Troels Gravesen Designed Speakers

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As some of you may recall I made a pair of Troels Gravesen speakers model Illumina 66 floorstanders to be precise.

Well I have just come across Gamut Audio speakers and one pair in the range costs something like £ 11,000.

You may well ask what that has to do with my speakers and the answer is this the £11,000 Gamut speakers use as far as I can tell almost the same tweeter (ring radiator) as I have in mine and the bass unit is a modified Scan Speak Revelator which costs less than my bass units. My bass units are actually Scan Speak Illuminators the next model up. No doubt you may think my crossover components are not as good but they are Jantzen Audio and there are a number of superior Z caps where it matters and high quality coils. Also Troels Gravesen has a very high reputation in the audio trade.

I paid approx. £1,700 for everything to make my speakers and never dreamed that they were comparable to very expensive speakers like Gamut. I expect they would deny that they are as good but I am quite sure that they probably are.

 

[Superaintit]

Beautiful speakers they are too! What color/wood did you choose?

 

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Beautiful speakers they are too! What color/wood did you choose?

I made mine with oak veneer, stained black and the a couple of coats of hardwax with a sheen.

BTW I was not meaning to bragg in my first post I was trying to point out that you can get a lot for your money with a well designed DIY project.

I'm getting the Nord NC500 monoblocks for power amplifiers but starting to wonder if my Audiolab CDQ8200 is good enough in the company of my speakers and Hypex power amplifiers.

 

[iQ Speakers]

Im not suprised in the slightest given the exceptional quality of the drivers you have in there! Mine best 2.5 3K speakers and the kits only cost £500. I did take a sneaky look at the Gamuts these pair a particually beautiful. You are going to have one hell of a system!

 

[Superaintit]

Beautiful speakers they are too! What color/wood did you choose?

I made mine with oak veneer, stained black and the a couple of coats of hardwax with a sheen.

BTW I was not meaning to bragg in my first post I was trying to point out that you can get a lot for your money with a well designed DIY project.

I'm getting the Nord NC500 monoblocks for power amplifiers but starting to wonder if my Audiolab CDQ8200 is good enough in the company of my speakers and Hypex power amplifiers.

There's no need to worry. I interpreted your post as a great example of the fine results one can have with a bit of diy.

Regarding your question: it's a bit of an educated guess as I only heard the CDQ8200 on 1 occasion in a different system. Having said that I thought it to be neutral. Also in my experience a dac cannot be much improved upon once it passes the cdq price range. I would therefor recommend to listen and enjoy at least for a few months.

With the cdq, the nord and your high specced speakers I would expect the result to be very neutral and powerful. I'm keen to hear what you hear as I would love to build a Ncore amp and see what it can do.

 

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Im not suprised in the slightest given the exceptional quality of the drivers you have in there! Mine best 2.5 3K speakers and the kits only cost £500. I did take a sneaky look at the Gamuts these pair a particually beautiful. You are going to have one hell of a system!

I dont know how much those Gamuts are but look at Troels Gravesens Ekta Grande almost the same except Troels has an extra midrange driver

 

[Coll]

Beautiful speakers they are too! What color/wood did you choose?

I made mine with oak veneer, stained black and the a couple of coats of hardwax with a sheen.

BTW I was not meaning to bragg in my first post I was trying to point out that you can get a lot for your money with a well designed DIY project.

I'm getting the Nord NC500 monoblocks for power amplifiers but starting to wonder if my Audiolab CDQ8200 is good enough in the company of my speakers and Hypex power amplifiers.

There's no need to worry. I interpreted your post as a great example of the fine results one can have with a bit of diy.

Regarding your question: it's a bit of an educated guess as I only heard the CDQ8200 on 1 occasion in a different system. Having said that I thought it to be neutral. Also in my experience a dac cannot be much improved upon once it passes the cdq price range. I would therefor recommend to listen and enjoy at least for a few months.

With the cdq, the nord and your high specced speakers I would expect the result to be very neutral and powerful. I'm keen to hear what you hear as I would love to build a Ncore amp and see what it can do.

I was thinking of building the NC400 ncores but just look at the price of the Nord ( IQ Speakers) HypexNC500 power amplifiers more powerful and cheaper too. Also the option to change the sound with different op amps.

 

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Funny thing is you get used to the sound of your system and take it for granted, but a couple of weeks ago my oldest grandson came round and said can I hear your hi fi system so I put some music on and immediately he said wow I thought my hi fi system was good but it doesnt sound like that. He is 20 by the way and does indeed have a £ 1000 system.

 

[hg_mike]

Im not suprised in the slightest given the exceptional quality of the drivers you have in there! Mine best 2.5 3K speakers and the kits only cost £500. I did take a sneaky look at the Gamuts these pair a particually beautiful. You are going to have one hell of a system!

They certainly do look a nice pair of speakers.

 

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Those gamuts certainly have a nice casing and if you look at the Troels gravesen site you will see a similar shape on some of his designs. The only thing is that Troels generally goes in for baltic birch, but there is no reason why you could not veneer your finished cabinets in any wood like the Gamut.

I'm sure also that although because of the curves and baffle shapes it would not be cheap you could get someone like IQ Speakers to make the cabinets for you and even assemble the complete kit.

 

[james_LR90]

Everyone should have a go at building their own speakers. Almost anyone could build something capable of wiping the floor with the 5 star speakers the shops sell and that get raved about on here.

 

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Everyone should have a go at building their own speakers. Almost anyone could build something capable of wiping the floor with the 5 star speakers the shops sell and that get raved about on here.

100% agree

 

[JMac]

I really love my Troels monitors. They're great speakers when you have great source material. I only wish I had more room so I could have one of the multi driver designs.

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Jenzen-Illuminator.htm

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/DISC-4.htm

 

[hg_mike]

Everyone should have a go at building their own speakers. Almost anyone could build something capable of wiping the floor with the 5 star speakers the shops sell and that get raved about on here.

100% agree

A few months back, I did start wondering about the "poor mans strad" http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/PMS.htm

but the http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Jenzen-Illuminator.htm mentioned by JMac is easy on the eye as well.

Maybe a project for 2016 - who knows. I don't have to make my New Years resolutions yet. *smile*

 

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I really love my Troels monitors. They're great speakers when you have great source material. I only wish I had more room so I could have one of the multi driver designs.

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Jenzen-Illuminator.htm

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/DISC-4.htm

I love to make those to but I had a hard enough job getting the wife to let me have the Illumina 66 floorstanders in the lounge. Also I had to have grilles but would have preferred not to.