Linkwitz ORION

**Drew Eckhardt** · **11-02-09, 04:48 PM**

Quote:

dnaples wrote:

You could consider building the Pluto speakers. When switching back and forth between them and the Orion speakers, people have lost track of which ones were being played.

The Plutos are very good. More coherent than any box speaker with conventional drivers and cross-over points. Low frequency output is limited, with the original Peerless drivers lacking the displacement to sound clean at moderate volumes when bass is present. The Seas drivers do audibly better although I think the number from displacement is 6dB. The Pluto+ option gets you reasonable headroom, although they don't go as loud as Orions.

Obviously bass does not suffer when you place them too close to the front wall as with a dipole.

The rest of the spectrum does surprisingly well in that installation compared to conventional designs, perhaps because the off-axis response is identical to the direct sound for so much of the spectrum so your brain ignores it as a reflection. You get some warmth, loose image depth, and image size is bigger.

I have Pluto+ in the bedroom

**Yad** · **11-02-09, 05:10 PM**

(sorry again, but am i right?) Plutos are looks like they were built from the "canalization pipes" (?)

**Drew Eckhardt** · **11-02-09, 05:22 PM**

Quote:

Yad wrote:

(sorry again, but am i right?) Plutos are looks like they were built from the "canalization pipes" (?)

The Plutos are built from ABS plumbing pipe, with the original design using a rubber coupler intended to mate with clay pipe mounting the mid-range.

Since there's no bending load in a cylindrical enclosure they don't suffer from panel resonances. The pipes are stuffed to form damped transmission lines, with the mid-bass having a measured 40dB return loss with just 1% of the back wave energy making it to the cone. The 1.6" tweeter is becoming directional as baffle step is occurring so diffraction is not an issue.

Apart from the aesthetics (I'm thinking about solid wood enclosures, starting with birdsmouth joints on the mid-bass turned down to cylindrical) you'd have a hard time building a better enclosure, and the simplicity can't be beat (there are no air-tight wood joints, and apart from making the legs the same length none of the wood measurements need to match).

**Yad** · **11-02-09, 05:27 PM**

ok ))) It was very curious for me to use pipes. I'll try some )

**Drew Eckhardt** · **11-02-09, 05:33 PM**

Quote:

Yad wrote:

ok ))) It was very curious for me to use pipes. I'll try some )

Siegfried Linkwitz documents how he arrived at the correct stuffing density in his Pluto web pages:

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Pluto/construction.htm

**Anthony** · **11-02-09, 06:04 PM**

A friend of mine made his own version of the Plutos with good results. Neat concept. He did a transmission line in PVC pipe and the little tweeter eyeball thing. Sounded great and I think he did it all with leftovers from prior speaker projects. A good starter project if you are considering the Orions later.

**jimfrank** · **11-03-09, 10:52 AM**

I have to consider the WAF (wife acceptance factor) before planning to put new speakers in the living room. She who must be obeyed would find the Plutos unacceptably homely for anywhere guests might linger.

I still dream of building a recording studio someday, with a listening area that has something like an Orion/Thor combination for monitoring...

**Yad** · **11-03-09, 02:53 PM**

WAF

**jimfrank** · **11-03-09, 04:33 PM**

WAF is a powerful force in audiophilia circles... The Orions themselves are beautiful, and would pose little problem other than the room they require.

**Yad** · **11-03-09, 05:27 PM**

My wife, mostly, does share my sound and design tastes. Am i lucky? )))))

But I'm sure, she'll bit me, if I will install "Plutos"(with their native PVC-pipe design) in to my living-room ))))

**Drew Eckhardt** · **11-03-09, 06:22 PM**

Quote:

Yad wrote:

My wife, mostly, does share my sound and design tastes. Am i lucky? )))))

But I'm sure, she'll bit me, if I will install "Plutos"(with their native PVC-pipe design) in to my living-room ))))

I'm married.

My Pluto+ are in the bedroom. My wife likes them a lot but wants an equipment stand that looks as nice as the sub-woofers. Catering to the fairer sex is a romantic white canopy bed.

The Orions flank a love seat 5' off the front wall. We believe in good sound at home.

She's an engineer, diagnoses hardware problems like when one of the Plutos was receiving 94.9 FM, and at some point wants to build a radio as a joint project. Mercury vapor rectifiers and vacuum tubes should make their appearance there.

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