Atomic Amps - "Coincident Linear Reference" Designed by Jay Mitchell

Scott Peterson said:
Good question and one I am not equipped to answer with any authority. I've used the Meyer at a big show a while back; it's different level than anything I've ever used... RCF NX isn't in the same league with the big 212A. I'm not familiar enough with other top shelf offerings (Turbosound, Clair Bros., etc) to offer any advice or opinion.
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I think QSC has a pro powered wedge in that same price range too? But I have never used one.

Richard
 
BTW
Which part(s) is/are "designed" by Jay Mitchell? Or is it better to use the word "adviced"?
- The amp? Maybe, but propably not.
- The driver? Maybe, but propably an existing coaxial.
- The X-over? Propably.
- The box? Sure.
So, some specs needed before spending another 2 grand for a stereo setup.
 
eadgbe said:
BTW
Which part(s) is/are "designed" by Jay Mitchell? Or is it better to use the word "adviced"?
- The amp? Maybe, but propably not.
- The driver? Maybe, but propably an existing coaxial.
- The X-over? Propably.
- The box? Sure.
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The other way round would be closer, I'd guess :)
 
barhrecords said:
I think QSC has a pro powered wedge in that same price range too? But I have never used one.

Richard
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The other ones to watch are the D&B Tekinik MAX12 and M4, I would imagine very much like the Meyer stuff, they will be in a different league, but from what I heard they were around £3K a box or something stupid ... but would still be interesting to hear them some day. The M4 offers something like 400W RMS, 1600W peak ...
 
eadgbe said:
BTW
Which part(s) is/are "designed" by Jay Mitchell? Or is it better to use the word "adviced"?
- The amp? Maybe, but propably not.
- The driver? Maybe, but propably an existing coaxial.
- The X-over? Propably.
- The box? Sure.
So, some specs needed before spending another 2 grand for a stereo setup.
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As I understand it from the video way back in January, it's not a normal co-axial but a conventional bass unit with a HF unit hung in front on a pair of (presumably metal) straps. I guess on the plus side this approach could work out cheaper in components but probably takes more R&D time compared to using a normal co-axial driver, so who know what it does to the overall costs, i guess we have to wait and see what price they come out at and the spec ...

I have a pair of Roland powered monitors built on this principle, so its been around a while.
 
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Scott Peterson said:
A boutique start-up has also contacted me (actually two of them) and asked to send boxes to compare when this goes down. I'm excited at what promises to be a very interesting shoot-out/contrast/compare.
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You should sell tickets to the shoot out! :) everybody is going to want to be there!
 
CrazyTrainer said:
As I understand it from the video way back in January, it's not a proper co-axial but a conventional bass unit with a HF unit hung in front on a pair of (presumably metal) straps. I guess on the plus side this approach could work out cheaper in components but probably takes more R&D time compared to using a proper co-axial driver, so who know what it does to the overall costs, i guess we have to wait and see what price they come out at and the spec ...

I have a pair of Roland powered monitors built on this principle, so its been around a while.
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Jay's not a part of this forum, but head over to TGP and post that. I bet he'd have something to say to you about the "proper co-axial" line. :) Just give me a few minutes while my popcorn pops.
 
bkrodgers said:
Jay's not a part of this forum, but head over to TGP and post that. I bet he'd have something to say to you about the "proper co-axial" line. :) Just give me a few minutes while my popcorn pops.
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Heh, hmm, perhaps thats the wrong phrase then, whatever ... as far as I know, the CLR on the January video is two conventional units stacked, the RCF is a "normal" coaxial ... theres many ways to build a speaker ... infact, the more you dig around, the more you find. In the end, regardless of whats in the box, what matters is what ends up at your ears!
 
CrazyTrainer said:
Heh, hmm, perhaps thats the wrong phrase then, whatever ... as far as I know, the CLR on the January video is two conventional units stacked, the RCF is a "normal" coaxial ... theres many ways to build a speaker ... infact, the more you dig around, the more you find. In the end, regardless of whats in the box, what matters is what ends up at your ears!
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You're definitely right about the last part, in my opinion. But here's something Jay had to say about the RCF that I happened upon while researching those:

Which RCF speaker?

A coaxial assembly does not, by itself, result in a loudspeaker with coincident acoustic characteristics. With the HF driver mounted on the backplate of the woofer (by far the most common arrangement, and the one used in the RCF speaker you reference), acoustic coincidence is only possible with electronic delay applied to the woofer signal.
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What he says does make a whole lot of sense, at least from a theoretical point of view. Whether that small amount of delay is noticeable to your average listener (or your above average listener who went to way too many concerts before starting to wear hearing protection, like me) is a question I'd be interested to know. But clearly implied in his statement is that the RCF does not correct for this offset, and the CLR does.
 
bkrodgers said:
You're definitely right about the last part, in my opinion. But here's something Jay had to say about the RCF that I happened upon while researching those:

Which RCF speaker?

