Lyrita Audio's New Amity Speaker

[suri]

Sure, Suri, I'll even even put on some party music & dance in front of them, if, you like! (I ca see you grinning at the mental image,Ashok !).
The pictures don't really give you the correct perspective since they were taken standing up- maybe it would've been better to have snapped them while sitting at the sweet spot.
The centre of the Fostex is at ear height, sitting on a normal chair.
It would be really nice if you could manage a trip to Delhi to hear them first hand- an audition is worth more than a thousand words...

No, no ,no, Kamal,

No dancing! - dancing excites the vestibular system, which is connected to the hearing mechanism, and actually reduces perception of sound!

Be absolutely still and listen.

Yes, i will manage a trip to delhi if you will be my host! (No, i will be there soon, regardless!)

regards

and excusez moi Kamal, it is my impatience and inability to tele-transport myself that makes the moving finger type all that.

so, a little bit of indulgence for this (fool) fellow?:sad:

 

[heliumflight]

Hello friends.


Will go over again for another listen & see if they can be partnered with a SS Amp & how that sounds.

Kamal ji it would be wonderful if you could review as to how the Amity's fair with SS amp. PM me and I will get my Bryston integrated over.

Kindest regards
--
Bryston + B&W

 

[jaudere]

Hello everyone,

Thanks a lot for your comments, and encouragement.

All speaker designs are compromises - you have to learn to do the best you can with the set of choices you make. As a designer, you can sometimes become blind to your own work; and its important to have feedback from a variety of listeners. Just what this forum has done.

Fine tuning a speaker can take some time, because it has to be done by ear. Once the basic engineering is done, listening to music is the only way to evolve the design. I'm still in that process, though I feel I am very close to the final design.

And we also enter the realm of subjective listening reactions. Each of us responds in our own way to music. So, listen and evaluate.

Regards,
Viren

Hello Viren,

I had a suggestion ( people will be furious or they may call me a fool when they read that a novice like me is giving some suggestions to a genius in the field but i will still go on)

Let me make it clear that i have no engineering back ground and the experiments that i have been doing are based on my own hearing and no objective measurements are done. i stay in a remote village . so no audiophile is likely to come to my place to evaluate my experiments. so everything is subjective.

i have been trying open baffles since last 4-5 months( i know the period is too short). i have tried everything from single full range driver (philips Hi-Q 8") to a 4 way design(a tweeter, a full range for mid , another full range for mid bass, and a 15" woofer for low bass). i came across the passive XOs and their advantages and disadvantages. then some one (i think it was squarewave or spirovious) that the XO design should be like Orions by linkwitz.major work done by fullranger and helped at upper and lower end by separate speakers. but still the fullranger gets signals through the XO which may degrade the signal. i was trying to figure out how i can avoid it.

what i am playing at present is a fullrange driver and a tweeter (through Hipass at 4khz) in parallel. so tweeter is fed through the XO and full ranger gets full signal without processing. i am planning to add a woofer in parallel to the above combination with a low pass filter at 250Hz. so it will be like a 3 way design but the full ranger will get full signal , tweeter gets signals above 4KHz and woofer below 250 Hz. I think the impedance should not be a problem . Orion has upper XO at 1440 Hz. i think philips full rangers do well upto 5Khz. so 4 Kz should be enough . all the speakers will be on folded open baffle. the baffle is 3.5 Ft wide (20 " front and 10" wings on each side). the bass is adequate for music even without woofers but i will need the woofers for movies.

In case of your Amity speakers, is it possible to connect the full ranger and woofer (through 300Hz low pass) in parallel rather than through the XO so that the Fostex driver gets full signal? i thought of it as i read a post by Hifi Ashok that in some songs, there was slight problem where XO probably got confused about whether to send the signal to Fostex or to the woofer.After all, you are the boss when it comes to single driver designs and you know how the fostex will behave .I have never heard a fostex driver playing ( i was introduced to this world of Hi-Fi just an year back)

I hope i have not said something illogical. please correct me if i am wrong anywhere.

 

[Kamal]

Suri uvach-
and excusez moi Kamal, it is my impatience and inability to tele-transport myself that makes the moving finger type all that.

so, a little bit of indulgence for this (fool) fellow?
No apologies reqd, Suri;
You keep discussions lively with your comments & thats impt.
Would love to meet up with you whenever you plan to storm Delhi.

 

[Kamal]

Hello friends.


Will go over again for another listen & see if they can be partnered with a SS Amp & how that sounds.

Kamal ji it would be wonderful if you could review as to how the Amity's fair with SS amp. PM me and I will get my Bryston integrated over.

Kindest regards
--
Bryston + B&W

That would be great Helium.
Lets think the coming Sunday.
Will confirm with Viren & finalise.

