Thanks for the kind words about the system, Rich. I can finally say after all these years that I have moved pretty close to where I hoped to get sonically. The combination of designing the Straight 8s and years working with Paul on his Magicos opened my eyes to this approach of multiple way speakers with small driver bass arrays and multiple low powered amps. In an era when everyone was hot to try single driver speakers we were looked at askance by more than one audiophile with these admittedly complex systems.
Of course at the Chateau nothing is ever finished. We experimented with push pull tube amps on the bottom end a couple weeks ago. They had a little more control but didn't have the musicality of the multiple 300B amps. PJ designed the woofer system Q to get Kevin's the little 6.5" woofers down to 35 Hz, taking advantage of the rather low damping factor of the single ended zero feedback Paramounts. And sure enough when we measured them outdoors last summer, they were getting right down into the mid to low 30's. Pretty impressive for a peewee woofer, and the combo of 4 of them per side works out to about the same cone are as a 12" woofer, so they can move some air.
What makes this system particularly intriguing is that the midrange is actually a mid woofer. It's in a box that will allow it to get into the mid 40's so that it maintains correct phase response with the woofers. We cross it over to the woofer array at 250Hz in the big three way setup, but one can actually disconnect the mid/woofer crossover and the woofer array and run just the little ATD midwoofers with the RAAL ribbons as a two way system. Makes for a really nice biamped monitor that fits in a 1/2 cu.ft. box. Shawn and PB are both building a monitor setup like this. I think we may offer systems in the future, that can be started as a two way and evolved into the three way system as time and budget allow.
The next step of the evolution for me is to get the system into a dedicated room where it can really show its ability. Looks like we will be relocating the packing and shipping aspect of the Tape Project up here to Poulsbo very soon. We are already bursting at the seams trying to pack kits, build amps, modify tape decks, print cover art, develop new products, etc. in this dinky little old farmhouse so we are looking for a new facility. I have hopes of either finding space there for a listening room or getting around to building the dedicated room in our old garage that I have been procrastinating about for something like 10 years.
