Rodney_gold
R.I.P. 5 June 2018
I'm pretty much a Vivid audio fan..I have heard almost their whole range and all are impressive . The company treat customers well and are a pleasure to deal with. I'm just a happy customer - so view my ramblings in that light
This is a comparison of the Giya G1's and the new G1 Spirits and just some musings on the Spirits themselves
The G1's
They are incredible speakers , a tour de force .. they floated my boat for over 2 years .. endless hours of pure pleasure .. incredibly musical , dynamic , astounding bass .. holographic imagery and huge sense of grandeur and presence .. go as loud as your ears can take and they cope .. no genre sounded bad and even poor recordings were listenable .. sounded great at any level , background or full orchestral..their overall sound in my room was unlike whatever I owned or had heard.
And then I heard of the G1 Spirits .. my appetite was whetted.. Better than G1's? Cmmon....
Vivid , confident of their product , put their money where their mouth is and said they would do me a set of Spirits in the colour of my choice (copper) and allow me to play with them and the G1's for a month and keep the set I wanted.. if I decided to keep the spirits , they would trade in my G1's and of course I would have to cough up some boodle..a VERY fair proposition.. I was ordering on a leap of faith with a get out clause....
The moola for both my G1's and my spirit upgrade came from me selling 3 yank muscle cars I had , 2 Corvettes and a Camaro .. I hadn't driven 2 for a year and the other I drove infrequently .. basically giving me no joy and gathering dust..I decided to parlay that "investment" into something I can use daily..
After listening to my Giya G1 Spirits for a month , all run in and sort of fine tuned..it was time to wheel my older G1's back into the room to get a true handle on sonic differences between the 2. I listened to the Spirits for 2-3 weeks and then the G1's for a few days and then swapped back to the Spirits..once you go Spirits there is no going back
The spec differences are :
Spirits are slightly shorter and fatter .. I like both's looks
The tweeter/mid tweeter and midrange panel has shifted about 10cm downwards .. a huge improvement in that the 2 domes are not way above ear level
They use a different midrange driver .. much bigger magnet and coil..
Tweeter and mid tweeter have salt and pepper shaker protective grids vs the old cruciform one.. no more angst about breathing too near the domes and seeing them crumple ..fingers and dent magnet issue solved..
Spirits have different bass drivers .. total overkill units .. for extra shove ..
They have external crossovers .. great for changing wires or making the speakers active .. no more 3 person tipping the speaker over to do anything re cables. .. a short umbilical 8 pole speakon goes under the speakers .. unplugging it is a bit of a gynecological affair but possible while the speaker is standing. You can make the speaker fully dsp active if you really want , accessing the drivers themselves..Vivid offer NO guarantee if you go this route
Boxes that the externals come in are high gloss piano black (fingerprint magnets and a b*tch to clean) but overall a better solution than with G1's ..Spirits obviously have a different crossover topology
Different internal bracing is used in the Spirits ..
They are at least 2db or more efficient over the G1, A welcome bonus
They handle double the power .. from 800w rms to 1.6kw rms. .. but anyone going near the upper limit is insane .. these speakers go LOUD.. but more on that later
To me they are also better made than the G1 and the paint finish is superior.
I dont like the Giya grilles for various reasons ...
So I dont use either the main or the woofer grilles..I unpacked one , saw it fitted the spirit and carefully repacked and stored. As said before ..The new protective covers on the low and high tweeters ally a lot of angst when it comes to finger pokers
I like all genres of music , I am open to experiment and exploration
I like it loud , at least lifelike
I like visceral and tight bass , treble and midrange purity , precise imaging and a wide soundstage.. I want every listening session to be an experience.
My system is real simple ..I stream to a squeezebox touch either straight into to my 2 Devialet D premiers or to a miniDSP DDRC-22 and then to the Devialets. The DDRC is a hardware based DIRAC solution
The devialets go directly to my speakers
The only cables used are a set of solid silver mundorf ribbons to the speakers .. If using the Touch..a kimber D60 spdif cable.
My room is driven off a 5kw pure sine wave inverter fed by a bank of 200 ah batterys , which are solar charged. So I dont really concern myself with power conditioning or power cables .. neither do I tweak with isolation or racks , my rack is a coffee table.
I *do* have a fully treated dedicated 500sq ft room , soundproofed .. bass traps in corners and either absorption or diffusion strategically placed.
I have some really nasty room mode peaks at 21hz , 40 and 60 hz .. no bass trap will ever remove them so I use DSP to knock them out using DIRAC below 180hz or so , nothing else is touched
I use ROON as a front end ..integrated with Tidal .. I have a local collection of round 4000 cds .. if you are music lover and have a big library and want to partake of the smorgasbord of lossless music out there in the ether .. ROON and Tidal is the bees knees...
