Speakerquest (so far...) - Page 57

Thanks for the re-welcoming, guys! Yeah, I really need to spend more time here. Other issues....well....what a drag away from my favorite unaffordable hobby.

Brandon...I'm still undecided about the Aerials. I have feelers out for matching center and surrounds so that's the most likely scenario. I like them well enough to live with them for a few years. But there's this nagging vision that Tim put in my head about socks in the tweeters, lol. At reference volumes, these 7B's are truly amazing. At normal listening amplitudes, well, I think it was Funk that said it right...they have slightly "rounded edges". That lower volume is where the missus (who has hearing issues) demands the setting. I rarely get to crank 'em.

I think I'm still looking for a Martin-Logan sound tamed by non-electrostat drivers. The Summits I auditioned were amazing with unmatched dynamics (Aerials are close IMHO), but the clarity, in particular, and separation are almost piercing...too much of a good thing with the ML's. I think the Aerials need more of this, at least according to my ears. I'm sure what I want is out there, but I have to admit that my search has not ended.

I'm pretty happy with my ACI's for 2-channel, but need to get a better sub to suppliment the bass. When I feel like rockin' out, I DO fire up the Aerials and enjoy them immensely. But they're part of the HT and I think I need something more versatile there. I suspect I could be pretty engaged by the Salk Veracity line or upper-end Revels...tho' I haven't heard them.

Perhaps I need to re-engage with my former mistress...the ribbon tweeter. I would guess you're still loving large with your ST's!

Funk...my friend, are you still waiting??!! They say patience is a virtue, but man............

Tim...do you have a favorite beverage that will de-tune your demanding ears a notch for the GTG?

Mud -

Good luck find that ever elusive blend of transparency without the harshness. I think your answer lies in pairing the ML's with some tubes.

I'm no longer a drinking man, so just a good cup of joe does it for me.

OMG, most of us are going to be sober for this!

I just might be willing to share some purty delicious Black Butte blends for this.

Sounds great! A bunch of introverted audiophile nerds in the same room with no liquid social lubricant . . . now that's a party!

For certain this is not a hobby for the weak of spirit or wallet.

A GTG IS brewing here. But I'm sort of a liaison to the shootout host. I have been waiting for his blessing and I know he's waiting on his sponsors to let it go public or just keep is small and informal. I only know of a couple of guys up here on AVS, and they've been invited. I'm sure there are other northwesterners on the forum, but I wasn't sure who they are, how many, or whether it would be a stampede. Plus...the speakers are tail-draggers for the most part...sub $1k (and thus the comment from Tim ).

But the best part is always the sharing of the hobby and making new friends. You're surely welcomed if you feel like experiencing a nice windy and rainy vacation on the Oregon coast.

In fact, anyone who reads this and is interested, please PM me this week. We'll see where it leads.

And who knows, perhaps Tim will put those fancy new WB's in his Cayenne (just guessing) and they'll find their way to the GTG!

LOL....sounds like....so...much.....uh.......fun.

Pretty sure Tim has a BMW or maybe that was his wife. He has something with a really nice stock sound system, at least that is what I remember reading. Right now he is probably sleeping cause he was up all night with those new speakers of his, or just ENJOYING THE MUSIC too much to comment.

Glad to have you back brother, though this place has become a drag lately. I'll be hanging here for a while, especially since my thread has tuned into the movie "Idiocracy."

I am still loving my ST ribbon's, RJ. I wish I could have you over to give them a listen.

I am happy to hear you can manage with the Aerials for a while, though I do hope you find something to keep you happy until "death do you part." Perhaps it will be a ribbon tweeter that "does it" for you. They sure won me over.

I recommend staying away from my thread, RJ, unless you want to get so frustrated that you'll take another break from the forums. What's with this place lately? Regardless, it's nice to have your calm and collective personality back, Mud.

Remember when these two threads were an oasis you could come to, free from the pointless bickering and name calling that is common throughout the rest of the forum? Ahh, the good ol' days. Guess it's time to start a new thread. Too bad my WB thread is all about WB's, it's still a fun place to go.

