I’m on the AV committee for a church building remodel. Back when we were auditioning AV contractors, one of the candidates took us to a Danley Sound Labs audition at an area church family life center informal space. Think gym with a stage grafted onto the side. There we heard each of the Danley products normally sold for indoor use, Everything but the big mother Jericho horns. Everybody in attendance was taken with the Danley sound, especially the natural midrange and live music sound. Everything we heard was recorded other than the presenter’s narrative. The associated equipment included an Allen & Heath 4 channel mixer, Danley power amplifiers, and Telefunkin stage mic. Music was on a mix CD that spanned the gamut of genres.
The thing that struck me about the Danley products was the consistent voice up and down the product line. The stage monitors sounded exactly like the big hall-filling horns. Tom Danley designs his speakers to reproduce full range acoustic music and voice naturally without equalization. The designs are inherently phase coherent like the Dhalquists I described above. The only shortcoming noted in the audition were that the cymbals were largely missing but they may not have been present in the recordings used. Most Danleys reproduce well out to 22 kHz or so using compression drivers mated into the main horn. Most were 2 or 3 way with all drivers time aligned and all sound radiating from the single horn mouth. This is Danley’s secret sauce, physics, getting that horn right.
The Danley horns all have crossovers built in but can be bi-amped. The Danley amplifiers know the product line and will do the correct cross over filtering when used in a bi-amped configuration. The Danley amps have robust speaker management processing built in allowing them to be used in large scale applications without a speaker management processor. The Danley amps have both AES balanced line inputs and digital inputs (AES-3 or AES-67? haven’t checked)
I didn’t hear these in a stereo configuration. Most halls have mono audio reinforcement because the geometry is right for stereo in only a small cluster of seats. Because of the phase coherent design, they should image well.
Interestingly, a google search turned up at least one home theater system using the Danley SH-95 proposed for our hall in a stereo configuration. The author was a home theater person who also listened to music and gave the SH-95 top marks in his listening theater.
Quad 11L as my office speakers - sitting on the desk on foam pads - ridiculous size for a desk but they were so cheap I couldn’t say no and the burr finish is beautiful.
Forgot about the kitchen Acoustic Energy aego m on top of the kitchen cupboards
I’ve owned active speakers exclusively for the past 25 years or so after being a Wilson WATT/Puppy, WAMM, Sophia and Vandersteen Model 2, 3, and 5 owner - obviously not all at the same time. But I was an unrepentant audiophool going from system to system, each worth as much or more than my house. When I hit rock bottom of audiophooldom I got myself into active recovery and began shunning the amp/cable/speaker balancing act with passive speakers.
Early actives I turned to were from ATC, PMC and Meridian, each delivering outstanding results without complications and relieving the stress of component compatibility tradeoff decisions. Now fully recovered and living in a condo, I’ve reduced my audio footprint to three all-Genelec systems; a main 2-channel system using two Genelec 8050s (good to the mid-30Hz region), a dedicated 5.1 channel home theater system using three 8050s, two 8040s, and two Dynaudio Sub 300s, and a TV room using two Genelec 8030s.
Audio bliss in all three rooms, no more anxieties, no more stress over what to try next - cured! Why Genelec? Because I’ve owned and heard some of the best and Genelec fills those “shoes” better than any other “compact” active speakers I’ve tried. Done and done.
Recently started dabbling in open baffle speakers with vintage full range zenith drivers. Struggled a little with the carpentry… Takes a little tweaking with parametric equalization in Roon to tame those beasts but the result is superb (SQ wise) !
Magnum Dynalab MD209 Receiver. Sources are the internal FM tuner (spectacular), RPi/DigiOne and Rega turntable. http://www.magnumdynalab.com/
Sounds fantastic.
Totem Mites in the office. Totem Mask’s in dining room. Son has Totem Arro’s and some PSB’s. Daugher has Elac B6’s. Of all the speakers other than the Harbeth’s, the B6’s might be the choice.
For my desktop - Active
I have a pair of Altec Lansing Quad Channel system configured for Stereo. This is my favorite and also my daily go to.
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For my Yamaha stereo amplifier - Passive
I have a pair of Klipsch Heresey III.
Hi Christoph, this picture was taken during a show at a dealership years ago.
Afaik that were the SX Eco monoblocks on that picture.
The gear on the bottom shelf, i have no idea.
Holla. That is massive.
You take no prisoners
Passive biamping?
I heard your speakers once with an full tube integrated from esoteric.
That worked quite nicely
Edit: just realized you are also using TWO stereo A-45
In this case you are even triamping!!!
Are the M-6000 monos for the hidden bandpass woofers and one A-45 per side one channel for the mid cone and one channel for the ribbon tweeter? Or are you horicontally biamping the mid/highs with one A-45 just for mids and one A-45 for just for highs? Either way, that is serious hardware you work your Ascendos with
Yup. I know this may seem like an “overkill” solution. But IMO the sound is a real jaw dropper…
I have a rather large dedicated listening room (> 80 sqm) with lots of carefully selected acoustic treatments (although my project was not quite as ambitious as the one described by @HWZ in his post above). I have to admit that “I do like it loud” (only if it’s the right kind of music, of course). The good thing is my neighbours never complain — they’re too far away…
As you can probably imagine, I was just joking. My “I do like it loud” response was primarily meant as a humorous reaction to your “big biceps” emoji. But to give you a serious answer to your question(s), excellent bass extension and a maximum of bass control are things you ALWAYS benefit from — (almost) regardless of musical genre or playback volume. It also has an extremely positive impact on your perception of the mids and highs, as I’m sure you know.
I’m new to this forum, but l promise I’ll soon post some album recommendations and share some pics of my listening room. Not in this thread, though, as I believe that would be a bit off topic.
