- Joined
- Jul 2, 2003
- Messages
- 566
- Reaction score
- 0
Seventh Veil Speakers
A few days ago my attention was drawn to an advert on eBay for a packet of Kleenex. This turned out to be a ¡§come on¡¨ for a speaker manufacturer called Seventh Veil. Reading the spec on the speakers my curiosity was raised. Being stuck at home sheltering from the heat and bored I rang the number on the website to ask some questions. This in turn led to an offer for a home dem. Unfortunately this turned out to be difficult to arrange so Steve Margolis very generously came to collect me and took me and my Naim CDS2 back to his house. This gave him a chance to listen to some decent flat earth hi-fi at my place.
My initial impression on seeing the speakers was that they looked better in the flesh than on the website . They are tall and slim with four tiny (50mm) aluminium tweeters arranged vertically, the two subs being oval footstools sitting in the corners. The listening room is more an office than a dedicated listening room so setup was more compromised than it might have been but in some ways this was a good thing as it showed of the flexibility of the speakers. We sat on a sofa (comfortable with back support, hurrah) about seven feet in front of the speakers and the subs sort of in the corners to the sides and behind the speakers. The initial setup up was two Nonsuch 4 full-range loudspeakers with two Little Awesome subs. The kit we used for the dem was foreign to me, not just in make but style and was a goodly mixture of designs and makes.
Back to the speakers. As I said they are tall and slim. They are also egg shaped, something to do with the elimination of standing waves and to do with making the box as neutral as possible. Inside a great deal of care has been taken to minimise the need to use dampening materials by craftily designing ribs to deflect the sound down the speaker but not up. The boxes themselves are sealed (similar to the SBLs) as Steve feels you get a better control that way. They also have no crossover so there is little restriction to the tweeters. This means that the (non ported) subs have to be actively filtered with a cut off at 100hz. Those of you who are in to acoustic design can look for further info at the website. The standard of finish is high with a good veneer and tight joins. They are obviously hand built with care and attention. I can¡¦t say I was keen on the American Walnut finish but apparently they also come in Piano Black. Steve is also thinking of doing some cosmetic rounding off of the speaker plates.
So what were my initial impressions of the sound. Well we started with the two Little Awesome subs and the two Nonsuch 4. First up I noticed the detail and speed of these tweeters. I thought the SBLs fast but these little beauties leave them for dust. The Bandors are made of aluminium and although small have whopping great big magnets on the back so that they fly. The detail and cleanliness from them is astounding. Take for example the last four minutes of Starless of the King Crimson ¡§Red¡¨. Bill Bruford can appear to be all over the shop rhythmically but here you realise that he¡¦s just very fast, so fast that a lot of his cymbal strokes are barely audible. Lesser speakers can not deliver these subtleties of playing. My reference, the SBLs are happy with it but with the Nonsuch you wonder what the fuss is about. The one strange thing I noticed was that Bill Bruford appeared behind the mix rather than over it on my home kit..
Because the Bandors are fast they deliver detail in buckets, this in turn allows space to develop around notes and I¡¦m not talking soundstage here. The notes interfere less with each other bringing clarity of sound. There is soundstage, not a reality I¡¦m happy with but it was there. Shutting my eyes I found the music came out into the room. This is different to the SBLs which send the stage away from me into the garden. I wasn¡¦t as overwhelmed by soundstaging as I¡¥d been led to believe. At this point I accused Steve of being a flatearther. It wasn¡¦t a term he had come across and claimed he was just interested in making music as close to reality as possible. (Sounds flat to me
)
The mid was a little muddied and prominent but at the same tight and fast. It integrated well with what was above it but I noticed a slight blurring as the sound went down. The bass was entering Balrog territory (26Hz?) yet remained SBL tight. And no it wasn¡¦t light by any means just lean and fast without out being to dominant in the mixture. Just how I like it! Æ'º. Steve confessed that he liked mid a lot and I think that shows with the presentation of the bass.
After a while we started moving things around. Moving the Nonsuch a little closer to the wall reinforced the bass and tightened it yet further but did nothing to clean the blur in the lower mid. We then shut down one sub and eased it the other back a fraction. Wahay. The blurring went. It seems the crossover used at the moment is not quite as accurate as it might be but new models are being worked on to create a fourth order (?) cut-off at 100hz.. To demonstrate the problem we just played the subs and you could quite easily hear the bottom of female vocals floating over the top. It was obvious the subs were going to high.