Thanks for the kind words, Brandon. I'm sorry to say that it was your thread that demoralized me into a small vacation. Idiocracy is a perfect term for what was going on there. That was the second and last time for me. It was a great thread until the egos arrived. There are still some great posts/people in it, and it's a fountain of information. But it was time for me to get away for from the silly-willy-waving. As you say, it's pretty frustrating. But I feel like I've met some great people and gained some wonderful ideas as a result of that thread...and this one. Can't do better than that.

Now...back to our regularly scheduled speaker (and $$$) search..........

Hey, I ain't no nerd. I fall more into the dweeb category!

That's OK, I'm a tech geek. Nerds, dweebs, geeks . . . we're all in the same lot.

Hilarious!

I've read through 2/3rds of your post over there, and you've got a much better memory than I do, but I will give it my best shot.

Thankfully the mods cleaned it up. Although, some normal posts were removed. Either way, it's better now.

Ah yes...back in the "dizay." This place is still decent, I think.


I don't blame ya at all bro; I even took a little break.


LMAO @ the mono one. Very funny!

Now THAT is a good thread. Us dweeps, geeks and nerds need to keep the bullies out of that one.

LOL, I might have to steal that stereo joke and use it to title my next book!

Yeah, dorks are absofollylutely welcome. The geeks need someone to snicker at and we dweebs can't stand the social pressure.

Come on up, Funk. The flight would be quicker than driving across town (L.A. right?). That's why wings and jet engines were invented.

GRRRRR...&)^((_()^&&%$$#^##@(

I just did a lengthy, heart-felt post with pictures over there, was just finished and was previewing the final submission and my computer crashed! Have I ever told you how much I hate computers?!

I'll try again when I'm not so bummed and have more time.

Yikes. Sorry to hear that. Let me know if you want a new custom computer built a la Nuance.

How Blowful, Mud. I am glad you will be participating in the thread. I think it will be a safe haven for all of us. No one will be allowed to go around being ridonkulous there. The first time people start bickering I will lay down the law.



-Michael

I figured I would throw this here as well:

Round 4

Round 4 was a great, albeit limited, audition. I returned to Indianapolis for a fourth day of auditioning. I arrived at a dealer for Dali, Opera, Vandersteen and Wilson-Benesch at around 2:00 in the afternoon. My original hope was to hear the A.C.T., Discovery and Curve as well as maybe the Vandersteen Quattro and possibly 5 or 5A. Turns out, my plan fell through. The dealer felt aside from the ARC only the Discovery is worth flooring, as he would not have enough market for the Chimera. As for why I never got around to the Vandersteen or Dali... read on.


Wilson-Benesch Discovery
Sim Audio P-7 Preamp/P-8 Amplifier
dCS Puccini SACD Player

Every speaker I have ever listened to has made a statement within a very short listening period. Most speakers are like a person with a really strong personality. The Discovery is a little more interesting. It doesn't immediately give you anything, except gigantic sound stage. That you cannot fail to notice. Everything else takes its time to settle in. I was listening to some of the show off tracks coming off an Usher show off disc first. I thought the tracks showed off a nice sound stage and the impressive bass these monitors produce, but otherwise there was nothing much being shown off. Much like people who take a little while to get to know, sometimes taking your time with a seemingly introverted speaker can be quite worthwhile. I started my music with Abbey Rd. And this was the best way to start my day. I noted good bass on "Come Together". It was tight and musical and sounded just about perfect. I had full on chills for "Here Comes the Sun". In truth, there is something about the opening guitar line that almost always gets me. Likewise with the Piano in "You never Give Me Your Money" as it sounded so SO much like a piano in the room. But, and this is where my day got really good, when the hardness I have noted a few times approached, it was there. Here was a system I had been loving for a solid 15 or 20 minutes, never once getting that bitey quality in the midrange. And bam, it comes in exactly where I have noticed it on so many other systems. Suddenly I realize that I might be putting too much emphasis on a CD whose mastering engineer clearly used some edge enhancement. This is something I don't notice on my stereo at home because what is on the disc is masked. It takes a higher fidelity to uncover this glare on the track, and I have definitely entered the territory of hi-fi. You don't notice sharpness as adding grain on a 1978 Magnavox TV either. And I know plenty of people have pointed this out to me and I have even said it before myself. I should not be starting auditions with this track. It's just not fair. To Salk HT3 - I'm sorry.

