[Punslayer]

Mahkook,

good luck, and i look forward to hearing your impressions once you get your hands on it finally

I'm glad to see a little more information starting to come out on this little system, it definitely sounds like it's worth checking out.

as far as the durability of the wood, i don't know much, but i know that during the stamping process the wood sheets undergo a series of treatments. I would imagine that one of the points of those treatments would be to increase durability. The largest wooden cones that they've come up with so far is 11cm, i'm sure that a large factor in that size limit is cone durability. But all i really know is that i want one

I also considered an ASL UHC to go with one of these, but i figure i'll wait and see how well the headphone out actually does by itself. I expect that i'll primarily use headphones with the EX-A1 for movie watching and i'm a lot less picky when it comes to movies.

 

[mahkook]

First impression as I opened the box... Beautiful. The design and appearance are fantastic. As stated by someone else, toss the supplied wires (though at least they aren't 20 gauge zip wire like some). I hooked up a pair of 2 foot long monster wire flat wire for a quick test. Initial opinion... pretty dang good, as I would expect. But please note, you will most likely insist on a small powered sub to add in the low notes... expecially on these as they seem to have less bass than paper coned FS-2000 that I also have.

I tried out the headphone output for about 10 minutes going between Norah Jones, Yo-Yo Ma, and Haley Westernra. I was pretty pleased. Curiosity got the best of me and I had to peer inside to know exactly what I was getting there. Turns out they have a small headphone amp inside it! I took as couple pictures (best as I could... it is really tightly packed in there!) that I will need to reduce before posting. I still want to get my hands on an ASL UHC to try out with this.

My first 30 minutes with it.... thumbs up.
My first complement... I believe this to have a dedicated headphone section!
My first complaint with it.... no clock / alarm feature like the FS-2000 so I can't have it replace my bedroom alarm. (dang!)

Give me a couple days and I will give a better review. Too bad I sold all my DVD-A discs a short while ago!

Mahkook

 

[mahkook]

Attached are two of the pictures I took of the headphone section inside the ex-a1. One shows the cap side, the other the best view of the chip side. If you look at the cap picture, you can see the list of the connections to the main board. If you can get your hands on a matching connection, I could see someone making a pigtail to provide outboard line level jacks.

I couldn't get any numbers or makes of the chips on the other side unfortunatly.

As I do some more listening, I am more and more pleased with what I am finding. I would really love to get my hands on the ASL UHC component to test out the cans on the speaker outputs.

Until I get the speakers up where they are going to go on some wall mounted supports, I can't really get a full feel for them... I am also still working on the burn in.

Mahkook

 

[mahkook]

In light of the woody jokes going rampant around head-fi, I just had to show mine off.....

 

[Punslayer]

That is some very nice wood you have there indeed

Thanks for the pics and the impressions, i look forward to more details as you get to listen some more. Just out of curiousity, how does the finish on the speakers compare to the W1000s, lighter, darker, about the same?

It looks like i won't be able to pick one of these up for a little bit as i'm going to be moving to Japan next month

But on the upside, i shouldn't have too much difficulty listening to one of these over there and perhaps get to compare it to the EX-A5.

keep the impressions coming and enjoy your new woody

 

[bakhtiar]

funslayer
Quote:

Unfortunately i haven't been able to find any reviews or info that doesn't come straight from the JVC marketing department,

Refer to my last year's posting

http://www5.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=55125

Others:
SX-WD5 : World First Speaker systems with wood dome tweeter.
http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/audio_w/...wd5/index.html

Again : All infos are in Japanese

 

[D-EJ915]

They just put up some systems on audiocubes.

A1
http://www.audiocubes.com/product_in...7d283e91d75662

A5
http://www.audiocubes.com/product_in...7d283e91d75662

 

[David Mitchell]

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadtonowhere08 Intersting stuff. I have to ask a question about the durability though. Wouldn't wood with all of it's grains and imperfections make for a bad cone? I mean if one were to drive it hard, wouldn't it crack or something? It is wood after all. Just wondering...

In this month's Electronic Musician there is a short article, "Wood and Dried Squid", about these drivers. I'll quote some of it:

[JVC engineer Toshikatsu] Kuwahata believed that a superior speaker-cone material should have high propagation speed and a modest damping factor, and he found that wood fit the bill perfectly. In addition, sound waves propagate at different speeds through the wood, depending on the angle between the direction of travel and the orientation of the wood grain, which tends to minimize resonance within the material.

... His first prototype was constructed of fan-shaped wedges glued together. Kuwahata heard improvements in sound quality, but he knew there was no way to mass-produce such a driver. He also tried stamping thin sheets of wood into cone shapes, but they inevitably cracked under the strain.

Kuwahata was about to give up on his dream when the answer suddenly came from an unexpected direction. One of the engineers on his team, Satoshi Imamura, was ordering dinner one evening when he noticed that dried squid was one of the dishes offered on the menu. He knew that dried squid is very chewy, and he wondered how it was prepared in order to be palatable. He learned that it was soaked in sake, which transforms it into a delicacy.

Imamura realized that this could be the answer to the wood-cone problem: if the wood were soaked in alcohol, it might soften enough to withstand the pressure of being stamped into a cone shape. Imamura told Kuwahata about his idea, and they experimented with all sorts of liquor. They found that cheap sake worked best, perhaps due to its impurities....

Another problem that Kuwahata had to overcome was that the stamped cone did not retain its shape over time, especially under conditions of high temperature or humidity. After four years of experimentation, his solution was to apply a thermosetting resin after stamping, which succeeded in maintaining the form even in 90 percent humidity at temperatures up to 60°C/140°F.

 

[Punslayer]

Got a chance to listen to one of these Minisystems (A1) in a store yesterday. Of course it was only a few minutes in a slightly noisy environment with unfamiliar music, but that didn't stop me from liking what i heard. The big surprise was of course the bass. I know it's cliche', but i actually checked to see if they had it hooked up to a subwoofer. Now i don't think it was going particularly deep, but whatever depths it was reaching it did with some authority. The midrange sounded really nice, but i would like to get a chance to hear it with some of my own music. Hopefully next time i go, i'll remember to bring a couple of CDs and give a little better audition.
I also didn't check the headphone out either, but again next time hopefully i'll remember to have a pair on me, hopefully the EW9, cause i'd be most interested in how it sounds with them.
The system is very small in person and very attractive, at least to me. Now that i've heard it, i'll probably go back to listen again this weekend. This time armed with a little foreknowledge and some music.

 

[mahkook]

I have had my EX-A1 system now for some time and have many wonderful things to say about it... just haven't had time to sit down and write my impressions..

I also have torn the whole dang thing apart to see what the headphone section is made of. I took several pictures of it and the chips to ID. I will try and get some time to write more tonight and to post the pictures.

In general though.... excellent system... very happy with it