Rocket 850s vs 633Ts
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Here is an intersting comparision between Rocket 850's and 633T's. Credit goes to Ken from Aperion forums.
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I recently had the opportunity to do some listening tests with the 633s and the Rocket 850s. A friend of mine lent his home and the 850s while I brought over the 633s (thanks to Ben). Before diving in let me say that my friend and I discussed the sound during the various listening tests and came to the same conclusions. In addition, we concentrated on music even though we are both split 50/50 on music/movies since we believe that music is the more critical listening environment. Since I had listened to the 633s several times in the past, we started by listening to the 850s. At first I thought there was something wrong with the set-up or that the smallish den was affecting the sound, so we moved the 850s out into the main family/living area. Though there was some improvement, it was not as much as I was expecting. The Rockets sound dull/tired across the entire frequency range, as if they were within a tunnel. Though the sound was clean, they seemed to lack any kind of presence. The low end was a bit muffled, the mids were lacking (the dulled part), and the highs, although the best part of the speaker, were very subtle. You had to listen hard for the high end, as if the speaker was not well balanced. Since we were both disappointed, we decided to break out the 633s to see if the room was having a negative impact and for some A/B comparisons.
There was an immediate and obvious difference when we listened to the 633s. They were clean and crisp with quite a bit more definition. The low end had a nice punch, the mids were clear, and the highs were definitive and balanced with the rest of the speaker. The one thing that stood out on the 633s was the upper midrange which seemed to add a slight amount of color. This could be due to the upper mids being more pronounced in the 633s. In comparison the 633s were a joy to listen to while the rockets soon became tiring. We tested across a variety of music (blues, jazz, rock, big band, alternative) and the 633s shined in every case. We also watched a few scenes from Toy Story, LOTR, and Spiderman 2. Though the comparison was much closer than with music, the 633s made the dialogue pop out and provided more punch in the action scenes. Taking into account that the retail price of the 850s is just about double that of the 633s, the quality/value proposition of the 633s really stood out.
As it turns out, my friend also has a pair of Ref 1 bookshelves (AV123's high end line) that he uses for music. We decided to test the Ref 1s with the 633s to see how they would fair against a higher end speaker. There was a huge difference in sound with the Ref 1s compared to the 850s. Where as the 850s sounded muddied, the Ref 1s were clean and crisp from the lower mids through the high end. In addition, they had phenomenal imaging capability, almost disappearing into the room. They were missing the low end, but one would expect that in a bookshelf speaker. The mids were more pronounced that the 633s (especially the vocal range), while the 633s were more pronounced in the upper mids and highs. Interestingly, the sound of the Ref 1 and the 633 was surprisingly close (especially when we added in a subwoofer to compliment the Ref 1s). The Ref 1s cost about the same as the 633s, and we thought it would have been fun to compare the Ref tower speaker (Ref 3 cost is about triple that of the 633). Overall, as much as you can compare the Ref 1s and the 633s, it was about a wash with a slight edge to the Ref 1 in the vocals and a slight edge to 633s in the higher end (the 633 was clearly superior in the low end, but again we were comparing a bookshelf with a tower). Again, looking at cost across the Ref and 630 lines of speakers, the quality/value proposition of the 630s once again shone through.
Happy listening,
Ken
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Link to the thread --
http://www.aperionaudio.com/forum/sh...messageid=2556