UREI Speaker discussions

[hjames]

Yes sorry I explained myself badly... The 2 sub are bigger than a 809! look at the photos! t in fact I have 112 liters in the box....

Nice nice! More pix, please!

[rusty jefferson]

C'mon, you can get those 813C and subs (looks like maybe 2245?) in there. You just have to move all that other 'stuff' out of the way. ;-D

[thierry]

Nice nice! More pix, please!

Thanks for the nice! it's just work, even if it's not perfect, the idea was to be able to do mastering with UREI 809s in my "small" room under the roof with low frequencies as is currently the fashion whith young musicians (I am 62) and it works well.BUT…. BUT…. I'm going to buy a TAC SR 9000 analog desk soon, well I mean getting it almost for nothing.... (around $300) A big analog table to repair ….And I'm going to move now that I have the finances in a bigger place ...And I think back to the 813b on a subwoofer equal in size but with a sub of 21.... da da da! (look at my previous photo)... the hardest part is getting the 813b home to build all this, I will do it soon.... if I have time... I have been working with UREI speakers for 37 years now...

[thierry]

C'mon, you can get those 813C and subs (looks like maybe 2245?) in there. You just have to move all that other 'stuff' out of the way. ;-D

yessss..... sure.... :-)))) i have a wood floor here... I need then to mix INSIDE the speakers ! :-)

[thierry]

yessss..... sure.... :-)))) i have a wood floor here... I need then to mix INSIDE the speakers ! :-)

A little last new.... I've found a pair of 815 in Germany as it's not so far from me i'll take a look at then in january, luck for me my german is better than my english. The prise is...... at it should be for thoose kind of speakers, but i will see in place, you have somme cheap ones in Italy (Roma) also but the look is very used, speakers seems good... Roma is far from me and driving in Italy.... héhéhé....

[DerekTheGreat]

Great posts, Thierry!!

All this UREI porn just does wonders for my soul! Great to see others lovin' on UREI too.

Really cool to see pics of you back in the day side by side pics of you from today with UREI gear. Good to know about the 6500 amp as well. I just had two dedicated 20A outlets added to my living room to support the amplifiers and other gear I intend to run my UREI's with.

Lastly, you NEED those 815's in your life.

[thierry]

Great posts, Thierry!!All this UREI porn just does wonders for my soul! Great to see others lovin' on UREI too. Really cool to see pics of you back in the day side by side pics of you from today with UREI gear. Good to know about the 6500 amp as well. I just had two dedicated 20A outlets added to my living room to support the amplifiers and other gear I intend to run my UREI's with.Lastly, you NEED those 815's in your life.

Yep I have to go to hannover for the 815, nice trip from south France... For the TAC sr 9000, i whent to check it yesderday.... mein got ! bolchemoy, gross catastroph, big damages ! the desk seem to be stay outside for few years... i found some sand inside ! and lot's of smal dead animals.... all the penny and gilles faders are glue in place, knobs too... i offer a cheap price for it.... i will see, yes porn UREI that's a good word ! Let's go back in the past late 77's the first ones i bought then new !

[DerekTheGreat]

More cool pics! Pretty rad that you bought the monitors brand new. What made you choose UREI monitors over all of the other offerings?

Sand? Dead animals? Sheesh. Aren't consoles like that super expensive? Especially when new? Sad to see people abuse gear like that. Reminds me of Le Studio, their gear ended up with a similar fate. They had 815A's or B's, if I remember right. Some urban explorer filmed what was left of the studio a few years ago, there they were right on the floor amidst other rubble.

[DerekTheGreat]

I was reading Rob's posts and the legendary Mr. Timbers' comments about the 4367 here: https://www.audioheritage.org/vbulle...769#post446769 Timbers mentions that the horn of the 4367 is in the wrong orientation and as a result, it cannot touch any Array in terms of imaging. With that in mind (and other stuff I've come across which suggests it's best to have your horns arranged vertically), why does the literature for UREI systems recommend orienting the horns horizontally? Would there be any gains if I rotated my horns such that they're vertical?

[hjames]

I was reading Rob's posts and the legendary Mr. Timbers' comments about the 4367 here: https://www.audioheritage.org/vbulle...769#post446769 Timbers mentions that the horn of the 4367 is in the wrong orientation and as a result, it cannot touch any Array in terms of imaging. With that in mind (and other stuff I've come across which suggests it's best to have your horns arranged vertically), why does the literature for UREI systems recommend orienting the horns horizontally? Would there be any gains if I rotated my horns such that they're vertical?

Seems easy enough to unbolt one of your woofers and rotate it 90 degrees to see how it plays for you ...
Other than the heavy lift required to put those monsters on their back.

[rusty jefferson]

Others here are more knowledgeable about the 1400 Array but I believe the horizontal dispersion is 60 degrees even though the horn is mounted non-traditionally. If you turn your horns vertically you'll only have 30 degree horizontal dispersion, not good. They were designed to be horizontally mounted and the Array series was designed to be vertically mounted. The Array do create a better soundstage, but I've not heard speakers that image better than the UREIs because of the time alignment of the coaxial drivers.

