ALSYVOX BOTTICELLI X

[Marko Puš]

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Moje poročilo z What’s Best Foruma o zanimivi izkušnji z zunanjimi kretnicami...

I first heard AlsyVox Botticelli speakers in Munich Hi-Fi Deluxe in 2017 and since I was on a hunt for new speakers, became extremely intrigued since they sounded surprisingly full-bodied, transparent and refined, and they produced bass I have never heard from any planar speakers. Demos on following Munich shows were unfortunately less successful but I made my homework and decided to buy them. I’ll not describe how Botticellis sound to me since my experience has been basically the same as other owners already reported and no need to repeat what was already written or invent new adjectives. So, I would just like to describe in a few words how my Botticellis sound with external crossovers.

If you buy AlsyVox Botticelli speakers with external crossovers, the package is called Botticelli X but they can also be bought separately as an upgrade to the standard Botticelli. External crossovers come in a high quality, huge and very heavy case, weighting 50kg/110lbs. Speakers are finished in black plexiglass, but external crossovers are made completely from that material (aluminum is optional) and are resting on a separate isolation platforms, made from transparent plexiglass. Inside you would find only high quality Mundorf capacitors and resistors, Jantzen inductors and there’s also an option to fine tune the mid and high frequencies (+-0.6dB). The topology of the crossover is patent pending by Omega Audio Concepts, also umbilical connections between speaker and crossover are made with Omega AC Nano extra cables. You can choose black color if you wish...

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Connection between internal and external crossovers is simple but you need to by-pass the internal crossovers first (a quick and simple procedure), and then you just connect three cables to appropriate inputs of speakers and outputs of crossovers, and connect them to power amps. Unfortunately my experience with this beautiful pieces of equipment lasted only a few hours but still enough to get a feeling how good they are. Even though I expected they would sound better than build-in crossovers, they did surprise me since I never imagined the improvement could be so huge. Obviously the design is crucial and, as I wrote above, is patent pending.

The most obvious improvement was in soundstage width and depth. Soundstage wasn’t small to begin with but it literally exploded the moment music started to roll. The sensation was like opening big doors or windows to the event. Everything became more clear and in more realistic proportions. System was breathing even more freely and sounded more unobtrusively open (and these speakers already sound very open and clean). Room walls disappeared much more convincingly, there was more distinction among the instruments and images were also more stable. Next thing were lower registers. Bass was “turbo charged” - much more powerful, had greater impact and control. It was like speakers were driven by a high power solid state amps. Since this is very important to me, I was also paying attention to colors of instruments, their timbre and density, and this was also improved. Not as much as bass or soundstage but tonal density was on a higher level too.

I would write more if I could listen longer, but this short audition was enough to get an idea of what these crossovers basically bring to the table. For me, they represent important sonic upgrade to beautifully made, finished and sounding Botticelli speakers. Also they offer a bit of welcome and simple fine tuning via connection possibilities and look as gorgeous as speakers themselves. Perfect combination. Yes, they’re expensive but judging from this audition, easily worth their money.

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Originalni prispevek je tukaj...https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/ ... ers.29632/
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/ ... ers.29632/

[Marko Puš]

Pripenjam še eno poročilo uporabnika Botticelli X:

“I have been searching for a suitable replacement for our Focal Utopia EVO loudspeakers for quite a while as they were starting to become a limiting factor in our product development. They have served their purpose very well but we have reached a point where the audibility of certain aspects of music reproduction exceed their "pay grade". This was becoming obvious during our visits to Matej, Steve, Mike, Rob, Bob, Jeroen and "the French", all very different systems with different presentations, but all laying bare shortcomings in our own in house system.

I am a big ribbon fan. I have owned the original Apogee Full Range which I finally sold due to driving headaches. From memory the tweeter was around 0.8 ohms and the midrange 0.2 ohms, combined with a very low sensitivity which was estimated in the 80-84dB range and a maximum excursion of 3mm on the bass ribbon before it started to seriously buzz. It was really hard to get these to sing. I had custom better transformers made for the midrange, for the tweeter you could get away with something like a 2.2 ohm series resistor. For good results you really needed an active crossover and 6(mono) power amplifiers. But they were capable of a mind blowing sound.

