In fact GIP can perfectly use LA-Profile in horizontal plane, or any other profile, as they have plenty of space atop.

Also, I do not get what my liking or not liking has to do with anything. I expose the underlying reasoning of my preferences and judgments. My personal shall be the least of your problem.

The Cat

Posted by Wojtek on 05-19-2011
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I was responding to Serge's post and link to French ceramic and wood horns-wrong thread obviously but I never post in the right one anyway Wink
Those post belong to  "why I don't like LA porfile"

Posted by Stitch on 05-11-2013
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Silbatone made a Demo with those Horns (the big ones)

4.jpg


They said, it is one of three existing WE Horns, made 1935/36 (only mod is the addition of the tweeter you can see there). One Horn is made for 3500 Visitors, so we got a 7000 People Demo with them. Driven with a 300B amp from Silbatone. The smile factor from the visitors was big, but most didn't know how to handle that experience (the rest of the High End Systems produced Head ache but most did like that, you know, review winners, Class A++ ratings, pics in mags ..). An american guy came from the back and shouted "That's real music !" and went to the back again. His name was Robarts or so. A lot of german DIY guys were around also, they hugged each other and looked VERY important (this "we know more than you view"...). Maybe it was their holy grail meeting point....
I asked about the price when someone is interested to go for those. They smiled.
But they offer copies with refurbished drivers (when I understood it right, my Korean / English is not really up to date), their smallest model (it is the one above in the first post from Romy I think) starts at 145.000,-- Euros ( $ 190.000,--)....
That made the Magico's, Ypsilon, Avant-Gardes, NOLAs etc. really cheap :-)

Anyway, the woodwork can't be so expensive, are these Drivers really so outstanding expensive??they had a few to show but always with 2 bodyguards left and right of them...

Posted by Romy the Cat on 05-11-2013
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 Stitch wrote:
Silbatone made a Demo with those Horns (the big ones)

They said, it is one of three existing WE Horns, made 1935/36 (only mod is the addition of the tweeter you can see there). One Horn is made for 3500 Visitors, so we got a 7000 People Demo with them. Driven with a 300B amp from Silbatone. The smile factor from the visitors was big, but most didn't know how to handle that experience (the rest of the High End Systems produced Head ache but most did like that, you know, review winners, Class A++ ratings, pics in mags ..). An american guy came from the back and shouted "That's real music !" and went to the back again. His name was Robarts or so. A lot of german DIY guys were around also, they hugged each other and looked VERY important (this "we know more than you view"...). Maybe it was their holy grail meeting point....
I asked about the price when someone is interested to go for those. They smiled.
But they offer copies with refurbished drivers (when I understood it right, my Korean / English is not really up to date), their smallest model (it is the one above in the first post from Romy I think) starts at 145.000,-- Euros ( $ 190.000,--)....
That made the Magico's, Ypsilon, Avant-Gardes, NOLAs etc. really cheap :-)

Anyway, the woodwork can't be so expensive, are these Drivers really so outstanding expensive??they had a few to show but always with 2 bodyguards left and right of them...

Well, it was not really Silbatone. Silbatone is contemporary Korean company that makes very un-remarkable products, at least in speaker word. What you see was a fragment of personal collection of the gentlemen how owns Silbatone. His is a rich fellow, I heard some kind of industrialist, who like WE and who accumulated a lot of it. Now he is lending some of WE fragments to show off at the trade shows, and perhaps to create a bass about Silbatone as a company.  They use vintage and GIP drivers; I have no idea what they use at the show. Based that it is 2 ways most likely they were 594 drivers, GIP make them as well and I do not know if they are any good. The “American guy came from the back and shouted something was Joe Roberts, the Silbatone’s pimp, whose job is to run around and make verbal waves.

It is good that Silbatone guys keeps parading his WE horns. Unfortunately it is not clear if what they demonstrate is what it has to be. I presume the drivers are very fine; the Film-level solution for the rest of the system is very questionable. If the Silbatone guy get rid from his operation his American whore Joe Roberts and alls that saliva drooling reference to WE legacy and instead let somebody like let say Jeffery Jackson to design for him a contemporary multi-way solution with WE drivers then it might be a very interesting.

The Cat

Posted by Romy the Cat on 05-24-2013
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Here is the Portuguese sire with HD sound of the rooms in the German show.

http://www.hificlube.net/pt/artigos/eventos/highend-2013-munique/highend-2013-audi%C3%A7%C3%B5es-%28live-sound%29-parte-3.aspx

For sure it is hard to judge anything based  upon what armature camera record but in this case it is surprisingly indicative and the same camera record different rooms and you can clearly hear differences.

A few observations that struck me.

The cretins plays incredibly horrible music and they do not even understand how much idiots they are. Any person who willing to play this crap in public to demonstrate “sound quality” shall be instantaneously and permanently banned from any public audio position.  I personally prefer death penalty but Amy teaches me that I need to be kind to unfortunates. The exception is only that Greek Horn company with that wonderful, Albinoni adagio ….

The celebrated WE installation sounds incredibly honky with predictably puffy bass. Perhaps those guys instead of drooling saliva brainlessly about Mirrophonic  glory need to study the audio basics and to learn how to make horns inhalations at least do not have that horrible honk?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Zja3iAkeE

The Cat

Posted by Paul S on 05-24-2013
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Thanks for the link, Romy.  This may be the first time I've "heard" that big WE installation and, sound wise, as I expected, it is everything I hate about "horns".  Sadly, their "vaunted" direct radiators are a long way from coming to the rescue.  If nothing else, this "demonstration" of the system's "capabilities" should tell any hopeful seeker all he needs to know about this whole enterprise.  The only way to top this for sick entertainment would be if Joe Roberts were to pop out during the number and exclaim enthusiastically, "Now that's live music!"  A close second was watching the obviously tired Silbatone rep "bopping" along to the "music".  God Bless Us, Every One.


