We had this exchange with Christopher Witmer, who lives in Japan, via the AA about the new driver form some small Japanese manufacturer. The dirt who runs that form has deleted the whole development. Hm, people wonder why for years I have a vocal and persistent position that the douchebags that run that site should be eradicated with the most stubborn prejudges....

Anyhow… here is something that is left on my machine for that dealog. I think it would be relevant in context of the Maxonic subject...

Christopher Witmer wrote:

http://www.maxonic-audio.com/

The 104dB sensitivity of the woofers is quite appealing, especially when you consider the frequency response goes down to 25Hz. These are essentially Altec woofers in their conception, so they can be expected to have the same basic character as Altec.

I have not heard the woofers yet. I heard the TW11000B the other day and I enjoyed it IMMENSELY.

Someone who has heard more compression drivers than I have needs to do an in-depth report on their sound. I thought they were absolutely wonderful, and I am not a horn fan, so that's saying a lot. But I could definitely sit and listen to that system forever, and be very, very happy the whole time. But my problem (as a reviewer) is my relative lack of experience with horns. The last time I was really into horns in a big way was about 20+ years ago!

Also, their original amplifiers, based on their original SIT transistors, are outstanding. Someone who has listened to many more amplifiers than I have needs to do an in-depth report on those amplifiers. Great stuff. Let me say that I think they have a character that will be powerfully attractive to many folks on BOTH sides of the tubes vs. transistors divide. The power amp I heard was an OTL design; they also have a power amp with output transformer.

They are just starting to bring the website up-to-date, but before long I will probably translate the whole thing into English for them. It will have considerably more information than just the three pages shown there now.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Fascinating, I do not know anything about them but keep me informed when translate then in English. Interesting what cones and what suspension they use with the MF and HF electromagnets (electro-dynamic?). 

There is however one area of concern that I have. Ironically my concern is about their 104dB sensitivity on the electromagnetic woofers with 25Hz primary resonance. To get higher sensitively they needed to drive a lot of current across the field-coil and this crates “overly dumped flux”. Any single field-coil driver BASS that I tried was hugely benefited from lowering the flux (harmonics of bass notes) and at higher flax the bass was very amusical.  It would be the case with the drivers under the desiccations unless that Japanese company designed the suspension and cones to specifically operate under the conditions of “overly dumped flux” (higher cone’s mass and so on). I hardly believe those people understand/do it as you said that they are “essentially Altec woofers”.  The Altec woofers 515G/B/E have fine cone and fine suspension at near 1.2T and 67dB. The 7dB extra would need .4-.7T more and it will make the 515B to have 25Hz primary resonance but will make it too stiff to play music.

Mr. Witmer seems like a very thoughtful and well-spoken person who is taken with the aesthetics/approach of various Japanese sound Senseis, most of whom are in turn rooted in "historical" American and/or English audio sensibilities.  I'm afraid I made some unkind remarks in response to an AA post of Witmer's a few years back, when he extolled and passed on acrane literature from the then proto-company that does this stuff, or it was one so similar that I am not able to discern a difference at this time.  Anyway, the gist of that post was that these guys had used super-exotic materials and artisan craftsmanship to create a 4" "full-range" driver that was housed in a furniture/instrument grade Helmholtz box, which the literature claimed gave a realistic, full-scale representation of [orchestral] music.

Although I wish I had been more circumspect in my response, yet I do not see any real difference in the tone of the company's present approach; perhaps it is a little more "tech-y" now.  At most, I am idly curious about what might be done with one of these drivers; certainly I would ask considerably less from any one of them than these fellows ostensibly do.

Right now it looks like the high-quality drivers they build could be adapted/modified and put to better use than their own speakers have done.

While this is not so different from other audio "products" in general, I always hope and keep watch for a "product" that is actually developed through musical/sonic evolution rather than the repetition and glorification of [archaic] conceptual mantras.

The French "Phy" stuff also looks interesting, in a sort-of similar way.

Best regards,
Paul S

I do not know what Mr. Witmer does for living  full time and it is not exactly related to the subject of this thread but if he not “too busy” than I think he is well-positioned to run quite successful business venture. He is well-spoken and prolific-enough in English and it looks like he is very fluent in Japanese language and Japanese is culture. He looks like has access to Japanese manufactures and the most important it looks like he likes to intermingle with that marketing aspects of audio….

So, if he wishes he might run some kind of “Japanese Audio Discovery Project” where he would be in epicenter of export-import operation. Sure, the venture like this are being run for years (thanks that Japan has encapsulated culture) but none of them have educational twist and none of them implement deep enough the marketing approach “day rape”. Mostly the people who discover and export the merchandises form Japans are wily Jews who found a quick way make a some money but there is not wide and broad, not to mention expensive and inclusive, Japanese so-called High End export efforts.

I’m not saying that Japanese High End is much worthy then anything else but the audio consumers are generally audio-degenerates and they will be gullible to “bite” anything if it would be flooding in a properly spiced marketing sauce…

There are some distributors who made over $800K per year piping products from Germany, Italy, Belgium and few other places… Japan is Mars compare to them and it has a lot of more potential, if not necessary sonic but Marketing. I think Mr. Witmer is slavering/humiliating himself for one on a few manufactures but instead of doing it he might lock the entire freaking maket of the “expensive” Japanese Hi-Fi, putting himself in the epicenter of the distribution. Someone who will do it with Japanese (and Chinese because of the different reasons) high-end markets will have a nice retirement packages…

vuki wrote:

The best sound at the Show (to my ears, again) was in Hiraga/Melody room.

vuki wrote:

Hi, Mr. Hiraga said (and it's also in the promo-flyer) that he uses modified GreatPlainsAudio coaxial, although the one in the speakers that were playing music looked more like original Altec 604 (because of the multicell horn). So, I guess it's not Maxonic. What was that you didn't like with Hiragas sound? Regards, Vuki PS It could be that I'm biased regarding that speakers because I'm listening to 2way Altec (not coaxial) and Tannoy HPD385- so I guess I like the sound of 15" midwoofers...