James Romeyn advocates an omni type arrangement with forward facing and upward facing drivers, albeit in a more sophisticated configuration than simply adding an upward facing driver like Louis is doing. But in both cases, everyone who hears them agrees that it gives a larger, denser sound.

I want to experiment with a similar setup to James': forward facing larger speakers (either Omega Super Alnico or Altec) with upward facing smaller Omega Super 3i's facing upward behind the mains. The LP-27a can feed both my Inspire amps, the PSE feeding the mains and my KT-88HO feeding the upward facing LCS speakers. This would have the upward facing speakers running about 5-6 dB down from the mains.

That is correct. My bad. This explains further why a tube that Dennis prefers (6V6) does not do it for me at those low power rates. In contrast, my system sings with the 6P3S-E and KT-88, going from max detail and transparency into more sound density and body.

With Heresy III's and Pope 6V6 tubes there is magic in triode. Not for large scale music though. I had PHY-HP 12" FR but they were too big for my room.

Musica, I'm still OK with the H3's but will give the Omegas a go. I will explain everything to Louis and see what he suggests. I want a speaker appropriate for my room. I read in a review that my present speakers do dip to 4.xx ohms but no issues so far. I did search on the Omega forum and Peter is the only one with Omegas and Inspire. I'm going to sell that brand X amp first. :thumbsup:

I was thinking the same thing with regards to mixing drivers in Louis' designs, though I was thinking in the same floor-stander. Interesting how james applies a 10 ms delay to the up firing driver. Louis seems game for innovation. I may discuss this with him. The 'what ifs' are endless aren't they.

I would be interested in what Louis has to say. I believe his Alnicos are his best so far (any of the three models), but when I talked to him a couple years back, he said a new 8" driver he was working on was his recommendation ... Turns out that 8" driver never came to life. I also believe the 6" driver from the Alnicos is his optimal compromise between mass (body of sound) and PRAT (speed). He seems to stick between 4.5" and 7" driver sizes and adjust cabinet and other variables around the mass/speed tradeoffs involved in that driver range.

Louis has offered his drivers in a number of different configurations: single, parallel 1.5 way, omni, and bipole/dipole. The omni is a way of getting some of the dipole/bipole effect with more flexibility in the room. The bipole needed to be well away from the front wall to get an adequate delay.

One advantage of using an RS5 driver facing upward is to make up for the lesser high end of a front-facing alnico driver. It will add air (similar to Peter's upfiring Yamaha Be tweeters).

While a custom Omni would be nice, I think I will stick with the flexibility of separate cabinets (plus I already own them, so that pretty much cements that decision).

Congratulations for passing 2500 posts in a single thread. Other than the music threads on AA, this has to be some kind of record for a single thread. Tons of useful information for tubers buried in this thread.

I read that the 8" driver just did not work out. There is a lot more to producing a good speaker than putting drivers in a box.

I think the record equipment thread has to be Lynn Olsen's "Beyond the Ariel" thread over at DIYAudio at 1,424 posts to date.

Making a full-range, 8" driver is exceptionally difficult and usually involves some serious compromises. Lowther's versions have very tight tolerances and generally require horn loading and still have problems with peakiness. Louis went from an 8" cone to a 6" cone in his alnico driver because the smaller one sounded better.

There is also a matter of market size - Louis just doesn't have a big enough market to diversify his OEM driver range that much. Frankly, I don't think that there was the actual need for a larger, more efficient driver. There is the other problem of cannibalizing his own products: the 8" large monitor was a little too close in price to the Super Alnico Monitor.

I think that if you want a 98dB speaker (other than Lowther/Feastrex et al) you should just commit to two or more drivers. It is far easier to design a well-behaved driver that will cover the range of 50-5,000 hz (the full vocal range) than it is to cover 50-15,000 hz. The other approach - one that Louis espouses - is to double up your drivers. He has been particularly successful doubled up RS5 models, be they omnipole or dipoles. The latter was essentially two Super 3 Monitors back to back. They could be wired separately, with the listener only connecting one driver or connecting both in series or parallel. The connection is attractive in that the speakers can present either a 4 ohm or 16 ohm load, depending on what your amp likes to see.

It is a testament to Dennis Had's skills as a designer and builder of great sounding gear and his eagerness and excitement to share that with the rest of us.