Vivid’s new Giya G4

Laurence “Dic” Dickie (above) showed me his new G4 speaker design in the On A Higher Note suite at the Mirage, which will enter production in April. To be priced at $33,000/pair, the G4 features the same absorptive lines behind the tweeters and midrange drivers and the hybrid vented transmission line loading for the twin woofers first seen in the Giya G1. The upper and lower aluminum-dome HF units are the same as in all the Giya models, but because of theG4’s narrower width compared with the others, Dic had to design a new midrange unit. This again uses an aluminum cone and the same-sized radial magnet, but now there is an oversized dustcap to provide stiffening of the diaphragm midway between voice-coil and surround. Also, with the smaller speaker, the smaller internal volume of the G4 (44 liters compared with the G3’s 67 liters) means that the –6dB point is higher than the larger Giyas—36Hz versus 32Hz for the G3, 28Hz for the G2, and 24Hz for the G1.

I also met famed Dutch engineer Bruno Putzeys in the On A Higher Note room, where the “substantially upgraded” production versions of his Mola Mola amplifiers ($15,000/pair) were being used to drive the Vivid G4s using Kubala-Sosna cable. (Philip O’Hanlon made Bruno wear his jacket for my photo of Bruno and Dic.) Jon Iverson has already reported on Bruno’s prototype DAC—see here and here—but I was also interested in the new phono preamp board Bruno has designed for the $10,000 Mola Mola preamplifier. This is based on a discrete op-amp circuit, but with the discrete transistors guaranteed made from adjacent dies on the original wafer to ensure the best matching of electrical characteristics. An app for an iDevice will allow the equalization and loading for MM and MC to be switched on the fly, using relays to choose the appropriate resistors and capacitors. And as you can see form the photo below, Bruno shed his jacket in order to explain the circuits more efficiently to me.

Source : stereophile[dot]com