Wow. That review is one of the most positive reviews I've ever read -- Michael couldn't have paid someone to write a better AD, I mean article, on the Aerial system.
Get the SW-12s while they're still in stock.
Some quotes...
Michael Fremer, SGHT:
"I've had big expectations, but what happened next was one of those sonic moments that more reviewers taste only occasionally in their lives and that, forever after, remain frozen in time. This familiar track was revealed to sound much, MUCH more lifelike, dynamic, full-bodied, and 3-dimensional than I'd ever imagined it could. I don't mean a little bit better around the edges--I mean SOOOOO much better more physically present, vibrant, and BIG that it sent body-slamming shock waves through my bones"
"I'd never heard the bass line on "Caramel" exhibit such physical presence, tonal purity, detail, rhythmic tautness, and extension. Nor had I heard Vega's voice sound as liquid and smooth, yet articulate. The same for her guitar, which possessed both transient string attack and resonant body. The accompanying cello, accordion, and clarinet were rich and full-bodied but never laden. Very familiar music sounded startlingly more exciting and believable than I'd ever heard it before."
"When the track ended, I barely had time to catch my breath when the big, chunky, hollow bodied e-bass line from Shawn Colvin's "Diamond in the Rough" commenced. Yikes! Those subs could really shake a room with weighty but harmonically convincing bass NOTES. I've never heard such substantial, momentous, musical, totally transparent performance from a subwoofer, either in my home theater or in my audio room. And that was without playing with any of the many control on the back panel."
CC3:
"As long as I'm indulging myself in what sounds like (but isn't) hyperbolie: The CC3 was the least colored, most natural-sounding, DYNAMIC center channel speaker I've had in my home theater system--especially given its ambitious low-frequency extension."
SR3:
"Thanks in part to the SR3 surround speaker's eerily transparent performance, and to the similar voicing of all the speakers, this system can "hang" an effect in front-to-back space as has no other system in my listening experience. Hearing 3-dimensional, focused images moving and sometimes stopping in space with this degree of clarity, focus, and seamlessness was a revelation. I've used the word SEAMLESS to describe the spatial performance of a number of systems I've reviewed, but the word has another meaning in the context of the Aerial system."
SW12:
"At this risk of slighting the rest of the Aerial system, the SW-12 subwoofer was clearly the star of the show."
"The SW12 didn't know what compression means. Nor did I ever hear it overload or distort. In fact, I never actually "heard" it at all when it was working -- a tribute to the soundness of the enclosure, and its drivers linearity and freedom from harmonic distortion."
"Yes, the SW-12 is expensive, but you get what you pay for. . .The SW-12 is easily the best subwoofer I've ever heard (not that I've heard them all. Nothing else comes close."
To summarize:
"The Aerial is the finest home-theater system I've had in my home to date, and by a wide margin. Only the far more expensive Linn system was in the same league..."
"The Aerial system presented a big, seamless, detailed, full-bodied, physically present, essentially transparent soundstage."
...and it goes on and on. It's actually hard to find a few "bits" to quote because the entire review is a rave.
---Mark
[This message has been edited by mdavis (edited April 06, 2000).]