[Mr. Widget]

...but I've not heard speakers that image better than the UREIs because of the time alignment of the coaxial drivers.

I agree that the UREI monitors image well, but I believe the time alignment aspect was '80s sales hype. That was the time when B&W had their 801s and KEF had the 105s both with staggered drivers for better time alignment, and Dahlquist had their DQ10s with their take on a similar design. It was engineers and marketing types chasing a holy grail.

If you take a non-time aligned speaker and digitally time align it to a higher perfection than any of those physically offset designs, it will not magically start to image better. It will certainly sound different as you can better integrate the crossover points, but imaging will not be significantly changed.

The better your directivity and pattern control the better your imaging will be. That and how you deploy them in the room are the greatest influence on imaging.


Widget

[rusty jefferson]

...If you take a non-time aligned speaker and digitally time align it to a higher perfection than any of those physically offset designs, it will not magically start to image better. It will certainly sound different as you can better integrate the crossover points, but imaging will not be significantly changed.

The better your directivity and pattern control the better your imaging will be. That and how you deploy them in the room are the greatest influence on imaging.

Widget

Kind of apples and oranges but I don't disagree with that statement in reference to home listening/speakers. The point source nature of the UREI coax with time alignment, even as rudimentary as it was by today's standards, and listened to on axis in a non-reverberant studio setting has pinpoint images. Non-existent soundstage, but great imaging, imho. You're not going to get that from 43xx 4 ways through digital processing or anything else, so there's gotta be something to it. :-)

[Mr. Widget]

You're not going to get that from 43xx 4 ways through digital processing or anything else, so there's gotta be something to it. :-)

Actually you are making my point exactly... one that I must not have made clearly.

Take any 43xx 3-way, 4-way... they can be multi-amped and precisely time aligned and it will not significantly change their imaging. This is because like most speakers of the last 50 years, the polar response across their entire spectrum is a raging nightmare. Mirror imaging doesn't fix this, time alignment doesn't fix this, realistically there is nothing to be done with these designs if imaging is the goal.

To get a very consistent and controlled polar response from ~500Hz up is very difficult without waveguides and a fair amount of design and care. As it turns out coaxial designs like the modern KEF LS50, the Genelec Monitors, and the vintage UREIs have inherently better directivity control (wide frequency response range polar response) than traditional speakers... AR3a, L100s, and >90% of everything else out there. Many of the better designed 2-way mini-monitors image well because the small woofer and dome tweeter on a compact and narrow baffle can exhibit very good directivity, but even following this model is no guaranty.


Widget

[DerekTheGreat]

Others here are more knowledgeable about the 1400 Array but I believe the horizontal dispersion is 60 degrees even though the horn is mounted non-traditionally. If you turn your horns vertically you'll only have 30 degree horizontal dispersion, not good. They were designed to be horizontally mounted and the Array series was designed to be vertically mounted. The Array do create a better soundstage, but I've not heard speakers that image better than the UREIs because of the time alignment of the coaxial drivers.

Ah, thank you for the explanation. They definitely sound sweeter when I'm in that dispersion area. Guessing I'd kill that area even more if I went vertical.

I agree that the UREI monitors image well, but I believe the time alignment aspect was '80s sales hype. That was the time when B&W had their 801s and KEF had the 105s both with staggered drivers for better time alignment, and Dahlquist had their DQ10s with their take on a similar design. It was engineers and marketing types chasing a holy grail...

Widget

I don't disagree, but what there is something about these UREI systems... I read the paper about Time Align and thought it might be BS. Afterall, the All-Knowing PWK didn't Time Align any of his fabled systems and people love them (By the way, are the newer versions Time Aligned???). But then I got my UREI's home and dialed in to my liking. I became a believer. Maybe it's the coax design that I'm in love with then, not sure. What I do know is that the two, three and four-way systems I had no longer sound great as they once did, it's as if they sound blurry to me, if that makes sense. I'm an idiot, and so the best way I can make sense of it is to attribute that to the different drivers spewing different portions of the audio spectrum separate from each other while the UREI's are spewing the all-important midrange and treble right from the same source. Part of me wishes to hear these better systems that exist, but the "ignorance is bliss" part is afraid of what monster that might create within.

...To get a very consistent and controlled polar response from ~500Hz up is very difficult without waveguides and a fair amount of design and care. As it turns out coaxial designs like the modern KEF LS50, the Genelec Monitors, and the vintage UREIs have inherently better directivity control (wide frequency response range polar response) than traditional speakers... AR3a, L100s, and >90% of everything else out there. Many of the better designed 2-way mini-monitors image well because the small woofer and dome tweeter on a compact and narrow baffle can exhibit very good directivity, but even following this model is no guaranty.


Widget

What is it about KEF speakers that I seem to be missing? I looked up the LS50's just now and my impression of them is the same as any of those other little bubble-square speakers they make- not enough SPL for me. Those ones specifically have a 760 watt amplifier hanging off the back of 'em (could be the total between both speakers) and yet their maximum SPL as stated by KEF is only 108... They might sound pretty at 60-80dB, but that's ultimately not going to cut it for this SPL junky.