Tax wrote:

The other options are to get some custom Amorphous OPT's <50R 350mA 8:1 as per previous posts, or to possibly pair Romy's LF tributes (for sale section) with a pair of Lundahl's in a two channel DSET configuration. The Avantgarde subwoofers handle upto 140Hz, the Midrange supposedly covers the spectrum until the tweeter crossover kicks in at 2kHz.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Tax what are you willing to accomplish by DSETing Avantgarde Duo? As far as I can see in any playback action and decisions it shall be a straight line of sight to some kind of objectives. What objective you have in your mind what you are trying to DSET Avantgarde Duo that itself has an active LF section working independently? Do you have any specific sonic problem with Avantgarde Duo sound that you are trying to overcome by changing the OTP transformer of your amplifiers?  Did you try repositioning your amplifiers relative to North Pole – it will have the same effect. I am not trying to be difficult but there are 43489589283 changes you can make in your playback, why do you feel that you need to change the output transformer? The Cat

Romy the Cat wrote:

Tax, do not go over yourself with “building paranoia”, looking for drivers, horns, boxes and etc. If you are looking for 80Hz to 200Hz range (you will need higher upper knee for AG Dou) then you do not need a bass driver with Resonance frequency of 35Hz and 8mm excursion. Your initial question was meaningful and purposeful; your last one was not. You do not need to ask me how to design your playback – your playback is your business and how to navigate your playback's improvements is the subject of your own mind. I did not suggest building ported box, horn or anything else. I said that you would be better to have an extras channels then another amplifier.  If you wish to do it then do it but get assistance from somewhere else. I do not offer assistance in DIY efforts, unless the DIY efforts are properly mentally structured. I do offer my assistance in THINKING about the conceptual problems of playback. Now you need to do your own homework and to teach yourself how do not now listen any “recommendations” but to develop own way to evaluate your own progress. Please, do not take it personally but you are stepping in the realm where I have no interest. Rgs, Romy the Cat

Thanks Romy!

Those PHL drivers were available locally and I know that someone had tried them with a pair of Trios. A local speaker builder mentioned that they could be used, hence my question.

Your post has had the desired effect and I am doing some more research into Fane Studio 8M, 16 Ohm drivers in a 4 inch throated horn tuned to 115Hz with the intention of crossing it from 70Hz to 500Hz . This may be similar to what is used in the Trio.

No further response on your part is necessary.

Tax wrote:

Your post has had the desired effect and I am doing some more research into Fane Studio 8M, 16 Ohm drivers in a 4 inch throated horn tuned to 115Hz with the intention of crossing it from 70Hz to 500Hz . This may be similar to what is used in the Trio. No further response on your part is necessary.

Tax, I do think that response is necessary, not response but some farther commentary. My commentary will be much wider than your specific case but it is what I do.

Why do you think that Trio-like horn would address  the problems that you feel you experience. Because some kind of Moron on line told you so? Because you heard Trio and you fell that they were better in the field where you feel Duo has deficiency. Why do you think that when you heard Trio, if you did, then it was not just a better amplifier? Do not forget that 3 days ago you were planning to try another amp to solve your problems; today you are planning to build 115Hz horn.

What I am trying to say is that is that the things need to have a proper COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION. Pay attention that I do not question your mentality and I absolutely confident that in any other situation, not audio related, you will demonstrate a proper cognitive order of succession without need to have my stupid commentary. In any conversation with your doctor, air-conditioning technician, car mechanic, in any other filed you will recognize reasons, methods and results and will navigate the further execution upon the worth of the reasons, tall of the methods and value of the results. Why we allow out actions on audio to be absolutely not subordinated to that very common and normal human behavior?

