Mike congrats on your new speakers, ironic because I recall mentioning them prior to be your next move a while back. Will be interesting indeed, next will be comparisons in what actually drives them and the differences such offers.

Being even more efficient than your MM3's and the separate woofer towers being powered time will only tell.

What amp are they using in the towers? Is the cross over external?

Spirtofmusic, those are for sure some interesting horns that I would like to hear.

dev April 10, 2012 00:12

My system is undergoing a bit of a transformation, trying to get some of the "closer to reality" quality that takes us a step nearer to the musicians and what they are trying to say. However I'm trying to acheive this at a (cost) level a little below yours.
My first change was to install balanced power in my room, a simple 4kV industrial unit, $600, which after a month of burn in (30kg of copper) tightened up the soundstage, and expanded dynamics beyond the slightly constricted version my previous $6000 audiophile conditioner acheived. Second change was to address room acoustics, this I have achieved not by passive traps etc. but by installation of SpatialComputer Black Hole bass anti-wave generator, $1300, which has dealt with standing waves/bass nodes in my room (one esp. tricky one at 27.1Hz), reducing bass congestion and improving detail retrieval.
My component changes are mainly to the turntable front end and the loudspeakers. I'm dispensing with my belt drive Michell Orbe/SME V, and heading down the rim drive Trans Fi Salvation tt route using Terminator T3Pro linear tracking arm, $5000 the pair, which will get me some way towards what your NVS/Telos combination is presenting, and upgrading my Zu Audio Definitions, from Mk3 to Mk4 status, $15625. I particularly love the Zu full range driver, high efficency route, which dispenses completely with the need of a crossover, bringing real excitement and involvment to musical reproduction.
Had you not gone down the MM7 route, I would love to know how you would have rated Zu's flagship Dominance speaker (3 x 10" full range drivers 30Hz-12kHz, 2 x supertweetwers 12Hz+, 1 x 15" downfiring sub from 14Hz, per speaker) and NO crossover to absorb musical energy, 103+dB efficient allowing use of intimate SET amps no problem. I suggest the Zu Dominance would give the MM7s a run for their money. I've not heard a top end speaker yet that has the musical density and verve of Zu.
So many ways to get to musical nirvana.

spiritofmusic April 09, 2012 17:24

Spirtofmusic,

one more thing; i've not heard the Oswald Mills Imperia or Monarch Concrete horns. if i get a chance to hear them, i'll do it and report. all Jonathan Weiss's gear looks fantastic, and what i've heard sound great too.

mikelavigne April 09, 2012 17:18

i cannot edit my above post; so let me say what i should have said is "i have not heard horns have true full frequency range and top to bottom coherence". i can only speak to things i have heard my own self.

mikelavigne April 09, 2012 16:33

Spritofmusic,

thanks for the kind comments, and i'm glad you have enjoyed my journey. i have tried to only change gear when it's better, not just different.....and with hopefully synergy of pieces in mind. and no doubt there are other valid choices i might have made diffferent that those i did make. i was fortunate to be able to actually hear the MM7 and MM3 side by side with the same electronics......so i have peace to go forward with that big decision. i did not visit Kevin's with a pre-concieved notion of what i might do. the MM7's sold themselves.

the MM7's are 96db efficient and 6 ohm load; so they are more low power friendly than the MM3. whether the 3 watt Found Music 2a3's will work or not we will have to see. whichever low power tubes i might try should work better on the MM7's than the MM3's. sure; i would love to have the NHB-458 monoblocks. but that will be more a 'lifestyle' choice than an 'audio performance' one....as the dollars become prohibitive after this speaker aquisition. really; the NHB-108 is such a magnificent amplifier that i feel no great push to get a different amp. i don't see it as a system limitation in any way. this truth has been made more clear than ever before by switching back and forth with the 2a3 monoblocks. the 108 holds it's own, if not quite is equal, even at those things the 2a3's excell at.

as far as horns and such; i don't see it at this time. something profound would need to happen that pulled me in that direction. this is a funny hobby, and who knows. i can tell you i enjoy a number of different types of speakers for what they do well; the MBL 101e always entertains, big Maggies, or big Appogies are wonderful, the Genesis 1.2 is fantastic. i've not yet heard horns take me where those speakers can and have; and i am happy with the overall performance (and amplifier friendly designs) of the MM3 and obviously the MM7 to those great speakers.

