The Opalum experience

[DocG]

Hi all,

The Opalum system was mentioned by Oldric, in The Devialet thread. I thought it might be a good idea to start a separate thread on this intriguing product, to make it easier to spot, should anyone be interested.

I'll start by copy/pasting the posts from the Devialet thread.

I know Doc you'd welcome some well performing on-walls. have you ever heard of Opalum yet? now, what's good about it? apart from the fact that they are meant to be put on wall saving a lot of audiophile real estate, they are very thin so don't protrude much off the wall once hanged, and look super cool too (flow and breeze product line), they also pack a lot of digital and technological wizardry to boot so that they reportedly sound good too (this is a fairly new product so there's little to be found about it yet but this review on soundandvision.com is promising. note very flat frequency response of the flow.1010 not leaving a 4 dB window (+2/-2 dB) from some 75Hz to 20kHz) or here (use google translate if needed). now a few words on the digital wizardry I was just mentioning. the system consists of a control hub and a pair of speakers. the speakers are of active kind so the hub is by no means an integrated amp of any sorts. the hub's role is to receive PCM digital signals, or if it's analog signal then it's converted to PCM, and send it on to the speakers for further processing. it also sends power to the speakers on the same cable as the data stream making the whole arangement extremely neat! basicaly you get 2 speakers hanging on the wall connected with only a thin wire. you can even put the hub out of your sight since the remote communicate via RF, not IR. the hub can also control the volume. what's with the speakers then? from reading tech info on this site here's what I could gather. the speakers are powered with some sort of digital class D amps where PCM is converted to PWM to directly power the drivers. the amps seem to be of clean class D breed - read; similar in performance to Hypex modules. the speakers use some sort of digital modelling to acuraltely shape FR, impulse, crossover and LF extension (note small internal volume vs. LF extension). the internal circuitry also seems to to have movement of drivers in check and apply corrective actions if needed. this is like applying feedback on the drivers. this is not novel but rarely used and impossible to implement in any passive speakers. this is said to reduce driver distortion. me likes low distortion!

that's all I can say about the speakers for now. I love the concept of freeing a lot of living room space and getting the whole hi-fi jungle out of my sight (the hub and some streamer can well be hidden away in a board) so much that I'm really considering swaping all I have for a pair of flow.1010 or flow.4810 (if they are worth the extra over 1010). there are still many questions regarding performance that I first need to find answers for. but if I hear more or less what I want to hear then this concept is really a viable alternative for a whole stack of boxes IMO (it even makes the venerable AVI 9 speakers look cumbersome :twisted: :rofl. plus an easy way to integrate a sub, if someone needs one, is also very appealing; there's a sub out in the hub that when it sences a sub is connected the hub would automatically apply a 4th order LR xover @ 80Hz - all you need then is an LFE input and gain control on the sub. it can't get easier then that. (BTW I wish all hi-fi amps included an integrated sub crossover...). last but not least the system should also be quite toddler resistant seeing that most of it can be hidden away .

I wasn't going to mention those speakers on the forum before I was sure they are worth it. but since the initial impressions are promising enough to warrant further investigation and I'm not sure when I get a chace to speak to Opalum I thought I'd flag this product for you now Doc seing that you found yourself in not-so-nice situation with your amp.

PS. sorry for all the spelling errors. for some reason spell check is gone from my browser and I can't re-instal it despite my numerous attempts.

PS2. I need to confirm this but it seems newer versions of the hub may include some streaming device as well. if that's the case then the whole system may get even smaller by another box - the streamer. I need to find out if this streaming device is going to be some sort of DLNA renderer because that's what I'd need for my streaming needs.

PS3. check this website out, for instance, for price comparison: http://www.stoneaudio.co.uk/?manufacturer=opalum. while the system isn't cheap the price is definitely competitive with relation to what a Dev costs, even if you factor in a sub and some basic streamer (remember we need only a digital out, so it's really streamer's interface and reliability that counts).

Hi Oldric,

Another left field suggestion, they seem to be your trade mark and me likes the left field!

just wait a few years and you'll see that my left-field suggestions are not so much left-field anymore. I truly believe that in this age of affordable and widely available DSP modules passive speaker technology is at it's last breath. the benefits of going active DSP are simply too great to ignore.

First of all, I don't plan to ditch the Dev anytime soon. I'll have it either fixed or replaced. Period.

agreed. a Dev is a beauty to behold and performs likewise so I can see why people wouldn't want to let one go so easily. it's a shame though that it's so hard to find a pair of passive speakers with performance to match. I'd like to see an all Devialet sound system with DSP enabled speakers. that would be a treat.

But if Opalum is the business, I might house the Dev in the living room, feeding some nice floorstanders, and hang the Opalums in the library :?

wow, you have a library... I want one too. and another bedroom. and a bigger living room. and a bigger storage. and a lotto lotery wining ticket...

I first read on this system in a Belgian(!) hifi mag, about a year ago, but didn't consider it 'proper hifi' as the reviewer put so much stress on the lifestyle aspects. After reading your post (and the links), I understand the concept is more than skin-deep.

that's what it appears to be. it's like with B&O gear. lifestle design but backed up with solid engineering within.

The PCM to PWM conversion reminds me of NAD's Direct Digital technology. Is that correct? There seems to be quite some DSP going on inside the speakers, including 'psycho-acoustic bass' :? That doesn't sound very hifi (in theory), but my open mind says it wants to judge for itself.

yeah, bringing up NAD in this context is a good call. the DSP seems to be responsible, among other things, for frequency response shaping and controling of phase integrity. that alone should ensure at least good imaging, if not stellar. as for the bass, to be honest I'd opt for a sub instead. since easy integration is so well implemented why not take advantage of it? it's like with using any small speakers on their own. many tricks are used to fool you into thinking they sound bigger then they are but when stacked against reall big boys you know the small ones are just big pretenders.

So I checked the Store Locator on the website, and my Devialet dealer happens to figure on the list. I dropped him a mail. If he has a demo set available, I could have a listen later this week. How about that?

If all goes well, I'll report back. Of course.

damn you Doc! I really envy you that you have so easy access to check out things that interest me. I have hard time time auditioning things that don't interest me, not mentioning those that do. well, I guess it's time to move back to Europe then . anyway, looknig forward to hearing your impressions from the demo. I in the mean time will try to get on with Opalum and ask them a few technical questions about their products. if I hear what I expect then it really may be a viable option outside of legacy hi-fi products. let's hope Opalum are approachable and knowledgeble lot.