Tax, I do not knock in your door I just use your example as an illustration. Your case did attracted me by the fact that you did identify the area of frustration you just did not know the specific reason for the frustration. Somebody pitched you a notion of upperbass deficiency in Duo and you are committing yourself to build upperbass horn. If you have problem with your vision on left eye and your doctor inform you that he would like to amputate your leg then will it raise your interest to spend some time on study and test your doctor’s observation before you go under knife? In audio everything is simple and everything is buildable – so why do build and buy anything, like sexual frustrated women do clothing shopping, only not what we need to build to address out very sissify and well-formed demands to sound of our audio?

Anyhow, Tax, if you care that here is what I would like you to do. Do not build anything. You do not know yet that your 115Hz horn will be a major fuck up for your entire system. It sounds like you have many amps lying around you. That is good. Take one/pair of the amps, connect it to ANY loudspeaker. Put the loudspeaker in time-alignment with Duo’s MF and let to call it your upperbass. Put in this upperbass a band of 80Hz to let say 500Hz. You were planning to build Milq so you shall be familiar with basis electronics. If I you I would use some kind of small monitor with tweeter disconnected or taped out. Try to play with crossover at the channel and the crossover at the upper knee of your Duo’s subwoofer to shape the sound that would feel the gap of your frustrations with your sound. A tip: if you are trained and comfortable to hear mono then it is much simpler to do all of it just with one channel.

The exercise has multiple proposes including the one that practically no audio Morons out there “get” and the one that is very much a foundation of my audio believes: We hear only Sound that we understand. So, modeling your upperbass you will be able to define your own understanding of function and contributive values of upperbass region in the sound of your playback. Trust me, after getting this understanding you will not need to listen any cretins from Internet and you will have own sense of direction and actions in administers the need of your playback.

Dear Romy,

Thank you for the commentary and the advice with regards to the need to have a COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION and to test with another speaker in situ first.

Given the varying degrees of how different individuals process COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION there will be differences in between how the plumber Vs a brain surgeon  handles COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION. I guess on some things the Plumber would be better and vice a versa. I take your point.

So while my COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION may seem novice like, over the years I have been looking for sound that engages me, which I like, not any other person, reviewer, million dollar system owner, and yes, even you J . It has taken me a while to be able to FIGURE out what I think I like and educate myself to be able to discern the difference. I am not at an elevated stage where I can talk proficiently about different frequencies, XO’s  and what they mean and do within a system, BUT I can quickly identify what I like and do NOT like in sound. So I TRUST MY EARS! My ears may have been trained from my days as a professional DJ listening in noise filled clubs through one head phone pad to the mixing cues and being able to zone in on the source of the entry point and fade. I also play the Congas and Bongos and believe that the beautiful bassline grounds the rest of the music. This should not be confused with bam bam SS bass please.

So my first foray into domestic horns were via AG Duo,s later upgraded to Duo Omega after visiting the AG Factory in Lautertal Reichenbach. I upgraded to the Omega drivers for better integration in the LF as the fs on the Omega midrange is lower than the stock unit. The Omega brought some smoothness to the HF as well, I also liked the increased sensitivity of the new drivers and yes they did bring with them system noise issues.  I had done much reading and experimenting with the Duo subwoofer and trying to integrate it from 120Hz – 160Hz with the stock Duo and the Omega. Finally settled on 140Hz. I then listened to a friend’s Trio and realised that the LF horn on the Trio allowed me to hear more of the tonality of the LF and had more dynamics in those frequencies, Yes the amplifier was commercially 3 X the price of mine, but I know my amplifier well and can tweak its sound to what I like, so I am of the opinion that it was more to do with the Trio’s extra horn which has an fS of probably 80Hz or lower and XO’s at100Hz and looks after bandwidth till 600Hz before the MF takes over. So the MF of the Trio does not have to work as had as in the Duo which has to tTRY and go below 100Hz at stress. I LIKED this.

