What do you think of Sunfire's cinema ribbon speakers?

[AVRevForum.com]

http://www.avrev.com/equip/sunfire_xt_cinema_ribbon/

[deacongreg]

As probably some of you on this forum already know, I have a soft spot for Bob Carver. It goes back to my deejay days when he was the master mind of Phase Linear. Well, it seems from Dr. Ken`s review, he has done it again. Truly, Bob in my humble opinion, has not gotten he has just due as a great maker of equipment, and keeping the pricing quite reasonably. The AV industry should be cheering him. And not be jealous of his ground breaking technologies.

In fact, after what I saw by Bel Canto at Mays HE2007, he should re-introduce his "Magnetic Field Cube Amplifier." Consumers do want high quality components, but size and space are a consideration. Not everyone can house a Mark - Lev or McIntosh amplifier. And Bel Canto showed how nicely there amplifiers could be used in any environment, regardless of size and space.

Hats off to the innovator, Bob Carver!!!

[kennyt]

The CR's are impressive.....

[kennyt]

I got to spend some time with Bob at the EHX expo in Orlando recently, what a super nice guy! He will gladly sit and geek out over audio for unlimited time, he gave me the complete history of the CR's dating back to Koss's original audio papers and his own research since. Then kindly regailed me with the reason they were made (his wife really did tell him to get rid of his floor standing speakers!!) and just what it took to create them. He was a joy to meet, and as enthusiastic as they come. He is not a young man, even though all the pictures you see of him are usually with the great 70's hair he had, yet you wouldn't guess his age by his energy. He is truly passionate about audio!

[EDA]

I just recently purchased 5 cinema ribbon 2's for my home theater. This is the first time I've had matching speakers for all 5 channels. This alone was nice to finally have every speaker both timber matched and voice matched. Along with the cinema ribbons I have a super junior subwoofer, also from Sunfire. After initially hooking them up I was pleased with the openness and detail in the upper range but they fell a little shy on the mid to low range. At the time I didn't use a wonderful little device called the Richter Scale from Audio Control. This is a five band equalizer used to calibrate subwoofers. Once the Richter Scale was in place these speakers just sounded amazing. The combination of ribbon drivers with the side firing drivers creates a wide open and believable sound stage. As an example, I put in the Love soundtrack from Cirque de Sole's performance to all of the Beatles favorite tunes. This CD was digitally remastered from the original master recordings. I don't know how else to put this but I could hear all of the artistry in their recordings. Every note was detailed, vocals just plain blew me away and the sound stage placed the band rite in my living room. For anyone who's looking for speakers in this price range or above, I would highly recommend them. Bring some of your favorite music to your local Sunfire dealer and be prepared to be amazed.

[kennyt]

EDA,

I am not sure what problem you had, was it getting the bass right? I actually followed the included recomendations (crossover in the sub to bypass, pre/pro crossover point I can't remember but think ~100 and had very little work to trim them in from there. They are pretty sweet for such a tiny speaker and can be placed almost anywhere making them easy to live with.

Yes, the more speakers that match the better, topped with this setup with them all the same.