If these can produce good bass, it will be an amazing engineering achievement. As I understand it, the top model, the Flow.4810, uses an array of 48 little 1" drivers. Whoah! I'll be really interested to hear your report on this.

if you do your math then you'll find out that 48 1' drivers add up to rougly 6.8' driver. that's not too bad. I guess you could easily expect a similar performance in low register that you could get from a 6.5'er in a sealed cabinet. and since the speakers hang flush on the wall you don't get typical problems with baffle step response anomaly found in typical free standing box speakers. although I admit the excurtion of even the biggest number array of 1' drivers may be a problem on high level outputs. hence I'd opt for a sub instead since integration should be seamless.

Update: my dealer just confirmed he has the Flow.1010 on demo. We can give it a try on Thursday! :cheers:

I spoke to an Opalum bloke from Dennmark on the phone today. I have some mixed feelings. mainly because I got a feeling there's the highlight on the lifestyle aspect of the product at Opalum and the guy couldn't provide me with most information I needed. here's what I found out.

4810 and 1010 are 2-way speakers. 4810 have 3 tweeters covering HF and the rest of the array covers mids and lows groupped in 3 banks of drivers. similar situation with 1010 where single driver handles HF and the rest are responsible for remaining part of the frequency spectrum, again groupped in 3 banks of drivers.

common problem with driver arrays is comb filtering effect. Opalum claims to overcome this problem by delaying some of the drivers with relation to other. this information poured some optimism in me with regards design skillls of the people behind the speakers. delaying of drivers reminds me of CBT approach to achieve unified soundfield. however, I can't confirm it's really the case here because when I asked the guy about off axis behaviour of the speakers he couldn't say much about it as he didn't have any measurements for that aspect.

the guy couldn't tell me much about distortion levels of the speaker. which is a pitty. I'd rather know how loud could the speakers be pushed before you start feel uncomfortable.

the speakers don't employ "virtual sub" technology (this is propably to be used in small portable devices). all bass there is comes from the source material and the drivers.

wireless compatibility is via Bluetooth APT-X modul. useful for quick connecting of different devices. this is included in their Hub II. but I think to fully utilise lossles audio it's better to use a LAN streamer.

what I really liked when I heard is that the speakers are optimised in such a way as to generate a perfect impulse response. that means no ringing! and that means the speakers should be very easy on the ear. there should be no perceived harshness nor undue sibilance to the sound. on top of that the speakers' frequency response is tuned in such a way as to highlight it's inherent smoothness to the sound. the guy told me they lift slightly mid-lows and highs. this bit bothered me somehow as I would like to see a flat frequency response. but I can't deny Opalum have a point in saying the speaker should do what it's asked for in a way that's pleasing to the listener. then again if you check those basic measurements in the review of flow.1010 at soundandvision.com there's no hint of any frequency response shaping over neutral. you can see some shaping in the graph for stream.210 though.

I also wanted to aks about the volume control but I forgot. it's definitely in digital domain as the speakers and the hub are digital throughout. but what interests me most is if they use those advanced 32bit floating point techniques to obtain lossles attenuation (BTW this approach beats by a big margin any analog attenuation that there is).

all in all I wasn't overly taken aback. the guy was constantly stressing how nice the speakers sound. I guess hearing is believing. he suggested I could take advantage of their sales and return policy so that I could try the speakers at home if I opted to buy via their web-shop. handy. I guess I let my mind settle down for a couple of days and I might give them a call again to ask a few more questions. in the mean time I'm looking forward to reading your impressions from the demo on Thursday Doc.

BTW, a few weeks ago I was contacting audiostatic with a view to get some info on their ESL speaker as I am looking to upgrade on my MG12. the guy on the other side told me, and I was talking to Mr. Ben Peters - the inventor himself 8) , that they are now finalising R+D on the new model which should be ready for sale quite soon. most likely in January. he mentioned they are using some new nano technology in the making, I presume it has to do with diaphragm material and coating techniques, and the new speakers will sound much better than any of his previous creations. I guess I'll wait a bit and see what his new babies are capable of and then decide if I slim down with Opalum or stay in legacy hi-fi world. although I must admit a Dev and stats look like a nice, minimalist and high performance set up. if only stats weren't taking up so much space.....

 

[DocG]

OK, so today I went for some speaker demos with the Devialet 110 (the dealer's Dev that is, mine went up in smoke last weekend). More on that in the Devialet thread, once I have some time to write down my impressions. But first this. He also had the Opalum Flow.1010 on offer, so I really was curious to hear it.

First of all, the system is tiny: the (active) speakers, the hub, the wiring... Even knowing what I knew, I didn't expect too much. Just too small. But definitely smart looking. The only 'normal size' part is the remote. Normal size, not normal shape. It's a disk, roughly 10-12 cm in diameter, about 2 cm thick, with touch sensitive symbols for source up - down, volume up - down and on-off. The remote is RF, so no need to point, and you can hide the hub in a cupboard (that's good, the hub is not particularly stylish), together with the source/s.

And what did it sound like? Well, I was on a tight time schedule (again), and had just 15 min. left for the Flow.1010. So a rather brief impression it was. The speakers were set up on the (carpeted) floor, leaning against the wall -- not ideal; they were not permanently displayed in the shop. Transport was a Rega CDP, connected through SPDIF [the hub also has 2 optical ports and a pair of analogue cinch inputs].

My first impression was one of unexpectedly full sound for the size, especially the bass. The stereo image was good. I noticed nice separation between instruments and different voices. It was excellent for the size, but not excellent tout court. At first, I could not put my finger on it. It was all there... But then I realized what I missed. First of all the treble is less than sparkling. And then, most of all, the music misses depth. Like a 2D audio-image. Is it self suggestion? The speakers are rather flat indeed. But then again: so are panel speakers like the Maggies or the Quad ESLs, and their sonic image is very 3D.

Conclusion: on their own, they are very nice; would make for an awsome pair of TV-speakers... but not really hi-fi.

Having said that, I do intend to go back for a more extensive listen. And then I'll ask the dealer to add a good, small sub, say a PV1D. That will undoubtedly complement the main speakers, which could probably do a better job themselves, when liberated from the low register. But that's for later...

