New ALS Prototype 1st Impressions

Call me skeptical but I do have a lot of doubt in the new ALS design. May be Mr. Carver is making a break through in speaker design but might as well be a bust. I hope I am wrong.

You're probably right, I bet they do as poorly as all his other speaker designs.

I can see the sarcasm there but does this speaker looks like any similarity to any of the other Bob's speaker design?

Besides, don't you have the speakers with you so you can chime in a bit to how they sounds or it's top secret mission there?

Yeah, that's my way of being funny

Actually, the new ALS are very similar to 13 pairs of Cinema Ribbons stacked on top of each other...
But at the same time, they are NOTHING like the Cinema Ribbons...

I would gladly toss my AL-III's for a pair of the new ALS' Other than that, I can't say too much at this time.


The imaging is like Sonic Holography, with out the Sonic Holography...
With the speakers 3' away from the back wall, I can pinpoint the singer 5' behind the speaker

I was told the other day (by a line source expert) "that these are the worlds best line source speakers"

yup, what he said. ^^^^

You're probably right, I bet they do as poorly as all his other speaker designs.

I can see the sarcasm there but does this speaker looks like any similarity to any of the other Bob's speaker design?

Besides, don't you have the speakers with you so you can chime in a bit to how they sounds or it's top secret mission there?

Yeah, that's my way of being funny

Actually, the new ALS are very similar to 13 pairs of Cinema Ribbons stacked on top of each other...
But at the same time, they are NOTHING like the Cinema Ribbons...

I would gladly toss my AL-III's for a pair of the new ALS' Other than that, I can't say too much at this time.


The imaging is like Sonic Holography, with out the Sonic Holography...
With the speakers 3' away from the back wall, I can pinpoint the singer 5' behind the speaker

I was told the other day (by a line source expert) "that these are the worlds best line source speakers"

James,

Ok! Will them be distributed to the dealers for the store demo? I'd love to demo a pair some day!

Hope the price is a bit friendly though.

I can see the sarcasm there but does this speaker looks like any similarity to any of the other Bob's speaker design?

Besides, don't you have the speakers with you so you can chime in a bit to how they sounds or it's top secret mission there?

Yeah, that's my way of being funny

Actually, the new ALS are very similar to 13 pairs of Cinema Ribbons stacked on top of each other...
But at the same time, they are NOTHING like the Cinema Ribbons...

I would gladly toss my AL-III's for a pair of the new ALS' Other than that, I can't say too much at this time.


The imaging is like Sonic Holography, with out the Sonic Holography...
With the speakers 3' away from the back wall, I can pinpoint the singer 5' behind the speaker

I was told the other day (by a line source expert) "that these are the worlds best line source speakers"

James,

Ok! Will them be distributed to the dealers for the store demo? I'd love to demo a pair some day!

Hope the price is a bit friendly though.

Hello megastat16, that was Bob Farinelli's whole plan for this show in Jacksonville march 9th - 11th. He is going to be showing off the ALS Speakers, a set of Black Beauty 305's and a set of Cherry 180's. If I am not mistaken, Bob wants a set of the 20W CarverFest Amps there too.

http://www.transmissionaudio.com/.

This company got the concept right .

Bob Carver is the legend. His works on ribbon speaker is ahead of time.

I was lucky to have 4 ribbon speakers broken and I have been working to rebuild them back to live .

The concept is simple. However, these type of ribbon speaker has its down fall.

1. The magnet is glued to the plate. Durability is surely a problem.

2. The ribbon is proned for punchture .

It takes only 1 magnet to fall off and it will destroy the speaker.

http://www.transmissionaudio.com/.

This company got the concept right .

Bob Carver is the legend. His works on ribbon speaker is ahead of time.

I was lucky to have 4 ribbon speakers broken and I have been working to rebuild them back to live .

The concept is simple. However, these type of ribbon speaker has its down fall.

1. The magnet is glued to the plate. Durability is surely a problem.

2. The ribbon is proned for punchture .

It takes only 1 magnet to fall off and it will destroy the speaker.

