Peter,

Coming back to your FM settings.

Been playing a few female jazz albums, and have consistently noticed that FM settings closer to the straight line or the straight line is most preferred. This gives the most realistic playback of the singer. All red makes the singer rather diffuse and larger. This makes me think, the recording engineers are using a particular technique for this type of music?
The overall depth however is less appreciated with this setting, but it may not make a huge difference considering it's a small group playing.

VJ
P.s. Cassandra Wilson might be a different story 

"Imaging itself I never explicitly pay attention to. However, my mentioned "air ambience" is about how all gets more separated. You can call it more accurate. So this changes the image largely, up to the orchestra suddenly "working" while before it wouldn't (get involved etc.). The image will get wider of that, but this is not what I seek. The separation, yes."

Peter,

I might have mentioned before, but I'm not sure .....

The auditory system depends on secondary, but slightly delayed reflections to solidify imaging. The "air" as you call it. This however needs to be "carefully" tailored.

VJ

*edit*
Just realized something. The mention about secondary reflections was incomplete, and should be taken with the whole speaker design into consideration (and I should have thought of that before I talked about reflections). And excessive/uncontrolled secondary reflections are actually detrimental to imaging.  And thinking back, for a speaker like the Orelo, minimal reflections might be better for the mids and highs.

Part -II

Recreation of acoustic space:

While Omnidirectional speakers are masters at this, Orelo is not far behind. In many ways Orelos may be better. Although I haven't done a through investigation (head to head comparison), omnis might "falsely" widen the sound stage. It is fun to have instruments go beyond the boundaries if the speaker, which give one the impression of scale, but intensity wise it cannot match the visceral feel, and hence an incomplete illusion. It is my impression that omnidirectional speakers are excellent for low level non critical listening, in a typical "listening" room. Anything else it requires careful manipulation of the abundant secondary reflections, and power amps, which should be nothing short of a nuclear reactor.

Coming back to Orelos recreation of acoustic space.
Reference album: Stephan Micus/The music of the stones
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Stones-Stephan-Micus/dp/B000025ZXK
This is kind of a experimental album. Music is made by carefully trimmed and honed blocks of Swedish granite. These are cut into cubes, with deep incisions parallel or intersecting in regular interval. Apart from the first number which is music produced by rubbing the stone, the rest are by a mallet which is used to strike the stone. This is recorded in the "Cathedral of Ulm" (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulm_Minster) which can give a great sense of acoustic space. The image density from the speakers is strong, leading to great reverberant acoustics.

Another interesting album to try is Sera Una Noche
http://www.marecordings.com/main/product_info.php?products_id=78

Pretty much anything from Water Lilly acoustics.
http://waterlilyacoustics.com/main.htm

BTW, the above albums are just markers for reference, and pretty much any album (at least decently recorded) I've heard so far have worked out just fine.

A part of this would also fall on the FM curves (but much more can be achieved with the curves) but a specific mention about imaging.

Signal depth:
So the other day, while listening to ambient or electronic album (can't remember what it was), noticed something quite interesting. Most people are trying to see singers or played move on stage L/R and are amazed by their experience (Noticed this when I went to hear a pair of speakers made by Musical Affairs (PhyHP) at a local guys plays, this owner could not get enough of this opera singer moving side ways on stage) .

My first experience with depth was with the class D, and Omni/Dipole (which might have been a bit exaggerated). But with the new system the imaging is so precise, you can follow the signal in depth, which was unexpected! With electronic music you can have a signal running around the sound field. Precisely following something front to back or vice versa is an interesting experience!

 Image Height:
so far this has been very satisfactory, can differential excellent vs mediocre recordings. Will add more later.


Image size (*edit- width*):
While imaging is excellent with the Orelos, studio panning can become an issue, or mixing errors. Some times it can just be that this was the best that could come out of the speakers used for post production mixing.
This is from a while ago, but still relevant for imaging
I was listing to Tabula Rasa, Geocentricity
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Rasā
Mridangam is the instrument
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mridangamd
Other than a piano, image width can be difficult to judge. Mridangam is a horizontal instrument, which I'm intimately familiar with. This is a set of trials with the curves, ofcourse with the NOS-1 (not a), and prior filter, judging horizontal image size. So will have to repeat it some time.

FM curves
Tabula rasa - geocentricity
(1-highest; 2-mid; 3-low)
*Edit* some of my notes
All red ... too wide, right channel bias
All org .... too wide, right channel bias
Org;grn;grn .... About right (maybe a little too wide). Slightly better imaging.
Org;grn;org ..... Still wide, better imaging
Grn;grn;red ...... Realistic size, good imaging
Grn,org,red ..... As above for both
Redx3 (repeat) too wide
Last different l/r channel  FM settings too erratic, better able to float the left channel.
Orang,org,red .... Slightly elongated, better left imaging.