Enter Alsyvox, an easy 4 ohm load, first order crossovers, 18mm-20mm excursion capability, a 94-95dB sensitivity and a full 20Hz-40Khz frequency response. We heard the Tintoretto at Bob (Rhapsody.Audio NY), zero driver integration issues, moves serious air, you will not lust for a subwoofer with these, an incredible transparency from the lowest to the highest registers, full soundstage envelopment and very fast and dynamic with real punch and impact. These are really everything an Apogee owner would have wanted them to be capable of, and I'm sure had Apogee not gone bust this is how they would look today.

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I went back and forth with Bob on the options available to us and decided to contact Daniele Coen. Daniele turned out to be a very nice guy, passionate about what he does, completely understood what I was after, what was important to me and 2 weeks later a pair of Alsyvox Botticellis showed up. These honestly exceeded my (high) expectations cold out of the box, we had them playing about an hour after delivery and our whole crew did nothing else then listen to music for the remainder of the day, all of us even ended up calling home with the excuse we had to put in some overtime that day! Incredibly musical, impressive sound and just plain fun to listen to.

Being aware there was an "X" upgrade available to the Botticelli which consists of external crossovers with a patent pending crossover topology I was curious how much that could possibly improve the already incredible Botticellis, so I called Daniele and he offered to come over to visit us and personally install them.

One of the guys took some photos of Daniele's visit which have been posted online by Mono&Stereo. I will include the higher resolution versions here:”

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Originalni prispevek je tukaj: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/ ... 632/page-2

[Marko Puš]

In še eno...

“I am excitedly writing this post as a Maggie fan from more than 20 years ago, a hobbyist who organised a group buy for Hovland caps from Alex Crespi and Alphacore copper foil inductors to build 17 sets of external crossovers DIY kits for other Maggie 1.6's owner's.

There was gorgeous tonality for female vocals but the big negatives were the large size of the singers mouths and lack of bass. I then moved on to stand mount monitors for the pin point imaging they could deliver, and tried my best to integrate them with a subwoofer.

Now the Botticelli X's have taken center stage on my audiophile journey. They exhibit such a well defined soundstage, that I had come up with a new term in my audio vocabulary "Spatial Resolution". The standard description of depth and layering does not adequately describe the sonic landscape of instruments and singers which is painted by the Botticelli X.

Whenever I audition a new piece of gear, the first track I always play is Miles Davis Time after Time, the live version. A somewhat challenged recording with sound system hum at the venue and other problems. As I listened to Miles playing, the beautiful tonality of his trumpet made me search for words to describe the experience. What came to mind was "harmonic canvass" and how the system presented richness, texture and above all sheer beauty of Miles' trumpet performance. The decays had a clarity and naturalness that had me ooing and arrghing.

I have always suspected from the soundstage spatial cues that the venue space was pretty large. The spatial resolution of the Botticellis convinced me more than ever that the venue was very large. A quick Google search listed the concert venue as a 2,500 seat cinema / theatre in Milan, confirming the spatial resolution was indeed delivering an accurate depiction of hall size

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Then came Eva Cassidy's Fields of Gold vocal check. The texture of the voice, the harmonic tones of the guitar breathtakingly beautiful. The thought that I could not get out of my mind, was "Beam me up Scotty", I have been teleported through time and space and inserted into the recording venue, up front and center.

Glen Gould, Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 - a great performance but a so so, somewhat muffled recording. Good tube amps driving horn speakers can really bring this recording to life. In my experience very good solid state amps driving conventional speakers often struggle to deliver the attack needed to make the performance exciting. Here the Botticelli's were delivering attack at a level competitive with good horn systems I have heard.

The tonality of Glen Gould's piano reminded me of a day about 30 years ago when a Steinway trained piano tuner came to my previous home in New York to tune a very consumer / hobby grade baby grand piano. After tuner was done, the piano sounded like a Steinway for the next six months. The Botticelli to my ear is able to carry out a similar harmonic enhancement and sonic alchemy.

Large orchestral pieces are truly an experience to behold. The separation of the instruments, you think that you are hearing and seeing the movement of the bows over the strings. No instrument is attached to the speakers, the level of distortion is that low. Each section of the orchestra is communicating its distinct musical motif with emotion, drive and clarity to their fellow players, PRAT in spades !

