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I actually have a background in behavioral psychology, so what I am saying is based on research and not pulling opinions out of my butt.

Yes, this is exactly how it often works. Another example is, of all things, Hamburger Helper (apologies to our fortunate friends overseas who have no idea what I am talking about). At one time, General Mills believed the way to increase the rate of sales was to offer more and more varieties of HH. The plan backfired. Eventually, they decided to cut back the product line dramatically, after which total sales grew significantly. Apparently, people were confused and turned off by having too many choices. It might seem counterintuitive, but that's how it goes. People might think they want more choices, but their behavior doesn't necessarily confirm that assertion.
 
in one line you say the spire will replace the vantage and in another line you state that the new speaker will I am confused on your point here.

No, I think I made my point very clearly and numerous times. But here is the synopsis so you don't get confused:

Mark my words, the Vantage and Vista will be gone by the end of this year, and in their place will be the Spire and this new speaker, for several grand more.

I don't know how I can be any more clear than that.

they replace all of their models eventually don't think to much into it they are just trying to give people new options and make a few bucks while they do it but that's the point of being in business.

They tend to refresh or replace their models every three to four years or so, regardless of whether there are any true technical innovations to justify it. I understand that from a business marketing perspective. But the reality is that the actual performance improvements of these newer models over the previous generation are debatable, while the price increases are very real and substantial. I gave kudos to ML when they introduced the Summit and didn't raise the price from the Prodigy. And I will call them on it when they raise their prices by twenty-five percent or more, while offering a negligibly better product. You may choose not to "think too much" if you wish, but I reserve the right to do so.

Does anyone think the Summit X sounds that much better than the Summit sufficient to justify the $3,000 price hike between models (actually, $4,000 price hike when you consider the Summit cost only $10,000 when it was released five years ago). This price increase is way, way over the rate of inflation over the same time period. And the only substantial difference between the two is a redesigned crossover, which, I'm sorry, is just not that expensive. Along those lines, I think a used Summit is one of the best deals in high end audio at this time.
 
With so many acronyms that ML are using lately, I never know. Thank you.

I don't think ML are using that particular acronym, though, Adam.

Anyway, a Spire (or indeed Summit X) sans internal amp will appeal to many, I think. I always had a bit of a problem with the class D aspect given ownership of a powerful, high quality amp.
 
...

Oh, come on, Jon. This one is so obvious. Take a Spire, throw in an eight inch woofer instead of a ten inch, and take away the internal woofer amp. Voila, you have a cheaper Spire (and a Vista replacement).

Doh!

Of course, I totally zoned on the fact that the Spire is powered. A totally passive version would make sense.
Although my money is on a 10" driver.
 
Doh!

Of course, I totally zoned on the fact that the Spire is powered. A totally passive version would make sense.
Although my money is on a 10" driver.

Obviously a non-powered version would be less expensive, but would it perform better or worse for users pairing the speakers with high end amps?
 
Obviously a non-powered version would be less expensive, but would it perform better or worse for users pairing the speakers with high end amps?

I would guess that it might underperform the Spire regardless of amp due to a simpler X-over and a smaller / less performing woofer.
 
I have to agree. I think it would be specifically designed to slightly underperform the Spire, with a slightly higher crossover point, smaller woofer, and different woofer box design. This way, it wouldn't take anything away from the Spire and would be viewed much as the Vista is viewed in relation to the Vantage. Go back over previous posts on this forum, and you see people recommending the Vantage over the Vista ("if you can afford the extra bucks") almost every time the question is asked. Why? Because the Vista is intentionally designed to underperform in relation to the Vantage, and not just because of the lack of internal amp.

As for the debate about whether it is better to have an internal woofer amp, or not to have one because "I have my own awesome amp and don't need that Class D garbage" type of argument . . . I fall firmly on the side of having the internal amp. I just don't buy the argument that someone's own amp is going to perform any better. The ice amps are incredibly well-designed and control the woofers as well as anything out there. I don't believe that you are going to get better sound in the frequencies under 500 hz. (which is all these woofers are putting out) with any other amp.
 
As for the debate about whether it is better to have an internal woofer amp, or not to have one because "I have my own awesome amp and don't need that Class D garbage" type of argument . . . I fall firmly on the side of having the internal amp. I just don't buy the argument that someone's own amp is going to perform any better. The ice amps are incredibly well-designed and control the woofers as well as anything out there. I don't believe that you are going to get better sound in the frequencies under 500 hz. (which is all these woofers are putting out) with any other amp.

