Ωmega (Omega) thread, 3 / 7 / 8 / Alnico

Has anyone heard the alnico compact monitors?

Curious to hear any feedback about how they perform in nearfield 1-2 inches away from the wall.

Thankyou

One of my friends raved about the Alnicos for nearfield, but I don’t know how close to the wall they were.

If you email or call Louis, I think he would give you an honest answer on positioning.

As mentioned, email Louis and ask but i also know he will make you a front ported model if desired which would offset some concern of a wall load. :+1:

Thankyou, my mind went elsewhere when I posted that as ive reached out to Louis and it shouldn’t be an issue with my setup.

What I meant to ask is has anyone heard the compacts and the barber p3esr and could comment on any differences?

I currently own the p3esr XD and wondering what the compact could bring to the party over the harbeth.

Thankyou

I had the Falcon LS3/5a’a and the original Alnico XLR full sized Omega towers.
2 different speakers, the Omega’s were a more complete speaker. Both have midrange that is stunningly good. The Omega will scale well with better equipment and you can get beautiful high end with them, the Omga will be the “tighter” faster of the 2 while the Harbeth has a more classic BBC sound and will possibly not get as loud as the Omega.
If the Harbeth is anything like my Falcons, they are finicky to amplification and may require allot more money spent to really enjoy what they do well. The Omega is an easy speaker to drive, they are very fast and tight along with great imaging. Of course, you can do much better than either speaker in terms of resolution and bottom end but that will cost you triple aand more and your front end will also need to reflect the quality of the speakers so we are again quadrupling and more the costs.

“I currently own the p3esr XD and wondering what the compact could bring to the party over the harbeth.”

Having said all this, what are you trying to do @127b ? I would not necessarily purchase another midrange Queen if i already owned the baby Harbeth’s, i would personally go for completely different signature :man_shrugging: or get a speaker that matches my amplification really well.

Edit to add:
Tha Baby Harbeth is extremely well documented by many a talented reviewer, and you own them so you know the sound, why not go for a detail & resolution beast of a standmount? The Omega speakers all have more of an A curve as documented by reviewers and are midrange Queens. Of course your budget will ultimately dictate things, along w/ the rest of your chain but my suggestion is to go with something that has a different character and not so much midrange focused.

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Thankyou

I really enjoy the p3’s although I’m using the Riviera aic to amp them at 8w.

The idea of the alnico came about for their efficiency and maybe getting a similar sound to what the p3’s provide at 80db at both 60db and 80db on the alnico due to their efficiency.

The p3’s in my room also roll off at 150hz so wondering how far the alnico compact would go in comparison.

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Purely technical answer here, not taking into consideration their sound. It will go lower considerably lower, well over an octave. The Alnico is a 6.5 in driver so that a lone will move more air. It’s also a 8 ohm driver as opposed to a 6 ohm so the limited power of the AIC should have an easier time driving it down lower when it’s most taxes. Lastly the very nature of his Alnico drivers is that they wake up at lower volumes.

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Gotcha, and yes i agree w/ your logic. The riviera AIC is a very high quality amplifier and would be a wonderful match to another high sensitivity smaller book-shelf or stand-mount speaker.
The Omega are quality and value combined along w/ having a properly high sensitivity to match the amplification you already own. I believe the combination will be excellent.

There are not many smaller high sensitivity speakers to choose from that are as easy to aquire. Just for shits and grins read up on, Devore, Fyne audio, Voxative, and Zu. Off the top of my head they all offer speakers at least 90db sensitivity and are all good quality that should mate well with the AIC amp.

Also, pair of Omega Alnico Monitors for sale on the Decware forum classified, for some reason the link will not post.

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I’ve reached out to Louis about the distance to the wall and will report back.

The devore micro’s are the only other really desktop friendly effecient speakers I can find. I own the zu omen bookshelves for my main 2 channel setup and at 30x30x45h they aren’t desk friendly despite sounding great from the AIC.

The depth of omega monitors sets them apart for desktop use amongst other things.

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I’m probably 30-40 hours in, but I’m loving them so far, and can’t imagine how much better they’ll be. What kind of changes should I expect to notice while they break in?

