Jim Smith wrote:

I've been following this line (mostly the big one) with great interest since it was first mentioned. It's definitely the most interesting high-efficiency horn line available, as far as I can see.  I've been asked to look at distributing/marketing a few speaker lines to date by various manufacturers, but honestly speaking, nothing seemed really serious. On the other hand, this is the first one that could be a contender...

Frankly speaking I would consider that the Cessaro Gammas would be much more interesting product if they where integrated with a especially made for them DSET, as if a person is willing to pay $150,000 for an acoustic system then there are no commercially available worthy sounding amplification to drive that acoustic system.  I mean, the 4 horn channels of Gammas should be driven via 4 channels of dedicated single ended amps which were specifically made for those speakers and feature line level crossovers inside the amplifiers. Then the user's responsibility would just be a selection of amplification for low-frequency sections, which would be mostly the subject of the given rooms. I personally think that if Cessaro where integrated with a properly sounding DSET (which would eliminate AMBIGUITY from typically crappy sounding single ended amplifiers) then the Gammas might be a very stable and very worthy “objectionable” commercial product.

Georgians, the Russian Georgians, say that it is impossible to step in the same river twice, however it think it's would be fascinating to see if you, Jim, would be able to pull it again. I think the Cessaro folks shell recognize you as a quite valuable asset to explore US market. If you ever bring the Gammas to CES then let me know, it's might be a good reason to humiliate myself in a plain for those ugly five hours…

BTW, you Jim made a huge mistake that you did not go when I called you for that late nigh session in 2002, when David Karmely turned the Vitavox CN191. It was accidentally phenomenal sound, the never happened since then, nether at CES nor with CN191.

Jim Smith wrote:

You said, "I think the Cessaro folks shell recognize you as a quite valuable asset to explore US market." I'm curious as to what grounds you have for making such a statement.  I've never had a single contact from them, tentative or otherwise.

For any foreign manufacturer who might assess the pool of available marketing professionals as their candidates for prospective US distributor it would worth to learn the legacy of recent horns sale in United States. There are a great number of horns and “so-called horn” manufacturers in US but practically all of them are targeted for very different segment of prospective customers - the bottomeaters. Obviously the Cessaro Gammas, at least financially, are not willing to target the same customers as US's  "half-ass horns" manufacturers do. You know it, they know it and everyone knows it. There is no one in US today who manufacture REAL horns as well there are no one in US today who can sell REAL horns. The selling of the REAL horns is not a process of just selling them but rather a process of igniting a large marketing campaign, creation a sort of buying frenzy, which would force  the typical audio-Morons™ to revise their years-built generally negative prejudgment toward the horns topology. Jim, who is in contemporary US marketing are better positioned than you to do it? You did break some ice with Avantgarde, with great marketing and financial success, and you have all credibility in the world to continue your marketing horno-journey with more worthy products.  I do not know if Cessaro are more worthy products - I never heard them - but as I said in the beginning of this thread: according to what I know about horns  (and nowadays I am not a lightweight horn player),  the Gammas preliminary looks as the most promising commercial loudspeakers I have seen so far. If even to disregard the Cessaro’s bass channels then using their horns and applying some of my Injection Techniques I feel that Cessaro might perform very interesting. (Injection Techniques are available for licensing via donations toward the local shelters for the homeless Felines).

Saying all of it I pursue no other motivations than facilitating for people the opportunity to be exposed to more divert or perhaps better horns solutions. I would be glad if Cessaro will be able to “cook” something in US. At least then, I'll have a chance to listen the Gammas and will have opportunity to bitch about “other compromised horn design”.

I remember I had an Asian girlfriend who was viciously trying to convince me that I was the best man in the world. She was 23 and I, listening her, was experiencing the incredible boredom...

Anyhow, Keith, although I am not a big fun of Alpha-type of speakers but I think there are some extra room for improvement in the Alphas that you might take under consideration.

Their web site claims Alpha is 98dB sensitive that is the sensitivity of that bass dipole horn. It means that the horns, the MF and the tweeters are padded ~10dB down… Well, you might tray to play with it. If I were you I would try to drive the Alpha’s MF and tweeters with own single stage tube amp of a couple watts. You might use my 6E5P tube or any similar tubes that have a few watts on plate, over 2-3V bias and has sound that persuades you.

