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Heil tweeters are hot now. But how about a Heil speaker that covers the range from about 150Hz to above 20 Khz without crossovers with dipole dynamic drivers for the lower 3 octaves. Plus add in digital room control. Does that arouse curiosity? Yet such a speaker exists made by Arion Audio in America and has been around for years and been presented at shows and the magazines have hardly mentioned it. Such a speaker should have been reviewed by now to see if it lives up to its promise. What's going on?
Follow Ups:
A customer (Apollo owner) pointed me to this conversation. I design and build Arion speakers in the USA.
Just to clarify a few points: We design and build our AMT drivers in-house in the USA. They have very high sensitivity. Our Apollo line arrays are extended range and have been tested from 80 Hz to 24 KHz. We chose to use a minimum crossover frequency of 120 Hz for a number of reasons so we rate the line arrays from 120 Hz to 24 KHz.
Each woofer cabinet (module) contains two 10" long throw dynamic drivers. They are an open baffle design. Each driver is in its own chamber. They are loaded independently as are both sides of each driver. They have a usable range of 20 Hz to about 240 Hz. We use them in our Apollos from 20 Hz to 120 Hz. In some cases, we use a higher crossover like 150 Hz or 180 Hz.
Most of our speakers are active systems. We use digital crossovers with room correction for a variety of reasons. Our processor allows the owner to use the amplifiers of their choice.
Our new website should be live in about a weeks. There will be more info there.
Mike
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While I do think the $25K price is a bargain for what you get, how many of us have families who can agree to have this in their house?Now, the smaller models listed on Arion website do look interesting, but where did you read that Apollo AMT tower does not have a crossover? To me, it looks like they are using an outboard DSP box to set the crossover for the AMT towers as well as woofer box, so every signal, even phono, has to go through extra A-D then D-A conversion in the DSP crossover box.
IMO what the world needs is a well-engineered DSP crossover box with UPGRADABLE internal DAC module to avoid the extra A-D/D-A step. The internal DAC's sound quality has to match current SOTA DAC's but be physically removable and upgradable, so people don't feel like they will be stuck with outdated DAC in the future.
Edits: 05/17/24 05/17/24 05/17/24 05/17/24 05/17/24 05/17/24
With regard to the photo posted by Jon L, I have to say that I wouldn't put those in the living spaces of my house. On the other hand, if I had a large dedicated listening/party room or HT room with a 12-foot ceiling, they could possibly work.
With an eye toward asthetics, might I suggest eliminating two of the line array drivers, and then integrating the woofer cabinet at the bottom of the array. Unless you have some specific reason to have nine drivers instead of seven, this would minimize the floor space needed, and minimize the look of "boxes" on a person's floor. Secondly, consider other finishes which would more readily "go with" with peoples' other furnishings.
These changes could increase your sales.
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
The photo posted by Jon L is of an early (2018) pre-production Apollo 9 speaker shown at an audio show. Our Apollo and Athena series have changed since then. The new cabinets are narrower and more rounded and are of a composite construction. Additionally, we do build a unit, called Athena, which has the woofers built into the bottom of the speaker cabinet. For a better understanding of our product line please refer to our website: arionaudio.com
Nt.
Mark in NC
"The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains" -Paul Simon
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If one has a 10+ft ceiling, here is one I designed some years back that will test the SAF of any significant other.
I have not had this one in my living room however.
I love it.
It has a single digital crossover from the Heil drivers to the dynamic woofers. The Heil drivers run for 7 octaves.
Styling is a personal thing. They are big. They are simple. sort of Miesian and I don't find them ugly and I have a degree in architecture.
And you're correct. They are for a serious audiophile, probably with a separate room. But that's true for many speakers and these undercut pricewise almost all of them.
At least HAL thinks so.
I personally don't see ugly, and for large unit, does seem understated and not bold and vulgar as some of the floor to ceiling Monoliths of recent production offerings.
Be interesting to hear it in a room deep enough front and back to let the squeezer breathe.
But I have no idea why they put a 1000 watt amp on a claimed 105 db efficiency speaker, but not intimately familiar with the current requirements for an AMT.
The amplifier is for the woofers. You supply the amp for the Heil section.
They used to have one at the headquarters in their show/listening room.
I don't think it was an orderable product. Its performance was rough in the beginning and got refined in sound and looks. Last time I heard it ( at least 7 years) it still had an edgyness to it like a speaker without baffle step loss.
Apples and oranges. The Arion has no crossover from 150 Hz up and unique dipole woofers below. And it works. The woofers on the ESS are not really Heils. And like you said it doesn't really exist. The Arion speaker is real.
Rusty memory but at lest their pitch was air motion transfer tech bottom to top but with different methods and materials. Didn't spend great deal of effort to fully understand all the mechanisms, but observed clearly an unconventional approach to reproduce lower octaves. It was a promising approach, but rough with a longer road to a fully refined offering.
The bass is sort of a squeezer but it's mechanically different than a Heil. They did it to relate to the Heil but couldn't do it the same way. It isn't a folded diaphragm like a Heil as I recall but separate diaphragms pushed together.
"The Arion has no crossover from 150 Hz up"
So, you're saying that the LF driver is allowed to roll off naturally, and the tweeter does the same?
That I've got to hear.
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
No, the Heild drivers are mounted as a tall line source and are crossed from the woofers there and run til they roll off supersonically. It's a 2 way system.
Ok, I've looked at them (the Apollo). If I haven't missed something, they're basically a wide-range line array with a separate woofer. It looks like an interesting system.
"they roll off supersonically."
Ha, that's funny.
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
https://www.arionaudio.com
this .
...at first
And even at low volume I could hear a plastic resonance to the diaphragm in the midrange. It was unmistakable to me who was thoroughly used to the Quads.
Make no mistake, it was there. It disappointed me and I sold them. I still have the Quad 57's. I hear music minus letdowns with them.
Carry on everyone
I listened to them a few times.
The first time I didn't like something about their sound.
After I read up about how they work I figured out why.
They make sound by squeezing the air.
I couldn't stand that sound.
I do wish I got to hear the ATD woofer.
Looks kewl.
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