Yes, they are excellent ribbons, on par with Raal. Dynamics are great, they don't sound thin and tested A-B with a 1" compression driver (Faital Pro HF10AK-8) it was very close with more micro details "air". That said, ribbons, like other tweeters have their own signature, if you like them, you'll enjoy the SQ. Active is the clear winner, even first order xover degrades the sound. It's important to select top quality drivers because active you'll hear all what they can do, the good things and also the bad things. DAC and amplifier quality becomes also very important. I've choosed for Class D Purifi based amps and no regret at all, and no lack of 3D. I love transparancy and accuracy above all, tube amps sound more romantic, it's only a matter of personal taste.
@@Pierre-Leloup yeah i read the hificompass reveiw on the viawave, where he also concluded they sounded fleshy almost like a soft dome, but still with speed and more detail. But the downside seems to be a smaller sound with less scale, probably due to the worse vertical dispersion. (What hificompass described) So how do you setup the active amps, with dsp i havent heard good things about dsp mostly. Im considering building a simple tube pre with a solid state amp. Some say tube pre with solid state is the best of both worlds. Also do you bother with cables?
@@williammeincke9071 The Viawaves have a nice horizontal dispersion, vertical is like most ribbons, somewhat narrow, on my MGs I can place them where I want and for me the best place is a bit higher than my ears in the listening position ;-) I think a top class ribbon is only a good choice for above 8kHz because it adds to much attention to sibilances. The MGs are much more natural, plus they are line source, no problem with vertical dispersion at all. They just lack some air above 12kHz, FR drops fast at 15kHz! Look at Dali speakers, they know why ribbons are best at the highest frequencies. My 2 cent... I only speak for myself. My first DSP was a Dayton Aoudio DSP 408. Sounded better than my pricey caps and inductors... Problem was, you need a better power supply to have cleaner sound, second, it's full RCA, connecting a DAC plus preamp and four stereo amps and you get hum/ground loops, a nightmare! Most hum was comming from tube preamps, LDR based was not a problem, but than the amps... So I went for a full XLR, wanted a MiniDSP Flex with 8 outputs and they don't have one. So I was looking for another one with te same Shark chip and found the one you are listening to in this video clip. What can I say ? No hum at all, very clean and dynamic sound. I did a test to a passive speaker, once without the DSP, than with the DSP with no filters or EQ, all flat, just bypass, and I couldn't hear any change in SQ, it was respecting the signature of my DAC. Later I changed my DAC and same thing, sound changed to meet the new DAC. DSP mean much more choices, you've to learn not to abuse EQing. It works on the fly, so you can easely adapt the xovers to what sound better to your ears, same with EQ. Good drivers don't need that much EQ. The MGs greatest difficulty was to have the lows/low-mids right because it's a dipole an there is more interaction with the room than standard speakers. Tubes or not tubes? That was a recurrent question to me. With Class AB amps I always liked the addition of a good tube preamp far adding more body to the sound, also more 3D. With the latest Class D, I just don't need any tube to have it all, plus you gain in dynamics and they are dead silent. With the DSP you can adjust the sound to your taste, this kind of amps can deliver the body a Class AB don't can. LDR preamps adds too much distortion, they are all based on the same LDR and sound all the same, it's the only part the signal goes trought. I saw the last clip from ABX Audiophiles and believe me, he's wrong. LDR add harmonic distortion (0,3%), yes you've more body but it's not Hi-End at all, high frequencies are terrible if you've have excellent speakers to compare. Nothing that kind with Purifi, they sound even better with Sparkos discrete opamps than with 1656 or 1612. Cables? When someone come at home for a listening session, they all get great open eyes. Then, after some good tracks, when they are still impressed, I told them that my XLR cables (10x) where 35€ for the whole set. It's always good to see the reactions lol. I bought them on Ali just to start this XLR project, and never found it necessary to change them. Speaker cables are simply OFC, very cheap from eBay when UK was still in the EU.
@@Pierre-Leloup Shouldnt it be possibe to go without a dsp if you get a pair of sensitivity matched drivers or just turn up the volume control seperatly on the amps. Then just using a op amps based crossover after that? im curious about what level where your caps at exactly in the passive speakers, duelund, jupiter, munorf top of line etc? And where they just replacing the stock value or diy speaker crossover?
@@williammeincke9071 Of course you can go passive 🙂 Be sure the tweeter hes a higher sensitivity than the midwoofer so you can adjust with a L-Pad. I'm not a big fan of resistors, they always take some resoltion away. It's easier to do a passive bi-amp or tri-amp, if the amps have a volume control. I did all those things on my MGs, see my older posts. In this genre PLLXO was much better than my passive components. I used AUDYN True Copper Max, MUNDORF Supreme Silver Gold Oil, Jantzen Audio WAX-COIL-FOIL 12AWG, Audyn Tritec Crossover Inductors, Air Core, Litz Wire 0.8mm x7. PLLXO with AUDIONOTE Copper Foil Oil and Vishay naked foil TX2575 resistors. This sounded so much better than any component in passive xover. Active made it better because it's much more easier to do any changes on the fly and it is very affordable, just the price of 2 good capacitors... Read my older posts, it did not replace the stock filter with better components, it was just a first order filter LP-HP-HP, first thing you will hear is a better phase response, clarity, 3D. I'm experimenting with other DIY OB speakers now (Maco Macaria style), they are not as subtle in the highs, nor have the fantastic depth and holographic presentation as the MGs...but I've a pair of Bliesma beryllium mid domes and tweeters to take over the critical frequencies.
