RonyWeissman wrote:

Well romy will probably disagree or maybe find it off topic but I am sorry there is huge margins built in somewhere if someone is trying to sell me wood cabinets with TAD drivers for 140k $.   One of you guys can add it up for me and tell me if I'm wrong.  thanks

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=3665

Sine it is $150K acoustic system then it should be form my point of view a more or less ultimate statement and 30Hz of most likely EQed bass (even presumably properly done) it is not where I would like to stop for $150K. it would be similar to Lamm ML3: not matter how it might be OK sounding amp but topologically it is not a final solution for SET amplifier and therefore it might cost $126K but it does not worth and an ultimate SET solution.

RonyWeissman is right the Gammas are 3 horns, 4 drivers and it is it. Sure Cessaros oblige anyone who do for Gammas to buy a two sets of the LF horns that are probably more expanse to ship, install and to make then the rest Cessaros horns.  It is possible that the Cessaros LF section worth it I do not know – more data or audition is necessary. If they are stock TADs than we all know this prices and the entire Gammas (with LF) cost around -$10K or pretty much the very same as cost of my Macondo – they basically the very same systems. The Cessaros since it a prediction should twice less expansive to make. How Cessaros went from 10K+LF for 150K? Well, I think it is the way how it works in dan hi-fi. We are not bitching that sneakers that we pay $70 cost 34 cents to make we kind of use to it….

Well, I less concern about the absolute praise of Gammas – I let worry about it to the folks who are considering to but them - but I would rather to look at the Gammas form a different perspective: what options a person who is wiling to spend $100K for acoustic systems has today?  I can name quite a few over $100K speakers that are incredible crap.  There are some over $100K speakers that are not craps but have quite a lot of problems that I feel suck an expensive acoustic systems should not have.  From my point of view if Gammas are properly done than even with TADs Gammas should blow many over $100K speakers out of water and I think this fact would be a good excurse for the Cessaros folks to price their top model at $150K.

It thinks it should be well understood that when we are talking about $150K level then there is not direct rational that relates the price to anything and the price refers only to an abstract number with which the sales people can still get away with. So, warmly accepting the Cessaros I mostly appreciate what they were truing to do form a perspective of horns progress but I completely indifferent and sightless to the prices they are wiling to extort from this customers. Perhaps if I pay my living expenses with  audio sales I would feel different but since I do not I see little difference if Cessaros would cost $15K or $150K…

NBC wrote:

Hi Romy, Since you have certain opinions on TAD/Beryllium sound, Im curious: 1) Which TAD drivers you evaluated (2001, 2002, 4001, 4002, 4003) ? 2) With what Fc horns? 3) With what horn materials? 4) With what Xovers?

Just a quick note ,I went over to Germany and listened to a pair of Cessaro Alpha's at the home of TW Acoustic's Thomas Woschnick, I thought them absolutely superb, far more 'real' than any other speaker I have heard, ( impossible to hear everything of course ) . I  made the decision to buy a pair almost instantly , going over to collect the speakers after the Munich 'Hi-End' show, I am also going to listen to a set of Cessaro Gamma's, at the designers home, if there is any interest I will post my thoughts on the Alpha's and Gamma's and any other interesting horns I hear at Munich.

coops wrote:

Just a quick note ,I went over to Germany and listened to a pair of Cessaro Alpha's at the home of TW Acoustic's Thomas Woschnick, I thought them absolutely superb, far more 'real' than any other speaker I have heard, ( impossible to hear everything of course ) . I  made the decision to buy a pair almost instantly, going over to collect the speakers after the Munich 'Hi-End' show, I am also going to listen to a set of Cessaro Gamma's, at the designers home, if there is any interest I will post my thoughts on the Alpha's and Gamma's and any other interesting horns I hear at Munich.

Rgs, the Cat

coops wrote:

Romy just a quick post, after the Munich show I had the oppurtunity to spend a few hours listening to Ralph Krebs home system, the Cessaro Gamma's, super sound, the antithesis of almost everything I heard at the MOC, regards Keith.

There are a few areas where I would express curiosity....

