As I spend more time with these improved Lii Audio Reference Silver 10 speakers on the long wall of my listening room I am experiencing some interesting things...

Probably the most notable is that they keep sounding better as the weeks tick by.  No surprise there, but actually that is something I never get used to.  It always seems amazing to me each time and probably always will.

Secondly, I am finding myself developing a trust that I haven't had before with a speaker with the possible exception of my corner horns.  The trust is coming from I guess the simple fact that they keep making everything else sound less by comparison.  The other night I even did a comparison with the corner horns, a 30+ year reference for me, and they sounded inferior.  Didn't see that one coming.

The tonality of the midrange is just so juicy, and let's be honest, juicy is not the first thing that comes to mind when describing hyper sensitive full-range crossoverless drivers.  The bass is the best I've ever heard from a moving coil speaker with the exception of the Imperial Horns.  But that's not actually true, because the Imperials use a 15 inch driver that in most cases is not as fast as the 10 inch Lii Audio Silver Reference.  

The efficiency of these is making it meaningless to go from the TORII JRv2, to an SE84UFO, to an SE34I.5 to a ZMA, etc., because you hear no difference.  The dynamics are the same as is the weight as is the volume.  Sure you could crank the larger amps up louder but you'll be well into the knee point of the listening room so the sound will only get worse.

When I listen to master tapes it is always on headphones, usually closed back at first and then a more relaxed pair of LCD2's.  To get a similar reference from speakers in a listening room is exponentially more unlikely to happen for about a million reasons, but surface it to say you get your best of the best set up the best you can and go for it.  I have been finding that these Lii Audio speakers are closer to the headphone reference than any other single driver speaker so far and the big reason is the extended response in both the treble and the bass and the fact that it is a single driver with no crossover like a headphone.  These speakers are like headphones for your room.

The treble is wonderful.  It's in ribbon tweeter category. Almost the best part maybe. The bass is lower than shit and can easily turn your room into a disco tech with only two watts if that's what's on the recording, or reproduce a cathedral pipe organ's giant pipes with absolutely convincing reality. Which means there is no music it can't faithfully and completely reproduce on both ends.

And perhaps that's the magic behind the midrange -- framing it at both ends like that just makes it into ear candy on a Decware amplifier.  It's so good I had to get out the FRX2 drivers the other night in the ZOB open baffle cabinets, which certainly isn't a fair fight since the Zen Open Baffle rolls off an octave higher.  But it was the midrange I had to hear so I set up an AB test between them and the FRX were faster sounding and the ZOB/FRX combo imaged better, it was very satisfying but without the bottom octave just wasn't a fair fight.  Over time the ZOB started to sound thin compared to the lii.  The midrange of the Lii sounded more organic.

It actually makes me want to hear the FRX2 in the Lii Audio Reference cabinet.  Maybe some day.

These speakers are wrecking me.  I am hearing sound that is better in the room than ever before with any speaker combination except perhaps the Imperial SO's paired with the ZOB/FRX2. And that is with non-anniversary gear.  I haven't even heard these with the SE84UFO25 yet.  Saving that one for one of those nights when I need a really good buzz.

Steve

Quote:


If you do, might as well try the silvers in ZOB. I would be interested on your take of that combo.

John

How about an upscale DNA with the silvers Donnie?

Silver 10's have a lower FS and smoother high end response than the 8's. The size and frame differences of the two dictate the responses. Why Lii used different frame designs on the brothers is baffling.
John

How do you like the Silver 8's in the folded horns?  How do they compare to other speakers you have owned?

I bought a pair two weeks ago.  I am having a local speaker builder make me a pair of Liionidas Open Baffle speakers using plans Lii provides.  The baffles are built and the speakers are installed.  My builder tells me they sound nice but the Silver-10s have a 9db dropout between 5khz and 7khz.

Anyone else measure this?  He said it's both drivers and he feels it's because of the whizzer cone.  I'm wondering now how they'll sound.  I have almost $3k sunk into this build.

Thanks.

I'm not sure but will ask.  It was in an anechoic chamber he built.  He uses that to spec out the crossovers.

He told me he didn't think I would hear it but that sounds like a big dip to me.  The 12" Lii woofers measured pretty flat until the point they'd natural be crossed over.