i do value true full frequency capability with seamless top to bottom coherence. Horns just cannot really do that. but maybe someday my priorities might change.

mikelavigne April 09, 2012 16:28

Hi Mike, I've always enjoyed reading about the evolution of your continually improving system. The feeling I am getting is that you're pretty close to the summit now: the NVS approximates v. closely to reel to reel in achieving the holy grail of neutrality in analog, the Playback Designs cd player in your opinion gets as close as possible to analog in character, and your new speakers will narrow the gap to the realism of live music esp. in the area of lifelike dynamics and limitless headroom. Alongside this you've upgraded to balanced power which has eliminated the constraints to the foundation of the whole system.
My guess of where you have to go finally is whether you upgrade to the Dartzeel monoblocks, or you move sideways to investigate further your low powered SET option. Will the MM7s accommodate the use of these lower powered amps more successfully than your current MM3s ie are they more efficient? Or is SS higher power still most indicated ie move towards the monoblocks?
My main question is that once this summit is reached, are you likely to be happy there, or will your restless curiosity maybe take you down a different path esp. in the area of speakers/amps. My thought is that you may re-investigate high efficiency horn loudspeakers/low powered SET amps. The Oswalds Mill Imperia and Musique Concrete horns look fantastic, and with well chosen SET amps I'm sure will rival the MM7/Dartzeel combination at what they do well, and do other things better eg intimacy, presence etc.

spiritofmusic April 09, 2012 10:57

hi Sam,

thanks.

and yes, i'm coming down for T.H.E. Show in Newport Beach. i have my airplane ticket and room. i'm looking forward to it.

it will be great to see you and Sonny up here this summer. hopefully i'll be in town when you are here. let me know when you know the exact dates. maybe the MM7's will arrive in time for your visit.

best regards,

mikelavigne April 08, 2012 17:30

Spirtofmusic,

the MM7's are $200,000.

mikelavigne April 08, 2012 17:26

hi Jason,

thanks, i'm excited about the MM7's.

the ability to locate the main towers independant of the bass towers does present possibilities for more ideal soundstageing. soundstaging is a significant attribute of my room already with all the space beside and behind my speakers. i do expect gains, but we'll just have to see how it goes once they are here.

hopefully i can get Kevin up here after i have some hours on them to really nail the set-up.

mikelavigne April 08, 2012 16:03

Hi Mike, curious what price Evolution Acoustics charge for the MM7s?

spiritofmusic April 08, 2012 10:07

Greetings, Mike,

Sonny and I might be up over the summer -- I may be obtaining some test gear in Seattle -- and if so, we'll give you a ring.

It'd be SO CooL to meet Ki and others from the wonderful PNW. Mikel's not too far away in B.C.

Are you coming to T.H.E. Show in SoCal?

Congrats!

Sam

c1ferrari April 08, 2012 09:51

Congratulations Mike and Jonathan on your new speakers, this will be a very interesting project to see how the new MM7 speakers match into your music room in place of the MM3.
I will be very interested to hear how the soundstage imaging compares between the two models in your room.
I am looking forward to your updates.

jasonparmenter April 07, 2012 20:30

hi Peter,

thanks, i agree that a 90 minute listen to the MM7's does give me cause for considerable promise.

i'm loving the Anna. it's probably fully broken in, but honestly it has not changed much since i've had it. it was used as a demo at CES so it likely came to me with some hours on it. Ortofon may have even broken it in prior to CES for all i know.

since mine has been the only one around so far, it's not like normally when my comments about it might be compared to other's. i figured i would not speak much more about it until there were a few more out there.

my previous comments still apply; it takes the best parts of the A90 and improves them. it's got that naturalness and top to bottom balance, only even more of an organic rightness, it has more body and tonal color, but no coloration. it is soooo dynamically alive. and it's the ease at which it expresses the energy of music which takes it to the master tape plateau. it is an ultra solid tracker, and groove noise seems to be rejected pretty much.

it's equally adept at rock, jazz, or classical.....i can throw anything on and know it will be excellent. obviously the Telos and NVS are doing their considerable part in the equation.