What he says does make a whole lot of sense, at least from a theoretical point of view. Whether that small amount of delay is noticeable to your average listener (or your above average listener who went to way too many concerts before starting to wear hearing protection, like me) is a question I'd be interested to know. But clearly implied in his statement is that the RCF does not correct for this offset, and the CLR does.
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That is not what he said. Read what you quoted again and what he said is that they do it digitally.
 
Scott Peterson said:
That is not what he said. Read what you quoted again and what he said is that they do it digitally.
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Well, he said "acoustic coincidence is only possible with electronic delay applied to the woofer signal." He didn't say that RCF does do that. Though it is true that he didn't say they don't either. I still read what he said as saying that the RCF may be coaxial, but not necessarily coincident like his speaker will be. Not 100% clear, in my opinion, but I don't think he'd be stressing the concept of coincident vs coaxial if it was something that other coaxial speakers routinely do.
 
bkrodgers said:
Well, he said "acoustic coincidence is only possible with electronic delay applied to the woofer signal." He didn't say that RCF does do that. Though it is true that he didn't say they don't either. I still read what he said as saying that the RCF may be coaxial, but not necessarily coincident like his speaker will be. Not 100% clear, in my opinion, but I don't think he'd be stressing the concept of coincident vs coaxial if it was something that other coaxial speakers routinely do.
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Well, based on how the RCF NX speaker performs and sounds - the woofer and high end driver are indeed aligned correctly IMHO. What Jay is saying is that the CLR is based on a physically aligned speaker configuration instead of needing digital processing (aka crossover and filters) to align the drivers.
 
Scott Peterson said:
Well, based on how the RCF NX speaker performs and sounds - the woofer and high end driver are indeed aligned correctly IMHO. What Jay is saying is that the CLR is based on a physically aligned speaker configuration instead of needing digital processing (aka crossover and filters) to align the drivers.
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Ah right, I see what you are saying ... and thats a very interesting point .. I'm guessing he is referring to some additional delay as crossover and filtering can be easily done in the analogue domian, if it requires "digital processing" then that will be a delay, I had not considered that the RCF had a DSP to provide a delay to the time LF unit, but I'll assume that if he is saying it, it must be true. Whatever technique they used, it certainly seems to work.

I suppose that makes two possible outcomes .. either the RCF does have a delay added to the LF unit, digitally, and that is what helps it achieve its sonic performance, or, if it doesn't have a delay to phase the drivers correctly, then either its not a significant factor, or they acheived the correct phasing without adding a delay ... as there are other ways to achieve the correct phasing of the drivers, but a very interesting point.
 
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I took Jay's comments about coaxial speakers to mean, just because a company manufacturers a coaxial speaker system, it doesn't guarantee anything in regards to audio performance. There is more to the design than just the coaxial nature of the two drivers. IOW all coaxial systems are not created equal :)

But, IIRC, he has stated more than once, non-coaxial designs have limitations that can never be overcome by any means.

I have not seen Jay make negative comments about the RCF or other manufacturer's speakers. He has measured a QSC speaker and made some suggestions for improvement, but didn't diss it.

Not a speaker designer here, but since sound travels about 1 ft per millisecond, any delay applied to time align the LF and HF driver seems like it would be < 1 millisecond? This would not be detectable by us humans :)

Richard
 
barhrecords said:
Not a speaker designer here, but since sound travels about 1 ft per millisecond, any delay applied to time align the LF and HF driver seems like it would be < 1 millisecond? This would not be detectable by us humans
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Doesn't the cab delay param in the cab block have granularity <1ms? In any case, I'd expect it to be noticeable in the form of some comb filtering around the crossover freqs as both speakers are working in that part of the spectrum. If they're not aligned, there will be phase issues that are probably perceivable, even if we don't identify the delay as such.

...but I'm just an IT guy, not a speaker designer. :)
 
aleclee said:
Doesn't the cab delay param in the cab block have granularity <1ms? In any case, I'd expect it to be noticeable in the form of some comb filtering around the crossover freqs as both speakers are working in that part of the spectrum. If they're not aligned, there will be phase issues that are probably perceivable, even if we don't identify the delay as such.

...but I'm just an IT guy, not a speaker designer. :)
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Alec's right - though that's also from my layperson's perspective and understanding also... I am not an engineer!!!
 
aleclee said:
Doesn't the cab delay param in the cab block have granularity <1ms? In any case, I'd expect it to be noticeable in the form of some comb filtering around the crossover freqs as both speakers are working in that part of the spectrum. If they're not aligned, there will be phase issues that are probably perceivable, even if we don't identify the delay as such.

...but I'm just an IT guy, not a speaker designer. :)
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My assumption was if the manufacturer added a delay it would be considered an improvement, but that is an assumption on my part for sure :)

And I'm just an exotic dancer, not a speaker designer either :)
 
This is why I'm really interested to see some shootouts between the RCF, the CLR, and the Matrix (plus any other cool new stuff). I'm seriously wondering if with the RCF, we've reached a point where improvements are hard to detect. They may well be there, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't want them if everything else is equal. But the RCF will have a weight advantage over the CLR, and for now it has an availability advantage.
 
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