I have tried various other speaker/chair positions and the best is where I am now
My chair is one of those configurable ergohuman things , I can roll it around and tilt it to get into different sweet spots , closer to the backwall the more bass , inclined makes it smoother and so on. A very comfortable "command" chair..you can sit in it for hours and get up refreshed
The moment the first note was struck when we set up the Spirits , I knew there was something special.. the local agent who installed the speakers was also astounded..just plonked down fresh out the box....
To cut to the chase:
The spirits do it all .. they detach the music from the system , it does NOT come from speakers , it comes from somewhere in the ether .. you can follow any individual thread in the music , you are there , you know what the artists intent was..
When listening , I wish I could play the artists their own recordings on these speakers .. just to hear their comments
They extract information you never dreamed you could encode in stereo...Imaging is rock solid and the soundstage is layered both left and right and fore and aft.. its surreal .. you dont have to close your eyes to pinpoint a performer or instruments' space in 3d..
This is the spirits party trick .. the imaging is superb wherever you are , get up , walk towards the speakers and the imaging DOESNT change.. only when you go behind the speakers does it collapse .. then walk back to the listening seat with the speakers behind you and amazingly enough the imaging pops up in FRONT of you ... the off axis performance of these speakers is amazing, I recon you can toe them in so they face each other and still get amazing sound..
The bass is profound , totally distortion free to ungodly house shaking levels , its tight , but its a bass that is not often heard but felt .. there is NOTHING this speaker can not handle in the bass .. you can go from dub to organ , to electronica , whatever.. you will NEVER come close to unsettling the Spirits..My devialets also have something to do with it , running 500w per chan .. but these speakers can take 1.6KW!!!!! ..92 DB efficiency. I recon they can go close to 120db at 3m
You do NOT a sub with these speakers , their bass section will outperform almost all subs...
PS DIRAC measures my bass as -2b down at 10hz!!!! .. and we are talking pretty high levels here
Im still fine tuning the bass and have plans to change my bass trapping to 12x 20" diameter 8 ft tube traps to replace my flat traps
If you touch the furniture in my room when pumping the bass at serious levels , its all buzzing , touch the shells and they are totally dead..not a hint of vibration.. you can touch right near the woofers..Nada..nothing
The way the bass units are coupled and the bracing in the cabinet works brilliantly
A con to all this bass is that I now have some new buzzes and rattles to sort out..not the Spirits fault tho...
The bass drivers also dont seem to roll off.. they can do low bass TOO well, and im talking ulta low freqs here , some albums with ultra low freqs encoded are problematic and disconcerting as they have bass that no other system would reproduce.. the woofers go mad...and the room pressurises
IMHO , the spirits need a pretty steep roll off below 20hz to get rid of this. I have implemented a 36db/octave high pass filter at 20hz.
As to the rest ..
Treble purity has to be heard .. every nuance is conveyed with utmost clarity..there is no etch , there is no breakup , there is no beaming ..its just there ..as you would hear it in real life .. the whole top end is different to the the
G1's .. there is a lot more clarity , and its far less laid back.. those salt and pepper shaker covers dont seem to affect the tweeters at all..apart from giving them better off axis performance
The midrange is something else .. the driver is part dome part cone ..more dome
The spirts are a lot more forward and immediate than the G1's in a good way..totally natural .. far more detailed and textured... but the G1's are more forgiving than the Spirits on bad recordings..occasionally I implement a -1db filter with a low Q centred around 2k for those brasher performances which just takes the edge off.
It is really difficult to describe the Spirits by breaking them down into parts .. it doesnt work that way..Its a no compromise speaker that can deliver the sound you want , no matter your preferences
You have to deal with the paradigm change in comparing it with anything you have heard..
You like classical..well you can have the orchestra in your room .. you got the best seats in the house
you like rock..just turn up the wick..get out the air guitar and go for it
say Yello to electronica..the ambient effects are amazing..zone out within the music
You like female vocal..krall just put on a private performance just for you
Overall the speaker has a dynamic range you have to experience 0-100000 in a parsec..the effortlessness they exude is addictive.. you reach for the loud pedal knowing that you not going to end up with a mess when things get busy
The louder you go , the more you feel part of the performance .. you wind it up some more to mine the nth degree of detail on offer .. your ears will give up before the spirits will..they are clean at ANY level.
An added bonus to these speakers is they still have much of their character at low levels and background.. but they really come to life when you play at lifelike levels and beyond..the louder it goes , the more you feel part of the music.
With the spirits , you instantly get the artists intent on your old or new music .. its sort of weird.. yeh maybe its not the best recording or mastering.. but you still get it!!
At the end of it all .. what the spirits do *is* make every listening session an experience
I was wondering whether the $30k premium for the spirits over the G1 was worth it ... well , Im keeping them !! they are worth every cent!!