2 weeks ago Bruce Brown came over and did a high rez dsd recording for one of his clients off the NVS-Telos-Anna-darTZeel. he was pretty taken with it and said it was easily the best vinyl he had yet heard. he has been exposed to lots of pretty high level stuff.

i do look forward to more Anna's getting out there and direct comparisons being done with other cartridges. i think the Anna is in a class of it's own based on what i've heard, but only time and wider exposure will reveal the truth of that.

there is, of course, lots of great gear out there that i have not heard. so speaking in absolutes is not realistic.

mikelavigne April 07, 2012 15:50

Congratulations Mike. The MM7s seem very promising.

I'm curious about your current analog set up. How are you still liking the Ortofon Anna? Could you describe a bit about how it differs from the A90? Is it fully broken it yet? Thanks.

peterayer April 07, 2012 10:52

Agear,

the MM3's excell at what i call micro and macro dynamics. in my experience, a ribbon tweeter is very energetic, and a ceramic mid-range has what i call 'life' in it's ability to sound alive and have the ability to stop and start very fast. then you have a pair of sealed box 1000 watt powered 15" woofers which give you dyanmic headroom in the deep bass which gives that life, tonality, slam and articulation in bass. that's superlitive ambient energy of the MM3.

the MM7 is a multiple better at 'life' and ambient energy than the MM3. you have the addition 4 11" ceramic matrix woofers and an additional 2 15" subs and 1000 watt amp per side.

Kevin's room is not ideal. it's 2 stories and kind of a square box. almost an 'anti-room' relative to the ideal. yet; the MM7's were alive and fast. we did play a number of different types of music and the explosiveness was astonishing. it was terrific. however; i expected that from this speaker, and it was everything i could have hoped for. i made a big deal about the increased clarity because it was somewhat unexpected. i had been living with that tweeter, mid-range and cabinet for 5 years, and now it went to a completely different level.

understand that i've already owned 2 speakers Kevin designed (VR9SE and MM3) and had another he designed for 6 months (VR7SE), so i know that he will get all the dynamics and life a design might promise. i spent lots of time at one CES with the VR11 too.

you are welcome to visit and listen once the MM7's are here. but even in Kevin's room they were terrific. i'm not familiar with any speaker which is so room adjustable. if you have the space for the 4 towers no doubt they can be made to sing.

mikelavigne April 07, 2012 02:08

Mike,

thanks.

i'll let you know when they are sorted out. they are not due until late July, and that's not set in stone. hopefully sooner than later.

cheers,

mikelavigne April 07, 2012 01:44

Dynamic or "ambient energy" is one of my main system objectives. Without it, things don't sound real. Do the MM7s have more of that (even without a state of the art room)?

agear April 07, 2012 01:16

agree that on paper the MM7's look like they should be amazing. especially for a room like yours, or mine, that are big enough to allow all that driver surface to breathe and put to use all that energy.

but actually A/B'ing it with the MM3's still was an over-the-top experience. what was surprising is that it was not the dynamic ease and energy that was the big thing, it was the increased clarity by such a large margin. and how much more real and involving it made the music. and the top to bottom balance without exception suspended disbelief. it stopped me dead in my tracks. just music. our ears always seem to gravitate toward the less veiled sound. more information. more linear.

after that you become aware of all the other stuff....and the better bass, more ease, greater foundation, etc, etc.

coming back to my room a few days later to my MM3's they did not sound at all veiled or distorted. they sound super. i'm not feeling deflated or anything. it's a credit to really how great the MM3's are. only in direct comparison was the difference so compelling. in the back of my mind i do ask myself; how might this sound on those big bad boys?

i do very much look forward to getting the MM7's in room and seeing what truths extended time listening might reveal....and how my analog sources sound with this great speaker system.

mikelavigne April 06, 2012 22:53

I love the way those new Evolution speakers look. I spoke with Kevin at CES about them and the things he told me were fascinating.