As a change I asked to listen to the Nonsuch with out the subs. Ok the bass went but by moving right to the wall you¡¦d get enough reinforcement. I was able to get clear picture of what they were doing on their own without underpinning. On their own the are a very open speaker which one could quite happily play in a small room. Again not that bass light but their strengths lie higher up.
Finally we removed the two subs and replace them with a single Double Little Awesome. Once we¡¦d eased off the bass a lot to integrate the sounds we sat back.and forgot the hi-fi.. There comes a stage when everything comes together and you get hooked into what the musicians are doing. Even if you are meant to be in hi-fi analysis mode you forget and the music takes over. That point was reached with the two Nonsuch and a single Double Little Awesome. It did everything I could possible want it to and more. We started listening to a Jacque Loussier track which is good for bass & treble integration. We just let the cd run. Yes the drums had a real crack, thwack to them, yes the cymbals and hi hat tinged the tightest I¡¦ve ever heard, yes the bass playing was deep and low. But none of that was relevant, only the musicians playing, their technique. When that happens I know I¡¦ve found something special.
So what now? Well I¡¦ve got to hear the speakers in my kit and room so I¡¦ll have to find the right sort of DIN interconnects. After that, well when I start upgrading again I¡¦ll seriously consider buying the combinations best suited to my room. I have found a worthy successor to my SBLs. It¡¦s my birthday soon, who wants to buy me a present?
Here¡¦s the full list of the music we played, all of it good.
Tom
Actively enjoying it all
A few days ago my attention was drawn to an advert on eBay for a packet of Kleenex. This turned out to be a ¡§come on¡¨ for a speaker manufacturer called Seventh Veil. Reading the spec on the speakers my curiosity was raised. Being stuck at home sheltering from the heat and bored I rang the number on the website to ask some questions. This in turn led to an offer for a home dem. Unfortunately this turned out to be difficult to arrange so Steve Margolis very generously came to collect me and took me and my Naim CDS2 back to his house. This gave him a chance to listen to some decent flat earth hi-fi at my place.
My initial impression on seeing the speakers was that they looked better in the flesh than on the website . They are tall and slim with four tiny (50mm) aluminium tweeters arranged vertically, the two subs being oval footstools sitting in the corners. The listening room is more an office than a dedicated listening room so setup was more compromised than it might have been but in some ways this was a good thing as it showed of the flexibility of the speakers. We sat on a sofa (comfortable with back support, hurrah) about seven feet in front of the speakers and the subs sort of in the corners to the sides and behind the speakers. The initial setup up was two Nonsuch 4 full-range loudspeakers with two Little Awesome subs. The kit we used for the dem was foreign to me, not just in make but style and was a goodly mixture of designs and makes.
- McCormack Line Drive preamplifier (passive)
- 2 x Henry Kuck III homemade valve monoblock power amplifiers (for full-range speakers)
- Audio Research EC-21 active filter (for subwoofer amplifiers)
- 2 x Crimson Electrik CK1100 monoblock power amplifiers (for subwoofers)
- Silver interconnects by John McNichols
- Silver speaker cable by Mark Gdovin
- Target stand with Superballs as decoupling devices (very low tech and surprising)
- We won¡¦t even mention the mains, and Musicworks mainsblock, UPS etc; suffice it to say Steve is very into speakers.
Back to the speakers. As I said they are tall and slim. They are also egg shaped, something to do with the elimination of standing waves and to do with making the box as neutral as possible. Inside a great deal of care has been taken to minimise the need to use dampening materials by craftily designing ribs to deflect the sound down the speaker but not up. The boxes themselves are sealed (similar to the SBLs) as Steve feels you get a better control that way. They also have no crossover so there is little restriction to the tweeters. This means that the (non ported) subs have to be actively filtered with a cut off at 100hz. Those of you who are in to acoustic design can look for further info at the website. The standard of finish is high with a good veneer and tight joins. They are obviously hand built with care and attention. I can¡¦t say I was keen on the American Walnut finish but apparently they also come in Piano Black. Steve is also thinking of doing some cosmetic rounding off of the speaker plates.