 

[heliumflight]

That would be great Helium.
Lets think the coming Sunday.
Will confirm with Viren & finalise.

Sunday sounds good. I will get SS amp and Beresford DAC along.

 

[anm]

what time of the day are you planning?
If it can be earlier in the morning, I can try to join. Though I have always failed to wake up early, but I can try once more.

regards

 

[heliumflight]

Hi anm,

I spoke with Virenji today and he said he'll touch base with Kamalji and update me for the Sun timings.

Will keep you informed.

Don't miss out the good thinks in life!

--
Bryston + B&W

 

[viren bakhshi]

Hi Jaudere,

Your suggestion on driving the Fostex actually fullrange (without a crossover) is good. Logical too, because it doesn't compromise the performance of the fullrange.

That is exactly what I do in the Harmony One speakers. The Harmony One's produce bass as deep as the Amity's do. But they just can't play as loud. The poor Fostex 6" with a maximum excursion of 0.6 mm just can't move enough air.

So, in the Amity the 12" woofer does that. And, you have to relieve the Fostex of bass duties, for it to be able to play loud without strain. So, in goes the crossover. What you lose though, you gain in spades by going to the open baffle design. A compromise worth doing.

There's always an overlap in the response of the drivers at the crossover point. Good crossover design is probably half the effort in the overall design of the speaker system. That's what I call basic engineering. To do that though, you have to be able to measure. Otherwise you are going somewhat blind.

Subjective tweaking comes after all that.

Regards,
Viren

 

[Sidharth Trehan]

@ rikhav - hi, as kamal ji made a mention. i am the one with the ears for lounge and ambient and hence the Dj Shah gave company during the audition. i couldnt decipher your sentence, for if u like the genre or not.

 

[gobble]

Hi Viren

Just curious. Why did you opt for a 6" driver versus a 4" one since you are pairing it with another driver for low frequencies anyways?

TIA
Regards

 

[grubyhalo]

Hi Viren

Just curious. Why did you opt for a 6" driver versus a 4" one since you are pairing it with another driver for low frequencies anyways?

TIA
Regards

I could be way off the mark but I'm thinking that it's to compensate for losing a bit of the mid-lows by going OB...

 

[rikhav]

@ rikhav - hi, as kamal ji made a mention. i am the one with the ears for lounge and ambient and hence the Dj Shah gave company during the audition. i couldnt decipher your sentence, for if u like the genre or not.

I thought there would be no takers for music by Dj Shah aka Sunlounger over here. Hence i was surprised to hear the album name in kamlji's review

He is mainstream trance dj and producer and he terms he his music as balearic music. Has more of ambient sounds in it
He played a set at Goa last year

 

[Sidharth Trehan]

After a long day of yapping [am in a business development profile] notes like that of Sunlounger does wonders to the 'head', so to say.

Shah has two versions in the Sunlounger compilation, i prefer the original cd much more than the remixed cd.

And frankly they sounded almost the same as they did on my Quad 11L2 bookshelves + Marantz SACD + Marantz 7001 which now has been replaced by Quad Pre Power set up. BUT BUT BUT ..The Amitys are any day more airy and alive with the Lyrita Amp.

QUOTE=rikhav;84529]I thought there would be no takers for music by Dj Shah aka Sunlounger over here. Hence i was surprised to hear the album name in kamlji's review

He is mainstream trance dj and producer and he terms he his music as balearic music. Has more of ambient sounds in it
He played a set at Goa last year[/QUOTE]

 

[dillihifi]

Hi all,

Some first impressions regarding Viren's Amity speakers

As we all had been discussing a few of the forum members i.e, Kamal, anm, helimflite, vijay hifi, panditji apart from yours truly ended up invading Viren last Sunday for around 4 hours.

As we had planned on this session we had a lot of equipment on our hands. The guys had got hold of Bryston B 60 Integrated, Rotel Integrated (1070??) apart from the tube amps of Viren his 2a3 and his higher powered one 6C33CB SET Amp

Source material was as diverse as the group starting from Pink Floyd, some acoustic/studio music from panditji, Sheffild Test Disc, Dali Demo Disc which had a variety of tracks, Hind Bolloywood numbers, Kailash Kher, Some Ravishankar and some Jazz.

First we started off using the Brystom Amp and the Amity speakers. One could feel the punch that the speakers churned out. I mean they could really move play loud without losing any detail. The clarity was outstanding. We listened to the same tracks in the Bryston and Rotel which in my opinion sounded pretty close. Then we switched to the 6C33CB SET Amp it seemed that the sound had opened up a wee bit I meman we felt that this amp was better at churning out the tracks than the solid state one though I had expected that the solid states would handle the same much better. Especially the drums track from the sheffild test disc.

