Blumenstein Ultra Fi

[Jim R.]

Hi Molly,

Just FYI, the bases I recently got are sweeeet!  So where's Clark hiding?  Haven't heard from him in forever.

-- Jim

[Molly B]

Good to hear, Jim!

Clark has been cooking up some exciting new stuff and we're still working to ship out everything currently on order within the next 2-3 weeks. We're also going to be putting Orcas in stock for the first time ever.

So short answer: he's in the shop.

Molly

[xcortes]

ok. that's enough. I'm ordering a par of orcas, a sub and a couple of bases for a sex and a fp3 for the office. ultra near field. the sub will be under the desk, i guess. molly or clark. in the past I've had trouble when importing things that have wood in them for lack of certain stupid certification. ever heard of that before?

[Jim R.]

Xavier!  Good move!  You're going to like this.

-- Jim
 

[Wormwood]

I recieved my Orca last week but they still live in the box they were shipped in - we are week four in putting in a new kitchen and there is still dust everywhere. That and I still haven't had a chance to give my SEX. the final test check since building back in Jan. So they sit still wrapped as they left their mamma & pappa loving hands.

Aiming to turn that around over the next two weeks.



Stephen

[Doc B.]

Had an awesome Teutonic meal (brats und kraut, what else would be served when Blumensteins entertain Schmalles?) with Clarko and Molly last night. Lots of great conversation about exciting new stuff, that I'm sure Clark will share as his plans develop a little further.

Eileen and I are squeezing in time where available to get our Bottlehead/Blumenstein demo system completed. I redid the lighting in the front room - what I thought would be a two hour job took two days. We have a killer listening chair, the speakers and a new Stereomour are breaking in and we just need to get a new equipment rack in, paint, and acoustically treat the front wall. Hopefully we will have it all up and running in the next two or three weeks, at which point we will have an open house.

[Clark B.]

Yeah, Dan, so much fun having you and Eileen over for dinner!  You sure taught me how to drink/make martinis the right way, that's for sure!  I forgot to tell you about so many ideas and developments we've had! 

We are taking a bunch of systems over to TreeFort music fest in Boise ID in the next few weeks, as an old freind of mine is the organizer and he wants Blumensteins and Bottleheads in the headliners' hotel rooms.  I am pretty sure I've already got enough amps to accomidate the multiple systems.

Also, I've really wanted to have people over to hear our West Seattle demo system more soon here as well.  We did a really impromtu open house last Friday and Saturday and it was really fun!  We are having another get together tomorrow (Saturday) evening, and then a few more over the next few weeks except next weekend (9th) and Treefort's weekend (23rd). 

Anyone interested in coming by needs to email us to get the actual address of our secret hideout, however.

We've really wanted to make ourselves available to have more folks over to hear the system throughout the week, but with the shop schedule as it is, its tough to have more than one or two days a week that we are able to turn the tools off.  (I can't be making a racket while our guests are trying to just sit back and enjoy their music... not to mention the profound draw from the line voltage which can really affect the sound. )  Some time soon though, we'll figure out a solution to this though so we can have people by more days of the week and on a more impromptu basis. 

Our appointments are really fun though - and we encourage people to bring a solid selection of their own music and we'll let you chill here for a long time to enjoy it all.  Our appointments are actually one of the favorite aspect of the business for me - to just meet our customers face to face, to chat, hear great stories, audio and otherwise.  It gets pretty lonely just running the shop all the time admittably so its really great to have folks by to just chill, listen to music, and remember what this whole pursuit is about, afterall.

Its so awesome that BottleHQ and BlumenHQ are both getting such solid demo systems put together - I can't believe I haven't gotten a chance to update everyone about this yet, but with the generous help of Paul B, we've gotten our Paramounts hooked up last week and oh my!  What fantastic music makers! 

We also got my old paramour II's converted to SR-45s and woowee!  Its really hard to choose which is my favorite amp between the Paramount and SR45, and even the Stereomour really holds it own and provides something totally unique to the mix... extremely well balanced in its capablilities and still very captivating.  And then there's the SEX 2.1 for which I am not sure if there is a peer anywhere else in the desktop/small space amp category.  All we use at home now is just our SEX 2.0 amp and some early birch Orcas and it fills our vaulted ceiling/carpeted living room space (and the rest of the house) just fine. 

