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Posted by martinshorn on
05-24-2017
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Hi folks. Who ever listened to Living Voice Vox Olympian Speakers might've liked them as much as I do.
They got a great realism in their projection. Some things are obvious, some even claimed.
Its claimed to use excellent drivers, high quality components & finish, 5 ways which each running in its own best spectrum, time alignment in the highs at least.
That's nice and amongst many details like silver wiring, voicing service on delivery, lovely finish etc adds up to the whole picture.
Certain other things are not claimed but obvious for the specialists. The dynamic capacity, sensitivity and distortion adds a lot more. But then you could buy any other high end horn.
Still there is something unique in the sound.
I had some assumptions and tracked them down in munich last week.
I can confirm:
1. most important, the 3 dimensional fundamentals projected with a fullbodied size into the room are mainly designed by a resonating chamber. The rear chamber of the AK151 is completely empty and hard wall surrounded. Its got two big opening ports on the front with approx. 200 squarecentimeter surface, 4cm depth. Together with approx. 120cm too little front loaded horn, it creates a strong 110dB efficiency bandpass from 100-500 Hz when I run my simulation of this setup. Also creates a slight pre-echo as the resonance will be distributed about 3-4 msec before the horn impulse. That would explain the perception of depth of field. I took pictures from the inside and post them next week when im back home, also other findings about the cut and my simulation.
2. The diffuse spacious rendering while being precisely located on the other hand, is a nice combination of dispersion pattern between the radial mid horn and the tweeter. The Midhorn got a 90x120 degree dispersion while the tweeter is likely a JBL 2312 copy, that's got a 30 degree narrow dispersion. Consequently you blend out the room reflection and increase the IACC in the highs, precise localization as a result. While the mids are still widespread spaceous in voices thx to the radial design.
3. The case itself, especially the AK151 housing, other than I expected, is very rigit and heavy. My finger knocking test showed 0 resonance behavior on any point of the cabinet. No sounding from the material used here, though they claim to intentionally color by special wood selection, like they do on the non-rigid OBX speaker cabins.
4. The subs with the claimed 2x12" longthrow in exponential horn.... very much look like a tapered horn, rear loaded. They claim 20Hz, and yes it sounds like. But with this size we all know it cant be an real exponential. It must be tapered, saying a prox 4 meter path labirynth. Definitely the drivers rearchamber is in the middle of the case, firing open on one side.
It all completes the picture quiet nicely and makes sense.
cheers
Josh
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
05-24-2017
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I have written a lot about Living Voice Vox Olympian
Speakers and I did heard them. I do not exactly understand or agree with what
is done in Olympian. I have to admit that during my listening of the Olympians
they sounded much better then what I would expect from them and many of my concerns,
like the ridicules tweeter design, were not a problem at all during the
auditioning. I do remember be that there was something that I disagreed in
sound but I honestly do not remember now what was it. I also so not know if
what I liked in the Olympian was the actual Olympian contribution or it was the
other offers around the playback (fully DC powered, meticulous powering and etc…).
What I do remembers was that Living Voice visiting was one of the rare
occasions when the system owner, Kevin Scott was more interesting than his
audio. You see, visiting audio people generally is not very stimulating adventure
as they are mostly a missing link between single cell organism and cockroaches
and the visiting industry participant is uselessly order of magnitude worse and
they are cockroaches with a lot of very ugly pomposity, enormous ridicules arrogance
that never backed up by own capacity and with a lot of absolutely unnecessary lying.
When I visited Kevin I was normally defensive as he is an industry person but I
was very soon was very pleasantly surprised how normal he was. I have no idea
how he being such a nice person can keep himself up among the rest of the
industry assholes. I wish him the best
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Posted by martinshorn on
05-24-2017
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heres a shot of the simulation i ran, dont take it too serious, its for a rough idea:
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Posted by martinshorn on
05-24-2017
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http://abload.de/image.php?img=img_1592c6urt.jpg
https://abload.de/img/img_1604mku42.jpg
https://abload.de/img/img_1605i2ul2.jpg
https://abload.de/img/img_1635jwua5.jpg - that one isnt mine obviously
https://abload.de/img/img_1540ueugd.jpg
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Posted by martinshorn on
05-24-2017
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hi Romy. Agree, didnt talk too much to him but you can feel having bit of empathy that hes a very warm hearted, relaxed and polite decent personality. Looks like a righteous guy. Also wish him best. Why im still writing this here? I dont think theres any business secret stolen thatll screw the profit.
The ones having the money considering to buy those, wont have the time or nerves to do a copy. The ones who copy, likely wouldn't ever spend it. So no business influence.
Also must say, when you see the love in detail, research bout the components, consider half goes to the retailer, 20% to VAT in most countries...Hes not really selling many, has to pay tax too, living and employing....The price isnt as crazy as it seems in the first place. Especially not in the Palladian, which i heard too.Its an economy version almost not sacrifying much compared to the big bro, but cost a crumb of the big. Maybe the 3 dimensional fundamentals are slightly more decent, the super highs a tiny touch more harsh, but thats all. 95% the same quality.
I must say amongst the horns i own and bought back 10 years ago, the big western electric cinema one, the living voice vox series is the most impressive i have ever heard in my life. I was traveling a lot, private and exhibitions, shops around the world, DIY and products, for almost 18 years now.
Its always a pain to see majority of speakers meaning 99.9999% doing the same ordinary boredom. Then hearing such system to me was just a bright moment in my vita. I mean if driving 500 miles including big spendings, only to listen to this for an hour isnt a complement 
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Posted by arcgotic on
11-16-2017
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Hello Martin,
Do you know the crossover points of the Vox Olimpian?
Thanks!
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Posted by martinshorn on
11-16-2017
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yap. the Olympian uses 70-500-5000-15000 cycles XO.
While the Palladian shifts to 70-400-5000-15000 cycles. (mainly due to cost saving on the AK151 phaseplug-design)
They use 6th order LR filters in the lows, 2nd order in the highs (@500 the drivers already decline by 4th which gives also 6th order acoustically)
I didn't like the lower 400c XO as the S2 seemed a little stressed with very loud electronical music.
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