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

OK, so today I went for some speaker demos with the Devialet 110 (the dealer's Dev that is, mine went up in smoke last weekend). More on that in the Devialet thread, once I have some time to write down my impressions. But first this. He also had the Opalum Flow.1010 on offer, so I really was curious to hear it.

First of all, the system is tiny: the (active) speakers, the hub, the wiring... Even knowing what I knew, I didn't expect too much. Just too small. But definitely smart looking. The only 'normal size' part is the remote. Normal size, not normal shape. It's a disk, roughly 10-12 cm in diameter, about 2 cm thick, with touch sensitive symbols for source up - down, volume up - down and on-off. The remote is RF, so no need to point, and you can hide the hub in a cupboard (that's good, the hub is not particularly stylish), together with the source/s.

And what did it sound like? Well, I was on a tight time schedule (again), and had just 15 min. left for the Flow.1010. So a rather brief impression it was. The speakers were set up on the (carpeted) floor, leaning against the wall -- not ideal; they were not permanently displayed in the shop. Transport was a Rega CDP, connected through SPDIF [the hub also has 2 optical ports and a pair of analogue cinch inputs].

My first impression was one of unexpectedly full sound for the size, especially the bass. The stereo image was good. I noticed nice separation between instruments and different voices. It was excellent for the size, but not excellent tout court. At first, I could not put my finger on it. It was all there... But then I realized what I missed. First of all the treble is less than sparkling. And then, most of all, the music misses depth. Like a 2D audio-image. Is it self suggestion? The speakers are rather flat indeed. But then again: so are panel speakers like the Maggies or the Quad ESLs, and their sonic image is very 3D.

Conclusion: on their own, they are very nice; would make for an awsome pair of TV-speakers... but not really hi-fi.

Having said that, I do intend to go back for a more extensive listen. And then I'll ask the dealer to add a good, small sub, say a PV1D. That will undoubtedly complement the main speakers, which could probably do a better job themselves, when liberated from the low register. But that's for later...

thanks Doc for the input. I was waiting for it with anticipation. looks like the initial impression is the Opalum creation can't compete with stats and the like. pity. I was really hoping it could be more than just a nice adorment to your wall that also happens to play music. although I'd like to find out how it performs in optimal conditions, i.e. not leaning agains the wall but hanging at the appropriate hight. all in all, auditioning those speakers in such conditions is no different than auditioning hi-fi monitors placed on the ground...

 

[matt49]

Doc,

That's very interesting. I wonder if there's any physical reason why a speaker of this format lacks three-dimensionality? You suggest the cause might be the two-dimensional form of the speaker, but then you rightly say that electrostatic/magnetoplanar panels can do 3D. So I wonder whether it has something to do with their being against a wall. (I know they weren't actually wall-mounted in your demo, but were leaning against a wall.) Maggies, Quads etc, by contrast, are designed to stand well away from a wall. OK, I'm just speculating.

In the end this does sound a bit like a high-quality "lifestyle" product. And I can't help thinking (call this a prejudice!) that if they were really serious hi-fi, they'd cost an extra arm or leg.

:cheers:

Matt

 

[DocG]

Doc,

That's very interesting. I wonder if there's any physical reason why a speaker of this format lacks three-dimensionality? You suggest the cause might be the two-dimensional form of the speaker, but then you rightly say that electrostatic/magnetoplanar panels can do 3D. So I wonder whether it has something to do with their being against a wall. (I know they weren't actually wall-mounted in your demo, but were leaning against a wall.) Maggies, Quads etc, by contrast, are designed to stand well away from a wall. OK, I'm just speculating.

Yes, that would be my best guess too. In a dipole, the sound also bounces off the front wall, creating the 'air'. I read somewhere that, when treating the wall behind a dipole, one mustn't use absorbers; diffusorscare better. Same reason, most likely.

In the end this does sound a bit like a high-quality "lifestyle" product.

Yes, in some way it reminds me of B&O, but indeed the SQ is not in B&O territory. As you rightly say, nor was the price, considering it contains everything but a transport. I auditioned it after having listened to a Devialet + > £2000 speakers (so roughly 4 times the price) for hours, so that was probably no fair comparison.

 

[WishTree]

Thanks Doc for the update.

I was intrigued by the speakers when I read your first post but I had some doubts about their performance, given their physical limitations. Couple of years back I was in the market on the look out for a possible simple life style kind of system and delivers good sound (likes of audio pro or meridien compact system etc) but they all have the depth and seperation issue.

I am kind of counting Opalum broke the physics barriers but again that is only some wishful thinking.

Till now, my top compact speakers are still the AG Strada that I have and they sound brilliant even wall mounted barring the sub 100Hz performance. I am not sure whehter you already heard them and wrote about them. If so can you pls point me to the link as I want to read your opinion.

 

[DocG]

Thanks Doc for the update.

I was intrigued by the speakers when I read your first post but I had some doubts about their performance, given their physical limitations. Couple of years back I was in the market on the look out for a possible simple life style kind of system and delivers good sound (likes of audio pro or meridien compact system etc) but they all have the depth and seperation issue.

I am kind of counting Opalum broke the physics barriers but again that is only some wishful thinking.

Till now, my top compact speakers are still the AG Strada that I have and they sound brilliant even wall mounted barring the sub 100Hz performance. I am not sure whehter you already heard them and wrote about them. If so can you pls point me to the link as I want to read your opinion.

Hey WishTree,

I've been looking intensively for a pair of Stradas to demo, but I just can't get my hands on them. They are even harder to find than Audio Notes here. Closest I got was a dealer with the smaller globes on demo; he could get me a pair of Stradas for a competitive price, but no demo option (and no money back guarantee either). So I didn't dare to (I'm a chicken, I know). Had you done an demo before you bought them?

 

[DocG]

thanks Doc for the input. I was waiting for it with anticipation. looks like the initial impression is the Opalum creation can't compete with stats and the like. pity. I was really hoping it could be more than just a nice adorment to your wall that also happens to play music. although I'd like to find out how it performs in optimal conditions, i.e. not leaning agains the wall but hanging at the appropriate hight. all in all, auditioning those speakers in such conditions is no different than auditioning hi-fi monitors placed on the ground...

I'm definitely going back for a better, more extensive demo, with proper placement and a sub. I expect the result to be better, but I'm far from sure that the improvement will be large enough. But I keep wondering how much better the .4810 would be...

