Seriously Considering Omega Super AlNiCo XRS Speakers

Based on what a lot of people are saying about the Omega Super AlNiCo XRS speakers (http://www.omegaloudspeakers.com/superalnicoxrs.html) with hemp drivers, including Beowulf's input on raferx's Audio Note speaker thread http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/talk-to-me-about-audio-note-an-e-speakers-please.388752/, I am seriously considering purchasing these speakers for use with a 300B SET amp. I will be upgrading to an Audio Note 300B SET and want to upgrade the speakers first. I have been considering Audio Note high efficiency speaakers, as well as Devores, but the Omegas seem to be a bargain, and I like the concept of no crossover circuitry.

Any thoughts on these speakers would be appreciated.

 

Find a dealer and listen to a pair. Listen to the Audio notes and Devores too. I LIKE the Devores, speaking for myself, and LOVE sensitive speakers, but I think I'm more of a multi-driver kind of guy. Devore is definitely worth an audition.

What will you be driving them with? What's the source? What's your budget? What have you listened to before and liked?

You are lucky - there are some GREAT speaker designers in your back yard. My Nola Contenders were made on Long Island. I'd check out Nola too, if you are that close.

 

I haven't heard the Super AlNiCo XRS yet, but I still own a pair of the older 8" MaxHemp Omegas and a pair of the much older 4" Fostex based Omegas. Neither of them have Alnico magnets. I bought them before I bought my Audio Note speakers and I've spent quite a bit of time with them. Fast forward a few years and now I own a pair of Audio Note AN-E SPe signatures which are also not Alnico. The nicest way I can say this is that Omega and Audio Note speakers sound so completely different that you really need to hear them yourself before you decide which camp you are in.

In my opinion, the Omegas don't sound nearly as good as the AN-Es, not even the standard high efficiency E wired with Lexus. The Omegas have a very pronounced raw and direct sound to them compared to the Audio Notes. There is no crossover, no baffle step filter, and no notch filter in the Omegas and that's exactly how they sound. I would describe them as being unfinished (electrically). After a while I couldn't live with their unfinished sound so I built my own baffle step filters and placed some foam wedges around the whizzer cones. I had fun doing all of that and I feel like I learned something too. It's pretty easy to do, and easily removable if I ever sell them.

The Audio Notes don't need any of that. Plug and play. You do need a rear wall though.

As far as efficiency goes my AN-Es are just as easy to drive as my big Omegas, even without their baffle step filter that I built for them. In fact, my single ended tube amp plays much louder on the E than on the Omega. The Omega seems to prefer a solid state amp and it gets more shouty with a tube amp. That always baffled me (no pun intended ).

Go listen, then decide.

 

Thanks for the well thought out and detailed response. One of the challenges I have is being in a NYC apartment where the layout makes it impossible to get the speakers into a corner and lacks the room to put up panels. I am more concerned about that than the price difference, to be honest. Hopefully being in NYC I can audition both.

 

Here is a little more info on Audio Note speaker placement : http://www.audionote.co.uk/products/speakers/speaker_placement.shtml

I hope I am not out of line here, but I'm not sure why the reoccurring theme on this forum is that corners are necessary, or that you need sound panels if you don't have corners. Maybe it was something that Steve did at his place and that just stuck in people's minds. Perhaps he does not have a long enough, solid rear wall to provide boundary reinforcement for one of the speakers. I think that it would be fine to use a 13 to 15 foot rear wall without any helper panels or corners. I have heard several different AN speakers sound very good placed up against a long, corner-less rear wall. Symmetrical corners are optimal, but not mandatory IMO. Hope that helps a little bit.

 

I have K's in my living room (12'x22', on the short wall) and they sound best about 2 feet from the corners. You need to experiment.

 

I would like to ad thst the Latest Omega xrs 6 is without question noticably better then the hemp8 and if you have not heard the Alnico version which is their best you have not heard their best by a fair margin .these new driver pure Hemp fiber and whatever mix they use is the strongest pound for pound of organic materials.they experimented with carbon fiber and other bits it disturbs the chemistry.these new Omega XRS 6 the driver is only 7 grams roughly just the surface surrounding what I call the horn .these are no longer muffled Whatsoever they are much lighter on their feet very good soundstaging ,microdynamics you hear Whst is on the recording
And midbass weight is present with a nice weighty balance. Even a brighter tough to listen to recording now comes to life. I have a SET Jas Brave 2.3 -18 wpc Incredible you are in the room with the performers.This new jaz piece totally compliments sonic purity and grace including rock highs and lows .i do you a subwoofer when I want full scale Low bass but for all normal listening this new Omega for sure will stand on it's own .they do need about 300 hours to fully come into their own .i have heard these vs audio note they sound different but donot have the sonic purity of these new
Omega Alnico XRS 6, do check them out .p.s they won a Darko knock out award for
Their realism and performance.