1) How he drive the thing. Horns vs. bass channels. Do they consider to supply own electronics along with the Gamma installations
2) Did he try any “open bottom” LF section to compliment his horn-loaded bass
3) Can his TAD driver or the modifications that he presumably use care serious tone and do not be the typically TAD-techy.
4) From which maximum close distance the horns still hold good vertical instigation.
5) What upper bass driver is used and how it loaded.
6) What kind means they provide for an average customer to synchronize the angle of the upper home with the aliment-maintaining exertion of the upper horn.
7) Are any Gamma installations in US?

Very nice, Keith, thanks. The most interesting would be to access the “Absolute Tone” capacity of the Gamma. Frankly I feel that with TADs it should not be very too advanced as they are at BMS/TOA domain, only with a little TAD syntactic twist. Even the 2440/375 have more interesting “Absolute Tone”…. I am not well familiar with GOTO (I heard only two installations with then but never owned them) but what I cat feel from my accidental and generally empirical evidences suggest that GOTO have to be very sterile in term of “Absolute Tone” with TAD being on the simulated side of the GOTO’ sterile.

With horns everything is very easy: do not make stupid mistakes and everything will work fine. I do not see any obvious mistakes in Gamma and it is probably the only horn speakers about which I might say it. That brings us back to let the acoustic system to sound as good as the drivers are. Sure the Gamma is a series mass-market model but still I have not mass-market interests…

Unfortunately it is imposable to judge tonal capacity of speakers without relative terms. I generally religiously against comparing of audio ands I feel that only the Morons do it but I know that the nobility of tone is a very different category… and there is no other ways to learn it besides to be exposed to better “Absolute Tone”. The experience of the folks that deal with some of vintage drivers is a good illustration…

Your Raplh should know what I am taking about but I do not know if he knows that it is possible to modulate acoustically the more enhanced “Absolute Tone”. Pitch to him my experience with Injection Channel. Perhaps he or someone else would find better solution for the concept or friendlier implementation… Frankly, if I designed the Macondo from scratch now, after knowing about the Injection Channels what I know now, then I might make some thing slightly differently.

It looks like Cessaro horns begin to spread this distribution. According to the messages on their blog the Hong Kong shop got Cessaro Alpha. Well, I care less about the Alphas, they are similar to the Avantgarde’s Uno/Duo should be very problematic. However, it is a good sign thet the Cessaro feels that they are ready to go public, outside of their “fatherlend”. I hope another 2-3 years and some kind of distributor at US East Cost will have the full set of Cessaro Gammas in their show room. It might be worth a trip… Or being me: perhaps I need to live in illusions and to avoid a disappointment of facing of reality…  :-)

Anyhow, here are the blog posts from Hong Kong

http://www.audioexotics.hk/forum.php?cat=4&show=0&id=1837&fshow=0

http://www.audioexotics.hk/forum.php?cat=4&show=0&id=1782&fshow=0

http://www.audioexotics.hk/forum.php?cat=4&show=0&id=1791&fshow=0

I wonder, 8 years ago Jim Smith created some momentum with Avantgardes, making some good horn’s noise and (I hope) good money on it. With all Avantgarde’s problems the Trios were a good attempt to inject some “hornynenss” into the mind of US audio public. (Despite that I heard only 2 more or less interestingly performing Trios installations). Since then, Jim Smith retired from Avantgardes and the company went to the deserving dark shadow… The other existing commercial horns projects available in US unfortunately are ether targeted for audio bottom-eaters, or just very crappy horns, or have no access to the high-demanding customers.

So, I it will be interesting to see if a $150K Cessaro Gammas will hit US’s Hi-Fi market. Sure, to do so, the Cessaro need to build up a large traffic of the cheap models Alpha and Betas. Then they will have the Gamma’s installation(s) available in US to “keep the Morons anxious”. I think it is a time for Cessaro to employ the advanced audio-marketing: “the Hairy Pearson”, “the Sunshine Framer” or any other audio-writing whores and to make them to blab a little about horns jeneraly, and the Cessaro’s Gammas ability to deliver to each suburban-boring audio-trash a personal touch of Patricia Barber…..

Hence, I hope the new folks emerge out there who would undertake the labor that Jim Smith did with Avantgardes. I hope with Cessaro it will be easier for that new person, as the Cessaro people (looks like) have more sensible regarding to what they deal with… BTW, it would be interesting to hear Jim Smith about the Cessaro Gammas perspectives in US….

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…