Posted by MARCOS AUGUSTO on October 05, 2002 at 02:57:07:
In Reply to: photos posted by Brian Walsh on October 01, 2002 at 15:54:09:
All i can say is: WOW!! HOT DIG IT!! AWESOME!! GOD DAMN IT!!, MAHVELOUS!!,
I ONLY WISH!!, THE REAL WALL-OF-SOUND!!,ETC, ETC,ETC...
I can just imagine what a pair of U-1's coupled to a pair of UB-1's would sound like. i'd guess that liberating the U-1's to concentrate on audio frequencies above the crossover point, which, as indicated, is set at 180Hz, would relieve them from any bass distortion caused by too much "panel flexing", while, at the same time, enabling the U-1's to play cleanly at peak-loudness levels in excess of 110dBs !!!...
As for the pair of electrostatic subwoofers (or, as more aptly named, UB-1's !), i guess the inverse would apply, what with all that immense amount of radiating area dedicated to reproducing just bass frequencies...i wonder though, would a pair of UB-1's be capable of playing at undistorted peak levels of 110dBs ???
And while we are on the subject of UB-1's, i personally never saw one "in the flesh", but, from the picture posted, it looks like they use the very same design as the A-1 / M-1 / U-1 speakers from SOUNDLAB, in which the diaphragm is divided into "sectors" to properly control resonant energy (SOUNDLAB's famous "distributed resonance principle")...what surprised me, though, was that it looks like the UB-1's are constructed with the exact same spacing distance between each horizontal "sector" as the aforementioned other speakers from SOUNDLAB..........
Which begs the question: if the A-1 / M-1 /U-1 speakers are constructed with wider "sectors" at the bottom of the diaphragms (presumably for reproducing the lowest bass frequencies), and progressively narrower "sectors" reaching towards the top of the diaphragms (again, presumably optimized for mid-bass, low-midrange, midrange, upper-midrange, low-treble, treble, high-frequencies, and so on...), then why do the UB-1's, which are built specifically as electrostatic subwoofers, use the exact same spacing between each "sector" as the other top-of-the-line speakers from SOUNDLAB, which were obviously designed to reproduce audio signals from 28Hz to ultrasonics???
I always thought that the UB-1's would be constructed with only the widest "sectors" and none of the narrower ones as seen on the very top of the electrostatic panels....oh well, live and learn !!!
One other point that i would like to make is that several people on this thread have pointed out that the speakers probably do not sound their best in that particular room, due to the reflective front walls, glass ceiling, speaker location, interaction between closely-spaced U-1's and UB-1's, size of the room, etc,etc,etc...well, if i were the owner of such magnificent audio set-up, the first thing i would do after placing everything in their intended locations, would be to call an audio contractor capable of using a digital room-analyzer to get specific figures for "time-domain analysis" and "frequency-response room analysis", and then carefully proceeding to move around the speakers, sofas, chairs, rugs, etc, untill satisfied with the results.
If still unable to achieve a satisfying result, then i would consider purchasing the best digital room analysis system available for correcting room / speakers interactions.
after all, if you have the kind of "dough" to splurge on a set-up such as this one, then you should make sure that audio waves arrive at you ears without any major frequency-response and time-domain anomalies !!!....
And, by the way, all those stainless-steel frames, just:>>>>FABULOUS !!! I would have probably tried to change the black stretch knit to a more neutral color such as off-white or even silver, for that high-tech look !!