Well after listening to the speakers some of us wanted to hear the same in the harmony 1s those are lyrita's single driver speakers. Well it was a divided opinion regarding which speaker sounds better but I felt that the amitys being open baffle sounded a wee more clearer and the emminence divers had some serious slam to offer. I felt that the amitys coupled with the solid state or the tubes was a fantastic bang for the price. I felt that along with the tube amp partnering this pair of speakers this would be a perfect match.

Other members will surely post their impressions on the listening session we had. I just tried my hand at penning my feelings of the listening session. Well guys fantastic meeting you all should do sometimes.

Thanks

 

[panditji]

I second Dillihifi completely....the Amitys were full all rounders and played all types of music very well. I certainly liked them playing smooth jazz - Chris Standring and Soundscape UK - had more than adequate thump which got the windows shivering.....
However they were outstanding when we played The Wall (Pink Floyd) where the bass was tight and still got the windows to move....The vocals were clean with good instrument separation with fantastic bass....
Of course they were simply superb when Viren played the Thomas Haffling Trio with the 15 watter tube amp but they sounded extrmeely nice with the solid state amps as well.

Overall, very good allrounders capable of playing all kinds of music excelling at acoustics and vocals, rock and jazz. It's a perfect match when paired Viren's tube amps but performs just as well if paired with a quality solid state amp...

Lastly, many thanks to Viren for a wonderful afternoon and his signature coffee and cake. He now has a product which caters to everybody's taste in music....Congrats Sir

 

[heliumflight]

It was a wonderful Sun afternoon hosted by at Lyrita Audio
Audience: VJ@hifi, Kamalji, Delhi@hifi, anm@hifi, Panditji with his dad, Sanjiv
Session time: 11:30 pm 2:30 pm
Music: We heard Motorhead- All the Aces, Pink Floyd- One slip, Chris Stanring, Kari Bremnes-Norwegian Mood-Coastal Ship, Nils Lofrgen-Keith Don't Go, Rebecca Pidgeon-Spanish Harlem, Paul Simon-Mardi Gras, Hare Krishna Maha Mantra, Rene Olstead-Summertime, Sheffild Test Disc,
Room size: 12 X 18 feet and I was sitting 12 feet with volume knob at 11 o clock position
Snacks: Virenjis famous home brewed coffee with cake

1. Bryston B 60R (60wrms @8 ohms)+ Amity
2. Bryston B 60R + Harmony One
3. 2A3 SET (3 watts/channel) + Amity
4. 2A3 SET + Harmony One
5. 6C33C SET (15 watts/channel) +Amity
6. 6C33C SET + Harmony one
7. Rotel 1080 (100wrms @8 ohms)+ Amity

Out of all the above, the 2A3 SET + Harmony One bested it for me.



In most of the tracks, we switched back & forth between the SS and SET amps & the Amity and Harmony One speakers. But with Pink Floyd, The Wall Signs of life, we did at great lengths analyze and below is what Ive summarized what we experienced.

The below review is purely based on my own musical experience- 2A3 SET + Harmony one

1. The first thing that comes to my mind is enveloping experience
2. Notes from 2A3 and Harmony one combo were rich, full bodied experience. But in the SS notes were truncated. In The Amitys it was airier but then sacrificed on harmonics which was a no- no for me.
3. We were listening a 3 watts amp which was just enough to generate spl's in Virens 12 X 18 feet sized living room, & the SET shone in comparison. The Lyrita Harmony One speakers have a sensitivity of 93 dB/watt, which is just about adequate for low powered amps. Whereas the Amitys have sensitivity of 95db
4. I felt that in the Amitys sounds were coming from the 2 drivers as if being streamed from different sources whereas from the One it was just one. What youd describe as coherency which is a big^ big + for me.
5. You could follow rhythms and melodic patterns if you started to concentrate on a single instrument. There were tremendous nuances unveiled.
6. I felt the above combo is purely for music in which there are few instruments.
7. I felt both amplifiers ( 2A3 and 6C33C) could fill up the space with music. However, when pushed hard, drums, the 2A3 SET started sounding a bit strained, showing that its limit had been reached. The 6C33C continued playing with good control, and no strain

Kindest regards
--
Bryston + B&W

 

[grubyhalo]

Thanks for your review Helium.

 

[anm]

If you are looking for an allround speaker, you will not go wrong with amitys. I also wanted to watch transformers - but didn't mention it to the audiophile crowd as it could have been a risk to my life

I hope some day Viren would let me connect a dvdp with the tube amp and amitys.

But if you are looking for music only, harmony one + set amp is excellent. As I have mentioned earlier also, I did not find bass lacking in harmony for music. Heliumflight can comment more on this as he was the one looking out for bass

regards

 

[dillihifi]

You should have mentioned it. we would have also found out whether the amitys can be used a 2.0 speaker set for movies with adequate thump. I think along with its price it would make a great speaker set for movies.