So Many Apogees for sale, and so few takers

Hi josh,

Very interesting. I wonder if maybe some of the lower perceived loudness from the panel is about phase? There can be a diffuse nature to planar sound. Lacking that initial impact you get from a big studio monitor or horn.

Placement from the rear wall and side wall with soft furnishing behind the panel always helped in my experience. Somehow focussing it and making it more coherent. Also using extremely good source and amps of course!

I had forgotten about Wisdom speakers. I have never heard them. But there was a model I admired from afar. I think it was the called the LS4. It seems to hook on the wall. I wonder how they get around that congested sound you would get it you tried that proximity to the rear wall with a maggie or Apogee?

Anyone know why Wisdom speakers are so expensive? Or is that just their wisdom?

All planers seem to be finicky suckers when it comes to setup. I think it is because their design inherently integrates the room, rather than trying to diffuse and or eliminate it with sound treatments and such with monitors and other cone designs. They also have very narrow sweet spots. But set up properly I don't hear any of that diffuse nature, at least not with my Apogees.

I think its the decision involved to invest extra $$$ into a amp that can drive the apogees if your present amp(s) do not have that capability;I will probally run into this when I try to sell my soundlab m2's.

Ptmconsulting,
I am with you, a properly set up one is one of the best playback experiences.

My Apogees where never diffuse. But definetly came to life with power. That diffuse trait was more a trait of the older stock maggies. Something that replacing the caps in the xover improved a great deal btw.

I always thought of my planars as headphones. Very large headphones!

Hi Chadeffect,

I think I know what you mean about the diffuse sound. I've always wondered if that wasn't due to comb filtering from the out-of-phase backwave. This is something that doesn't occur in life -- you do get comb filtering from reflections but the backwave is usually in phase. I've sometimes wondered idly whether this didn't have something to do with their reproduction of space as well.

There are lots of other differences, though, so I'm not really sure.

A lot of people use diffusion behind the speakers, at the first reflection points. I just got some duffusers from GIK today, so I'll be trying that myself some time in the next few weeks. I have a troublesome fireplace mantle that I'm trying to tame.

The LS-4 was what I had in mind. Wisdom also makes a smaller version called the LS-3. They're made up out of modules, with a central quasi-ribbon tweeter and bass panels on either side. These go down to 80 Hz and then they use separate shallow subs below that. There are some pictures of the modules in a show report on the Stereophile site. Basically, they're architectural speakers that are designed to mount in the wall. That means they have enclosures with absorptive material, like large, shallow dynamics. I haven't heard them either, but those who have speak highly of them.

I imagine that the cost of the Wisdoms reflects several factors. Enclosures are the most expensive thing in a speaker, so that alone would make them more expensive than the typical planar. Then they use neodynium magnets -- these are super efficient -- and neodynium has gotten very costly, it would add thousands to the selling price of the speaker. They also use that esoteric spun silver technology to bleed heat from the tweeter -- there's an interesting demo/rundown somewhere on You Tube if you can find it. Finally, I think these are a pricey ultra-high-end product that's made in small quantities. Maggies benefit from the economies of mass production and are designed to be affordable -- they consider themselves a value manufacturer and would rather sell a lot of moderately-priced speakers than a few highly-priced ones.

The people behind Wisdom are Boehlender and Graebner, the guys who started BG, which makes the Neo-8's that Satie used to mod his Tympanis, and also the RD- series drivers that are used in the big Genesis, etc.