Also remember that the signal for the woofer amp is coming from the above mentioned awesome amp, so if you use a tube amp, all that tubey distortion is still making it into the woofers so you haven't lost anything. :p
 
Also remember that the signal for the woofer amp is coming from the above mentioned awesome amp, so if you use a tube amp, all that tubey distortion is still making it into the woofers so you haven't lost anything. :p

This is a good point, and actually is one reason why you might prefer to have a non-powered woofer. With a powered woofer, if you are driving the panels with a tube amp, there is no way to provide a separate signal to the woofer amps and that can result in muddy bass. It would be nice if ML provided a line input on those speakers just for that reason. By using one of the speakers with a non-powered woofer, that lets you truly bi-amp with a tube amp up top and a separate amp (and signal source) on the woofers.
 
I have never really understood why these speakers don't have a line in from the preamp. But they are the experts:confused:
 
I also imagine it would be quite hard to design a proper crossover that takes both a line-level and speaker level signal.

And it is the cross over that integrates the panel to the woofer...
 
I also imagine it would be quite hard to design a proper crossover that takes both a line-level and speaker level signal.

And it is the cross over that integrates the panel to the woofer...

I don't buy that. As it is, they are having to convert a speaker level signal to a line level signal, so that they can then feed it to their internal amps, (which seems kind of convoluted itself). So why would it be so difficult to design it in such a manner that you could bypass that conversion process and just feed a line level to the internal amps? Or make it modular and let the user decide which one they want to have installed depending on their needs.

I will point out that their subwoofers accept both line level and speaker level inputs. So I don't think it would be all that difficult for them to do it on the bass modules for their hybrid speakers. They just haven't perceived it as something that people care about, perhaps. They didn't offer the ability to tilt the panels using adjustable feet either, until Jason started doing it and convinced many of us on the forum of the advantages.
 
I don't buy that. As it is, they are having to convert a speaker level signal to a line level signal, so that they can then feed it to their internal amps, (which seems kind of convoluted itself). So why would it be so difficult to design it in such a manner that you could bypass that conversion process and just feed a line level to the internal amps? Or make it modular and let the user decide which one they want to have installed depending on their needs.

I will point out that their subwoofers accept both line level and speaker level inputs. So I don't think it would be all that difficult for them to do it on the bass modules for their hybrid speakers. They just haven't perceived it as something that people care about, perhaps. They didn't offer the ability to tilt the panels using adjustable feet either, until Jason started doing it and convinced many of us on the forum of the advantages.

The conversion to line level occurs after the crossover, not before. This means that the crossover is filtering the signal that goes to both panel and woofers. If you have a line level input then it still has to be crossed-over somehow, somewhere. The subwoofers are different as that is a crossover designed to a more simple high pass/low pass where as the crossovers in the speakers also do phase manipulation of the signal depending on the frequencies.

If you have a line-level input on the speaker as well as a speaker-level input you have to then integrate the two signals or else you will have poor integration between panel/woofer. Lets not forget the one big complaint people used have about ML hybrids...bad integration of the panel/woofer.

Who knows, maybe they could devise a crossover that will integrate those two signals properly, and if they can but do not then perhaps it is due to the fact that people would not want to run a second set of wires to each speaker.

I am sending an email to ML to see why they do not have a line-level on the Summit X's. As this is a great question.
 
Great explanation, Jrace. I was having a hard time visualizing it when I wrote my last post.

Ok, so here is a thought. They could have the setup they currently have, so that you could just have a pair of speaker level inputs, which then go through the crossover and get split up, highs to the panels, lows converted to line level and then on to the onboard woofer amp. Then they could add to that the ability to send a line level signal directly to the woofer amp, the output of which is directed back to the crossover, which then filters the lows down to the woofer, while still sending the highs from the speaker level inputs to the panels and doing its phase thing on both signals. Ok, this is getting complicated and I am no engineer so I am sure there are about twenty holes in my logic. Anyone else got any ideas about how this could be accomplished without adding too many electronics into the signal path?
 
The conversion to line level occurs after the crossover, not before. This means that the crossover is filtering the signal that goes to both panel and woofers. If you have a line level input then it still has to be crossed-over somehow, somewhere. The subwoofers are different as that is a crossover designed to a more simple high pass/low pass where as the crossovers in the speakers also do phase manipulation of the signal depending on the frequencies.

If you have a line-level input on the speaker as well as a speaker-level input you have to then integrate the two signals or else you will have poor integration between panel/woofer. Lets not forget the one big complaint people used have about ML hybrids...bad integration of the panel/woofer.

Who knows, maybe they could devise a crossover that will integrate those two signals properly, and if they can but do not then perhaps it is due to the fact that people would not want to run a second set of wires to each speaker.

I am sending an email to ML to see why they do not have a line-level on the Summit X's. As this is a great question.

OK it is starting to make a little sense. I'll read your post and do a bit of research before I become a true believer.
 

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