ribbon or electrostatic speakers

You may want to check out the Vmps hybrid designs, these have everything your looking for in a ribbon design speaker and can be had from bookshelf to huge design and at many price levels.

Dave

Seadog, Except for perhaps the largest Soundlabs, your friend is never going to replace the Scintillas sonically. Well experienced listeners rate my system best ever.

There are two avenues of repair available.

1) All of the factory tools and supplies are in the hands of a fourteen year Apogee veteran. He has successfully refurbished several that I know of.

2) Graz out of Australia makes better than new replacement ribbon kits for all models. The ribbons come with easy to understand instructions. Scores of people have taken this path.

I know from my own experience the Scintilla is tricky to get perfect - but it can do perfect. They need to be moved around into a lot of positions, for and aft, side to side, and toe in. When Scintillas have arrived, your friend will know. The Scintillas will be seamless from very low bass to highs beyond hearing and will sound true to nature throughout the audible range.

I placed mine on masonite so they could be slid easily around, carefully measuring to all walls. I power them with Pass Labs X600 monos. These can be picked up mint off Audiogon for 7K.

I live on the west coast. Maybe I can be of help to your friend. I would be pleased if your friend would contact me privately.

Hello Seadogs,

I'm a dealer for Sound Lab and several other speaker lines, as well as a few lines of electronics that work well with the speakers I sell. I will be a dealer for the Gilmore Audio speakers (assuming they sound really good - I haven't heard them yet). I will of course have much more useful comments to make once I have a pair on hand, but from what I understand in lightness of the ribbon diaphragm, bass excursion capability, and ease of driving, the Gilmores delve into exciting territory for a full-range planar.

I'm located in New Orleans. My living room is my showroom, and my gimmick is offering a free bed & breakfast stay to out-of-town customers, plus airfare reimbursement with purchase. So far over 80% of the people who take me up on my offer and fly here to audition Sound Labs end up buying a pair (this doesn't count people who are in town for some other reason and come by for an audition), and the only sales I have failed to make have been when the customer wanted something with greater dynamic scale. In the past I've lost those sales to big cone-and-dome speakers; with the Gilmores I hope to have a planar that can compete in that arena as well.

I think there will be several Gilmore dealers here and there; you might want to contact the distributor, Harry Blazer of Glacier Audio (www.glacieraudio.com), to see if there will be one close to you.

Best of luck in your quest,

Duke

I looked up Gilmore and found nothing. I looked up Glacier and found Apogee not mentioned. That strikes me as funny, because the speaker described sounds suspiciously like an Apogee Duetta.

Glacier's description of the Gilmore leads readers to believe all ribbon and electrostatics are dynamic whimps. I can't speak for the others, but the Apogee Scintilla is rated conservatively at 110 db. I know for a fact it does more. They just didn't have the amps in the mid eighties that could explore the Scintilla's limits. The newer Apogee Diva is rated at 120 db. In other words, bring on Mahler!

It is my sincerest belief the Gilmore will be a very expensive redo of the Apogee, with a bass panel twist. Hopefully it is an improvement. Loving the realness of the music I listen to through my Scintillas, I can't see there is any room for improvement, except efficiency.

Hi Muralman, How do you get in touch with the 14 year Apogee veteran? What's his name and does he have an email address, phone #, or web site? Thanks!