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Evolution of the LX521.4 Ref speakers founded on the development by
Siegfried Linkwitz.
The
road towards LX521:
Audio Artistry manufactured and sold dipole speakers designed by
Siegfried.
Beethoven - 1998 Stereophile (Loudspeakers of the Year Award), Dvorak,
and Vivaldi. Dvorák was introduced at the 1994 WCES, when Siegfried
decided to join the company. Shortly thereafter Audio Artistry
incorporated.
When Siegfried departed Audio Artistry, he developed the Phoenix
speakers in 2000 followed closely by Orion. The Orion speakers
evolved in design from an H frame woofer design using Peerless 10”
subwoofers to a W frame in Orion 4 which used SEAS 10” subwoofers. The
Orion 3 design also supported the SEAS woofers as an upgrade to this
model.
Using a multi-channel amplifier (usually an ATI-6012), these speakers
improved with the addition of higher wattage on the woofers. Siegfried
used the ATI-180 watts multi-channel amplifier to drive the speakers. At
a show in 2014 we began Pass Labs amplifiers which provided 500 watts to
the woofers and 30 class A watts per channel to each of the remaining
driver sections. Don Naples who had been manufacturing the
speakers and providing demonstrations at shows retired in 2015. He
provided his speakers and amplifiers for demo use by the SF Audiophile
Assoc. While installing the speakers at Hilltop, David Hicks and Larry
Deniston were listening to the speakers first with a miniDSP and then
with the ASP (Analog Signal Processor) It took them less than a minute
to decide the Analog crossover was superior in sound reproduction.
Siegfried continued testing speaker designs concentrating on the
dispersion of sound waves and developed the LX521 speakers in 2012.
Here are the five steps how it developed from there.
1) 2012, the first version of LX521 was realized with an
analog 3-way active crossover and a passive crossover (capacitor &
inductor) between the upper and lower midrange drivers.
The first generation of PowerBoxes are on the market. ASP 3way and
Hypex UcD amplifiers were offered by the Linkwitz.store.
2) LX521.4 In 2015, a 4-way digital crossover (DSP) with miniDSP
4x10HD was realized. Siegfried Linkwitz called it LX521.4 . It required
an extra amplifier channel and another wire pair to the LX521 cabinet,
while the passive capacitors and inductors could be removed.
2016, for LX521.4, the second generation PowerBoxes 6pro Ncore
arrived. Hypex DLCP (DSP) and Hypex UcD and Ncore amplifiers are
used.
3) 2017 brought the move from DSP towards ASP, again. As
DACs in miniDSPs and DLCP could limit sound quality, Siegfried developed
an all analog active 4 way analog crossover, filtering the channels in
parallel configuration. This ASP was categorized as Analog
Signal Processor (ASP) V1.0 for LX521.4
4) After Siegfried passed, an optimized Analog Signal
Processor (ASP) V2.0 was introduced. The
PowerBox 6pro Ncore precision analog contains this ASP V2.0
cascaded crossover, plus five Ncore amplifier channels per side. The
cascaded configuration (phase coherence among channels) was used to
tweak the signal path by optimizing OPamp stages and new OPamp types.
This pushed sound quality of LX521.4 even further.
5) In 2021, a new, tailored low midrange driver was developed by
SEAS/Norway:
LINKWITZ22MG (magnesium
cone). New motor, new cone, vanishingly low distortion and avoiding cone
edge reflections. This led to an improvement in clarity and speech
intelligibility. The new
LX521.4MG
comes with ASP v2.0 and the L22MG driver upgrade.
LX521.4MG is state of the art in late 2024, receiving many “best of
show” titles, “product of the year”, “recommended product”
as well as outstanding reviews.
Customers with older ASP v1.0 could/can make use of free DIY pcbs/mods
in order to adapt the circuit to L22MG (although without switching
to the cascaded circuit architecture).
Siegfried passed away in September 2018 and Frank Brenner took on the
task of continuing development and manufacturing of the speakers.
These above are basically the versions of these speakers in use.
I hope this document helps to clarify the differences.
Don
Naples |