Do you mean Steve's in the barrel baffle?  As I recall he said they needed a ZROCK2 to work properly.  The specs of the 10" Silver Reference drivers don't lend themselves to open baffle use.  I asked about using them early on in Steve's Big Betsy design thread.

p.s. thanks again for the Zrock suggestion but the design is not bass shy.  The 10" is down 8db from 5-7khz.  If anything it needs a boost.  I need to rethink the whole build.  

I haven't heard them yet.  He said they don't sound great.  Obviously I can't say for sure until I hear them but he's been building speakers (for a living) for more than 20 years.  His exact quotes don't sound promising

Bass is great though missing the deepest octave as open baffles will do.
Mids (vocals, guitar) are good but missing some detail.  This is due to a 10" driver trying to move as fast as a smaller mid-range dome.  This is called transient response or driver reflex quickness.

Like I said, it doesn't sound like anything that I will be able to use in my main system as is, especially because I've got really good commercial speakers in house now.

Highs are a bit lacking due to the dip in response at 5-7KHz which is a critical area for crisp highs.  "Whizzer" cones do their best a reproducing highs, but nothing beats a fast silk dome or ribbon for pure speed.

Did your builder,use the crossover that comes with that setup from Lii audio? I have that speaker set from Lii and its way better than good.

ih,

Why don’t you post the results of your speaker builders measurements on the Lii Audio Facebook page. Leon and some of the other guys on there should have responses for you. They are sticklers for measurements, and Leon’s tests resulted in his crossover set up. They will have an answer for you.

Geno

I received a pair of Silver10’s in the Reference cabinets and I would agree with Steve, having owned a pair of Magnepan 3.7’s the high end is on par with the Maggie’s. At first I thought the speakers sounded pretty flat, so I bought a pair of super tweeters to see if they would extend the highs. One night I was playing with the output on the tweeters and didn’t realize I turn the darn things off. After more listening I’m thinking I absolutely love the midrange of these speakers, and yes- that’s after owning Magnepan’s, and I’m really liking what the super tweeters are doing for the top end, I could be very happy with this setup. Then- I went to adjust the tweeters again just to see if I could fine tune it some more and realized the things were turned off. After laughing my ass off I realized I’m going to make my pocket book very happy by getting a refund on these tweeters. This is my first single driver speaker, and all I can say is I’m glad I found them. Currently I’m running them with a 25th ZMA and no ZRock, and I’m loving it.

Here's the measurement on the Silver 10. The Silver-10 was removed from the crossover and directly measured by itself in the baffle. Both drivers were virtually identical.  Not good.  Someone mentioned posting this on Leon's Facebook page.  If I can find it I will.  I'm wondering if this is just a bad batch of drivers.  I'm not here to argue but I can't see how this can possibly sound good in anyone's build with this frequency response.  I'd love some insights from people on this forum that I know are way more knowledgeable about this stuff than I am.

I have a similar setup to Geno's and these speakers have been my go to for the last two years.  Prior to that I changed speakers or speaker configurations about every two months.  I did add a upfiring tweeter to the mix in the last 6 months but other than that, its remained unchanged.

Sorry if I missed it but are your drivers broken in?  Took a long time with mine.

Edit: I have also measured these drivers (in baffle) multiple times and don't recall a dip in that region.

Yes, for a full-range driver.

I would very seriously doubt the measurements are off.  The guy is an electrical engineer.  He builds speakers for a living. He's been doing it for many years. When I went to see him two weeks ago to drop off the drivers he was working on a pair of Tannoy Westminsters for a friend of mine.   He has a 3000sq ft shop with his own anechoic chamber.

He said the driver sounds like it measures.  Here's his e-mail verbatim:

Attached are photos of my LMS System measurements of the Silver-10 driver in a semi-anechoic chamber.

The Silver-10 was removed from my crossover and directly measured by itself in the baffle.

- The LMS System had both Internal and External Calibrations performed just before testing.
- Tests were made with a calibrated microphone at 1-meter / 2.83V input.
- Both normal and gated responses were taken and found to be identical above 1KHz.
  (purple curve is normal output, cyan curve is gated output)
- These are "raw" measurements with no smoothing or any other filtering applied.

Sensitivity agrees with documented value at around 98db.
But you can clearly see the dropout between 5.7KHz and 6.7KHz.
And the response climbs (and squeeks) above 8KHz before giving up.
So the response is +/- 8db from 1KHz to 13KHz.