For bass drum depiction, my go to track is Jamie Cullum's "If I rule the World" When I heard the tightness and texture, I called out to the others in the room, "Absolutely no subwoofer needed"

For any audiophile interested in planars, the Botticelli X is a must audition

My personal thanks to Daniele for creating a planar that is so musically satisfying that it has propelled my listening enjoyment to levels beyond my expectations.”

Originalni prispevek je na isti strani kot prejšnji.

[Marko Puš]

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In še eno z WBF...

Continuing Edward's report, I would like to share my feelings about the Botticellis too after an extensive 2-day-audition in Hengelo:

I gladly followed Emiles invitation to hear his newest toys along with Edward. This has been my second visit to Taiko and boy did his system evolve from the former SGM2015/T+A/VTL/KEF Blade combo I heard roughly 3 years ago. My first encounter with these marvels was at Hifi Deluxe last year, where I certainly liked them but didn't fall in love with them - that has changed now.

The Botticellis are the most transparent, resolving and revealing speakers I have encountered so far. We started with some HD Tape Transfer recordings I brought along which I know quite well from home - but what I heard was so far ahead that at first I couldn't believe my ears. The texture of the saxes on a Mulligan/Desmond recording was breathtaking, the intensity of the choir of a Carmina Burana recording was spooky. These HDTT recordings mostly sound fantastic, although at home my attention is sometimes focused on the tape noise/hiss. In Emile's system the noise is of course also displayed, but it does not distract from the music in any way. Quite the contrary, it gave the recordings a vintage atmosphere that was kind of beneficial instead of distracting.
The system was able to reproduce depth in a way I thought was not possible, on Antiphone Blues I was seeing the organ 30 meters behind the sax player and the space of the venue was clearly laid bare - proof that no sub is needed with these as Edward pointed out.
The individual voices of the choir on Joni Mitchel's Sire of Sorrow (live) were clearly audible with a reach out and touch effect to them.
The proof that a system is an over achiever for me is always classical. I do not listen to classical music very often, I can appreciate it though when reproduced well. I can count the occasions on one hand where classical music was played and I actually felt the urge to play more. Those occasions were a full MBL reference system, a full Ypsilon system, a Devore O/Reference and the LV Vox Olympian. The Botticellis with the Audionet combo is now leading that pack and gets my very seldom given classical approved stamp.

I was amazed when we did a comparison of hard drive vs Tidal vs Quobuz on the Extreme. The Botticellis (and of course the downstream components of Extreme, TD12 and Audionet) were able to show the differences clearly, although as the evening moved on, the differences became notable smaller and smaller - an interesting observation. As the second day came to an end though we were so in the zone, that we didn't care what the source material was and just enjoyed everything big time - that for me is the real essence what a great system should be able to deliver.

Are the Botticellis for everyone? No, they do have a certain aesthetic which conventional cones do not have which may be not for everybody. They do not have the concentrated and focused energy of horns, but they are close. Nor do they have the super-pinpoint and razor sharp imaging of a small 2-way, but they come very close (In fact I was especially surprised at the rendering of height differences of sound events relative to each other, something I didn't expect).
What they do though is complete transparency and control at any volume. They can show very high color intensity when it is on the recording, they completely disappear and have this special boxless sound to them that makes you think of a window being opened completely.

In summary, Emiles system is one of the top 3 I have heard so far and in certain areas the best. My hats off to Daniele for building an incredible speaker, every owner can be sure to have an absolute worldclass transducer at home.

Christoph

[Marko Puš]

Še en zanimiv članek...

http://www.audiophile.no/en/articles-te ... botticelli

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[Marko Puš]

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Intervju s konstruktorjem zvočnikov AlsyVox:

https://www.monoandstereo.com/2020/01/e ... syvox.html

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[Marko Puš]

Poročilo z Norveške...

“AlsyVox BOTTICELLI - a brief and hectic meeting at PM Audio Featured
Written by Karl Erik Sylthe

AlsyVox is a new and exciting addition to the Scandinavian speaker flora. And it was this loudspeaker that urged me taking a break from family and zoo this summer day towards the end of the holiday.

I received a very warm welcome from Paul Mortensen this day in july towards the end of the holiday. Fiery, one might say, because the temperature moved up into spheres where it has no habit of traveling in our latitudes, although this is in the South - a foreign territory to me.