 

[altruistic.lemon]

Hi all,

The Opalum system was mentioned by Oldric, in The Devialet thread. I thought it might be a good idea to start a separate thread on this intriguing product, to make it easier to spot, should anyone be interested.

I'll start by copy/pasting the posts from the Devialet thread.

I know Doc you'd welcome some well performing on-walls. have you ever heard of Opalum yet? now, what's good about it? apart from the fact that they are meant to be put on wall saving a lot of audiophile real estate, they are very thin so don't protrude much off the wall once hanged, and look super cool too (flow and breeze product line), they also pack a lot of digital and technological wizardry to boot so that they reportedly sound good too (this is a fairly new product so there's little to be found about it yet but this review on soundandvision.com is promising. note very flat frequency response of the flow.1010 not leaving a 4 dB window (+2/-2 dB) from some 75Hz to 20kHz) or here (use google translate if needed). now a few words on the digital wizardry I was just mentioning. the system consists of a control hub and a pair of speakers. the speakers are of active kind so the hub is by no means an integrated amp of any sorts. the hub's role is to receive PCM digital signals, or if it's analog signal then it's converted to PCM, and send it on to the speakers for further processing. it also sends power to the speakers on the same cable as the data stream making the whole arangement extremely neat! basicaly you get 2 speakers hanging on the wall connected with only a thin wire. you can even put the hub out of your sight since the remote communicate via RF, not IR. the hub can also control the volume. what's with the speakers then? from reading tech info on this site here's what I could gather. the speakers are powered with some sort of digital class D amps where PCM is converted to PWM to directly power the drivers. the amps seem to be of clean class D breed - read; similar in performance to Hypex modules. the speakers use some sort of digital modelling to acuraltely shape FR, impulse, crossover and LF extension (note small internal volume vs. LF extension). the internal circuitry also seems to to have movement of drivers in check and apply corrective actions if needed. this is like applying feedback on the drivers. this is not novel but rarely used and impossible to implement in any passive speakers. this is said to reduce driver distortion. me likes low distortion!

that's all I can say about the speakers for now. I love the concept of freeing a lot of living room space and getting the whole hi-fi jungle out of my sight (the hub and some streamer can well be hidden away in a board) so much that I'm really considering swaping all I have for a pair of flow.1010 or flow.4810 (if they are worth the extra over 1010). there are still many questions regarding performance that I first need to find answers for. but if I hear more or less what I want to hear then this concept is really a viable alternative for a whole stack of boxes IMO (it even makes the venerable AVI 9 speakers look cumbersome :twisted: :rofl. plus an easy way to integrate a sub, if someone needs one, is also very appealing; there's a sub out in the hub that when it sences a sub is connected the hub would automatically apply a 4th order LR xover @ 80Hz - all you need then is an LFE input and gain control on the sub. it can't get easier then that. (BTW I wish all hi-fi amps included an integrated sub crossover...). last but not least the system should also be quite toddler resistant seeing that most of it can be hidden away .

I wasn't going to mention those speakers on the forum before I was sure they are worth it. but since the initial impressions are promising enough to warrant further investigation and I'm not sure when I get a chace to speak to Opalum I thought I'd flag this product for you now Doc seing that you found yourself in not-so-nice situation with your amp.

PS. sorry for all the spelling errors. for some reason spell check is gone from my browser and I can't re-instal it despite my numerous attempts.

PS2. I need to confirm this but it seems newer versions of the hub may include some streaming device as well. if that's the case then the whole system may get even smaller by another box - the streamer. I need to find out if this streaming device is going to be some sort of DLNA renderer because that's what I'd need for my streaming needs.

PS3. check this website out, for instance, for price comparison: http://www.stoneaudio.co.uk/?manufacturer=opalum. while the system isn't cheap the price is definitely competitive with relation to what a Dev costs, even if you factor in a sub and some basic streamer (remember we need only a digital out, so it's really streamer's interface and reliability that counts).

Hi Oldric,

Another left field suggestion, they seem to be your trade mark and me likes the left field!

just wait a few years and you'll see that my left-field suggestions are not so much left-field anymore. I truly believe that in this age of affordable and widely available DSP modules passive speaker technology is at it's last breath. the benefits of going active DSP are simply too great to ignore.

First of all, I don't plan to ditch the Dev anytime soon. I'll have it either fixed or replaced. Period.

agreed. a Dev is a beauty to behold and performs likewise so I can see why people wouldn't want to let one go so easily. it's a shame though that it's so hard to find a pair of passive speakers with performance to match. I'd like to see an all Devialet sound system with DSP enabled speakers. that would be a treat.

But if Opalum is the business, I might house the Dev in the living room, feeding some nice floorstanders, and hang the Opalums in the library :?

wow, you have a library... I want one too. and another bedroom. and a bigger living room. and a bigger storage. and a lotto lotery wining ticket...

I first read on this system in a Belgian(!) hifi mag, about a year ago, but didn't consider it 'proper hifi' as the reviewer put so much stress on the lifestyle aspects. After reading your post (and the links), I understand the concept is more than skin-deep.

that's what it appears to be. it's like with B&O gear. lifestle design but backed up with solid engineering within.

The PCM to PWM conversion reminds me of NAD's Direct Digital technology. Is that correct? There seems to be quite some DSP going on inside the speakers, including 'psycho-acoustic bass' :? That doesn't sound very hifi (in theory), but my open mind says it wants to judge for itself.

yeah, bringing up NAD in this context is a good call. the DSP seems to be responsible, among other things, for frequency response shaping and controling of phase integrity. that alone should ensure at least good imaging, if not stellar. as for the bass, to be honest I'd opt for a sub instead. since easy integration is so well implemented why not take advantage of it? it's like with using any small speakers on their own. many tricks are used to fool you into thinking they sound bigger then they are but when stacked against reall big boys you know the small ones are just big pretenders.

So I checked the Store Locator on the website, and my Devialet dealer happens to figure on the list. I dropped him a mail. If he has a demo set available, I could have a listen later this week. How about that?