With a single stage amp and a “low-turns fast-core” output transformer you should be able to make the Alpha to sound way more advanced then the do now. Do not forget also that when you do it you will have your LF amps freeing for pleasing the demands of your room, instead of pleasing the demands of the entire speaker. Consult with your Ralph, I’m sure he will assist you in that …. if you properly “sell” to him your objectives.

BTW, I have a question to ask: do the Cessaro use the stock TAD drivers, are they are modified in any ways, or perhaps the custom-made? (As the prices the they quote for this drivers are double and triple of the TAD retails prices)

coops wrote:

I would never presume to make such a claim, regarding active bass,I have heard quite a few systems now where the ( active )bass is very disjointed, Avantgardes for example, and the music just does not flow, but I will discuss your proposal with Ralph

I would certainly not advocate the Avantgarde’s bass – it has a LOT of problems but the disjointed bass is purely the subject of a barbaric speaker setup. The Avantgardes were particularly lucky for incredible amount of the idiots owners – there are a LOT of Avantgarde installations out there and they sounded one nastier then another. I would not go into Avantgarde discussions in this thread but I would just will make a ridicules comment: one of the subjective reasons why Trios mostly never sound in the customer’s rooms as they could sound was the low price of those speakers.

The Trios were sold for $30K-$40K and many buyers paid even less. In the today stupid Hi-Fi world it is the price of the two-channel monitor (the Kharma craps and many others). So, my point is that for $40K no one will care how those speakers are used. Even if you pay twice or trice of it, then you are still out of knowledgeable support. Look for instance what Wilson does with Grand Slam and Alexandria. Theoretically each par of those speakers comes with in-house Wilson rep that set them up in customers listening rooms. However, even at Wilson’s price they can afford to send on the field juts a dealer, and I have seen some results of their “labor” – the over-pompous morons with ears, taste, training and capacity of the McDonalds employees…

So, here is where I see that Gammas’ price tag over $150K as a good sign. In fact I would like to see the price tag even more that should include power regeneration, amplification, acoustic system… that whole set, including an full-scale installation and “getting” a right sound. Did I say DPoLS? Surely the people who would try to get “it” should be fully pre-qualified, and I do not mean financially but rather in their audio development – they should be able to understand that Sound the might be build for them. Of course it is only in the case if the Cessaro could… In the end, the Avantgarde’s Trios were juts too unexpensive and too compromised design-wise to attack any serious sonic demands. Let see if the Cessaro will be able to push the barrier…

Well, here and there at my site I’m calling for rationalism in audio and suddenly I go enthusiastic regardless a perspectives of $200K Cessaro’s Gammas availability. Sounds hypocritical, doesn’t it? Well, not really.

I’m under no presumption that good Sound is available only at high expense.  However, we all know that there are people who voluntary willing to spend some dough, attacking the sound reproduction issues not with meaningful and targeted application of the audio solutions but rather throwing money in audio and “see what happen”. After all some of them are buying the Lamm ML3 for $126K, Kharma Exquisite for $160K, MBL amplifiers for $90K, the Wavac SH-833 for $350K or the Boulder‘s monoblocks for $126. I see no problems that those expensive products exist, even some of then sonically should cost no more then $1000. What I am, as a horn devotee, is very welcoming is the fact of existing of the very expensive, perhaps the ridiculously expensive, properly made commercial horn system, and the Cessaro’s Gammas might be juts that commercial system.

I less care how much it cost but rather it is very interesting to see what kind “package” and what kind result is possible to obtain within this approach. I went within my own audio evolution across multiple stages that brought me to Injected Macondo – the configuration remarkably similar to Gammas, in fact at the level of proper horn implementation there are no ambiguity and there are the only few ways (or the one way) to do the things “right”. So, it looks, at least very superficially, that Gammas is noble endeavor in the commercial attempt to show off “what horns could do”. This is why I am very welcoming them.

