I have recently ordered a set of speakers (5 satellites + 1 subwoofer) from Orb Audio (www.orbaudio.com). I was initially considering a $500 receiver but have read a lot about the 950 and wanted to try this out. I am not an audiophile, but want to have a high quality system I can use for a long time.

So my question is - is using a preamp/pro plus an amplifier (i.e. 950/7100) "overkill" for such a speaker set? The specs I have are

Sats: Power handling 15 - 110 watts RMS, Impedence is 4 ohms nominal and is compatible with all receivers & amps rated at 6-8 ohms

Sub-woofer: 150W (continuous), 400W (peak), Super long-throw 8" high-performance driver.

Are there any specific specifications I should look at? I would use it for 60% music and 40% movies. Room dimensions are approx 20' by 25' by 15' high ceilings.

My main concern is not overspending on pre/pro + amplifier if the speakers are not "good enough".

Any advice would be really appreciated!

Thanks,

Mukund

After skimming the Orb Audio site, I did a little googling for reviews of these speakers. Not much in the way of reviews on them, but what I did find seemed positive. None of the AudioReview comments I saw mentioned what they were using to drive the MOD1's, and the only post in an Audioholics thread that mentioned the receiver was a Denon 2805 that hadn't actually been hooked up to them yet. Whatever you use, these speakers will probably be happiest with a receiver or pre/pro that offers an adjustable crossover that can be set up around 120Hz (such as the 950), since the little 3" drivers roll off higher than a larger speaker would. The -3dB point is 120Hz, indicating that the crossover point should be set at least there and possibly a little higher. I wouldn't go much higher than 120Hz, however, as you start getting into the range where the sound information being sent to the sub becomes more and more directional (and thus easier to identify as coming from the sub). The 950 offers crossover points of 40Hz, 60Hz, 80Hz, 100Hz, 120Hz, and 150Hz as well as the ability to separately set crossovers for center, mains, and surrounds. In your case, you would probably want to use 120Hz or 150Hz for all of your speakers.

The general concensus is that speakers can make the greatest impact on sound in a system. A good amp, good pre/pro, or good DVD player certainly plays a role, but the speaker offers the greatest potential impact. Having said that, the 950 does offer very clean sound, and the 7100 (as with Outlaw's amps in general) is a well-regarded piece of gear. The combination would allow you to get everything possible out of the speakers - all the clean power and headroom they will want and a good source signal. One additional benefit to separates is the longevity of the amp section. The evolution of the industry can add new processing modes, signal formats, audio and video interconnect types, and other things, but a good power amp is unaffected by those changes and can be expected to work for many years (as hinted at by Outlaw's five-year warranty on all of their amps). By electing to go with separates, you can replace the preamp "brains" of the system with a newer pre/pro a few years down the road if necessary and still use the same amp. The separate amp would also allow you to upgrade speakers if the home theater "upgrade bug" bit you a year or three (or five or more) down the road and led you to replace the Orb's with something that wanted more power.

What ever you do, don't get really revealing speakers. Get the warmest sounding speakers you can find. The outlaw is very revealing and matched with revealing speakers is not goot at all.

>>What ever you do, don't get really revealing speakers. Get the warmest sounding speakers you can find. The outlaw is very revealing and matched with revealing speakers is not goot at all.<<

Hi,
I must take exception with this. I use Martin Logan electrostatic speakers, which are about as revealing a speaker as is made, and they sound absolutely great with the 950, provided the source material is top notch. THAT is the caveat, if the source material isn't up to snuff, no amount of wonder equipment downstream is going to 'fix' it. The outlaw is an exceptional peice of equipment, especially considering its price, and mates well with revealing speakers.

Peter

I agree with Peter. Well put.

What phogandive and Keta said.

After the equipment reaches a certain level of proficiency, it’s the source material that can become frustrating. Even with that, I would rather hear the source, with any flaws it may have, rather than having a lesser system acting as a kind of filter that reduces everything to the lowest common denominator.

Thanks for all the comments. Due to space and other constaints I have to go with the small speakers. Sounds like the 950/7100 should work fine, especially if I upgrade the speakers down the line. One other question - what exactly does the crossover do to the output? How does adjusting it make a difference to the sound?

That's a good question, actually. The crossover acts to "steer" low frequency data from the full range channels (mains, center, surrounds) to the subwoofer. This prevents sound that the speakers would be unable to reproduce from being simply lost, instead moving that sound to the sub, which is capable of producing much lower frequencies. For example, the Mod2 speakers have a -3dB point (a common measure of where a speaker begins to roll off) of 120Hz, but full range channels can contain data as low as 20Hz (the average low frequency threshold for human hearing) or lower. Without a crossover to pass information below 120Hz from the speaker to the sub, the speaker would be asked to try to reproduce those sounds and would play them back at a much reduced level or lose them entirely. Properly setting the crossover will prevent you from losing that information, which can make a huge difference in sound.