If all goes well, I'll report back. Of course.

damn you Doc! I really envy you that you have so easy access to check out things that interest me. I have hard time time auditioning things that don't interest me, not mentioning those that do. well, I guess it's time to move back to Europe then . anyway, looknig forward to hearing your impressions from the demo. I in the mean time will try to get on with Opalum and ask them a few technical questions about their products. if I hear what I expect then it really may be a viable option outside of legacy hi-fi products. let's hope Opalum are approachable and knowledgeble lot.

If these can produce good bass, it will be an amazing engineering achievement. As I understand it, the top model, the Flow.4810, uses an array of 48 little 1" drivers. Whoah! I'll be really interested to hear your report on this.

if you do your math then you'll find out that 48 1' drivers add up to rougly 6.8' driver. that's not too bad. I guess you could easily expect a similar performance in low register that you could get from a 6.5'er in a sealed cabinet. and since the speakers hang flush on the wall you don't get typical problems with baffle step response anomaly found in typical free standing box speakers. although I admit the excurtion of even the biggest number array of 1' drivers may be a problem on high level outputs. hence I'd opt for a sub instead since integration should be seamless.

Update: my dealer just confirmed he has the Flow.1010 on demo. We can give it a try on Thursday! :cheers:

I spoke to an Opalum bloke from Dennmark on the phone today. I have some mixed feelings. mainly because I got a feeling there's the highlight on the lifestyle aspect of the product at Opalum and the guy couldn't provide me with most information I needed. here's what I found out.

4810 and 1010 are 2-way speakers. 4810 have 3 tweeters covering HF and the rest of the array covers mids and lows groupped in 3 banks of drivers. similar situation with 1010 where single driver handles HF and the rest are responsible for remaining part of the frequency spectrum, again groupped in 3 banks of drivers.

common problem with driver arrays is comb filtering effect. Opalum claims to overcome this problem by delaying some of the drivers with relation to other. this information poured some optimism in me with regards design skillls of the people behind the speakers. delaying of drivers reminds me of CBT approach to achieve unified soundfield. however, I can't confirm it's really the case here because when I asked the guy about off axis behaviour of the speakers he couldn't say much about it as he didn't have any measurements for that aspect.

the guy couldn't tell me much about distortion levels of the speaker. which is a pitty. I'd rather know how loud could the speakers be pushed before you start feel uncomfortable.

the speakers don't employ "virtual sub" technology (this is propably to be used in small portable devices). all bass there is comes from the source material and the drivers.

wireless compatibility is via Bluetooth APT-X modul. useful for quick connecting of different devices. this is included in their Hub II. but I think to fully utilise lossles audio it's better to use a LAN streamer.

what I really liked when I heard is that the speakers are optimised in such a way as to generate a perfect impulse response. that means no ringing! and that means the speakers should be very easy on the ear. there should be no perceived harshness nor undue sibilance to the sound. on top of that the speakers' frequency response is tuned in such a way as to highlight it's inherent smoothness to the sound. the guy told me they lift slightly mid-lows and highs. this bit bothered me somehow as I would like to see a flat frequency response. but I can't deny Opalum have a point in saying the speaker should do what it's asked for in a way that's pleasing to the listener. then again if you check those basic measurements in the review of flow.1010 at soundandvision.com there's no hint of any frequency response shaping over neutral. you can see some shaping in the graph for stream.210 though.

I also wanted to aks about the volume control but I forgot. it's definitely in digital domain as the speakers and the hub are digital throughout. but what interests me most is if they use those advanced 32bit floating point techniques to obtain lossles attenuation (BTW this approach beats by a big margin any analog attenuation that there is).

all in all I wasn't overly taken aback. the guy was constantly stressing how nice the speakers sound. I guess hearing is believing. he suggested I could take advantage of their sales and return policy so that I could try the speakers at home if I opted to buy via their web-shop. handy. I guess I let my mind settle down for a couple of days and I might give them a call again to ask a few more questions. in the mean time I'm looking forward to reading your impressions from the demo on Thursday Doc.

BTW, a few weeks ago I was contacting audiostatic with a view to get some info on their ESL speaker as I am looking to upgrade on my MG12. the guy on the other side told me, and I was talking to Mr. Ben Peters - the inventor himself 8) , that they are now finalising R+D on the new model which should be ready for sale quite soon. most likely in January. he mentioned they are using some new nano technology in the making, I presume it has to do with diaphragm material and coating techniques, and the new speakers will sound much better than any of his previous creations. I guess I'll wait a bit and see what his new babies are capable of and then decide if I slim down with Opalum or stay in legacy hi-fi world. although I must admit a Dev and stats look like a nice, minimalist and high performance set up. if only stats weren't taking up so much space.....

Do I get the record for the longest quote?

 

[DocG]

Hi all,

The Opalum system was mentioned by Oldric, in The Devialet thread. I thought it might be a good idea to start a separate thread on this intriguing product, to make it easier to spot, should anyone be interested.

I'll start by copy/pasting the posts from the Devialet thread.

I know Doc you'd welcome some well performing on-walls. have you ever heard of Opalum yet? now, what's good about it? apart from the fact that they are meant to be put on wall saving a lot of audiophile real estate, they are very thin so don't protrude much off the wall once hanged, and look super cool too (flow and breeze product line), they also pack a lot of digital and technological wizardry to boot so that they reportedly sound good too (this is a fairly new product so there's little to be found about it yet but this review on soundandvision.com is promising. note very flat frequency response of the flow.1010 not leaving a 4 dB window (+2/-2 dB) from some 75Hz to 20kHz) or here (use google translate if needed). now a few words on the digital wizardry I was just mentioning. the system consists of a control hub and a pair of speakers. the speakers are of active kind so the hub is by no means an integrated amp of any sorts. the hub's role is to receive PCM digital signals, or if it's analog signal then it's converted to PCM, and send it on to the speakers for further processing. it also sends power to the speakers on the same cable as the data stream making the whole arangement extremely neat! basicaly you get 2 speakers hanging on the wall connected with only a thin wire. you can even put the hub out of your sight since the remote communicate via RF, not IR. the hub can also control the volume. what's with the speakers then? from reading tech info on this site here's what I could gather. the speakers are powered with some sort of digital class D amps where PCM is converted to PWM to directly power the drivers. the amps seem to be of clean class D breed - read; similar in performance to Hypex modules. the speakers use some sort of digital modelling to acuraltely shape FR, impulse, crossover and LF extension (note small internal volume vs. LF extension). the internal circuitry also seems to to have movement of drivers in check and apply corrective actions if needed. this is like applying feedback on the drivers. this is not novel but rarely used and impossible to implement in any passive speakers. this is said to reduce driver distortion. me likes low distortion!