Also, it is physically impossible for a 10" full-range driver to play much higher than 12KHz.
That's just audio physics and you can clearly see the response dives down to the noise floor above that range.
The top end of this driver is 13KHz.  But thankfully, we can't hear freqs. much above that.

There's also a large dropout at about 950Hz, but I had the 15" woofer and my EDC crossover take care of this.

I have measured many "whizzer cone" full-range drivers and this response is typical and expected.
I welcome an independent audio lab to confirm my measurements.

My guy said the same thing re the Crystals.  He said to me yesterday:

1) "You do realize the Liionidas build was using the Crystals?"  I did not.

2) "There is a freq response curve for the Crystals on the Lii website.  It is much flatter than the Silver measured."  I didn't know that either.

I just figured since Steve (and others) liked the Silver I should use the best Lii driver in the build.  I'm going to see if Lii will switch them for me.  I signed up for the Facebook group but I have to wait to be approved.

The Silvers are the new and improved "flagship" too.  Lii's curves don't look anything like what your guy got but I certainly never measured my F15s.  I'm pretty sure I don't hear above 13 to 14 kHz so no problem for me there but I'm pretty sure I'd hear so many and such big dropouts if my F15s were far off of Lii's curves.  All I'm trying to say is that I have a certain amount of trust in Lii's measurements so maybe your Silver drivers are defective?

It did take at least 50 hrs for mine to get to the point that they really started to sound good. Before that they sounded pretty flat, and I was thinking I made a big mistake.  I've found they do need to be set up correctly to get them to sound their best, especially for the top end to shine. Although they aren't the most fussy speaker I've ever had, they are at their best when a little time is taken to get them in the right position. This is the first pair of single driver speakers that I've ever owned and I am very impressed with them. These are by far the best speakers that I've owned. They are the most coherent from top to bottom, throw an enormous soundstage, and are the most transparent of anything I've heard. They produce a lot of detail that I've never heard before. They have absolutely no issues filling my 18 X 36 room with beautiful music. Just wish I could put them on the long wall, but they still impress being where they are.

I measured both the Crystal 10 and the Silver 10 this evening.  Here are the results:

CRYSTAL 10



SILVER 10




It's been my experience that when you have sharp dips AKA missing response, it's not because the driver has decided that on those notes that it's just not going to play anything... rather it is a measurement anomaly usually with microphone / speaker placement.  We know that sound is coming out of the driver at these frequencies and at the same basic loudness.  To test this you can simply dial your frequency generator into the frequency of the dip and according to those measurements you should hear almost nothing.

Even if those giant dips were there, you wouldn't hear them anyway because the reality is that the gaps are smoothed out during music playback. Even if the dips were a symptom of phasing... the only way to get a clean dip would then be to play a clean sign wave at that frequency.  With music being many frequencies any subsequent phasing issues are going to be drastically different than when playing a single sine wave.  

More people ruin the hobby for themselves by getting sucked into the rabbit hole of specifications and measurements without the experience to bridge the gaps and discrepancies between what we hear and what we measure.  Without that, the measurements are counter productive.  Also, doing measurements correctly is less likely to occur than doing them incorrectly, so you have misinformation multiple levels deep.

Getting wound up over the frequency response of your loudspeaker is almost ridiculous without first measuring the listening room and taking necessary steps to correct the response of that.  Picture the worse frequency response you've ever seen posted for a speaker... an untreated room, especially a smaller one, is guaranteed to be twice as bad...  a good analogy would be perfectly flat speaker response is like a shiny new boat that because of it's specs will surely go effortlessly fast over the water.  An average room in your home used for speakers is like at least 2 large holes in the bottom of the boat.  The shiny new boat didn't perform any better than the dirty old boat because they both have large holes in the bottom.

Steve

Geno, I know this is an older thread, but wondering if you ever resolved this issue.  Do you still have the Silver 10s in an OB?  Have you measured them in your listening room.   If so, how do they measure and sound?   Any modifications or adjustments to improve them?  Thanks.

John-

In your speaker building adventures, from whom have you purchased your full-range drivers?  

I have been considering building my own speakers from the kits offered by CSS audio - but they are not single driver speakers.

While CSS audio certainly makes the process much more user friendly, I wonder if a driver from Lii audio and a cabinet flat pack/cabinet design from elsewhere might make more sense for a Decware amp.

* I too have a  largely untreated room......... unless you count couch, chairs, and rugs over hardwood.......and room treatments will not ever be wife approved*

Andrew