Thanks. How is this 120 Hz frequency determined? The specifications for the speaker indicate that it is a "Crossover-free design for coherent, lifelike sound". Is that common?

Good luck with your Orbs and let us know how you like them. I almost got a 7.2 setup with them but backed off because of the lack of reviews.

I ended up getting cheaper but widely and positively reviewed Athena AS-F2's (4) plus the Athena AS center channel and AS-B2 rear surrounds with the Outlaw sub. The Orb's with stands was going to run me $2700. I got the Athena's from audioadvisor.com for half that.

One concern about the Orbs I have is DVD-A and SACD which was a major reason for getting a new system. With the 950's analog bass management crossing over at 80hz I was afraid of a big hole in the sound. I could have opted to get the ICBM1 but that would have been more $.

Good luck,

talismax

In the case of the "Crossover-free design for coherent, lifelike sound" they are talking about the speaker's internal components - where most speakers use an array of drivers (tweeter for high frequency, one or more 3" to 6" drivers for mid- and lower frequencies, and sometimes even more drivers for low frequencies) with an analog crossover circuit inside the speaker to divide the signal up between the appropriate drivers, the MOD1 and MOD2 use one or two 3" drivers that get the full signal with no internal crossover circuit. This arrangement is actually extremely rare outside of bargain-bin "home theater in a box" packages, and difficult to carry off well because a single driver is being asked to cover a wide frequency range.

The specs for the speakers are somewhat difficult to find (there's a Specifications page linked part way down the left edge of the page), but if you look at the information for the MOD1 and MOD2 speakers by themselves it lists the -3dB response as 120Hz-18,000Hz and the -6dB response (which is much less commonly used, as 6dB represents a pretty significant dropoff) as 80Hz-20,000Hz.

The most notorious example of the single driver, no crossover design is the Bose Acoustimass line. Having sadly owned such a setup at one time, I'm pretty keenly aware of the opportunity for trouble with such a setup. Bose does not publish any frequency response data for the Acoustimass line, so I was pleased to see Orb providing that information. The Orbs do start to roll off in the treble a bit earlier than I'd like, but they get a lot higher than Bose's cubes (which some third-party testing has indicated roll off at 13,000Hz, a full 7,000Hz below the upper limit of human hearing).

Well, I connected two of the Orb speakers to my 45 w/channel Denon *stereo* and they sound amazing. I am going to test the entire set with other receivers, but haven't ruled out the 950B/7100 combo. Out of curiosity, anyone in downtown Chicago with the 950 (or 950/7100 combo)? Would it be possible to take a look/listen at the system? Thanks!

OT but maybe applicable:

First off, it may have been my connection, but not a single link worked for me just now on the orb site. Weird...

Second, how are they not getting sued by Anthony Gallo? www.roundsound.com

macharya, I am so glad you found speakers that you really are impressed with. Do you realize that you have just been bitten by the audio bug and from this point on you will always be wondering what the next upgrade you can buy is? I used receivers for nearly 25 years before finally buying the 950/770 two years ago and I can testify that it is definitley an audible upgrade. My wife and daughter will also testify to this. So if you can afford it, try the 950. I will agree with the other posts, it is very revealing and I have it matched with B&W CDM 9NTs which are also highly revealing. The combination can make poorly recorded material sound poor to almost unlistenable. But well recorded material is astounding. The wonderful thing about owning the 950 is that you can keep upgrading or changing your speakers and the signal fed to the amp will always be on high quality.

Yeah, the audio bug thing is interesting :-). I started looking at systems pretty recently - only about 2 months ago. In fact it started when I decided to do some research on Bose systems as I was ready to buy one (I know, I know!). Then learnt that there was a whole world of audio out there :-)

The speakers sound good (to my non-audiophile ears) using a Denon AVR-2105. Right now I don't have the option of getting bigger speakers due to space and aesthetic "requests" from my wife. And admittedly I also want the speakers to be somewhat invisible.

Down the road I might consider getting larger speakers, but for now the Orbs provide some great sound.

I am still fascinated by the Outlaw based on reviews I have read and will pull the trigger soon. I think the 950/7100 might be the way to go for now. It'll probably be very "bright", but till I try them, I won't know...

Do appreciate all the feedback and comments - this is by far the most interesting site I have seen!

-Mukund

Jason - Not sure of the details, but I read somewhere, probably from Gallo's website that Gary Pelled (Orb) and Anthony Gallo (Gallo) worked together at some point and Pelled invested in Gallo's company. So they do share some history. In any case, both products appear to be well regarded and I haven't heard of patent infringment issues around them.