 

Raylinds, did you buy a pair of Omegas? If so, what do you think?

 

Just about completed a couple of Audio Note kits last I heard.

 

That link from Audio Note above starts out describing postioning from most favorable to least:

"Four main options
(presented from most to least desirable, all else being equal)

1.) Starting with rooms where corner position is available

Move the speaker to be as close to the side wall as possible, to the point of almost touching the wall, with the speaker 5 – 10 centimeter (2-4 inches) from the rear wall, toe the speakers in to aim 1-2 meters (3-6 feet) in front of the listener, now play a record or CD with some bass content to see how the low frequencies come across, then adjust the speaker angle to get a good and even energy spread between the speakers."

 

I have only about 6 weeks on a pair of Omega Alnico monitors (not the floor standing XRS), driven by a 2 wpc Decware SE84UFO. The Devores, ANs, or Harbeths were beyond my budget so I haven't heard them and can't make a comparison, but even as the Omegas break in, I'm quite impressed with what I'm hearing. Some might immediately want to pair the monitors with subs, but when I play a 1957 recording of Mingus's "Revelations," with a bass choir made up of a baritone sax, bassoon, trombone, french horn, tenor sax, tympani, and two basses (one arco, one pizzicato) I don't feel a need for subs. The timbres blend but don't smear.

My sense is that the Omegas represent an inflection point, past which the ratio between marginal cost and marginal quality begins to get very steep. Something like the second labels of the great first growth Bordeaux wineries. Omegas are only sold direct, but I was able to find someone in Chicago who owns them and invited me to hear his.

Another option to the Devore, AN, Harbeth group would be the Western Electric single driver replicas made by Line Magnetic. Line Magnetic sells them as field coils, with (I think) a 300B as the power supply. LM also supplies the driver as an Alnico to Auditorium 23.

 

Rick is correct I am finishing up building a pair of Audio Note AN-E kits. I am hoping to have them finished by the end of this next weekend

 

That's the exact model of Omegas I am eyeing. It's good to hear you don't feel anything is lacking.

 

Raylinds,

I think you will be really happy with the AN-Es. This is a very good all-purpose speaker that can play all types of music well and is so musically satisfying. While I have not heard the Omegas, I am familiar with many other systems that run full-range drivers. I love the immediacy, speed and dynamics of such drivers, particularly at lower volumes, but, one does have to contend with the somewhat ragged and elevated upper midrange and lack of bass response. They also cannot play very loudly without sounding like they are screeching. This makes them somewhat unsuitable for certain types of music, particularly, large-scale classical music. Among the best I heard were Feastrix fieldcoil drivers, but, these are EXPENSIVE, and I still prefer multiway systems.

I really like the sound of fullrange drivers used in multi-way systems. I have heard several systems where the fullrange driver is used fullrange, but a simple high pass filter is put on a tweeter that fills in at very high frequencies (crossover somewhere in the 8k to 10k region). This arrangement adds a little life and helps with the problem of poor dispersion of large drivers trying to do high frequencies. The VERY best sound I heard with such two-way systems involved the use of a Jensen M-10 fieldcoil (13") driver in an open baffle setup. This was a fantastic sounding system, the problem being the Jensen driver, or similar drivers by ERPI, are now crazy expensive (G.I.P. in Japan makes very good replica drivers). I recently saw an ERPI driver (like the Jensen M-10, but without the built-in power supply for the fieldcoil) being offered for $18,500 for a single driver. Another quite nice fullrange driver to use in a two-way system is the Western Electric 756. I like this driver much more than a 755 (better bass, less midrange nasality), but, it is a very hard driver to find in good shape.

If you are inclined to experimenting, particularly since you have and all around good speaker in the AN-E, you could buy a cheaper fullrange driver to either do a fullrange system or a simple two-way system. I like the Tang Band speakers from Taiwan for that purpose.

 

Yeah, I really like the concept of a fullrange driver in that it can be really fast and extremely coherent and the advantages (including cost) of not having a crossover. I may try experimenting with a pair at some point and I think Omega makes a really good speaker at an attractive price but I decided to bite the financial bullet and go after the speaker that I really wanted. I also opted for the Alnico magnets, hemp cones and silver wiring. I can't wait to finish them and fire them up, but I want the finish to be perfect, so am doing a lot of coats and a lot of steel wool and sanding.

 

Congratulations. I think you'll find the alnicos and hemp cones will give you terrific musical tone that isn't fatiguing at all. Be prepared to adjust your schedule for more listening.