Aria 5 speaker kit (1 Viewer)

[Andy Anderson]

Folks--for a first time kit, I was thinking of putting together the Aria 5 kit from Zalytron. I spoke to Elliot earlier today, and he'll make some awesome cabs for me. Does anyone have experience with this kit? I want to try to match it up with an SET amp, perhaps a Decware Zen: Zen Select
Sound reasonable? Yes/no? I thought it would be interesting to build the Aria 5--looks like a quality speaker, and it's high efficiency, so I have the option of using tube gear. If I don't like the way that combo turns out, I can always try something else. (maybe a nOrh Le Amp or two)

 

[Chad Kuypers]

Andy,
The Aria 5 kit is excellent. I recommend it very highly. I have built it in several variations. In fact, I have built the Aria 2,5,6,7 with several different tweeter and woofer variations of each. (I have built a LOT of speaker kits) If you can swing it, DEFINITELY opt for using the Focal Utopia mids in place of the Kevlar mids. The Kevlars are incredible, but the Utopia mids are very hard to beat. Email me personally if you would like more info.
Chad
P.S. Their 92 dB efficiency is a big plus. My current Aria 6W's are almost 94 dB!! It makes a big difference.

 

[Brandon B]

Chad -

I am also (slooooooooooowly) building some aria 5A's (with the accuton tweeter) and had a question for you. I am actually making 7 of these, and my front 3 use the utopia midwoof, the others the 5K4211.

Do you see any reason to change the crossover with the Utopia? I note that OrcaDesigns = has a different lowpass on a new MTM (epoch 2, on Zalytron's web site) similar to the Aria, but using a Cabasse Dom2 tweeter. Since this setup is similar to the Aria, I was wondering if this was just due to different XO point or matching to the tweeter, or if he had actually updated the XO to be more in line with the Utopia woofer. I have heard from several people including someone at Orca that you can pretty much drop a 5W4252 in place of the 5K4211, as their impedance curves are so similar, but always looking for another perspective. Whatcha think?

BB

 

[Ken Woodrow]

I built 3 Aria 5s with the Focal 5K4211 kevlar mid-ranges from Speakercity kits using their cabinets. I actually bought, and returned, cabinets from Zalytron. My impression of Eliot's cabinets were that they were overbuilt -- double walled 1" MDF if I remember correctly (I'd heard of 2x walled baffles, but the whole cabinet?! maybe on a sub). As a result, they were huge! Given my room size limitations, they were simply too big for my space or my spouse. If you have the space, though, they would be awesome, b/c there is NO WAY for them to ever vibrate!

How do my Speakercity Aria 5s sound? Awesome. They need to break in, though, b/c the ti-dioxid tweeter is a little harsh at first. I'm now running them with a Llano 3-channel amp with a tube input stage which helps smooth things out.

They are not as smooth through the mid-range as my ACI Sapphire IIIs, but they are close. They are strikingly detailed and fast.

Go for it.

Keep us posted.

- Ken