Best regards,
Paul S

Posted by Wojtek on 05-24-2013
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It must sound better than that. I bet the camera was not sophisticated enough to catch  this technicolor sound..... or the recordings they played were unfortunate. Usually with this kind of installation pop, rock sounds pretty good and positively honking in a good way
but once you play classical the "tuba " sound shows it's ugly head and you find yourself transferred to a train station hall. If it was really that bad Stitch would be first to give his honest opinion , instead he only remarked that it was interesting but different. I was surprised how pleasant
Sony speakers sounded and yes Anima too. Does  Cessaro also have that gliding sound of TAD's own speakers?
 

Posted by Romy the Cat on 05-24-2013
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Yes, the subject of the post is very accurate description of the sound that we have in that video. It is not surprise to me as know many of those fools spreading vintage paranoia and this is very frequently the sound they end up with. There are reasons for it, including the topological reasons. I do not know if the garbage that is auditable on the video is the actual sound that was in that room. It is possible that it was byproduct of the camera that shot it, after all if you my phone to record sound in my room then I will be end up with the very same sound. Still, I am bit puzzled that the same bad camera did not pickup that honorable honk from other room of the show, so I surmised that mostly likely it was the sound in that WE room.

The Cat

Posted by tuga on 05-25-2013
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This is what the Cessaro sounded like last year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvA43ym5cYo&feature=youtu.be

I don't think he's "upgraded" his camera in the meantime.


There's this other "local guy" doing video reports with reasonably good sound but he didn't do Munich:

TAD - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTVlrNctQj0

Wilson - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvmAsYiNzKY

Estelon - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PEs-lJGXn0


Cheers,
R

Posted by Paul S on 05-25-2013
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Thanks, Ric.  The obvious conclusion is that the camera, or phone - or whatever it was - was good enough to reveal the overall character of the sound of the WE, etc., demonstartions.  How funny is it that (of those demonstrations) I "prefer" the Wilsons, when I know from too much experience that I hate them?


Best regards,
Paul S

Posted by Stitch on 05-26-2013
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 Wojtek wrote:
... If it was really that bad Stitch would be first to give his honest opinion , instead he only remarked that it was interesting but different. I was surprised how pleasant...


It is quite common to "rate" a Demo negative, you see that in nearly every discussion. When someone says "this was a good one" you have in the next 5 minutes a few who think different. When I can't rate a demo based on the used music material or the unknown hardware, what can I say?
Those WE were never made for getting the recorded sonic performance into a normal living room. They were made for amplifying signals, maybe they can produce such an image when you live in a Castle with the matching Hall...
Most of the music I heard was Hard Rock and Led Zeppelin has distortions in their recording, they wanted it and you can hear it. When I heard comments from "Audiophiles" who said, that the speakers have distortions in the upper frequencies, I went away from those..totally uninteresting to follow that blubber.....on the other side we have a female voice with a guitar or a piano (like in 30 other rooms)..also very hard to describe sonic abilities. All you can do is, to think, it that voice lifelike? And when not (mostly it was thin, boring and far away from the real thing), all you can do is: Leave. And think "BS". So much Hardware, so much money and such a poor result...
What confused me also in the WE room, Digital Playback was - way - better than analog. They used an unknown Turntable with an Arm made of wood and a Lyra Atlas...sitting on a Box. For me that was nothing special. When I read the descriptions of their hardware, what they do, what kind of expensive parts they use...then all I can say, the turntable Demo was not able to show that.
So, finally, I got no headache and that is quite a success when I visit such demos. I've been in a lot of rooms where I was happy to leave after 4 minutes...
I am not the type of guy who runs around, saying "BS" again and again. I try to find out what the System will tell me and that is ok for me when I do such visits. I am more amazed when I read rave comments about Systems in the usual Mags/Forums which were really nothing special. The only remarkable point of view was their price tags (normally $300.000.00 +)
For 300k I would like to hear something what will make me sit and listen..

Posted by Romy the Cat on 05-28-2013
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Actually is not about rating Demo negative. I never heard this demo. I personally suspect that it might be interesting from very narrow perspective of capacity of WE drivers but it I have high confidence that it shall not be interesting from perspective of overall audio results.  There are very many reasons why those people are not able to deliver respectable sound; I can well enumerate those reasons and they are absolutely undeniable. What I find the video above demonstrated is more or less objective evidence of how the installation sound. Objective not in trim of absolute sound (you can’t say anything from video sound) but because it was comparatively very obvious that WE room had horrible sound that is very much comply with the topology of acoustic system they used.
 
The fact that they had sophomoric sound is truly not a big deal. I do not blame them and they shall not feel shame. What I do blame them is that they are lightweight scared morons who discard interests of sound reproduction in order to compensate own psychological genital deficiency. A normal person would hear that sound and say: “Ok, this is turn out to be crap and I am a marketing pimp, I know how to shake air with my tang but I do not know how to make sound better. However, let enjoy the rare vintage WE playback, drink beer and to have a good time.” There is nothing wrong with that, if it were so. However, the idiots running across the web, drooling about the superior sound they demonstrate, spray their superior arrogant pontifications… that all truly laughable. I always say that words worth nothing unless they are not back up by tangible demonstrable action and results. Well, above are actually results. With these results any further conversations in terms to take this actuation more or less seriously shall be stopped.
 

Posted by Stitch on 06-02-2013
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Upgrade ya :-)


  http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/30/4359490/where-the-richest-music-nerds-go-to-play-the-high-end-show

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