I wish they rent some warehouse in East Cost’s tri-state area and facilitate demonstration session, charging the admission fees and educating the Morons how horn might sound if then made properly. Sure, I hardly feel that Cessaro’s Gammas would be able to deliver some the satellites and overall performances of the “tailored systems” but as a cookie-cutter commercial product it should be an adventures journey…

Well, what is interesting in the subject: if the Cessaro guy will ever go for the DSET configuration in his commercial products? I am not certain but it is possible that in DSET configuration it might be possible to overcome the accused shortcomings of that TAD’s drivers, or any drivers at that matter.

What I am observing, is that while I drive a compression driver this at the dictated single-stage amplifier then the driver sound in a way different, not only “different” but better, and I do not mind to learn how to capitalize sonically upon those advances. I have no data or experience at this point how different topologies of single stages might interrupt with different driver types but I think it is a direction which deserved to be explored. It is highly possible that there is some combination of the tube, ways how tube was used, core of a transformer, winding techniques, loading, magnet of the driver, the cone’s materials and dumping methods that would be able to write up Sound in a new and objectionable way.

I went over that with two stages, limiting myself to 6C33C and I feel that I have found a very good result with my Milq. However, with Milq there were different objectives as I was thinking and experimenting in term of universal, full-range, not-dedicated amplifier. With a single stage and working against a very defined load and in a very narrow bandwidth it might be a hole new ballgame. I look forward to those experiments in near future in context of my installation, but I personally feel that it is the direction where are all serious installations based upon 110dB sensitivity should be targeting -  should be targeting if they would like to operate on the level of maximum “kink” available for a given topology. I think nothing, even hypothetically can beat single stage gain amplifier driving high sensitivity horn-loaded channel.

So, it would be interesting to see it is that Korean guy will come up with DSET amplification for Cessaro…

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Search.aspx?Phrase=DSET

Well, it is Cessaro’s thread, and I'm not suppose too spoil it with my DSET propaganda. However, there is the point that I would like to emphasize. When I was criticizing the Lamm ML3 I was not criticizing the amplifier itself but I was criticizing amplifier that cost $126,000 but at the same time does not deliver hypothetical maximum in quality available to receive from a given topology:

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=3492

Any full-range SET amplifier is bandwidth-compromised by default. It is simple to take a 300B and drive with a back-loaded single driver speaker, but for any person this audio imagination even slightly distinctive from at pterodactyl it would not be a solution. A full-range SET might not be a compromise just as an ordinary Hi-Fi amplifier but for the people who are willing to pay $126,000 (and presumably to get the consequential to their price-tag result) to drive their acoustics systems with at single (even a good SET) it would be a demonstration of blindness or foolishness. The very same might be applicable for Cessaro Gamma loudspeakers. If someone is willing to pay $200,000 and by means of this let presume to demand some “seriously pushy” Sound, then this person “should” drive individual Cessaro’s channels with individual dedicated single-ended amplifiers. For a personal that already spent $200,000 on loudspeakers to spend additional $4000 for a set of dedicated amplification it is not really as subject for consideration. Not to mention is that the Cessaro guy would have and he is disposal another expressive and very powerful tool how he can make Sound…

It seems ironic that the path to bringing the single-channel DSET/narrow band horn idea to market would invlove traditional marketing per se as much as the melding of evolved listening with cutting edge technology.  While there is rote work to be done in terms of actually implementing this gear, there is just as much work to be done in spreading the word through the right channels that this is the way to go and this is the stuff to have.  It seems like there are a few designers out there who either started out with enough capital or they endured privation long enough to emerge as +/- successful purveyors to the high-end.  I am thinking of Da Vinci, Shroder, FM Acoustics, First Sound, and there are others who simply do not offer entry level products.  This shows that it can be done.

But it had escaped my full attention, Romy, that you are just now moving into the final leg of this journey, yourself.  This might be another place to put some of those evolved LCR ideas to work.  I am waiting to see what shakes out in terms of a tube that can really swing some voltage and also sounds good.  Have you thought of cascode?  My own experience in this area is very limited, but it seems like there must be orders of magnitude more power than measurably necessary in order to keep compression drivers from making dynamic shifts.  This is a tall order with single stage  amplification.  Meanwhile, I would imagine that any marketing of the Cessaros would likely be done with off-the-shelf amps to showcase the exisitng design, and any DSET work would have to be done parallel to present marketing efforts.