PM Audio is located in Nodeland, approx. 10 minutes drive west of Kristiansand, in premises that are really a somewhat large detached house where HiFi business, listening room, cable workshop and housing are integrated in an unusual way. I know of men who would be thrown out of home because of far less gear than what we find here. But on the other hand, it is not so easy to determin who should throw out who at Mortensen's. Because PM Audio is a family business where both Marion and Paul are involved in the operation of the company. In fact, I did not find many traces of Prestbakken 26 being a residence. But this must be a very practical solution when working almost 24 hours a day, and most people lack their sharp distinction between work and leisure. There is reason to assume that Marion and Paul live for PM Audio most part of the day.

Then we finally got to the main attraction. These speakers we reported earlier this summer , and for which Paul got the agency hijacked after this year's HigEnd in Munich. He has cast a lustful look at these speakers from a distance for a few years, but the opportunity to listen to them has not flipped until now this year.

Alsyvox is located in Valencia, the Spanish city that is otherwise filled to the brim with spectacular architecture by Santiago Calatrava. But since designer and designer is Italian Daniele Coen, these speakers are referred to as Spanish-Italian, and all have model names with unmistakable Italian sound.

AlsyVox has four different models - Tintoretto, Botticelli, Caravaggio and Michelangelo. Paul has initially chosed to bring in the second smallest model Botticelli, but without "second least" is the most descriptive characteristic I can imagine. These 115 kg heavy flakes has a height of 1770 mm and is 640 mm wide.

The structure of the AlsyVox speakers are 3-way magnetostatic dipoles. At the top they reach up to 40kHz, while Botticelli goes flat Down to 22 Hz! The larger models go even lower, respectively. 18 and 20 Hz, still flat, with most manufacturers indicating frequency response that includes a roll-off of -3dB, or even -6 dB.

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The layout
Magical sound never arise in a vacuum. Therefore, it is important to present the rest of the layout that contributed to the exquisite result. Paul has been helpful, sending me an outline of the set we played on this merry Christmas day:

CD player: KALISTA - DreamPlay One (with external power supply / 1Farad) Mounted on a searate vibration damper in the same design as the player itself
Turntable: Scheu - DAS LAUFWERK
Tonearm: Shy - TACCO 12 »
Pickup: Gold Note – TUSCANY GOLD
RIAA: Sutherland - PHONOBLOCK REFINED - 2 monoblocks
Preamplifier: CODA - 07X
Power Amplifier: CODA No.8
Speakers: AlsyVox - BOTTICELLI
Signal Cables: Black Magic Cables – REVELATION IC MKIII
Speaker Cables: Black Magic Cables - EMOTION
Current Cables: Furutech - NANOFLUX NCF
Current suppliers: Furutech - Pure Power 6 NCF + TP-809E NCF
Power filter: Furutech - FLUX 50 NCF
Vibration / resonance control: PM ISOLATION and Black Magic Cones
Special products for canceling static electricity and mechanical damping of connectors and cables: Furutech - NCF Booster / NCF Booster Signal

AlsyVox BOTTICELLI plays music
It started with the KKV classic Desemberbarn , where Kari Bremnes sings with Rikard Wolff, who passed away a couple of years ago. On the opening track, Wolff sings alone, and there is a rather magical presence in his vocals accompanied by a piano, and eventually also the violin. The soundscape is huge and the sound is crystal clear. The bass is cellar deep, effortless and with great authority.

The next disc on the CD player was Sheffield Labs' Matter of Time , with Michael Allen Harrison & Friends. I can't remember the last time I heard such a compelling and natural rendering of a piano, without the piano itself being present in the room.

More from Sheffield Labs - The Moscow Sessions Complete is a triple CD with works by various composers. Paul started with CD 2, and I took the opportunity for a small quiz. I met pretty precisely on dating and nation, but have to admit a little shamefully that I didn't take Shostakovich. To my defense, he had not yet developed much of his character yet at Symphony No.1. But anyway - the sound reproduction was magical. Very few are able to present such good resolution and precision of the instruments in a symphony orchestra. And again, this deep, authoritarian bass impresses, even though it is only fairly secluded in the soundscape. That's when good bass really shows up, not on megabass releases. And there was also a pretty formidable dynamic on this recording, a dynamic that really got to romp on BOTTICELLI.

