Steven Slate debuts The SIREN D3 Monitoring System

[benoïde]

Originally Posted by Steven Slate

(...) custom 10" drivers that we chose out of dozens, a world class hifi amplifier design by Pierre Thomas, and some seriously powerful DSP that can really make these monitors do amazing things! (...)

Cheers,
Steven

Is that Pierre Thomas from FAR (Belgium)? The speakers he designed are really good, I really like the 3 way models he makes. If that's the same person, he's probably an excellent choice, his speakers are also complemented by DSP processing, really useful and good sounding.

[Steven Slate]

Yes Pierre Thomas is a genius! He has taught me so much about the art of speakers. What he has done with the SIREN D3 monitors is outstanding. I'm waiting for the NAMM prototypes to get back here so I can start mixing again, since I know whatever I mix on my current system will have to be remixed once I hear the problems that the SIRENS will likely reveal.

Cheers,
Steven

[GnS]

When these babies can compete with a pair of PMC IB2's.. time to go to the bank...

[Popolocho]

What makes these different than say, Focal Twins? Except for the extra hi-frequency driver, and the fact that they don't need a stand, what makes them worth over 5 times more than monitors hand-made in France? Just curious, because I'm planning on upgrading my first monitors (Alesis Monitor Ones) which I've had for about 4 or 5 years.

-Pablo

[Steven Slate]

Hi Pablo, the Twin 6's are really great monitors, but are far different than the Siren D3s. They have the following differences that I can think of:

Siren D3's have a tweeter, one 6.5 midrange, and dual 10" woofers
Twin 6's have a tweeter and two 6.5s
Each speaker has different types of driver materials

Siren D3's have 1000 watts of power including a 750 watt Class D bass amp
Twin 6's have 400 watts of power (150watts for the 6.5s and 100 for tweeter)

Siren D3's have a time aligned DSP crossover
Twin 6's have an analog crossover

Siren D3's have no amplifier components in the driver cabinets
Twin 6's have amplifiers in the driver cabinets

Siren D3's have 1" thick cabinets
Twin 6's have 1/2" thick cabients

Siren D3's have a software application that controls the crossover so that it can manipulate the driver levels, crossover delays, crossover points, curves, and output so that it can sound like various other references such as a club speaker, home hifi speaker, or smaller nearfield speaker
Twin 6's do not have this feature.

Cheers,
Steven

[Arksun]

Steven, given the high price point and the fact its supposed to be a top end no-compromise best components design, why did you guys chose to go with Class-D amps, given that they're generally known to have higher distortion figures than Class A,A/B,G etc.

[Steven Slate]

Hi, the SIREN D3's use Class A/B amplifiers for the mid driver and tweeter, and the more efficient class D for the dual 10" drivers.

Somehow this got left off the literature it seems..

Cheers,
Steven

[Arksun]

Originally Posted by Steven Slate

Hi, the SIREN D3's use Class A/B amplifiers for the mid driver and tweeter, and the more efficient class D for the dual 10" drivers.

Somehow this got left off the literature it seems..

Cheers,
Steven

Ok, that makes more sense, might want to edit the original post as well

[Steven Slate]

Done thanks!

Cheers,
Steven

[Webb]

So will you have a 50% off sale on these like you do with your plugs?

Oh, who am I kidding. Even then it would still be outta my price range.

[thebeatless]

Originally Posted by rectifried

put a bird on it!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XM3vWJmpfo

Beat me to it.

[GnS]

I can't understand that people are moaning of the price before exactly realising what they have in front: a three-way mid/farfield monitor...
This is a complete different story than two-way neafields. Including a DSP with varios emulations is that you don't find in any other monitor - neither in PMC/Digidesign RM-Series nor in Dynaudio AIR...

But just compare similar cabinets of the three-way-midfields:(pair)
PMC IB2: 10k (without amping!)
Dynaudio AIR20: 7800k
Genelec 1038BE: 13K
Lipinski 707? Don't ask...
B&W Nautilus? ...