I then listened to another friend’s Duo Omega driven by the Lamm ML2.1, and felt that I like the presentation and the depth that the ML2.1 added to the Duo Omega’s LF. I then contacted some current and former Duo owners (former US distributor and others included) and asked about the types of amps they had used and the perceived differences. I then specifically read about and contacted Duo Omega owners who were running with Lamm ML 2 and 2.1. Their responses together with what I hear in my friend’s system then led me to start playing with different amps in my system to see how they respond. Some of these amps were my 300B PSE, 70Watt EL34, 35W 13E1 driven by 45, Yamamoto A-08S with emission lab tubes etc. Some of these addressed the LF that I needed some didn’t. Where there was LF, it lacked the HF, where there was LF and HF it lacked the midrange etc etc.

So now what.. I keep thinking about the Lamm’s, read more about the Lamm’s read more about ML2.0 vs 2.1 vs 2.2 vs 3.0 and keep looking at the prices, think about shipping weight etc etc, and not wanting to pay for over priced commercial items which I felt needed more tweaking in my system as I am not completely happy with the ML 2.1 sound (not many ML 2 used for sale). Then a Lamm owner friend sent me a link to the Melquiades and I was interested as it was based on the 6c336 valve, had the bandwidth that I thought I required, was not as expensive as Lamm’s, and I had a good old school technician no BS amp builder who I showed the schematic to and we discussed it in great detail and we decided that we could try it.

I also liked the fact that YOU had tried many amps in your playback system and had 2 pairs of ML 2.0 and knew that they were one of the better commercial amps out there, but also knew their weakness and had decided to build the Melq to hopefully overcome those weaknesses, and knew the kind of sound you wanted and had moved away from the mass fi area of audio, and had invested a lot of thought, time, money and effort into your system approach. So I could relate to a benchmark of cognitive  thinking and concurred with your approach to your system building (even though at times I cannot agree with your approach to civility, nor do I know your subjective ‘tastes’ in sound reproduction) J

So that was the 6c336 Melquiades exploration and COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION in regards to solving the LF issue via an amplifier based approach.

So I emailed you, and based on your response, joined your forum, posted the Melq question and endured your state of mind and considered the building of the Melq Vs addressing the issue via an added LF horn based on my previous experience with the Trio and my excitement that you had previously owned both the Duo and Trio. So I was going through a COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION to evaluate YOU and realised that even though you are one of the most obnoxious beings in the audio related cyber world, you are NOT an imbecile J so I am comfortable that I am listening to someone who has addressed HIS sound from both an amplifier and speaker path, and value your advice.

Tax wrote:

Given the varying degrees of how different individuals process COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION there will be differences in between how the plumber Vs a brain surgeon  handles COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION. I guess on some things the Plumber would be better and vice a versa. I take your point.

Yes, it is correct the COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION (COoS) as far as origination of playback concern would be different with different people. But here is the most interning part to the game: the value of the other’s people COoS is not in the COoS’ outcome but in observing the reasons and argument the people use to support own COoS. Probably the plumber and the brain surgeon would use different rational to justify own COoS. For an outside observer the recognition and evaluation of these rationales and correlation them with own experience is all what needs to be important. 

Tax wrote:

So my first foray into domestic horns were via AG Duo,s later upgraded to Duo Omega after visiting the AG Factory in Lautertal Reichenbach. I upgraded to the Omega drivers for better integration in the LF as the fs on the Omega midrange is lower than the stock unit. The Omega brought some smoothness to the HF as well, I also liked the increased sensitivity of the new drivers and yes they did bring with them system noise issues.  I had done much reading and experimenting with the Duo subwoofer and trying to integrate it from 120Hz – 160Hz with the stock Duo and the Omega. Finally settled on 140Hz. I then listened to a friend’s Trio and realised that the LF horn on the Trio allowed me to hear more of the tonality of the LF and had more dynamics in those frequencies, Yes the amplifier was commercially 3 X the price of mine, but I know my amplifier well and can tweak its sound to what I like, so I am of the opinion that it was more to do with the Trio’s extra horn which has an fS of probably 80Hz or lower and XO’s at100Hz and looks after bandwidth till 600Hz before the MF takes over. So the MF of the Trio does not have to work as had as in the Duo which has to tTRY and go below 100Hz at stress. I LIKED this. I then listened to another friend’s Duo Omega driven by the Lamm ML2.1, and felt that I like the presentation and the depth that the ML2.1 added to the Duo Omega’s LF. I then contacted some current and former Duo owners (former US distributor and others included) and asked about the types of amps they had used and the perceived differences. I then specifically read about and contacted Duo Omega owners who were running with Lamm ML 2 and 2.1. Their responses together with what I hear in my friend’s system then led me to start playing with different amps in my system to see how they respond. Some of these amps were my 300B PSE, 70Watt EL34, 35W 13E1 driven by 45, Yamamoto A-08S with emission lab tubes etc. Some of these addressed the LF that I needed some didn’t. Where there was LF, it lacked the HF, where there was LF and HF it lacked the midrange etc etc.

I see, what you are basically saying that addressing of some shortcomings you indentify with your Duo was observable by you when you heard Trio and when you heard another Duo driven by Lamm SET. So, you wonder if the improvement that you experienced was because an addition of upperbass horn (Trio) or because a better amplifier (Lamm). Is it correct?

Tax wrote:

So now what.. I keep thinking about the Lamm’s, read more about the Lamm’s read more about ML2.0 vs 2.1 vs 2.2 vs 3.0 and keep looking at the prices, think about shipping weight etc etc, and not wanting to pay for over priced commercial items which I felt needed more tweaking in my system as I am not completely happy with the ML 2.1 sound (not many ML 2 used for sale). Then a Lamm owner friend sent me a link to the Melquiades and I was interested as it was based on the 6c336 valve, had the bandwidth that I thought I required, was not as expensive as Lamm’s, and I had a good old school technician no BS amp builder who I showed the schematic to and we discussed it in great detail and we decided that we could try it. I also liked the fact that YOU had tried many amps in your playback system and had 2 pairs of ML 2.0 and knew that they were one of the better commercial amps out there, but also knew their weakness and had decided to build the Melq to hopefully overcome those weaknesses, and knew the kind of sound you wanted and had moved away from the mass fi area of audio, and had invested a lot of thought, time, money and effort into your system approach. So I could relate to a benchmark of cognitive  thinking and concurred with your approach to your system building (even though at times I cannot agree with your approach to civility, nor do I know your subjective ‘tastes’ in sound reproduction) So that was the 6c336 Melquiades exploration and COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION in regards to solving the LF issue via an amplifier based approach.

Ok, if to presuming that “solving the LF issue via an amplifier based approach” is the direction you would like to go then certainly your interest with Melquiades right in your COoS path.

What can I say about it? The Lamm ML2.0 vs. Melquiades is not the subject that I am willing to comment. It was a subject of my interest 7 years ago when I was working on Melquiades, since then a lot of time passed, I learned a lot new about sound and I did not heard Lamm ML2.0 for quite a number of years. Lamm ML2.0 was very fine amplifier but the way how I understand and treat amplification at my today’s understanding the Lamm electronics is absolutely unsalable with today’s Macondo. I have no doubts in my mind that if Lamm ML2.0  would driver the whole Mocodno now then it would sound like a childish blabbering compare to 6-chennal of Melquiades. Can you however to compare 6-chennal DSET with DHT in MF and with a full range SET? Of cause not, the topological advantage of DSET configuration is much higher than any normal differences between amplifiers.

If you would like to hear Melquiades then there was a guy in AU who built one a few years back. There was a thread about it at this site, if you want I can find it, you could get in touch with him. Still, I am not in the business of prompting Melquiades. I do feel gratify if people built it but in the larger scale of the things I truly do not care. I did what I felt I need to do – I found a good SET configuration. I made the solution public. Then I lost interest in it. It is me – anything is expressed in it’s completion does not fascinate me anymore. Melquiades was fine 7 years back but my I move forward and nowadays my fascination would not be by something like Melquiades but by elaborate multichannel amp with very intricate inner amp filtration. I in a way do not see an amplifier as a stand along entry anymore. I see an amplifier, filter and narrow-band speaker channel as one atomic expressive substance.

If you would like to build Melquiades then be my guest, I think it is fine amp. In context of your playback I would not recommend it. If I am a doctor and you are a patient and you came to my office with reedy to erupt appendix and with skin irritation and asking me to prescribe to you some kind of skin lotion then I would probably point to you that your itching  skin shall be the last of your problem.

I know that is you implement your Midbass Horns then very next what happen to you will be disposing your AG Duo. You will find yourself in very different stage then, which might require very different thinking about amplification. So, I do not want you to propose you to commit to other amplification that in my view is irrelevant in your playback now. This is where my Cognitive Order Of Succession come from. I know that in “audio related cyber world” the behavior when a person does not try to inflict his will to another person considered as “obnoxious”. For sure I can spray cultural pleasurable nothingness, make a lot of friends online and become an audio dealer, like most of the other audio dirt does. It is not what interest me however. It is Romy the Cat, not the Romy of Dog who would turn treks while bagging for food.

The initial post of this thread  was posted in Melquiades forum, then I moved it to Playback Listening forum and I think now I need to move it to Horn Forum. Tax, I would like to rename the thread into something more characterizable, not the “OPT advice”, any proposal of the thread name?

There is a topic in this that I would like to develop, the topic that I find interesting – the cerebral and psychological processes that happen in the head of a audio user who find himself in the Tax’s shoe.

I do not know what direction tax would go from this, it is not in fact particularly important as I am not taking about Tax as a specific but rather about Tax as a typical hypothetical user. Most likely Tax will abandon his ideas of “improving” amplifier at this point and will think about improving of his acoustic system. In my view it would be a proper direction. I do feel that this is the direction where Tax the Person would go, we have a lot of common with him, we have also the same goals in audio – we both use audio only to learn if Romy the Cat is imbecile or not.

So, what Tax might be doing now is running across all horn makers and exploring opportunities to build for him his upperbass horn. His is reasonable thing to do but it also a bit slippery slope as the type and size of that upperbass horn will greatly affect all flooring development of the Tax acoustic system.

What tax do not know at this point is that by embarking on the upperbass horn path he have put his Avantgarde Duo for sale. In a few weeks/months/years what he bring his upperbass horn home he will ask himself how to use it. The Duo’s frame is not compatible with upperbass horn, so the woofers will go off the Avantgarde’s MF will be sitting above the new upperbass horn. Then Tax will realize that Avantgarde Duo’s he effectively use only MF and bass. At that time Tax will open the Avantgarde active woofers, disconnect the drivers from power amps and connect them in reconnect them passive way, driving it from external amp. He will hear the bass quality and bass texture that will be WAY beyond what Avantgarde default subs can do. So, Tax will be asking himself: I use only MF from essentially $40K speaker, does it worth it?

Tax will understand that 300HzHHfhf MF horns cost around $1K and pair of default JBK 2440 drivers perhaps another $1K. The Avantgarde Duo is well reviewed by idiots, backed up with all industry publicity and at the used market cost let say $20K.  So, if there is any economic sense in Tax (pun intended) then he clean up his Duo and will get rid of it.

So, in some future Tax will be left with upperbass horn, some kind of MF channel and some kind of temporary LF section.  Tax will be thinking HOW to organize them to make it to sound right in the room and at the same time to make it to look and feel pleasant. He will be thinking THEN about the amplification but it is too early to talk about it with Tax.

So, what is the objective of this post? The objective is to point out to tax and to anybody else who in the similar situation that when you will be thinking how to organize your new upperbass horns into an elegant domestic acoustic system then it might be a bit too late as your horns will be built. What I would encourage people to do, before talking with horn builders is to spend a LOT of time by sketching and  planning your hypothetic future acoustic system with your new  upperbass horns. This way you will not be feeling that: “if I know earlier then I would make my upperbass differently”. Your horn builders do not know your room, your décor preference, your sense of “prettiness” and your design ideas. You need to have very clear vision in your head what kind horn you would like to have. You might not know the sonic aspects; here are people who might help you with that but defining the furniture property of the upperbass horns appearance and assemblage with any other perspective channels is strictly your responsibility. It does not cost a lot of money to make upperbass horns in one way or another but it does cost a LOT of money to do it again.

So, measure before you cut and plan before you build or place an order to build. Not only plan but test your plan vigorously.

Romy the Cat wrote:

The initial post of this thread  was posted in Melquiades forum, then I moved it to Playback Listening forum and I think now I need to move it to Horn Forum. Tax, I would like to rename the thread into something more characterizable, not the “OPT advice”, any proposal of the thread name? There is a topic in this that I would like to develop, the topic that I find interesting – the cerebral and psychological processes that happen in the head of a audio user who find himself in the Tax’s shoe. I do not know what direction tax would go from this, it is not in fact particularly important as I am not taking about Tax as a specific but rather about Tax as a typical hypothetical user. Most likely Tax will abandon his ideas of “improving” amplifier at this point and will think about improving of his acoustic system. In my view it would be a proper direction. I do feel that this is the direction where Tax the Person would go, we have a lot of common with him, we have also the same goals in audio – we both use audio only to learn if Romy the Cat is imbecile or not. So, what Tax might be doing now is running across all horn makers and exploring opportunities to build for him his upperbass horn. His is reasonable thing to do but it also a bit slippery slope as the type and size of that upperbass horn will greatly affect all flooring development of the Tax acoustic system. What tax do not know at this point is that by embarking on the upperbass horn path he have put his Avantgarde Duo for sale. In a few weeks/months/years what he bring his upperbass horn home he will ask himself how to use it. The Duo’s frame is not compatible with upperbass horn, so the woofers will go off the Avantgarde’s MF will be sitting above the new upperbass horn. Then Tax will realize that Avantgarde Duo’s he effectively use only MF and bass. At that time Tax will open the Avantgarde active woofers, disconnect the drivers from power amps and connect them in reconnect them passive way, driving it from external amp. He will hear the bass quality and bass texture that will be WAY beyond what Avantgarde default subs can do. So, Tax will be asking himself: I use only MF from essentially $40K speaker, does it worth it? Tax will understand that 300HzHHfhf MF horns cost around $1K and pair of default JBK 2440 drivers perhaps another $1K. The Avantgarde Duo is well reviewed by idiots, backed up with all industry publicity and at the used market cost let say $20K.  So, if there is any economic sense in Tax (pun intended) then he clean up his Duo and will get rid of it. So, in some future Tax will be left with upperbass horn, some kind of MF channel and some kind of temporary LF section.  Tax will be thinking HOW to organize them to make it to sound right in the room and at the same time to make it to look and feel pleasant. He will be thinking THEN about the amplification but it is too early to talk about it with Tax. So, what is the objective of this post? The objective is to point out to tax and to anybody else who in the similar situation that when you will be thinking how to organize your new upperbass horns into an elegant domestic acoustic system then it might be a bit too late as your horns will be built. What I would encourage people to do, before talking with horn builders is to spend a LOT of time by sketching and  planning your hypothetic future acoustic system with your new  upperbass horns. This way you will not be feeling that: “if I know earlier then I would make my upperbass differently”. Your horn builders do not know your room, your décor preference, your sense of “prettiness” and your design ideas. You need to have very clear vision in your head what kind horn you would like to have. You might not know the sonic aspects; here are people who might help you with that but defining the furniture property of the upperbass horns appearance and assemblage with any other perspective channels is strictly your responsibility. It does not cost a lot of money to make upperbass horns in one way or another but it does cost a LOT of money to do it again. So, measure before you cut and plan before you build or place an order to build. Not only plan but test your plan vigorously. Rgs, Romy the Cat

Romy the Cat wrote:

The Tax’s shoes bring a few very interesting points. The Cat