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The ORION ...

The ORION is my proudest design accomplishment. It is a loudspeaker that deserves to be in a music lover's home. "True to the original" has been my guiding principle and this speaker lets you experience music as it has been captured in the making. I have achieved my dream of building a speaker that excels sonically, yet does so without being large in size. 

Cabinet in Brazilian Cherry

Custom painted cabinet in Burgundy red

The ORION is a speaker with seamless integration of its drivers over the whole frequency range, a speaker that sets up a wide, deep and tall sound stage, yet with realistic localization of instruments and voices, with clarity and warmth, with speed and impact. For well recorded material, the speakers disappear and what remains is a panorama of sound and a deeply satisfying experience of music. You may be shaken by the detail and overall character and realism of the bass from an open baffle speaker with conventional cone drivers, as I was in 1988 when I first heard such system at a friend's house.

As rewarding as the ORION is for critical listening from the "sweet spot" - inherent to 2-channel playback - it is equally enjoyable for casual listening from any place in the house. This is the result of its wide and uniform dispersion of sound and its nearly flat power response. The ORION is an open baffle speaker or dipole radiator and so it radiates sound to front and back, but not to sides and top. Yet placement of the ORION is not critical as long as it has breathing room around it, such as a distance of at least four feet from the tweeter baffle to the wall behind the speaker and two feet from the walls on its side. The listening space should have normally live acoustics. No special acoustic treatment is required, just the normal "stuff of life" with which you surround yourself. The ORION was designed to fit that type of environment, while conventional box speakers and panel type dipole radiators often need unsightly sound absorbers and diffusers to optimize their response at the sweet spot.

And there is an aspect to the ORION that might be of particular benefit to apartment or condominium dwellers who are concerned about disturbing their neighbors by transmitting large amounts of low frequency sound and vibration through the walls. Thanks again to the dipole radiation characteristic, if you listen from the sweet spot at your customary volume level, then compared to a box speaker at the same volume level, your neighbor will receive 5 dB less and hear the bass only half as loud, if at all. However, since the ORION is capable of playing cleanly at life-like levels, you might find yourself increasing your playback level to enjoy the increased impact, articulation and timbre fidelity that come with higher volume. In that case invite your neighbor over to share your pleasure.

There are ORION owners and DIY builders in many parts of the world:
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, USA (AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, HI, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NE, NJ, NY, NM, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI). 

ORION Loudspeaker System by Wood Artistry

+ + +  Build this unique loudspeaker yourself or let us build it for you  + + +

Wood Artistry is my official supplier of the ORION in the USA. You can purchase a complete loudspeaker system from them - ready to be plugged in and to play - or subassemblies and certain parts if you want to construct the ORION yourself. They can ship worldwide. 

Wood Artistry sells their manufactured parts only to owners of the ORION Construction Plans. Complete system are delivered with a detailed Operating and Service Manual to guarantee that the speakers can be maintained at their original performance for many years to come. 

Prices may have changed due to increases in material and labor costs.

The complete, turn-key system includes an electronic crossover/equalizer, speaker cables, interconnects and an 8-channel power amplifier. The system comes ready to be plugged into your pre-amplifier output. We offer it in several standard wood versions, all include the Revision 0.1 midrange driver mounting. 

Cabinet in Satin black paint

Cabinet in Maple

ORION assembly at Wood Artistry Brazilian Cherry with book matched baffle panels

Packaging of the ORION. Each speaker sits on a circular disk/square plate and is wrapped in bubble pack. A cylindrical construction forming tube slides over the speaker. Empty spaces are filled with packing material. The open end is closed off with another disk and square plate.

The end caps are screwed into the tube to form a rigid package that protects the speaker in shipment.

Note: It is very likely that the ORION will not be the first loudspeaker you have owned. Over time you may have lived with a variety of speakers and experimented with amplifiers, cables and accessories to obtain the best possible sound, and thus have arrived at your present setup. Some of it may have cost you more than a complete ORION System would. This system, though, was designed as a unit from the set of 6 components listed under Specifications. I recommend to stay with them. It is the only way I can assure the acoustic performance of the ORION. 

+ + +  Build your last loudspeaker yourself or let us build it for you  + + +

Corte Madera Buying the ORION System is a major purchasing decision. Most likely these are not your first loudspeakers and you have been on a search for some time. Though I am convinced that you would never regret having taken the plunge, I also know how important it is for you to have heard the ORION beforehand, especially since you are likely to own already a system with components of high reputation.  Consider visiting me in Corte Madera, just outside of San Francisco, for listening to music and talking. Or you might spend a few days of vacation in Sea Ranch where the ORION is set up in my Honeymoon Cottage. On your way, in Windsor, you might want to discuss wood choices for your custom built ORION with Don Naples of Wood Artistry.  Siegfried Linkwitz --- Don Naples --- Sea Ranch --- Where else ...

| Wood Artistry | ORION | PLUTO |
| Specifications | System Order | Kit Order | Examples | Woods | THOR | Reviews | FAQ |