Where are the well-heeled psychos when we need them?  I am amazed that any thoughtful, rich audio head case would not simply jump at the chance to get into this at this stage in order to take advantage of all the work you've already done, not to mention what actually amounts to saving huge sums of time and money in R&D.  Just think of the money already spent on extravagant junk...

Best regards,
Paul S

Actually my wish for DSETinisation of Gammas has nothing to do neither money nor with Sound, really. The Audio-Morons™ buy and sell audio, and particularly those who are in the $200.000 bracket not because some specific sonic accomplishments or utilization opportunities but explicitly because they follow the marketing stench. The DSET principle and multi-channel horns are a perfectly saleable concept. Not juts perfectly saleable but saleable at intellectual level. A moron who will be writing a review about Gammas should not pull out of his ass the bogus arguments but juts need to harvest whatever is on surface and whatever is know for years to anyone. Sort of the “Convenient Truth”, with diagrams and graphs only instead of selling the Global Warming the audio guy will be selling the bogusness of SET application when a person willing pay too much or demands too little compromises in too wide bandwidth.

Sure, the DSET might be expansive but here is the beauty of Cessaros Gamma come to the picture: it is initially “pushed” as an expansive loudspeaker and the DSET’s price will be gracefully deluded and absorbed by the price of the entire Gamma’s setup. However, the presents of the DSET concept under the Cessaros’ marketing hood will add a lot of value to the Gamma’s “literature”. Do not forget: the idiots in Hi-Fi buy expensive audio mostly not because the expensive results but rather the expensive opinions about the subject of their purchase. So, I think a DSETed Gamma will dramatically extend those avenues according to which the Audio-Morons ™ will be able to gain their confidence that they need those speakers. 

I know what I am talking about. I have interviewed a number of people who have bought outragesly expensive loudspeakers and I remember what I herd from those people when I asked them about their motivations. It is pure “Robb Report” syndrome and it has nothing to do with Audio. However, if the Gamma will come with properly performing DSET then the “healthy people like me” (who do not care about anything besides the actual sonic results) will have a change to hear one more DSET-driven multi-channels horn setup.

Here it is, where the Cessaro folks should look and learn. Their cousins: The Berlin-based Martion Company produces Orgon system. The Orgon design and implementation are erroneous in many ways, however the Orgon system is 4-way playback with active channels, where each channels has own amplification.

http://www.martion.de/english/orgonpics.html

http://www.martion.de/english/produkte04.html

Sure, looking at some moment in the Orgon description I have a lot of suspicion that they use incorrect amplification  and incorrectly, and that multi-amping in there was not implemented as it should be but the desire was there.

Merlin wrote:

I certainly think you must use an active device for the bass/mid transition in any serious design at this level. Choice of amplifiers will be personal. I don't have the worry of output transormers.

I do not want to go on tangent in this Cessaro Gammas thread, still what Merlin said deserves very much to be accented. I juts mention it once in here.

The first order on the bass units is NOT an “unacceptable compromise”. If your bass section, the way how it was implemented (big subject in context of slopes) can handle first order then you are incredible lucky, or incredibly smart, or hopefully both. The first order on the bass units is an incredibly powerful tool that widely unpopular by audio public (did I say morons?) and it is very unfortunate. However, if the system is designed in a way where bass might uses first order then it is a HUGE plus for the presentation ability of a given installation.

I had to put it in my Audio For Dummies™ section…

Romy the Cat wrote:

I do not want to go on tangent in this Cessaro Gammas thread, still what Merlin said deserves very much to be accented. I juts mention it once in here. The first order on the bass units is NOT an “unacceptable compromise”. If your bass section, the way how it was implemented (big subject in context of slopes) can handle first order then you are incredible lucky, or incredibly smart, or hopefully both. The first order on the bass units is an incredibly powerful tool that widely unpopular by audio public (did I say morons?) and it is very unfortunate. However, if the system is designed in a way where bass might uses first order then it is a HUGE plus for the presentation ability of a given installation. I had to put it in my Audio For Dummies™ section… Rgs, Romy the Cat