These are not speakers.. they are magic music machines..Well done Vivid and Dickie .. you have surpassed yourselves.
This is a comparison of the Giya G1's and the new G1 Spirits and just some musings on the Spirits themselves
The G1's
They are incredible speakers , a tour de force .. they floated my boat for over 2 years .. endless hours of pure pleasure .. incredibly musical , dynamic , astounding bass .. holographic imagery and huge sense of grandeur and presence .. go as loud as your ears can take and they cope .. no genre sounded bad and even poor recordings were listenable .. sounded great at any level , background or full orchestral..their overall sound in my room was unlike whatever I owned or had heard.
And then I heard of the G1 Spirits .. my appetite was whetted.. Better than G1's? Cmmon....
Vivid , confident of their product , put their money where their mouth is and said they would do me a set of Spirits in the colour of my choice (copper) and allow me to play with them and the G1's for a month and keep the set I wanted.. if I decided to keep the spirits , they would trade in my G1's and of course I would have to cough up some boodle..a VERY fair proposition.. I was ordering on a leap of faith with a get out clause....
The moola for both my G1's and my spirit upgrade came from me selling 3 yank muscle cars I had , 2 Corvettes and a Camaro .. I hadn't driven 2 for a year and the other I drove infrequently .. basically giving me no joy and gathering dust..I decided to parlay that "investment" into something I can use daily..
After listening to my Giya G1 Spirits for a month , all run in and sort of fine tuned..it was time to wheel my older G1's back into the room to get a true handle on sonic differences between the 2. I listened to the Spirits for 2-3 weeks and then the G1's for a few days and then swapped back to the Spirits..once you go Spirits there is no going back
The spec differences are :
Spirits are slightly shorter and fatter .. I like both's looks
The tweeter/mid tweeter and midrange panel has shifted about 10cm downwards .. a huge improvement in that the 2 domes are not way above ear level
They use a different midrange driver .. much bigger magnet and coil..
Tweeter and mid tweeter have salt and pepper shaker protective grids vs the old cruciform one.. no more angst about breathing too near the domes and seeing them crumple ..fingers and dent magnet issue solved..
Spirits have different bass drivers .. total overkill units .. for extra shove ..
They have external crossovers .. great for changing wires or making the speakers active .. no more 3 person tipping the speaker over to do anything re cables. .. a short umbilical 8 pole speakon goes under the speakers .. unplugging it is a bit of a gynecological affair but possible while the speaker is standing. You can make the speaker fully dsp active if you really want , accessing the drivers themselves..Vivid offer NO guarantee if you go this route
Boxes that the externals come in are high gloss piano black (fingerprint magnets and a b*tch to clean) but overall a better solution than with G1's ..Spirits obviously have a different crossover topology
Different internal bracing is used in the Spirits ..
They are at least 2db or more efficient over the G1, A welcome bonus
They handle double the power .. from 800w rms to 1.6kw rms. .. but anyone going near the upper limit is insane .. these speakers go LOUD.. but more on that later
To me they are also better made than the G1 and the paint finish is superior.
I dont like the Giya grilles for various reasons ...
So I dont use either the main or the woofer grilles..I unpacked one , saw it fitted the spirit and carefully repacked and stored. As said before ..The new protective covers on the low and high tweeters ally a lot of angst when it comes to finger pokers
I like all genres of music , I am open to experiment and exploration
I like it loud , at least lifelike
I like visceral and tight bass , treble and midrange purity , precise imaging and a wide soundstage.. I want every listening session to be an experience.
My system is real simple ..I stream to a squeezebox touch either straight into to my 2 Devialet D premiers or to a miniDSP DDRC-22 and then to the Devialets. The DDRC is a hardware based DIRAC solution
The devialets go directly to my speakers
The only cables used are a set of solid silver mundorf ribbons to the speakers .. If using the Touch..a kimber D60 spdif cable.
My room is driven off a 5kw pure sine wave inverter fed by a bank of 200 ah batterys , which are solar charged. So I dont really concern myself with power conditioning or power cables .. neither do I tweak with isolation or racks , my rack is a coffee table.
I *do* have a fully treated dedicated 500sq ft room , soundproofed .. bass traps in corners and either absorption or diffusion strategically placed.
I have some really nasty room mode peaks at 21hz , 40 and 60 hz .. no bass trap will ever remove them so I use DSP to knock them out using DIRAC below 180hz or so , nothing else is touched
I use ROON as a front end ..integrated with Tidal .. I have a local collection of round 4000 cds .. if you are music lover and have a big library and want to partake of the smorgasbord of lossless music out there in the ether .. ROON and Tidal is the bees knees...