that's all I can say about the speakers for now. I love the concept of freeing a lot of living room space and getting the whole hi-fi jungle out of my sight (the hub and some streamer can well be hidden away in a board) so much that I'm really considering swaping all I have for a pair of flow.1010 or flow.4810 (if they are worth the extra over 1010). there are still many questions regarding performance that I first need to find answers for. but if I hear more or less what I want to hear then this concept is really a viable alternative for a whole stack of boxes IMO (it even makes the venerable AVI 9 speakers look cumbersome :twisted: :rofl. plus an easy way to integrate a sub, if someone needs one, is also very appealing; there's a sub out in the hub that when it sences a sub is connected the hub would automatically apply a 4th order LR xover @ 80Hz - all you need then is an LFE input and gain control on the sub. it can't get easier then that. (BTW I wish all hi-fi amps included an integrated sub crossover...). last but not least the system should also be quite toddler resistant seeing that most of it can be hidden away .

I wasn't going to mention those speakers on the forum before I was sure they are worth it. but since the initial impressions are promising enough to warrant further investigation and I'm not sure when I get a chace to speak to Opalum I thought I'd flag this product for you now Doc seing that you found yourself in not-so-nice situation with your amp.

PS. sorry for all the spelling errors. for some reason spell check is gone from my browser and I can't re-instal it despite my numerous attempts.

PS2. I need to confirm this but it seems newer versions of the hub may include some streaming device as well. if that's the case then the whole system may get even smaller by another box - the streamer. I need to find out if this streaming device is going to be some sort of DLNA renderer because that's what I'd need for my streaming needs.

PS3. check this website out, for instance, for price comparison: http://www.stoneaudio.co.uk/?manufacturer=opalum. while the system isn't cheap the price is definitely competitive with relation to what a Dev costs, even if you factor in a sub and some basic streamer (remember we need only a digital out, so it's really streamer's interface and reliability that counts).

Hi Oldric,

Another left field suggestion, they seem to be your trade mark and me likes the left field!

just wait a few years and you'll see that my left-field suggestions are not so much left-field anymore. I truly believe that in this age of affordable and widely available DSP modules passive speaker technology is at it's last breath. the benefits of going active DSP are simply too great to ignore.

First of all, I don't plan to ditch the Dev anytime soon. I'll have it either fixed or replaced. Period.

agreed. a Dev is a beauty to behold and performs likewise so I can see why people wouldn't want to let one go so easily. it's a shame though that it's so hard to find a pair of passive speakers with performance to match. I'd like to see an all Devialet sound system with DSP enabled speakers. that would be a treat.

But if Opalum is the business, I might house the Dev in the living room, feeding some nice floorstanders, and hang the Opalums in the library :?

wow, you have a library... I want one too. and another bedroom. and a bigger living room. and a bigger storage. and a lotto lotery wining ticket...

I first read on this system in a Belgian(!) hifi mag, about a year ago, but didn't consider it 'proper hifi' as the reviewer put so much stress on the lifestyle aspects. After reading your post (and the links), I understand the concept is more than skin-deep.

that's what it appears to be. it's like with B&O gear. lifestle design but backed up with solid engineering within.

The PCM to PWM conversion reminds me of NAD's Direct Digital technology. Is that correct? There seems to be quite some DSP going on inside the speakers, including 'psycho-acoustic bass' :? That doesn't sound very hifi (in theory), but my open mind says it wants to judge for itself.

yeah, bringing up NAD in this context is a good call. the DSP seems to be responsible, among other things, for frequency response shaping and controling of phase integrity. that alone should ensure at least good imaging, if not stellar. as for the bass, to be honest I'd opt for a sub instead. since easy integration is so well implemented why not take advantage of it? it's like with using any small speakers on their own. many tricks are used to fool you into thinking they sound bigger then they are but when stacked against reall big boys you know the small ones are just big pretenders.

So I checked the Store Locator on the website, and my Devialet dealer happens to figure on the list. I dropped him a mail. If he has a demo set available, I could have a listen later this week. How about that?

If all goes well, I'll report back. Of course.

damn you Doc! I really envy you that you have so easy access to check out things that interest me. I have hard time time auditioning things that don't interest me, not mentioning those that do. well, I guess it's time to move back to Europe then . anyway, looknig forward to hearing your impressions from the demo. I in the mean time will try to get on with Opalum and ask them a few technical questions about their products. if I hear what I expect then it really may be a viable option outside of legacy hi-fi products. let's hope Opalum are approachable and knowledgeble lot.

If these can produce good bass, it will be an amazing engineering achievement. As I understand it, the top model, the Flow.4810, uses an array of 48 little 1" drivers. Whoah! I'll be really interested to hear your report on this.

if you do your math then you'll find out that 48 1' drivers add up to rougly 6.8' driver. that's not too bad. I guess you could easily expect a similar performance in low register that you could get from a 6.5'er in a sealed cabinet. and since the speakers hang flush on the wall you don't get typical problems with baffle step response anomaly found in typical free standing box speakers. although I admit the excurtion of even the biggest number array of 1' drivers may be a problem on high level outputs. hence I'd opt for a sub instead since integration should be seamless.

Update: my dealer just confirmed he has the Flow.1010 on demo. We can give it a try on Thursday! :cheers:

I spoke to an Opalum bloke from Dennmark on the phone today. I have some mixed feelings. mainly because I got a feeling there's the highlight on the lifestyle aspect of the product at Opalum and the guy couldn't provide me with most information I needed. here's what I found out.