I have to say that they pair with the Omega sub perfectly. I didn’t know what speaker-sub synergy sounded like until I tried the Omegas. I previously had Emotiva powered monitors and an Emotiva sub and the bass had a real presence that gave music a rock & roll vibe. The Omega sub blends so well with the monitors that I was underwhelmed at first, compared to what I was used to, but it didn’t take me long to realize that I was hearing the Omega monitors and sub holistically, as if the monitors now had more bass extension. Absolutely beautiful.

I’m also playing around with positioning on my desk, and degree of tilt on my isoacoustic stands. I’m sure it will take me a while to get it all to be perfect, but I’m enjoying the music so much right now, that it doesn’t really matter.

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All this, you’re on the right track. I’m glad the sub worked out for you! You nailed the experience IMO of what a sub should do in a high end 2 ch versus a home theater or a run of the mill best buy system where bass is boom and boom is the goal.

I always say that you shouldn’t ever “hear” a sub until you turn it off. Then you’ve got it integrated seamlessly into the main speakers.

They’ll continue to gain in weight and body to the sound. The mids will get more and more melodic and gain in the amount of low level detail they deliver. The whole point of the Alnico is that they come alive at lower volume so that makes them a natural for desktop where you’re not turning them up a lot.

Although it might look weird, I found that raising the monitors on the desktop to ear level as opposed to slanting them up to your ear gave a much broader and deeper sound stage. Play around with the elevation rods the isoacoustics come with, you might like it.

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Well my Baby Alnico Monitors came in yesterday, didn’t get them set up fully till earlier today and I only have maybe 2 hours at most on them so far, but I can already tell that these are going to be getting a lot of play.

Sorry for the dark shot, it’s overcast today in Nashville and my room is lacking proper lighting right now. Currently planning on putting some track lighting in this room to light it up soon :smile:

I thought these were going to be in French walnut but it turns out they are actually Italian walnut, not that I’m complaining since they look gorgeous. I was told that they were b-stock but I’m not really sure how when they look this good.

Okay hopefully I will have some actual impressions in the coming days and weeks, especially since this thread has been dead for way too long. Now to start the long burning/breaking in process and to mess around with toe in.

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Congratulations, and yes be patient, some speakers and these fall into that camp, do require allot of beak in. Just be patient for a few weeks and hopefully the sound as they break in is actually not bad too often :crossed_fingers: :+1:
They really are cute and size seems appropriate for the space.

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Mine didn’t start to fully come into their own until well over 100 hours but you’ll have a good sense of them before the weekend.

(Moved from Speaker chat)

Speaking of Omega speakers, it looks like they have Outlaw two-way speakers on sale not but I can’t find any reviews of them or much discussion at all. Anyone know anything about them? They look nice.

@ericrosenfield keep an eye on the AudioCircle forums. Seems like a gentleman in Madrid may have recently purchased a pair and other folks are looking for info on the speakers also since Louis has been hyping them up for months on his Instagram page.

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I was thinking about adding a deephemp 8 sub to my desk setup for some more punch in the lows, does anyone have any experience with this sub in a desk setup? I already know that it should pair really well with my baby alnicos, just wondering how it being isolated to underneath my desk might affect placement/sound or if that is a non-issue in a nearfield setup like mine.

Also I see that the deephemp is supposed to have speaker level inputs, does anyone have any idea on the proper connection for something like this? I have never used anything but line level for a subwoofer so I’m a bit lost, I would be using my LTA z10 integrated and it does not have the sub out connection.

Please someone school me on this :smile:

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Nearfield subs are great since they take the room out of the equation and you simply tune them to your ears. @PaisleyUnderground has pretty much the setup you’re building.

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I had to play around a whole bunch w/ my sub to get my seating position within its bubble of bass. My sub is also a fairly large 12” model so that meant it just didn’t fit right in some of the spots that were within the bass bubble. So my recommendation is that as long as the sub you are looking at fits within reason in spots under and around your desk so you can get it just right you should be good to go :+1:

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thanks for the reply guys.

I went ahead and sent Louis a message to get his opinion and of course I have been doing my own research and forum reading today on the subject.

As far as wiring them goes it seems like I would use either bare wire or spades out of my amp into the speaker level inputs on the sub and then use my usual nodost banana plug cables from the same posts on the amp into my speakers and that would do it. I don’t have to go from amp to sub, I could go from speakers into sub If I wanted to.

Also apparently I would only use one positive and one negative wire because the sub is a single voice coil… I’m a little unsure on that last part I will have to confirm that.

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