[Steven Slate]

Originally Posted by thebeatless

Beat me to it.

That video is hysterical.

Originally Posted by GnS

I can't understand that people are moaning of the price before exactly realising what they have in front: a three-way mid/farfield monitor...
This is a complete different story than two-way neafields. Including a DSP with varios emulations is that you don't find in any other monitor - neither in PMC/Digidesign RM-Series nor in Dynaudio AIR...

But just compare similar cabinets of the three-way-midfields:(pair)
PMC IB2: 10k (without amping!)
Dynaudio AIR20: 7800k
Genelec 1038BE: 13K
Lipinski 707? Don't ask...
B&W Nautilus? ...

The SIREN D3's are a "Main Monitor" and as you have stated are priced appropriately for such a design. I also need to mention that the D3 pricing that I gave was an estimate and is not the final. Given the cost of production of that monitor, I'd imagine $9500 is actually low. [Cue the bullets at my head].

However, anyone who was lucky enough to hear the D3s at the NAMM show floor will hopefully attest to the fact that the sound justifies the price tag.

The first D3 monitors are being installed in mastering engineer Howie Weinberg's room as I write this.

Cheers,
Steven

[Tim Farrant]

So they do not have ports? I have always liked the bass sound of speakers that do not have ports.

[Steven Slate]

No ports. Much better phase response and as you said, cleaner tighter bass.

Cheers,
Steven

[spencerc]

Glad to see there's no ports...

I wonder how this compare to Barefoot MM27s? Has anyone heard both

(Obviously they would have only heard the Slate ones at NAMM which isnt the best environment, but still, what's your impression?)

[dbjp]

Any news on the specs? Find it hard to believe you can get the full detailed picture down in the lower frequencies with 10" woofers, particularly when sealed but what do I know.
+-what db in the 'flat' setting?

[tomdarude]

can you tell us more about the x-over DSP?? curves, FIR or IIR?
which kind of amps?

[mixerguy]

I have basically NEVER heard any speaker that has any DSP in it sound really, really great.

and I've heard a lot of very high end speakers.
just sayin'




YMMV.

[Steven Slate]

You've never heard a speaker with slate digital dsp

Siren has both FIR and IIR filter algorithms. These speakers don't dissapoint. You'll hear them in a show room near you soon enough.

Cheers,
Steven

[dbjp]

So are you releasing these monitors with no specs shown? Why the need to ignore the question?

[chrisj]

People need to settle down. This is a totally different market with its own experts and standards, and it must do its own appraisal. I'd love to see a legit mastering engineer compare this to B&W Nautilus- or indeed the $1500 PM1.

It's weird to see the fuss over class D in this day and age- I have a pair of audiophile monoblocks that are Class D. Channel Islands D100s, specifically. The current generation of Class D amplifiers competes directly with the best Class AB amplifiers and sounds more like Class A thanks to the lack of dual-ended power stages- it's not what you'd find in subwoofers.

So both the harping on Slate for using Class D- and reflexively protesting that the Class D is only in the subs- both are a little out of touch with current amplifier development. You might WANT Class D. Tripath went bankrupt perhaps as a result of such attitudes, but I think Class D as it continues to be refined and developed will end up supplanting other amplifier designs. In its ideal form, it's pretty characterless- you'd add character with DSP, which is sort of in line with Steven Slate's most successful ventures, isn't it?

Class D is all about implementation. It can be done well (I think my Channel Islands are great) or poorly (bad associated parts, DSP etc). I try to stay out of Slate threads, but I don't like seeing baseless attacks, and mocking Class D is baseless. It's possible Tripath-type power is ideal for his mid/treble units, though I'm sure that class D amps exist which would be unsuitable.

[Steven Slate]

We'll have complete specs and much more info on the slateproaudio site very soon.

Cheers,
Steven

[Trufunk]

Can´t wait to hear this Beasts!

Leasing would be great!!!

