Has anybody had experience with the Orions?

Hello Jose:
I,m Carlos from Xalapa (friend with Raul); i don,t know if its of any interest for you but i own the Gradient Revolution which have open dipole bass and very similar in concept to the orions. i hear that Mr. linkwitz really takes his hat off with Jorma Salmi the Gradient designer.
Check out this study link, i think is fascinating:
http://www.gradient.fi/design/stereo/
Feel free to let me know if you want to come to Xalapa and check them out.
BTW: Congratulations on the Essential 3150 pre; i,ve heard it twice at Raul,s place, really state of the art.
Regards, Carlos Villarreal

Actually Jmaldonado you could probably build them for a very modest investment... The drivers are about 1,5k altogether. The xover is very complex for a lame diyer -- but shouldn't be a problem for you.
Mr Linkwitz only charges ~300 for the full technical design & schematics.

I owned various Thiels over the years and often listened to lots of others whenever hit by the upgrade bug. When I found the Orions I was cured. They are the best I have ever heard and the closet to the sound of real music, at least Classical - which is my primary interest. I have added the rear tweeter to mine and that kicked things up a notch, which is really saying something considering the level of the original. They have a very natural, open sound that some hi-fi types may not appreciate at first. Nothing jumps out at you as with many speakers but that is what makes them so satisfying over time. They reproduce music about as realistically as you can in a home environment.

Tim McTeague

Hello Jose
I heard very good things about the Bethoveen designed by Mr. Linkwitz. The special thing about his design is the active Crossover at line level which buffers first and then separates freq. while correcting the drivers function to be finally perfectly flat, this is done by a complicated array of opamps at line level, you can see a functional diagram at his site, extremely interesting.
The part that atracted me the most to this design was the use of one amp per driver directly connected to the speaker terminals, avoiding coils etc. In his triamped system he recommends simple chip amps (Gaincard style) for each driver, I was of course thinking of using tube amps for mids and tweeters but gain discordance was a problem, and I didnt want to tinker with such a complicated and succesfull active Xover desing.
I lived for a while with Lowthers on open baffle on top of Altec 416, Bazzilla style (bought the plans but strayed from the original design) and realized open baffle is not my cup of tea, at least untill a get a bigger room!

I've had an interest in the Orions for some time, but haven't had a chance to hear them yet.

One criticism I've heard is that they (any dipole type) sound "big" all the time...even when the music doesn't call for it. Has anyone noticed this characteristic? How does the sound differ relative to a "conventional" speaker...say a Vandy 3a sig?