"Neil Young - 1971 Massey Hall" a disc which was a pretty regular player on my last round of auditioning. The Discoveries presented the same huge soundstage and delivered a nice clarity to Young's guitarwork on "Cowgirl in the Sand" creating a wonderful sense of Neil being right there playing away. I also immediately noticed how tall the soundstage was. This could have been because of the relatively low sitting position, or it could be just the nature of the beast. Regardless, I didn't dislike it and thought it almost gave the illusion of Neil singing on a stage. I moved around the room while listening to "Old Man" and noticed no major changes to tonality or even image placement. This is probably a test unnecessary at this level of price, but still a fun test. I moved off Young and into "Tangled up in Blue" and didn't get the kick-drum slam effect, but the dCS did read off the SACD layer, so that was a nice bonus. What impressed me the most about this track was when the harmonica came in. As large as the soundstage is on these speakers, I was quite impressed that when Dylan's harmonica came onto the scene it was exactly the right size. On at least a few speakers I have auditioned the image cast has been nice and broad. Oftentimes these broad soundstages cause an instrument to sound larger than they actually do. I was delighted when the Discovery pulled off huge soundstaging and a harmonica sized harmonica. Impressive.

I moved on to a mix disc and noted again impressive bass for this size cabinet on my Dead Can Dance track. On my Aretha song, "Dr Feelgood" she was singing down at me, which I found distracting. I sat up and that helped. Listening to "Dancing in the Dark" by Cannonball Adderley I was very struck by the brushed snare. It was perfectly sized, placed and rendered. Art Blakey was brushing that snare drum, just a few feet behind Mr. Adderley. Fantastic. At some point fairly early in I stopped notating. And that is what the Discoveries did for me. I just got completely wrapped up in what I was listening to. Even the Kinks were enjoyable on this system. And I wouldn't say that the Disco's are warm or that the gear was either. I think they just never did anything overtly offensive. I could see where some people might call these speakers dry. The one word that continued to pop in my brain was clean, though. I didn't find them to be uninvolved or disinteresting, but they begged you to come closer or turn it up just one more notch. When I did turn it up that one more notch there was more but nothing new. Another excellent aspect of this system. At low levels it performed exactly the same as it did at or around reference levels. There was a linearity here that was quite fun to play with, as sometimes I think a little musicality and some dynamics can be lost at levels low enough to talk over. Not the case here.

At one point in the afternoon I had the chance to switch the Sim P-7 to a CAT LS1 tube preamp. The change was not huge, but it was undeniable. Voices took on an almost wet quality. It was mesmerizing. I loved the sound of this fine tubed preamp with the guts of 250 watts of Sim solid state behind it. And I was impressed at how quickly the Disoveries laid bare the differences between pre's. We lost a little oomph and there was a more laid-back quality to the speakers. Pushing them about 6 or so inches closer to the back wall gave the same basic soundstage as previous only with the magic tube midrange. This was not a lush over-warm tube product. It is clear detailed, fast and musical. I think there are a couple people around these parts that think tubes adding to the signal. You need to hear some well designed tube gear.

These are just great little speakers. After chatting with the dealer rep we played around a little with placement and I got to experience exactly how much you can do when a speaker that is so mobile. You can create a pinpoint stage of fairly impressive depth and width, or give yourself a true studio-monitor presentation where it is almost like you're wearing nice studio cups. Yet with every move, I never noticed a change in tonality. And we weren't moving the speakers mere inches. At one point they went from being about 4 feet off the back wall and 8 feet apart to being 8 feet off the back wall, 13 feet apart and seriously toed. Never a change in clarity or tone quality. Excellent.

-Michael

Funk -

That is one handsome driver. I bet you're psyched that things are finally getting close.

Bad news on my end. Fried my amp last night. I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that when smoke pours out the top that it is no longer operating to spec.

This is the first time in all my years in this hobby that this has happened to me. Does anyone know how I can tell if my new speakers are asking too much of the amp or if the amp is just defective?

Thats not good!

Try another amp and if it smokes it must be the speakers.

Sorry, there is really no humor in your situation. I do hope that your amp is covered under warranty. I can't believe the speakers are at fault.