So what were my initial impressions of the sound. Well we started with the two Little Awesome subs and the two Nonsuch 4. First up I noticed the detail and speed of these tweeters. I thought the SBLs fast but these little beauties leave them for dust. The Bandors are made of aluminium and although small have whopping great big magnets on the back so that they fly. The detail and cleanliness from them is astounding. Take for example the last four minutes of Starless of the King Crimson ¡§Red¡¨. Bill Bruford can appear to be all over the shop rhythmically but here you realise that he¡¦s just very fast, so fast that a lot of his cymbal strokes are barely audible. Lesser speakers can not deliver these subtleties of playing. My reference, the SBLs are happy with it but with the Nonsuch you wonder what the fuss is about. The one strange thing I noticed was that Bill Bruford appeared behind the mix rather than over it on my home kit..
Because the Bandors are fast they deliver detail in buckets, this in turn allows space to develop around notes and I¡¦m not talking soundstage here. The notes interfere less with each other bringing clarity of sound. There is soundstage, not a reality I¡¦m happy with but it was there. Shutting my eyes I found the music came out into the room. This is different to the SBLs which send the stage away from me into the garden. I wasn¡¦t as overwhelmed by soundstaging as I¡¥d been led to believe. At this point I accused Steve of being a flatearther. It wasn¡¦t a term he had come across and claimed he was just interested in making music as close to reality as possible. (Sounds flat to me
) The mid was a little muddied and prominent but at the same tight and fast. It integrated well with what was above it but I noticed a slight blurring as the sound went down. The bass was entering Balrog territory (26Hz?) yet remained SBL tight. And no it wasn¡¦t light by any means just lean and fast without out being to dominant in the mixture. Just how I like it! Æ'º. Steve confessed that he liked mid a lot and I think that shows with the presentation of the bass.
After a while we started moving things around. Moving the Nonsuch a little closer to the wall reinforced the bass and tightened it yet further but did nothing to clean the blur in the lower mid. We then shut down one sub and eased it the other back a fraction. Wahay. The blurring went. It seems the crossover used at the moment is not quite as accurate as it might be but new models are being worked on to create a fourth order (?) cut-off at 100hz.. To demonstrate the problem we just played the subs and you could quite easily hear the bottom of female vocals floating over the top. It was obvious the subs were going to high.
As a change I asked to listen to the Nonsuch with out the subs. Ok the bass went but by moving right to the wall you¡¦d get enough reinforcement. I was able to get clear picture of what they were doing on their own without underpinning. On their own the are a very open speaker which one could quite happily play in a small room. Again not that bass light but their strengths lie higher up.
Finally we removed the two subs and replace them with a single Double Little Awesome. Once we¡¦d eased off the bass a lot to integrate the sounds we sat back.and forgot the hi-fi.. There comes a stage when everything comes together and you get hooked into what the musicians are doing. Even if you are meant to be in hi-fi analysis mode you forget and the music takes over. That point was reached with the two Nonsuch and a single Double Little Awesome. It did everything I could possible want it to and more. We started listening to a Jacque Loussier track which is good for bass & treble integration. We just let the cd run. Yes the drums had a real crack, thwack to them, yes the cymbals and hi hat tinged the tightest I¡¦ve ever heard, yes the bass playing was deep and low. But none of that was relevant, only the musicians playing, their technique. When that happens I know I¡¦ve found something special.
So what now? Well I¡¦ve got to hear the speakers in my kit and room so I¡¦ll have to find the right sort of DIN interconnects. After that, well when I start upgrading again I¡¦ll seriously consider buying the combinations best suited to my room. I have found a worthy successor to my SBLs. It¡¦s my birthday soon, who wants to buy me a present?
Here¡¦s the full list of the music we played, all of it good.
- Jazz at the Pawnshop (High Life)
- Lou Reed - Transformer (Walk on the Wild Side)
- Antiphone Blues (Traumerei)
- Hans Theessink (Songs From The Southland)
- Mozart (Concerto for two Claviers - recorded by Herr Brown)
- Capercaillie ¡V Capercaillie - When you return (wide screen mix)
- Brian Eno ¡V Apollo ¡V Understars
- Chopin ¡V Nocturne E minor Op 72 ¡V Livia Rev
- Jacques Loussier Plays Bach
- Tallis ¡V Spem in Alium ¡V Winchester Cathedral Choir
- Bill Bruford¡¦s Earthworks ¡V Footloose & Fancy Free
- King Crimson ¡V Red ¡V Starless
- Dougie MacLean ¡V Craighie Dhu ¡V Gin I were a baron¡¦s heir
- Bach JS ¡V Suite for solo cello No 6 in D major BWV 1012- Prelude ¡V Yo Yo Ma
Tom
Actively enjoying it all
WM