hello. being an owner of two sets of al3 speakers since new in 1992, i have had zero ribbon issue's. i recently bought a set of sixty inch drivers that were shipped, dropped, which led to the said failure of a magnet coming loose. in the last 20 years, i have moved the speakers almost ten times as my situation had me do. none of the moves had a negative effect on the ribbons. the one set that i had shipped had a rough time as someone somewere dropped it as they are heavy, which led to said magnet coming loose. the drivers you speak of is going on twenty plus years of service. i did notice that tends to dry the glue out when we where repairing the sixty inch ones. i am at a loss though as to how that is a fault of mr carvers because he makes audio gear not glue. so with that said, i am still enjoying my speakers as much today as the day i bought them. i beat on them even harder now as my amplifiers have more power than the original tfm55 i bought new for each speaker. thats over a thousand watts each if you are taking notes here. i think it is very short sighted to say that a product that has served me for two decades is anything other than awesome. i have never had any kind of punchures in my drivers either and that is with me having two sons that were born right after said speakers were bought. how are they prone to a puncture more so than a paper driver. if anything, the exact oppisite is true. there is a very small opening on the ribbon faces that would allow anyone to mess them up. it is far more likely that the round speaker will dry rot the surrounds, have a voice coil over driven, than a magnet just coming loose on it's own. now let me say that the price i spent on these products is also far less than the products you mentioned in the link to the other guy, even if i adjust for inflation. i would even callange anyone to buy a used set of carver amazing speakers in good working order, replace the electrolytic caps, service the crossovers, then put them beside a speaker of your choice for up to five times what you spend on the amazings to a new one and compare (most used amazings go between 400-900 dollars a set). i dare say bob's vintage products will hold their own against the best products of today. as all products have their limitations, i think that all things considered, the ribbons bob designed are nothing short of super speaker status. now, ten plus years later, he designed a new ribbon he used in the cinema ribbon speaker for his sunfire company. again, he did what others did with a smaller budget and speaker as well, yet he had a super speaker again. fast forward to today, the same basic elements are used in his latest thinking of what a speaker should be and sound like. he has nailed it again with a speaker that has no equal at the moment. over the years i have noticed that many of his ideas get copied, used, and immatated with no kudos passed his way. as a first hand gear head that went the axponia show in florida last month, i heard speakers that cost 6 times what the new amazing speaker cost, and they came up short in terms of sound stage, imaging and things of that nature. these other brands did sound good for sure, but in my humble opinion, they still sounded like a boxed speaker. very accurate to say the least, although i could pick out the speaker placement every time. the new amazings just form this wall, envolope, curtain, for a lack of the right word that all others at the show could not. the image with all the others never got any taller than the speakers themselves. granted the new als ones are almost 8 feet tall, and by design that is one of the innovations that make them do what no one else has in a speaker that i have heard. they are simply like nothing i have ever heard. others may be more acurrate with test tones and measureable things, but when it comes to the sheer enjoyment factor, bob has hit another home run with these things. anywho, i hope you have the chance to get your ears around a set, as you will be astonished by what you will hear. if possible, please come to this years carverfest in north carolina and i will have a front row seat waiting for . now back to what others call work......cheers

okay,
I had a listen to these 3 times, 1st at CF, about 1 month ago and last night, I would say they are just about done....
they difference from last month to last night was a more refined sound, not that they sounded bad last month.
from CF to now, a whole new speaker. very nice....

played a pretty good range of music, it handled all of these nicely.


now,
the tube rollin on the 305's....
we put a different 12ax7 in, Bam the sound stage collapsed, the highs died off...
and this was supposed to be a good tube, We tried a few different tubes, back to the way it was but a bit better...
later looking at the tube it was a JJ, same as mine. just a few days ago I found a set of RCA's to put in my amps, not bad,
but not as good as it was before.
After few days and before last night I had come to the conclusion that I was going to put back my original tubes, not knowing that this was the same tube that I liked also on Bobs amps...
I find that kinda cool that I had an unbiased opinion of what sounded good to me.
next we put in a set of 6550's
these sounded very nice, the kt120's had a bit of a sharper edge to them, the 6550's were more liquid and smooth on the mids and highs

okay,
I had a listen to these 3 times, 1st at CF, about 1 month ago and last night, I would say they are just about done....
they difference from last month to last night was a more refined sound, not that they sounded bad last month.
from CF to now, a whole new speaker. very nice....

played a pretty good range of music, it handled all of these nicely.


now,
the tube rollin on the 305's....
we put a different 12ax7 in, Bam the sound stage collapsed, the highs died off...
and this was supposed to be a good tube, We tried a few different tubes, back to the way it was but a bit better...
later looking at the tube it was a JJ, same as mine. just a few days ago I found a set of RCA's to put in my amps, not bad,
but not as good as it was before.
After few days and before last night I had come to the conclusion that I was going to put back my original tubes, not knowing that this was the same tube that I liked also on Bobs amps...
I find that kinda cool that I had an unbiased opinion of what sounded good to me.
next we put in a set of 6550's
these sounded very nice, the kt120's had a bit of a sharper edge to them, the 6550's were more liquid and smooth on the mids and highs

I always heard the 6550 was a very musical tube. Better sounding than the KT88's.

Mike.....what make were they?

Sylvania 6550 I think
yes they sounded very nice.

the 12ax7 was this.
http://www.amazon.com/Voskhod-Sunrise-1 ... 027&sr=8-1


went back to this.
http://www.amazon.com/Premium-Selected- ... 21&sr=8-14

The info you are looking for might just be here: http://www.facebook.com/events/281888735223587/

I will have a set coming to my shop very soon. Take note if you want to give them a listen.

CALL ME !!!

1 of the Editor's pick in speakers over 10K

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/buyers_guides/32/

Page 139 in download PDF

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/buyers_guides/32/

Nice. Thanks for the link. Write up starts pg 99. It'll be 20 years before I can afford a pair used. Oh yes my ceiling is too low.

Is anybody bringing a pair of the new ALS speakers to Carverfest?
Steve