A splendid time was had by all at all-day seminar for the Toronto chapter of the Audio Engineering Society.

I started serious loudspeaker testing at Canada's National Research Center some thirty Years ago.
Dr Floyd Tool was responsible for opening the NRC's vast acoustic lab to small manufactures.
Many well known companies owe their existence to Dr. Toole. He is responsible for many of the fine speaker
systems of today PSB, Paradym, to name a few. It was a pleasure and an honor to be one of the panelists.

http://www.torontoaes.org/Seminar2008/panelists.html

From the Sky and Telescope magazine

http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2008/oswald_mill_audio_ac1/#COMMENT
http://oswaldsmillaudio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=249.0

Stereophile………..

Do you know about Oswald Mill Audio? Check out the website; it's fascinating.

Truth is: I'm not really into exotic loudspeakers.

I like my loudspeakers to look like loudspeakers. To me, a simple wood box is beautiful. But I was more than impressed by the extraordinary Oswald Mill Audio AC1. Completely hand-built out of solid Pennsylvania ash, it takes about a month to complete a single pair of AC1s. Each speaker uses a single 15" Alnico paper-cone woofer and a vintage compression driver for the midrange. Due to the finite quantity of the specific late '40s to early '60s driver, production of the AC1 is limited to just 25 pairs.

Designer Jonathan Weiss asked me if there was anything in specific that I'd like to listen to.

"Any rock and roll?" I asked.

Jonathan looked down to his stack of LPs, took a long pause, and soberly replied: "Not much."

"Oh well. How about…"

"Actually, I've got Prince. Wanna hear Prince?"

"Cool."

Prince's "Darling Nicky" sounded just as it should: Naughty! This was a speaker that managed to remove itself from the room despite its towering size and attention-grabbing looks. When Weiss informed me of the price of $53,000/pair, it almost seemed like a bargain.

Crazy, I know.

Jonathan Weiss hopes to open an Oswald Mill Audio showroom in New York City by the end of the year. I cannot wait to hear these speakers again.

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comments from Rocky Mountain Musicfest about Oswald's Mill Audio system.

Hi,

I agree. When I first began my association with Jonathan, the very idea of horns scared me. I continued because I liked Jonathan, and because I really love my small part as a turntable builder. Inside, I was a planar-electrostatic guy to the very core. No more, though. I really do believe Bill Woods is a virtuoso of conical horns, and I can't wait to get my own pair of AC-1 speakers. Otherwise, how can horns sound so real?

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Davec113 [Find more posts by Davec113]
diyAudio Member

Post #61

Oswald's Mill was had to take the prize for most realistic sax I've ever heard, really amazing. These monsters were squeezed into a small room, don't know how they got them in the door... they really needed a bigger space. I wouldn't judge them too harshly for hearing x-over artifacts sitting nearfield to such a big speaker.
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The truly surprising thing is that the OMA and the Orion have nearly the same voicing - on the slightly warm side, with no upper-midrange hardness or harshness, and balanced for classical music. And both play a lot louder, and more effortlessly, than you'd expect.

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Lynn Olson [Find more posts by Lynn Olson]


Post #18
The Oswald's Mill Audio horn system. This and the new Classic Audio Research T-1's (which have nothing in common with the previous T-1's) are the two best horn systems I've heard to date.

The driver lineup, according to Jonathan Weiss, is a GPA 803 (Altec 515 cone with a lighter magnet), his new phenolic-diaphragm compression driver mounted on a wood conical horn, and a RAAL supertweeter with an Alexander-designed short horn. Superb crossover integration - absolutely seamless and natural-sounding, and wonderful bass and upper-bass from the big Altec/GPA driver. More than one person remarked it was the best they've ever heard a piano sound, and I had to agree.


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Both the OMA's and the new field-coil line of speakers from CAR created a sensation at the show, and drew big crowds. It's not exaggerating to say they re-define horn speakers, at least in the commercial sector. I haven't heard Hiraga's new 604 Duplex system, but I imagine it is in the same league as these systems.

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Post #38
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn Olson
The truly surprising thing is that the OMA and the Orion have nearly the same voicing - on the slightly warm side, with no upper-midrange hardness or harshness, and balanced for classical music. And both play a lot louder, and more effortlessly, than you'd expect.
With all due respect, they're not voiced for classical. They rock harder than anything I've heard (if you add a sub for loud deep LF response beyond the dipole limitations), play acoustic music as realistically as anything I've heard, present human voices as flawlessly as I can imagine, and so on. They're voiced for accuracy. It just so happens that they work very well with classical music too. See why I wasn't unhappy to give up the eXemplars for Orions, Lynn?

- Eric

Karlso vs RCA-fan horn ( with Fostex es208 8" driver)

Box Internal Dimension Width = 11.75"

Brace last fold to back ( 23" long piece)