[JoshK]

The Story…

Paul asked me if I wanted to borrow the Nomad Ronins for my rave get together.  I naturally said yes, considering there is no better way to audition a speaker than in your own room.   As some of you know, I have become an avid DIY’er and am building a pair of dipole speakers myself even though I’ve never heard a dipole speaker before (except for Maggies), so this was a chance to finally hear one in action.

Paul had loaned the Ronins to Mike (topround) for his get together a couple weeks before mine.  The feedback from Mike’s gathering wasn’t all glaring raves as they seemed to have issues setting them up in Mike’s room, or at least didn’t get things quite right.  So I think Paul was eager to have this group get another chance to hear them with hopefully a better setup.  Paul also knew that a lot more of my gear is similar to his, or at least he is familiar with.  This is one variable that would provide more of a control. 

Mike brought the Ronins over to my place a couple days before, but with trying to get everything in order for the rave, I didn’t have much time to set them up and play with them before the gathering.  I played around for about 2 hours moving the speakers around in a small area, but I never felt them gel.  This is before Wes & Phil pointed out that I have one channel out of phase with the other in my system.  That explains a lot.

During the rave, we played my Modula MTMs more than the Ronins, partly because we had started with the Modulas, then notice the phase error, made the correctly and then proceeded to do a DAC shootout.  It wasn’t till a few hours into the rave that we hooked the Ronins up (correct phase this time).  A number of ravers commented that they finally got to hear the Ronins do their thing and they sounded much better. 

I still felt the Ronins didn’t quite sound together; the bass was not seamless with the rest of the speaker.  The bass sounded slower, slightly jumbled and distinct from the mids to my ears and the tweeter was too hot, or at least I thought.  Not dramatically so mind you, but when you are auditioning a speaker that has so much potential you are disappointed not to be blown away.

I wrote to Paul and shared with him my opinion.  He was a bit puzzled, I assume frustrated and disappointed as well.  He told me I could keep the speakers a few more days and that I should try placing a resistor across the tweeter terminals to take the treble down a notch.  We were thinking that my room was a bit too bright, as I know it is, and that this might be corrected by taking the top end down a bit. 

I unpacked the speakers again and set them up.  This time I wired them to compensate for the phase error and placed them wider apart than I had tried before.  After playing around for 10-20 minutes with a track I know well (Morphine – Cure for Pain – Track #1) things started coming together.   I ended up with the speakers wider than I’ve ever had in my room, which is about 9-10’ apart, but mind you I sit about 9’ back.   This is about 1-2’ wider than we had set them up at the rave.  I had just a slight bit of toe in. 

Things sounded very different than before in the tonal balance.  The bass was now seamless, tight and fast.  I didn’t hear the overhang and the jumbling I thought I heard before.  The treble was now no longer aggressive and I didn’t want to turn it down, which is what I normally want to do when the treble is too hot. 

Many know that I am a tonal balance freak.  This is the most important part of a design to me. If the top to bottom balance isn’t spot on, I will move on.  Nothing else matters to me if that isn’t right.  With that now to my satisfaction I was really able to start listening to what the Ronins could do. 

This is quite normal to need a lot of care in setup of full range speakers in any room let alone such a difficult room as mine.  Every other full range speaker that I have had in my room has needed just as much attention, so it shouldn’t be any different here.  Add to that, in the Ronins you have a dipole mid and it makes for a slightly different setup than what might otherwise work for other speakers.

Paul was helpful in doing some quick room calculation to help me know what problem areas might be and gave me some recommended placements.  I think that anyone buying these speakers or auditioning them owes it to themselves to stay in contact with Paul, try some of his ideas too, and if things don’t sound right, try some other placements, even unconventional ones.

The Review…

The very first thing that immediately strikes you about the Ronins is their breathtaking depth of soundstage.  I had heard that this is the claim to fame of a dipole and this is no different.  They really do render the soundstage in more of a three dimensional way then I’ve ever heard before, even with a giant reflective plasma in between the speakers.  The soundstage extends about 6-10 feet behind the plasma.  It’s as though the rear wall isn’t there or has moved back 20 feet. 

Imaging is tight and solid, and doesn’t wander on lower male vocals like so many speakers do.  However, I find that the image is also more natural in its focus then a planar speaker, Maggie or other head-in-a-vice speaker.  Sitting anywhere between the speakers pretty much gives you the same image.   

If I were using these speakers in a HT system, I would absolutely not use a center channel.  You are far more likely to mess up the 3-D effect then enhance it.  If one were to use a center channel, you will really need to pay special care and attention to choosing one, likely also dipole.  Not an easy thing to do IMO.  I can only imagine what adding a couple of dipole or omnipole surrounds to these with some well recorded and decoded MCH music would be like. 

In addition to the world class depth and imaging, the midrange of this speaker is absolutely the least colored (low in distortion?) midrange I think I’ve ever heard.  It really makes you want to turn the volume up, way up.  The bass was fast and articulate--which is absolutely necessary with this midrange whose speed reminds me of my former VMPS RM40’s—but also extends deep; deep enough that all but the biggest bass heads would forego a sub woofer.   