A small visit of Tschaikovski on CD 1 showed that the magical sound reproduction was not a coincidence, related to Dmitri's first symphony.

Finally, Paul also had to play some vinyl. The film music from Dances with Wolves is film music with American accent signed John Barry, almost a bit Copland. Here exquisitely reproduced with great dynamics and fantastic resolution. And I am reminded of how lucrative it is to listen to this type of music when the facility is unable to convey the whole while preserving all the details, but collapses in the experiment. At BOTTICELLI it sounds fantastic.

We lift our eyes
Here is the order of the wiring ...BOTTICELLI held a very compelling and impressive concert for a short hour at PM Audio. Paul himself thinks that he has now reached the finish in his quest for the optimal sound, although he is not quite done with the process of placing the speakers in the room. One of the factors he wants to work more on is acoustically disconnecting the speakers from the floor as much as possible. And when that process is finished, he is fiddling with the idea of ​​arranging some sort of mini-mass at PM Audio.”

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http://www.audiophile.no/en/articles-te ... botticelli

[Marko Puš]

Poročilo s sejma v Denverju...

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Alsyvox, Omega Audio Concepts | RMAF 2019
Posted on September 11, 2019 by Eric Franklin Shook™ in RMAF 2019

DENVER (PTA) — I love big panel speakers. They play the room unlike any other loudspeakers I know of. However, the most common (and annoying) myth about them is that panel speakers have trouble producing real bass without a ton of power. Alsyvox and Omega Audio Concepts joined forces at the Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest 2019 to shake-up these misconceptions.

The Story:

In recent years Alsyvox has had many great showings around the audio show circuit. Most of these were personally missed due to the fact that I like to choose what rooms I cover at shows after all others on our writing team have expressed their own interests. Subsequently, the low draft status of my own choosing puts me at the disadvantage, as Alsyvox was never available for me to experience and write about until now. Luckily for me, this go round Alsyvox’s new Botticelli X panels being held in a larger room than I’ve previously seen.

I say I’m lucky about the Alsyvox Botticelli X ($87,000 pr USD) being in a larger room as in previous instances I felt the previous model Botticelli (standard version) were a bit much for the smaller spaces I’d previously heard them in. Don’t get me wrong, they sounded lifelike and thrilling, but a little throttled by the room size. The Botticelli and Botticelli X are by company terms considered to be the “middle” sized offering in the Alsyvox product line-up. However, I do not consider them small or even mid-sized in the least, especially when it comes to how they play.

The Botticelli X is a full-range true three-way ribbon design, with distinctly higher crossover points than conventional loudspeakers (750Hz, 6000kHz), and in this new upgraded range, the ability to opt for dual-outboard crossovers which bypass the stock internal ones. Also of note about the Botticelli platform is that these are high sensitivity speakers at 94db. Making amplifier options more diverse than other panel speakers on the market.

It is possible to upgrade existing Botticelli loudspeakers to Botticelli X status by purchasing the two external passive crossovers. Each crossover is made out of CNC machined aluminum billets and uses an exclusive patent pending topology designed by Omega Audio Concepts. The crossover umbilical connection between the speaker and external crossover is made using Omega Audio Concepts’s AC NANO Extra cabling.

Powering the whole affair, were a table full of Omega Audio Concepts DNA mono amplifiers, DNA CD Player, DNA Digital-to-Analog Converter, and NANO Extra silver plated copper cables.

In a static display were a few samples of the Omega’s The Element(s) series of cables, and literature. I can’t be certain if any of the cables in the system were from The Element(s) series as it was quite busy behind the equipment as you can see by the photos.

The Sound:

Essentially the Alsyvox Botticelli as just a single panel speaker. But how it plays the room so authoritatively. You’d be convinced that there were dynamic-driver sub-woofers somewhere in the building. This is one of the largest exhibit rooms in the Gaylord Rockies Hotel, and it seems like the Botticelli and Omega Audio Concepts components and cables were seeing little in any sense of struggle. The traditional three-way crossover points found on most traditional speakers are moved upwards with the Botticelli panels. I am urged to credit these crossover points for the more full-range slam of the Botticelli X speakers, but I can’t be sure. Being a generous stack of Omega Audio Concepts electronics at play, the power and silent background delivery of this pairing were top of the class.

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https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2019/09/ ... rmaf-2019/