So...all I can say is that we are WELL taken care of in the amp dept. by all these trusty bottlehead steeds.  The "big" amps of the Bottlehead lineup remind of a good design philosophy - to try to get the most profound performance to come from the smallest, most unassuming package as is possible.  I've heard alot of physically "big" 300B amps that couldn't hold a candle to the Paramounts, especially in the bass dept.  And then the SR45... a work of art.  I had no idea that the 45 tube could sound so good.  I'm running EML globes in there and the sound is friggin religiously good.  I can't wait to break all of these amps in fully over the next several months and give a full report.

Cheers,

Clark

P.S.  Xavier - you got it.  We'll work out the details by email tomorrow for you.  The bamboo shouldn't be a problem to get certified for international shipment.  It is FSC, etc. It is also not wood, as its a grass so perhaps thats even one more loophole we can pursue if there are some special duties and taxes ?  Its also our first shipment to Mexico... and I'm so excited to get you in front of a pair of these!

[Doc B.]

Yeah one mistake that is bad to make is to try to match Doc martini for martini. I train waaay too much, and I feel strongly that nobody else should do so.

Those birch orcas and the old sex were sounding great last night. Today I got our Orcas running with the Stereomour and I decided to do a "test hang" of the rugs I want to use for the front wall treatment, even though the wall isn't painted yet. The minute the rugs went up the room calmed down a bunch and I could start to hear just what we are in store for when the Orcas are fully broken in. I gave bookkeeper Deb the iPod that remotes the mini music server I set up and she was crankin sum serious blues all afternoon while she worked. Also have a bid in on a silk parachute to hang as a cloud, emulating the one in our main listening room. That one made a really big difference in taming the room harshness created by our metal ceiling.

We're planning to shoot the system next week and I suspect that in a couple of weeks we will have a well broken in, killer B&B rig.

BTW Clarko, I will try to get a tape deck to your HQ soon, so you can roll some TP demos.

[rif]

Hey Clark/Molly

Did you just make some big changes to your website? I've been having problems all day all over the web since my tablet updated it's browser.

[xcortes]

thanks clark. we can discuss by email the shipping and all that. i have a nice plate amp from marchand. that should work nicely. the idea is to use the orcas in my desktop at the office. the rest of the rig will be a tim de paravicini modified technics 1520 that sounds very nice, a sex with mq iron in m3 that is amazing and, of course, ironbut's dolby decoder. i have about 200 barclay crocker tapes at the office. and sometimes i take a tape project tape for lunch time. i've been using headphones but i think speakers will be a better idea for the office.

my current speaker stash includes the big edgar horns with rca field coils, of course triamped with six ultra hot rodded paramounts, a pair of western electic 755as, a pair of quads esl 57s, a pair of siemens klangfilm eurodyns and the sony mdr r10 headphones. the quads are work in progress in that i haven't found the perfect amplifier, but i keep trying 'cause they do some things amazingly. i am about to try an ss amp (i have 25 channels of bottlehead amplification not counting preamps so ss is a no no but i' m still trying with the damn quads). the eurodyns i don't know if i'll keep. they're pretty good but don't do anything better than the big rig. if i had a second house, but they're worth a few bucks so... what all these speakers and heaphones share is a rich and tasty midrange which not many speakers can deliver. i'm not a soundstage freak and i can't stand typical audiophile sound. i can count other people systems that i've liked in the past with my two hands fingers. doc's system at vsac is included as is tucker's from the same show. i have a couple of friends with pretty decent systems based on my friends sadurni horns. romy the cat's system is in the list too! i can't stand digital. i tried the best with a pacific microsonics and crazy server and got tired of it. i did some recording with expensive classic equipment just to understand being on the other side of the chain. so i'm not your typical audiophile by any standard. and i'm indeed excited about trying these little wonders everyone here talks about. if they make it they will be the speakers i listen to most of the time. until you come with a feastrex design with the same size (and i sell the eurodyns!).

saludos

[DoS]

I am very curious how these speakers compare to my Horn Shoppe Horns.

[Clark B.]

Xavier,

Nice systems!  Holy cow! 

The Orcas + Sex on a desktop are a fantastic match. 