I have tried various other speaker/chair positions and the best is where I am now
My chair is one of those configurable ergohuman things , I can roll it around and tilt it to get into different sweet spots , closer to the backwall the more bass , inclined makes it smoother and so on. A very comfortable "command" chair..you can sit in it for hours and get up refreshed
The moment the first note was struck when we set up the Spirits , I knew there was something special.. the local agent who installed the speakers was also astounded..just plonked down fresh out the box....
To cut to the chase:
The spirits do it all .. they detach the music from the system , it does NOT come from speakers , it comes from somewhere in the ether .. you can follow any individual thread in the music , you are there , you know what the artists intent was..
When listening , I wish I could play the artists their own recordings on these speakers .. just to hear their comments
They extract information you never dreamed you could encode in stereo...Imaging is rock solid and the soundstage is layered both left and right and fore and aft.. its surreal .. you dont have to close your eyes to pinpoint a performer or instruments' space in 3d..
This is the spirits party trick .. the imaging is superb wherever you are , get up , walk towards the speakers and the imaging DOESNT change.. only when you go behind the speakers does it collapse .. then walk back to the listening seat with the speakers behind you and amazingly enough the imaging pops up in FRONT of you ... the off axis performance of these speakers is amazing, I recon you can toe them in so they face each other and still get amazing sound..
The bass is profound , totally distortion free to ungodly house shaking levels , its tight , but its a bass that is not often heard but felt .. there is NOTHING this speaker can not handle in the bass .. you can go from dub to organ , to electronica , whatever.. you will NEVER come close to unsettling the Spirits..My devialets also have something to do with it , running 500w per chan .. but these speakers can take 1.6KW!!!!! ..92 DB efficiency. I recon they can go close to 120db at 3m
You do NOT a sub with these speakers , their bass section will outperform almost all subs...
PS DIRAC measures my bass as -2b down at 10hz!!!! .. and we are talking pretty high levels here
Im still fine tuning the bass and have plans to change my bass trapping to 12x 20" diameter 8 ft tube traps to replace my flat traps
If you touch the furniture in my room when pumping the bass at serious levels , its all buzzing , touch the shells and they are totally dead..not a hint of vibration.. you can touch right near the woofers..Nada..nothing
The way the bass units are coupled and the bracing in the cabinet works brilliantly
A con to all this bass is that I now have some new buzzes and rattles to sort out..not the Spirits fault tho...
The bass drivers also dont seem to roll off.. they can do low bass TOO well, and im talking ulta low freqs here , some albums with ultra low freqs encoded are problematic and disconcerting as they have bass that no other system would reproduce.. the woofers go mad...and the room pressurises
IMHO , the spirits need a pretty steep roll off below 20hz to get rid of this. I have implemented a 36db/octave high pass filter at 20hz.
As to the rest ..
Treble purity has to be heard .. every nuance is conveyed with utmost clarity..there is no etch , there is no breakup , there is no beaming ..its just there ..as you would hear it in real life .. the whole top end is different to the the
G1's .. there is a lot more clarity , and its far less laid back.. those salt and pepper shaker covers dont seem to affect the tweeters at all..apart from giving them better off axis performance
The midrange is something else .. the driver is part dome part cone ..more dome
The spirts are a lot more forward and immediate than the G1's in a good way..totally natural .. far more detailed and textured... but the G1's are more forgiving than the Spirits on bad recordings..occasionally I implement a -1db filter with a low Q centred around 2k for those brasher performances which just takes the edge off.
It is really difficult to describe the Spirits by breaking them down into parts .. it doesnt work that way..Its a no compromise speaker that can deliver the sound you want , no matter your preferences
You have to deal with the paradigm change in comparing it with anything you have heard..
You like classical..well you can have the orchestra in your room .. you got the best seats in the house
you like rock..just turn up the wick..get out the air guitar and go for it
say Yello to electronica..the ambient effects are amazing..zone out within the music
You like female vocal..krall just put on a private performance just for you
Overall the speaker has a dynamic range you have to experience 0-100000 in a parsec..the effortlessness they exude is addictive.. you reach for the loud pedal knowing that you not going to end up with a mess when things get busy
The louder you go , the more you feel part of the performance .. you wind it up some more to mine the nth degree of detail on offer .. your ears will give up before the spirits will..they are clean at ANY level.
An added bonus to these speakers is they still have much of their character at low levels and background.. but they really come to life when you play at lifelike levels and beyond..the louder it goes , the more you feel part of the music.
With the spirits , you instantly get the artists intent on your old or new music .. its sort of weird.. yeh maybe its not the best recording or mastering.. but you still get it!!
At the end of it all .. what the spirits do *is* make every listening session an experience
I was wondering whether the $30k premium for the spirits over the G1 was worth it ... well , Im keeping them !! they are worth every cent!!
These are not speakers.. they are magic music machines..Well done Vivid and Dickie .. you have surpassed yourselves.
