The lit fella, Jordan Watts

This is a follow up to Alan visit. The second system that we listened to was DIY Jordan Watts speakers based system, same system in different setup. The DIY Jordan Watts project is manned by Alan and with the help from his son. Box is of solid wood, Cenggal Mas if I remembered correctly. Cenggal Mas is one of the Asian densest wood, as to minimize box resonance. The radiators help to offload standing bass energies, would result a longer bass grunt. Aesthetically, Cenggal Mas veneer is not that pleasing like nyatoh. The fit and finish is good, far from amateurish. So far, that's how I read Alan's logic of engineering.

It has long known that Alan champions vintage gears, promoting out of the radar of most fi vintage gear. Price has been reasonable, hence, giving good performance and cost. These days, anything that bears big name like WE or Klangfilm and history are crazily priced. There are collectors all over the world willing to pay good money for them, for nostalgic or investment reasons. A remembrance of the golden era of audio, perhaps. It is difficult to put a value on sentimental reasons. Form factor, mini refrigerators fall out of place today due to space constraint, slim tower or book shelf speakers are the darling of urbanites. Scarcity of space in urban command a premium. Secondly, the low wife acceptance factor is also the reason for the decline of mini refrigerators.

Power conservation is hardly a valid reason for fi to go green. Class A amps will never go away. Anyway, amp is a mature technology. Digital and speaker are the cash cow, attracting a lot of entrepreneur's attentions to cash in. Some one will make their cash register rings.  

A little check on Jordan Watts, Jordan was the first to use metal cone driver for wideband application. Yes, you have guessed right, a single driver to cover all frequency spectrum, no crossover as per se. The idea of using stiff and light material for speaker cone drives the exploration using aluminium, magnesium, ceramic and berylium. And all these drivers achieve varying degree of commercial success. Nevertheless, it is almost an infinite of matrix of speaker building. It is a good advice to read the objective of the speaker designer before shortlisting them. Acoustic Energy AE1, goes down in the loudspeaker history as one of the speaker that defy the law of physics, squeezing bass volume that never before heard from a small enclosure. The designer, Phiul Jones wanted to create a small speaker with jaw dropping dynamic and sonic precision. Time waits for no one, AE1 as of today sounded dated.

Alan must have savaged old 4.5" Jordan Watts drivers, affixed them onto a box which is about the shoe box size of the legendary LS35A if not any smaller. In order to expand extreme bandwidth, Alan opt for ESS Heil Air Motion AMT tweeters and passive radiators to realize his objective. Suffice to say, you do not obtain linearity from a single driver to take on wide bandwidth. Hence, two way, two and a half way and three way are the choice of modern speakers to coup with hi res media via an introduction of crossover. We shall see in a coming decade if active speakers are game changer. Guesswork is being taken away. If so, this will put a lot of amp companies.

One front two back formation

On the metal stand, Alan sits three ball bearings on a wooden pockets to isolate the speakers from sitting on the metal plate. Sitting directly on the stand will veil the sound, albeit a gain in bass weight. I have had a fair experience with Yamamura foot, they do wonder to the bass but on the downside, they move quite a bit. Image specificity is compromised.

Driven with puny 8W Secret Audio 300B monoblocks, I immediately felt that it was a punishing act for Jordan Watts to fill the room. And Jordan Watts will not shame away telling they are not happy pushing them hard. They introduce distortions, alas, 4.5" drivers can only move so much air.

Metal driver has two distinct advantages, structural integrity and pace. Smaller diameter further enhancing structural integrity, to allow for a more pistonic lateral movement. Less crazy bounces. As such, you will hear a cleaner and less edgy sound compares with driver of paper and plastic made. Some will notice metallic flavor but this is not a deal breaker. You now see the return of metal tweeters. Go ahead with paper or plastic driver if you prefer romanticism. Metal drivers are not alone, joining the race are more exotic drivers like carbon fiber, composite materials, diamond, ceramic, magnesium, alloy etc. These days, coloration in high end audio is a plague.

In this system, tube helps to curtail the metallic character, so much so that I was enjoying the music and forgot about metallic-ness. Tube inevitably adds body and blooming to the sound, giving more "human" to the sound. Decidedly, there was a lack of immediacy and presence with certain music. I felt disconnected with the music when listening from 9 to 10' away, especially on more demanding materials. My instinct tells me to move my seat right up, to 5',. Things began to take a dramatic change, for the better. More palpable, more immediacy and vastly improved enveloping effect. The feeling of being enveloped in music is a sensational feeling, like in a live event. Your skin feels the music.

Pity, I did not try other positions to validate my thoughts like reducing the speaker to speaker distance or toe in or listening as in soundfield, aka Audio Note method. I hold on to my principal, touching people gear remains a taboo unless permitted.

Sound impression

Voices hang nicely in the air with steady locality. Sweet. The crossover-less is magical with voices, nothing ever come close to it on vocal reproduction. Voices are intact with none of the oscillation between the tweeter and the midrange driver. The detail is aplenty, afloat, courtesy of ESS Air Motion tweeter. Nice. Pace is good, giving the needed groove to the music. Overall, the sound falls into slightly warm side of neutral.

The downsides, Jordan Watts could not go loud. They will protest when pushed hard. No, they will not provide the majesty of full orchestral works like Mahler or Stravinsky's works, you got to pay a lot more to get it. The bass seemed to roll off slowly and smoothly from 100hz. And they will not shake the room the way many mammoth speakers able to. However, I can't lie that I am yearning more bass, more, more and more. Since you can't use a more powerful amp, get help from wall boundaries to increase bass volume.

If you valued soundstage and non fatigue listening, these Jordan Watts might just be your ticket to sonic haven. Sit back and enjoy the music.