4810 and 1010 are 2-way speakers. 4810 have 3 tweeters covering HF and the rest of the array covers mids and lows groupped in 3 banks of drivers. similar situation with 1010 where single driver handles HF and the rest are responsible for remaining part of the frequency spectrum, again groupped in 3 banks of drivers.

common problem with driver arrays is comb filtering effect. Opalum claims to overcome this problem by delaying some of the drivers with relation to other. this information poured some optimism in me with regards design skillls of the people behind the speakers. delaying of drivers reminds me of CBT approach to achieve unified soundfield. however, I can't confirm it's really the case here because when I asked the guy about off axis behaviour of the speakers he couldn't say much about it as he didn't have any measurements for that aspect.

the guy couldn't tell me much about distortion levels of the speaker. which is a pitty. I'd rather know how loud could the speakers be pushed before you start feel uncomfortable.

the speakers don't employ "virtual sub" technology (this is propably to be used in small portable devices). all bass there is comes from the source material and the drivers.

wireless compatibility is via Bluetooth APT-X modul. useful for quick connecting of different devices. this is included in their Hub II. but I think to fully utilise lossles audio it's better to use a LAN streamer.

what I really liked when I heard is that the speakers are optimised in such a way as to generate a perfect impulse response. that means no ringing! and that means the speakers should be very easy on the ear. there should be no perceived harshness nor undue sibilance to the sound. on top of that the speakers' frequency response is tuned in such a way as to highlight it's inherent smoothness to the sound. the guy told me they lift slightly mid-lows and highs. this bit bothered me somehow as I would like to see a flat frequency response. but I can't deny Opalum have a point in saying the speaker should do what it's asked for in a way that's pleasing to the listener. then again if you check those basic measurements in the review of flow.1010 at soundandvision.com there's no hint of any frequency response shaping over neutral. you can see some shaping in the graph for stream.210 though.

I also wanted to aks about the volume control but I forgot. it's definitely in digital domain as the speakers and the hub are digital throughout. but what interests me most is if they use those advanced 32bit floating point techniques to obtain lossles attenuation (BTW this approach beats by a big margin any analog attenuation that there is).

all in all I wasn't overly taken aback. the guy was constantly stressing how nice the speakers sound. I guess hearing is believing. he suggested I could take advantage of their sales and return policy so that I could try the speakers at home if I opted to buy via their web-shop. handy. I guess I let my mind settle down for a couple of days and I might give them a call again to ask a few more questions. in the mean time I'm looking forward to reading your impressions from the demo on Thursday Doc.

BTW, a few weeks ago I was contacting audiostatic with a view to get some info on their ESL speaker as I am looking to upgrade on my MG12. the guy on the other side told me, and I was talking to Mr. Ben Peters - the inventor himself 8) , that they are now finalising R+D on the new model which should be ready for sale quite soon. most likely in January. he mentioned they are using some new nano technology in the making, I presume it has to do with diaphragm material and coating techniques, and the new speakers will sound much better than any of his previous creations. I guess I'll wait a bit and see what his new babies are capable of and then decide if I slim down with Opalum or stay in legacy hi-fi world. although I must admit a Dev and stats look like a nice, minimalist and high performance set up. if only stats weren't taking up so much space.....

Do I get the record for the longest quote?

You had it indeed! Until very recently!

 

[WishTree]

Hey WishTree,

I've been looking intensively for a pair of Stradas to demo, but I just can't get my hands on them. They are even harder to find than Audio Notes here. Closest I got was a dealer with the smaller globes on demo; he could get me a pair of Stradas for a competitive price, but no demo option (and no money back guarantee either). So I didn't dare to (I'm a chicken, I know). Had you done an demo before you bought them?

Oh no.. I can imagine the challenges in finding them. I did not do a demo and neither I had a money back guarantee either.

I was too disappointed with Meridien compact system and was looking for a smallish alternative. A friend in USA was about to buy them and offered to take them off me, if I did not like them. I bought through a US Dealer and got shipped to Germany. This was not an easy choice but I had some kind of safety net. Luckily the gamble worked and let us say that it was not the biggest gamble I did in this hobby

Please do write, if you ever get a chance to listen to them.

 

[DocG]

I wasn't really impressed after my first encounter with the Opalum speakers (in less than optimal conditions, I admit). My relationship with this dealer has meanwhile seriously fallen off, so I don't think there will be a second, proper demo anytime soon...

Anyway!

This morning I read something far more interesting! Audiovector, the Danish speakerbrand I've come to admire after a demo last week, is using the Opalum tech in their active speakers! Opalum DSP en amp technology combined with Audiovector's speaker design, that sounds like proper futureproof hifi to me! I sent the Audiovector dealer an e-mail, to ask for a pricelist and availability for a demo...

 

[matt49]

Audiovector, the Danish speakerbrand I've come to admire after a demo last week [...]

Sorry, I don't understand. You say you demoed the Audiovectors last week, but there's no report of the demo on the forum! Have you been doing demos and not telling us about them? :shock:

:wtf:

Matt

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

This morning I read something far more interesting! Audiovector, the Danish speakerbrand I've come to admire after a demo last week, is using the Opalum tech in their active speakers!

I knew about that but I am more interested in the on wall arragement of Opalum speakers rather than typical floorstanders of Dynavector that's why I didn't mention it. but this is worth mentioning Doc, nonetheless. if Audiovector decided to licence out the tech then it means the tech behind Opalum must mean business.

I was actually contacting the inventor himself, Mr Par Risberg. I wanted to find out more on the performance of his speakers. he told me he would get beck to me in due time. I think I'll wait till mid Jan.

in the meantime another favourable review from Norwegian magazine Watt.

 

[DocG]

Audiovector, the Danish speakerbrand I've come to admire after a demo last week [...]

Sorry, I don't understand. You say you demoed the Audiovectors last week, but there's no report of the demo on the forum! Have you been doing demos and not telling us about them? :shock:

:wtf:

Matt

My review is now sent to my editor-in-chief. It will then be translated, and will appear soon!

(yes, this was some kind of a teaser... It worked! )

 

[DocG]

I knew about that but I am more interested in the on wall arragement of Opalum speakers rather than typical floorstanders of Dynavector that's why I didn't mention it. but this is worth mentioning Doc, nonetheless. if Audiovector decided to licence out the tech then it means the tech behind Opalum must mean business.

Well, I wouldn't have been too excited about it either, until I heard one of Audiovector's passive standmounters (more on those in the Devialet thread. Coming soon). Obviously, how long my excitement lasts, will depend on the price ticket Audiovector sticks to its actives... And an actual demo too, of course.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Well, I wouldn't have been too excited about it either, until I heard one of Audiovector's passive standmounters (more on those in the Devialet thread. Coming soon). Obviously, how long my excitement lasts, will depend on the price ticket Audiovector sticks to its actives... And an actual demo too, of course.

if I got it all right reading on the Audiovector website, all their line-up will be available in both, passive and active version. also the passive version could be upgraded to an active version at a later stage if someone so wishes. so what that means you can choose whichever Audiovector speaker you like and have it fitted with Opalum digital tech. unlike many other hi-fi manufacturers who would launch an active model, or two, and have the old passive line-up next to it.