Maybe one of these days I'll get Kavi himself to come over and listen.

Other Orelo owners can add?

VJ

*Edit*
Forgot to add the following
Kavi Alexander is the recording artist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavichandran_Alexander
Recording technique
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumlein_Pair

I've visited Kavi and the place where this was recorded. An Old Church 17th centrury place.

Most of the instruments in stereo reproduction appear as point sources. Symphonies give scale, difficult to judge individual instruments.  Piano can give a sense of scale, but it can never give a sense of size. That was the reason for using mridangam, a horizontal instrument with defined width, and close recording. BTW i'll probably stay away from that recording for a while, after the FM trials 

Lol ..... If you look at it that way ...

Harbeths are thought to have the typical British sound. If one compares it's sound (ported) with anything such as Naim (ovator series, sealed?), it's easy to hear distortion. The woofer has a subtle muffled and ill defined signal, almost such that the bass is not controlled. Ofcourse it's easy to notice once you compare head to head.  These were/are used as reference recording monitors.

Btw when searching for ATCs distortion specs, found this:

http://www.transaudiogroup.com/atc/scm0-1-15asl-subwoofer.shtml
"Do not expect to be "knocked down" with huge quantities of bass. Much of what we think is massive bass is really just loads of distortion at 200Hz to 300Hz! Sometimes this distortion can approach 40 to 50% of the total sub output!"

Pretty much summarizes what's been said about the Oreleo MK-II 

From that article I only gained some insight into localizing low frequency.

Here is the frequency response to Harbeth. I think almost all of their models show similar curves.

http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/measurements/speakers/harbeth_30_domestic/

This slight rise in dB in the low end might compensate for some cancellation "generally" found in listening rooms, and inconsistencies in rooms response. But the general though process might be more is better?

P.s A 2dB rise did give a good improvement in the bass.

Hate to derail a thread,

So

"the harmonic energy added by the non-linearity deceives the ear into thinking that there is more bass present than there really is"

From:
http://www.stereophile.com/content/audioengine-2-powered-loudspeaker-measurements

This summaries part of the issues about bass with small woofers or high distortion subs. The ear uses pressure as the reference to detect loudness, non-linearities in the bass cause the perceived loudness and false bass perception. A relatively smooth low end response can theoretically cause the perception of low bass considering the ear can only feel pressure differences. Only a initial response is felt, and the ear/brain quickly acclimatizes to the "smooth" pressure response.

My experience is that in smaller monitors or speakers with small woofers, the bass has been manipulated with a hump in the 80-200 range, that creates the artifactual bass perception.
I guess a Peter can comment on manipulating low freq with DSP on Oreleo?!

KnB,
Congrats! 
The speakers look really nice. I really like the strings for the woofers!!
Happy Listening.
VJ

Arjan,
I suspect you are right
Peter talked about going back and working on a remote app.
VJ

Yo!

Mani,
Give it an additional 2weeks, low end is going to open up. Btw dipole bass/open baffle bass is different than boxed bass. Non-audible vs audible distortion.
VJ

Hi Mani,
  Great review, mirrors my experience in many ways. For me bass opened up in 4 weeks. It seems present but not overwhelming at the same time. Also you will notice the high frequency, output is better over time.
   Although you don't have the old NOS -1 to compare, I can at present hear a bit of harshness, and a bit of unevenness in the high frequency (?XXHE/NOS-1).
  Also noticed the normalized playback is a bit more denser, energetic and a bit more harsher (however, not accurately volume matched to the non normalized playback). I hadn't normalized at the time of my prior review.
  All the good recordings are pretty much along the FM spectrum. It's on classical, live, and poor recordings I feel it has the best response. As soon as you feel something is not right, jump up and flip a switch or two or three and see what happens.
  I'll try to post a example in the following days, provided I get the time...
   
    Cheers,
    VJ

Hey Mani,
Thanks for your feedback.
It's difficult to address specific things on the web, with all angles covered.
Localization what I'm talking Bout is a reflex process, it does not go to your higher brain, this is the one that will make you jump instantaneously, cause chills etc.
Some stereo systems magnify errors more than others,  and therefore failure of acceptable stereo illusion as you said, higher order (edit: for localization) processing kicks in. There are multitude of indicators, and some are rejected at phase 1, you can say.