I've heard the Edgar horns in a friend's system in the tri cities - Bill Van Winkle.  His system sounded very nice when I visited him back when he owned them.  Come to think of it, I do recall that the midrange was very nice...  The Sony R10's also are a gorgeous midrange.  What is coming to mind is the DEPTH of the midrange - they had plenty of lower midrange presence and this was the foundation for the upper frequencies floating around in the mix rather than the upper frequencies "striking" you per se.  In regards to the R10's I've heard (not owned) several pair at length and every time was really striking.  I learned a lot from these 'phones.  I am also a fan of the sennheiser orpheus and have heard a few pairs of those as well.  It seemed that there was variance between the sounds of them pretty heavily depending upon how well they were taken care of during their lifetimes.  One pair had outright distortion in the highs as a result (I think) of having been overdriven somewhere along the line.  Made in ca. 1990 These rigs are getting along in years now and I hope someone, somewhere comes up with something that (truly) trumps the orpheus and r10's.  I am so tired of performance promises of new models that, yes, do somewhat outperform these classics in one way or another only to fall short in the most important realm of all - musicality.    However - from only a brief time with the HD800's, I felt that they had alot of potential - especially for the price. 

RCA compression drivers? Only heard the alnico versions in Pete Riggle's Po' Boys system and gosh do those things make music!  We visited him back in October for the yearly get together of the PNW audio weirdo society.  We'll be picking up one of his woody tone arms for use in the big rig that we are putting together over the summer here.

I've also been pretty gobsmacked by a well dialed in Cogent horn system at an RMAF and IIRC these were somewhat based on the RCA's (?)

Horn systems are so hard to compare because they vary so widely in quality of implimentation.  I've heard some fantastic horn systems and others using almost the exact same componentry that were just ho hum.  I think it takes a long time to get one tuned to the room, amps, cables, and luckily, unlike in other branches of high end speakerdom, there is actually tangible benefit to adjusting all these factors and sorting everything out.

The Feastrex drivers (and especially the highest end ones) are the only direct radiators that come close to the resolution of good compression drivers - they are extremely resolute and you have to power them correctly to get the right kind of high/low frequency mix.  They juxtapose that same "thick, heavy" sound right along side a "light airy" sound that can really boggle the mind.  They'll also physically punch you, which is rare for a direct radiator unless its a PA system.

Small Feastrex?  I'm not sure how small ours will be.... but they'll be very good!

Cheers,

Clark

P.S. We just got our BeePree kit in and I'll be making some cuts for Bottlehead Bases for it and also for Dan's BeePree today and tomorrow time allowing - if anyone is interested in tagging onto the short run of them.

Well, I can't make this lunch break take too long here - I gotta get back to the coal mines...  We are shipping out -literally- a ton of speakers this week and the next.  Its the final hump for us before we are able to quickly follow all these backlogged orders up with a production run of several pairs of speakers that we will be able to sell from inventory (for the first time ever!). 

So - wish us luck on this initiative!  True progress like this for a company our size doesn't come for free i can assure you!

[xcortes]

The problem with compression drivers is that one can usually hear the metal of the diaphragm and that's harsh and after some time one gets tired. That's one of the beauties of the RCA MI 1443B (or it's low voltage brother 1428B), they have fabric diaphragms. I suspect that is part of their magic. I guess the field coil magnet and the complicated phase plugs have something to do as well. Indeed these are the drivers on which the Cogent's are based off. I only heard the Cogents once and didn't like the system they were in, would love to try them in my system if only to better assess them.

Haven't heard the Orpheus or the HE90 (the headphone only. Orpheus is the system including the amp). Would love to. The main problem is they require push pull amps and I'm a die hard SET'er. But nothing I've tried gets even close to the R10s. I did try the HD800. I've had two pairs in the past. Also tried AKG K1Ks and Grado HP2s. Nada. The only thing that gets close are the Sony CD3Ks that share the biocellulose material of the R10s in the diaphragms. But the plastic enclosure kills half of the magic.

Molly: Thanks for your pm. I'll get back to you as soon as I end up deciding on a couple of things. One of them being whether I use my sub amp and my FP3 as it doesn't have speaker level inputs or your plate amp.

[Doc B.]

We are getting close to having our bottleblumen system ready to demo at BHQ-

[tsingle999]

Looks nice! I cant wait to get to work every morning cuz i get to watch hockey games while listening to my bottleblumen system! The orcas are a great speaker. I appreciate them more every day!