 

[DocG]

Well, I wouldn't have been too excited about it either, until I heard one of Audiovector's passive standmounters (more on those in the Devialet thread. Coming soon). Obviously, how long my excitement lasts, will depend on the price ticket Audiovector sticks to its actives... And an actual demo too, of course.

if I got it all right reading on the Audiovector website, all their line-up will be available in both, passive and active version. also the passive version could be upgraded to an active version at a later stage if someone so wishes. so what that means you can choose whichever Audiovector speaker you like and have it fitted with Opalum digital tech. unlike many other hi-fi manufacturers who would launch an active model, or two, and have the old passive line-up next to it.

Yes, sounds refreshing, no? I found just one price indication so far: the Si3 Avantgarde Arreté costs €8000/pair passive and €13000/pair active. The price difference for the two-ways should be smaller though, or so I hope...

They might turn out to be a serious contender for the still-not-available-but-hopefully-soon-to-come Avantgarde Zero1 (and the far more expensive Grimm LS1). Do I spot a trend here? :?

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Yes, sounds refreshing, no? I found just one price indication so far: the Si3 Avantgarde Arreté costs €8000/pair passive and €13000/pair active. The price difference for the two-ways should be smaller though, or so I hope...

E5000 difference between passive and active? they must be joking! this is more than the price for lagship flow.4810 . welcome to the bizzare world of hi-end hi-fi. in all fairness the active version shouldn't cost more than passive because of the hi cost of hi quality passive components in xover network (I was once toying with upgrading xover in my MG12 to what it should be. the slopes applied were to be 1st order, wich means as little componets as possible. and it turned out that the cost of the whole project easily exceded E600 (including affordable cabling). for higher order slopes the cost will excede E1000 easily). from where is Dynavector taking the premium over passive version is beyond me. one thing for sure though - not from the accounting books.

They might turn out to be a serious contender for the still-not-available-but-hopefully-soon-to-come Avantgarde Zero1 (and the far more expensive Grimm LS1). Do I spot a trend here? :?

I surely hope so. I came to believe that no separates will ever match performance of a well designed all-in-one system. simply because an all-in-one can take into account the speaker part of the equasion, which is always the biggest culprit of unpredictible (in a bad way) behaviour of your hi-fi. better still if your all-in-one is DSP powered. a good read about the matter can be found here. I wish there were more affordable DSPed all-in-ones comming into the market. that would definitely make life easier for the customer. but not necessarily for the audio dealer...

 

[DocG]

Yes, sounds refreshing, no? I found just one price indication so far: the Si3 Avantgarde Arreté costs €8000/pair passive and €13000/pair active. The price difference for the two-ways should be smaller though, or so I hope...

E5000 difference between passive and active? they must be joking! this is more than the price for lagship flow.4810 . welcome to the bizzare world of hi-end hi-fi. in all fairness the active version shouldn't cost more than passive because of the hi cost of hi quality passive components in xover network (I was once toying with upgrading xover in my MG12 to what it should be. the slopes applied were to be 1st order, wich means as little componets as possible. and it turned out that the cost of the whole project easily exceded E600 (including affordable cabling). for higher order slopes the cost will excede E1000 easily). from where is Dynavector taking the premium over passive version is beyond me. one thing for sure though - not from the accounting books.

They probably looked at Apple! The price is not set by what they cost you, but by what you think the customer is willing to pay...

 

[EvPa]

Regarding price difference between active and passive versions of the same speaker, I do have a price list for ADAM's Classic Mk3 line on hand (French prices, per pair, ex-VAT; amps are per speaker):

- Compact Mk3

1,756€ passive, 2,458€ active = 702€ difference (1*200W Class D and 1*50W Class A/B)

- Pencil Mk3

3,161€ passive, 4,214€ active = 1,053€ difference (2*200W Class D and 1*50W Class A/B)

- Column Mk3

4,565€ passive, 5,970€ active = 1,405€ difference (3*200W Class D and 1*50W Class A/B)

I also remember reading something about how one of ADAM's people remarked that they couldn't believe how high were the "acceptable" margins in home Hi-Fi compared to the professional market.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Regarding price difference between active and passive versions of the same speaker, I do have a price list for ADAM's Classic Mk3 line on hand (French prices, per pair, ex-VAT; amps are per speaker):

- Compact Mk3

1,756€ passive, 2,458€ active = 702€ difference (1*200W Class D and 1*50W Class A/B)

- Pencil Mk3

3,161€ passive, 4,214€ active = 1,053€ difference (2*200W Class D and 1*50W Class A/B)

- Column Mk3

4,565€ passive, 5,970€ active = 1,405€ difference (3*200W Class D and 1*50W Class A/B)

I also remember reading something about how one of ADAM's people remarked that they couldn't believe how high were the "acceptable" margins in home Hi-Fi compared to the professional market.

yeah, it's hard work searching for the best VFM in the hi-fi world. there's just too many clueless customers with too fat wallets around. and that fact is being well exploited.

 

[DocG]

I just got some more info from the Dutch distributor. The Audiovector Si1 Avantgarde costs 3500 EUR for the passive version (the one I heard last week), and 5500 EUR for the actives (prices per pair). That makes 2000 EUR for a hub with the connections and the inbuilt DSP and amplification.

Looks good enough to plan an audition as soon as the demo models arrive in the shops!

 

[matt49]

I just got some more info from the Dutch distributor. The Audiovector Si1 Avantgarde costs 3500 EUR for the passive version (the one I heard last week), and 5500 EUR for the actives (prices per pair). That makes 2000 EUR for a hub with the connections and the inbuilt DSP and amplification.

Looks good enough to plan an audition as soon as the demo models arrive in the shops!

I think that's a reasonable premium for the actives, especially given that Audiovector are buying in new licensed technology and they probably won't shift that many.

If you could demo the actives against the passives + Devialet, that would be most interesting. Sadly the Avantgardes don't seem to be available in the UK. I'll be demoing the Si3 Signatures in January.

:santa:

Matt

 

[DocG]

If you could demo the actives against the passives + Devialet, that would be most interesting.

:shock: You just read my mind! :cheers: