Yes, this English pace did not give a lot of new information.  I know nothing about the AudioTekne Company. I like that they wrote about their bass driver but I do not know how much truth and the actual results behind it. I do think that they worked in this direction and did something. For this matter I have no idea what kind drivers they use. They give no indication of it and provide only weight of the drivers – like somebody cares about it. Why they ask specific amount of dollars for this speaker but do not ask for 21.2 kilograms of money? This comments about the subduing the vibration of horns and boxed I discard as irrelevant.

Anyhow, the entire design look slice straight forward and in my view not well thought. The bass driver is direct radiator with looks like felt-impeded large port. It is what AudioTechnica does – an effective way to get more LF extension. They claim that the driver is “special”. Very possible. However, topologically this is very cheap solution. Sergey told that the AudioTekne speakers cost 300 something 000 Euros. For this money the LF section must be estranged into separate modules. The solution with bass driver sit in the same box and the rest of the speaker in my view are good for sub $40K-$50K (retail) . If somebody is willing to put more money/efforts and to get more interesting bass then it automatically imply separate bass modules with option to position them where they have to be and dedicated amplification.

MF and HF drivers sitting horizontally. This is a big labiality and of cause a main screw up. I would like to see a larger MF channels as I estimate that the existing MF would not go lower then 6-7Khz. I guess they drive the upperbass horn way too high, probably all the way to 6-7Khz. The MF and HF do not look time-aligned but I do not know where the diaphragms in those drivers are.

The upperbass channel is a classic J-horn with a compression driver. As I said they most likely drive it all the way up, using the reflected HF from the J-horn bend. I really hate that HF reflected sound and I never seen anybody get anything good out of it. I can only presume that they mask the sun 7K problem with MF and HF channel and in context of the very live show room no one recognized it. The straps to the upperbass horn are ridicules. To hold the horn month in the position it shall be much effective ways to be used. If they try to send message that the straps prevent/damps the upperbass mouth vibration then it is laughable.  All that those straps tell me that somebody needed some kind of mouth holding solution 2 days before the show started and they found it. Unquestionably it is a very elegant solution for basement-built $2000 prototype but it is not a solution for $4.000.000 commercial acoustic system.

All together I am not impressed about what I see in Audio Tekne. I would like to learn more about the drivers but it is about it….

Serge wrote:

Silbatone used a WE horn to play in mono and a pair of their own horn cabinets for 2-channel.The very cinema sound reinforcement looking horn was, I was told, a 16B. I will post some comments about the sound a bit later.

unicon wrote:

The video I am hearing Sounds like trash... I am pretty sure This set of shit sounds like trash in real too.(no offense)

A site visitor sent me another video of Silbatone from the last show:

Another video of the room playing barbaric music. The only missing part from this video was Joe the Archeologist , naked but wearing a ballet skirt and jumping around in open side leaps.

From the video it looks like they finished the speaker expensive. In a way it is very sad and it drove the price higher but server no audio purpose. Quite in contrary with rough textured finish those time of the horns sound better. The most absurd however was the huge bank of capacitors that they use for filters I presume. Again, it is not about the price but sane relation between price and topology. Any piece of equipment might have any price but some topologies are not useful at some condition and price is one of those conditions. The build up a buttery of caps for most likely bass driver is fine for $1000 speakers but for the speaker of $230K it is absurd.  For this price the speaker must be multi-amped and if the Silbatone do not get it then they have no idea what they are doing.  BTW, looking at the music they play at the show it very much might be the case….

The only exception that would justify Silbatone use of the assembly of 20 caps if they WE caps. It is not that WE caps are good but Silbatone use WE in the way how joke Jews use Holocaust - as the ultimate argument in their limited mind. It is very sad and extremely not stimulation. The purpose of practicing Audio is to make good audio today, not the pray and subordinate ourselves to 80 years old WE junk but to make audio of today that would over-perform what all those people did in past. I am sure that Silbatone walk do not drive cars from 1930, do not fly by planes from 1930 and do not solicit sex with women from 1930.There is absolutely nothing “special” in audio from 1930. There was a huge amount of stupidity in audio that took place between then and now but it does not elevate WE, Bell, Klangfilm, Telefinken and the rest of them to the rank of brainless reverence. If Silbatone did accumulate many WE components and they believe that they posses something valuable in their sound then why do not make audio today that would express that “something”?

I think we do and I think that best audio of today is much beyond where WE use to stay. It just might not be produced by Silbatone….

Romy wrote:
I think we do and I think that best audio of today is much beyond where WE use to stay. It just might not be produced by Silbatone….

It must be so, and its true it isn't being produced by Silbatone...but the rest were so inferior-with a couple of excemption -that Silbatone could shine.

Regards,
Armen

Of course I did go to the GIP site and I did not see in there a lot of what I would like to see. They are presented in there as a vintage audio resellers, stressing the originality and authenticity of their items. The brochure that you posted has completely different attitude, the attitude that I like quite a lot. I do not know where it suddenly comes. I know that all those people in one way or another read my site and most likely they read my criticism about the stupid vintage paranoia and moronity of replication efforts; perhaps they took is as a their marketing ploy.

There are 2 possibilities.

1)      The new 9101 driver might be the same as the old GIP 954 WE replica and the “recognition of the original qualities and improving drivers performance up to the contemporary demands” is just a literature that GIP took from my old posts.

2)      GIP always was not just replicating WE but trying to improving the things but in the environment of the today audio idiots who sell to each other  WE labels they never had guts to proclaim that they do different own drivers, not only replicate WE. Now they decided to change the literatures….

Of cause the second possibility would be nice but I wonder if it is what was going in the minds of GIP people then why the complete speakers systems  that they endorse and sell are the same replica of WE, with no efforts to made anything more intelligent?

I do not have the answers.

It is very self-evident for kind public this clown is working. From all BS that was expressed about me I would point just two facts:

1) I never kicked Joe Roberts from my site and according to site's memebers log he keeps visiting daily.

2) I do not hate Joe Roberts for the reasons he fantasizes but rather I disrespect him because I find him being unethical simpleton, unethical at personal level (like all sales-pimps are) and simpleton in the subjects of audio.

The amount of factual lay he spread about me at various Web sites in order to propel his agenda is too explicatory. It is sad that Silbatone use that dirt as thier speak person. I guess is said a LOT about Silbatone…

The Cat

Posted at:

http://mailman.io.com/pipermail/sound/2011-May/020657.html

Joe Roberts jroberts at io.com
Mon May 30 18:24:25 CDT 2011

On 5/30/2011 2:08 PM, jc morrison wrote:
> by the way, what the fuck is up with romy the cat? is that guy
> some kind of autistic plumber or what is it that he does? can anyone
> explain to me what his shtick is and why does anyone put up with his
> crap? mystified... does anyone take him seriously?
>

Romy is probably the worst of the clueless wannabe internet audio gurus.
His personal stuff is rather primitive...about where half of the people
on this list were in 1985. Regulator tubes, and multi-amp 5 way horns
and whatnot.

Apparently, he got decent results with these entry-level experiments
that everybody does, which is surely possible, and is now convinced he
is the arbiter of all audio knowledge.

His real skill is in his ability to cultivate a league of dedicated
STASI ball-lickers who grovel at his feet. Stockholm syndrome in action.
There is no shortage of masochistic, low esteem mofos in this hobby and
Romy seems to be able to convince plenty of them that his own delusions
of grandeur have some justification in reality.

Romy is intimidated and afraid of anybody with knowledge or experience
beyond his own, which is a significantly large group, unless he can get
them on his personal expert list to call for advice and answers to posts
he can't handle himself.

Yeah he is no fun. Kind of a sad, tragic, twisted figure. Manners and
personality of an aboriginal. He can be funny in small doses but the mix
of obnoxiousness and insecurity is too disturbing for the comedy content.

I am reminded of this little ditty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFdl7982TgA&feature=related

The Cat particularly hates me because I clearly pointed out the
epistemological dead-end in his constant critiques of stuff he has not
heard--or anything other than what he endorses.

He quietly kicked me off his site...guess I (and the truth) was too much
of a threat. Yet he complains that he is attacked in forums he got
kicked out of (most of them) where he can't defend himself.

Fact is, he really sucks at analysing stuff he hasn't seen or heard but
he constantly insists on doing it, as a sort of personal specialty.
Maybe he has a good ear and maybe not, but I doubt he has really heard
that much. Worse, he doesn't think he needs to...

To this I say:  http://tinyurl.com/3clxtpk

He was on this list for a few weeks 15+ years ago and the locals drummed
him out of town because he was a disruptive fool. If he didn't have his
own site, he would have nowhere to go.

Don't worry, man. he won't go after you because he would have no clue
what your stuff is about. The Cat is a pussy to the max.

J-ROB

PS: Everything I say is illustrated in this thread, which I found
looking for Munich reports:
http://www.romythecat.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=2&postID=16356#16356