[Arksun]

Originally Posted by chrisj

People need to settle down. This is a totally different market with its own experts and standards, and it must do its own appraisal. I'd love to see a legit mastering engineer compare this to B&W Nautilus- or indeed the $1500 PM1.

It's weird to see the fuss over class D in this day and age- I have a pair of audiophile monoblocks that are Class D. Channel Islands D100s, specifically. The current generation of Class D amplifiers competes directly with the best Class AB amplifiers and sounds more like Class A thanks to the lack of dual-ended power stages- it's not what you'd find in subwoofers.

So both the harping on Slate for using Class D- and reflexively protesting that the Class D is only in the subs- both are a little out of touch with current amplifier development. You might WANT Class D. Tripath went bankrupt perhaps as a result of such attitudes, but I think Class D as it continues to be refined and developed will end up supplanting other amplifier designs. In its ideal form, it's pretty characterless- you'd add character with DSP, which is sort of in line with Steven Slate's most successful ventures, isn't it?

Class D is all about implementation. It can be done well (I think my Channel Islands are great) or poorly (bad associated parts, DSP etc). I try to stay out of Slate threads, but I don't like seeing baseless attacks, and mocking Class D is baseless. It's possible Tripath-type power is ideal for his mid/treble units, though I'm sure that class D amps exist which would be unsuitable.

I think if anyone needs to settle down its you!. I was the one that asked about Class D, I didn't rant and rave about it, just politely asked a simple question, no need to go overboard about it. The issue of amp class has only formed a tiny part of this entire thread, did you even read all the posts properly first before posting?
And as you can see Stevens response confirmed they have indeed gone Class A/B for the tweeter and mid, of which I have no problems with this setup.

As for Class D now sounding as good as Class A/B or A. Really? Can you give an example of any true high end active monitor today that uses Class D for all the drivers. I can't think of a single one.

[tomdarude]

you might want to look into Hypex NCore modules... for excellent sounding Class-D amplification!

...imho. it´s soon not only on par with any class a & a/b, but will become superior in sound, distortion specs. etc., it might even bring back some of the much loved sound-attributes of the best tube amp designs...but we´ll see.

@ Arksun, yes I CAN think of exactly one actually...it uses modified NCore modules



@ Steven: could you let us know more how/where FIR vs. IIR was implemented, have you measured pre-ringing??


curious to hear them, don´t really think I support the basic idea for my workflow, but I think they look pretty nice....but no judging until I´ve heard them

[Arksun]

Originally Posted by tomdarude

you might want to look into Hypex NCore modules... for excellent sounding Class-D amplification!

...imho. it´s soon not only on par with any class a & a/b, but will become superior in sound, distortion specs. etc., it might even bring back some of the much loved sound-attributes of the best tube amp designs...but we´ll see.

@ Arksun, yes I CAN think of exactly one actually...it uses modified NCore modules

Does this commercially available active monitor have a name then?

But yes, if this is indeed true then I stand corrected and good to see Class-D is finally starting to come into its own as a viable alternative. However words of 'soon' and 'will become' speak of the future, not of todays amps.

Class D still has a lot to prove before we see it powering tweeters in high end monitors. The high end switching generating all that EMI must be a pain to design around too.

[Ienjoyaudio]

Hey Steve. Any updates on these? Im excited about them!

[Steven Slate]

I've got the newest prototypes ready to test and we'll be fine tuning and prepping for release... These monitors are outstanding. Gonna change the way I mix.

More soon.

Cheers,
Steven

[tomdarude]

Originally Posted by Arksun

Does this commercially available active monitor have a name then?

But yes, if this is indeed true then I stand corrected and good to see Class-D is finally starting to come into its own as a viable alternative. However words of 'soon' and 'will become' speak of the future, not of todays amps.

Class D still has a lot to prove before we see it powering tweeters in high end monitors. The high end switching generating all that EMI must be a pain to design around too.

It´s all here already.. google Grimm Audio LS1



Any news on the Siren, Steven? ....x-over design??