I don't know if my room would support them but they absolutely would have to be top performers. There simply is no way they would not be great with that driver configuration.

albertporter April 06, 2012 20:54

Thanks Albert.

it would be fun to get you back up here. let's do it.

mikelavigne April 06, 2012 19:49

The new speakers read to be an awesome upgrade Mike. Maybe once they get some hours on them I can come listen again.

albertporter April 06, 2012 19:31

Congrats on the new speaker.
No more excuses, now I will have make a trip your way.
Let me know once they are set up and have some hours on em.
See you soon,

rugyboogie April 06, 2012 18:32

the MM7's use the same drivers as the MM3 for the tweeter, mid-range, and sub. and the same basic cabinet for the tweeter-mid and the sub. but otherwise they are completely different.

MM7 is a three-way with 4 woofers per side added to the mid-tweeter in the main tower; with a totally different crossover. the sub towers now cross over to the 3-way main tower around 35hz to 50hz. the woofers are a new purpose built ceramic matrix driver and now the ceramic mid-range only has to go down to around 500 hz instead of the 120hz-80hz it does in the MM3.

the result of all this is considerable increase in clarity compared to the already highly resolving MM3's. (i heard them side by side). also, the increase in driver surface brings an overall level of linearity, micro and macro dynamic life, and effortlessness that simply needs to be heard to be appreciated.

Kevin showed me the graph of the top to bottom frequency response. it's + or - 2db from top to bottom. and it sounds like it. it sounds real. i can't get 'Keith Don't Go' out of my head from that day. it's like i never heard it before. i was floored!!!

each sub tower contains 2 1000 watt amplifiers for separate adjustment of the 2 top and 2 bottom sub drivers for the ultimate in bass-room integration. also; the separate bass towers allow for optimal location for bass performance and for imaging independant of each other. my room was made for these bad boys to strut their stuff.

when i walked into the room at Kevin's i was immediately taken with the physical scale of the MM7's; and then the way 1200 pounds of speaker (per side) completely disappears so easily and naturally. the extra effieciency loves the NHB-108 amp. hard to imagine how one could use more power.

mikelavigne April 06, 2012 14:02

i've known about the concept of building the Evolution Acoustics MM7's for a few years, and knew that the production version was nearing completion. the cabinets had been built, the drivers had been ordered. a new woofer was concieved and built just for this speaker by Accuton.

Kevin Malmgren has been designing the crossover in San Diego; i just happened to have a business trip to Newport Beach a couple of weeks ago exactly when Kevin had pretty much completed the crossover design and so i drove down one afternoon and heard it.

i only listened to the MM7's for about 90 minutes. there was a set of MM3's there too which i listened to. Kevin was using the same dart amp and preamp and the same cables i use, so it was quite familiar although a completely different room and the source was redbook from a server thru an unfamiliar dac. the 'final' crossover for the MM7 was spread across the floor in front of the speaker; although the final production crossover will have upgraded parts and be more solidly installed. so if anything the production MM7 will sound better.

the MM3's are overall really as good a speaker as i have heard. i've been living with them for 5+ years.

it's just mostly that the MM7's take what the MM3's do and take everything to another level. until i heard the MM7 i would have never associated the sound of the MM3 with the word distortion. no different than how the Telos tonearm exposes other tonearms as distorted. or how master tape reveals distortion in other media. until you hear the musical message through a transducer with less distortion, you cannot assign distortion to your current reference. it's a humbling experience having one's reference blown up.

and it's like that on every sonic item on the list.

better, much more involved crossover. more clarity, more naturalness. more musical involvement.

mid range driver only needs to go down to 500hz instead of 100hz. 4 woofers added per side. more linearity. mid-bass deep bass transition is more seamless, more dynamic and complete. more driver surface area reduces distortion.

double the subwoofer drivers, double the power, more adjustability, subs only cover below 50hz. must hear to appreciate dynamic effortlessness and deep bass linerarity.

awesome speaker......which does not change how great the MM3 is.

so now i need to sell my MM3's along with some of my RTR decks to keep the wife happy with this new addition.

mikelavigne April 06, 2012 13:48

you mean these?

yes....i have ordered new loudspeakers. twin tower, 86 inch tall, 1200 pound per side, wonderful, loudspeakers.

suppose to arrive in late July.

mikelavigne April 06, 2012 13:36