The treble doesn’t call any attention to itself, which is a pretty good thing IMO.  One raver had commented that the treble was splashy iirc (or some other adjective to that affect).  I think the setup took care of that.  For the life of me I can’t seem to figure out why the setup would change the overall character of the treble but it surely seems it has.  I actually tested and tried to repeat the brashness we heard before but I couldn’t.   I guess setup is really important to the final performance.

Overall, I think Paul has a winner on his hands.  The price point of this speaker has some stiff competition and a lot of competition, but I can’t think of any speaker I’d rather buy in this price point.   I think Paul wouldn’t have taken so much risk to bring this speaker to the market knowing his competition if he didn’t think he really had something.  I think he has. 

No speaker is all things to all people but if what I wrote sounds like something you would like, you owe it to yourself to give them an audition.  I can say that I am not a ‘sit and listen’ kind of guy.  I am just too busy and prefer to play music loud while doing various things about the house.  This is how both my wife and I listen.  However, when I put in the second disc after setting them up (Tool – Lateralus) I didn’t get up, I didn’t fast forward, change disc, nothing.  I just sat and listened to the whole disc.  My wife even came in and listened to half of it with me and she hates Tool. 

This was the closest sound to when I saw them live at the Voodoo Music festival in New Orleans on the Lateralus tour and immensely better than them at MSG (shitty place to see a concert IMO), same tour. 

I noticed my wife put a CD or two of hers in in the past few days and sat and listened.  Felicia doesn’t say anything deemed as praise when it comes to hi-fi, because she doesn’t like the hobby, but she has a great ear and is the first to point out a flaw.  She remarked that the sound is really centered and absent from the speakers. 

Thanks Paul for the chance to audition them some more.  I am sorry that others didn’t get to hear them setup like this. 

[zybar]

Great review Josh.

Sounds like Paul has an excellent product.

George

[PaulHilgeman]

Absolutely no problem at all Josh.  Thanks for taking the time to listen to all of my ideas.

I am not sure if I was reading to quickly or not, but I don't think I ever realized that you sit that far back, I would have recommended that you place them that far apart sooner... oh well.

This absolutely echoes what both I designed for and the result that I feel I achieved.  And your assessment of their use in a HT, spot on except for small rooms where I wouldn't recommend a speaker like this anyways.  I personally have a 100 inch projection screen on the wall behind mind and sit rather far back, but similar overall ratios as Josh had mentioned and do not think at all that a center channel is necessary.

As to 'splashy' treble and room placement, it can have a huge effect, though maybe some electronics you were using at the rave were different?  The tweeter in the Ronin is a 25mm dome, but really has excellent off-axis dispersion, similar to a 19mm dome up until about 15Khz, while this is good in that the power response stays flatter, it does make them more difficult to place, but when placed properly in a reasonable room, it will have the openness and airiness that a wide dispersion tweeter should have.

Have a great thanksgiving guys.

Josh, what was associated equipment?

-Paul Hilgeman
Nomad Audio

[JoshK]

My equipment was:
Sony XA777ES as transport and then replaced by Pioneer DV578 as transport
(Sony started giving me fits...needs a cleaning and the Pioneer is nearly just as good)
DEQX as both DAC & Preamp (no eq or room correction)
UcD 400 based dual mono amp.
Cables were Stereovox HDVX for digital
homemade XLR IC's made from microphone cable
and some quite good DIY speaker cables that I am sworn to secrecy about.

Oh, and I use two Felicias for power conditioning, one on the transport, one on the DEQX.

[Brad]

Well done Josh - it does take some work to optimize ANY speaker for a room - sounds like you were well rewarded for your efforts.

[lonewolfny42]

Nice followup on the Ronin's Josh....

[fabaudio]

 I think most NY ravers thought the Nomads had great potential. It took someone like you with patience and persistence to unleash it. Nice work!

 Frank

[Scott F.]

Nice job Josh

I'm glad to know that you heard the same things the GAS guys did. I was starting to think we were all nuts

[ryno]

Josh
How far from the side walls did you have the speakers?

Paul
When you say you wouldn't recommend these for a small room, how wide of room do you think is necessary?

Thanks guys, Ryan

[JoshK]

Josh
How far from the side walls did you have the speakers?

Paul
When you say you wouldn't recommend these for a small room, how wide of room do you think is necessary?

Thanks guys, Ryan

I had them pretty far from side walls as I am setup along the long wall (18').  Actually one of my side walls has a huge archeway into the other room so that sidewall isn't even there.  But dipoles can tolerate being near to side walls much more than any other speaker due to their null in their dispersion to the sides (part of the dipole effect). I think distance from the rear wall is more an issue for optimization.

[Robert57]

Josh, thanks for the excellent review. Did I miss the distance you used fom the front (long) wall? I believe Paul has said the distance to the mid dipole needs to be at least 2.5 to 3 feet. Thanks.

[JoshK]

I have the front of the baffle about 4-4.5' feet from the front wall, which means the back of the sub cabinet was probably only 3' out.  Still very reasonable in a 13' deep room. 

[PaulHilgeman]

Yes, I have found that the side-wall interaction, especially close to the speaker is very reduced compared to boxed, non waveguide speakers.

The back-wall interaction varies with your room etc, but it does need to be greater than 2.5 feet, but honestly with them 2.5 feet into the room, you are going to have a hard time turning down the binding posts, as they will only be about 14 inches from the back wall.

-Paul