Contemplating DEVORE SPEAKERS (and others)....LONG audition report of many speakers
Told you it was long!
I figure what the heck, some people may find all of it interesting, maybe only some, maybe none. No one forced to read it. So onward....
Folks,
I've had Thiel 3.7s for several years and love them dearly. As I've mentioned in other threads, I have to downsize simply due to some ergonomic and aesthetic issues in my room - the speakers have to go partially by the entrance and so any big, deep speakers tend to get in the way.
Over the last two years or so I did a whole bunch of auditioning of many speakers over a year ago to find a replacement - Audio Note, Audio Physic, Focal, Raidho monitors, JM Reynaud, Paradigm Persona, various Revel models, Monitor Audio, Proac, Kudos, Harbeth, Joseph Audio...
I was going to give a report on all of them individually, at one point, but it's been a while so I'll just throw out some thumbnail impressions. They aren't meant to be particularly descriptive of the sound so much as brief reasons as to why I enjoyed or moved on from those speakers. I always sought the best set up achievable for an audition, but of course that's still not like being able to tune a speaker in one's own room. So caveats given, on with some brief impressions:
Audio Note:
(I forget which exact model but it was in the "quite expensive but not impossible" zone for me) Excellent clarity. Good impact. Nice woody tonality (as in does wood instruments like cello, stand up bass etc with a convincing tone). My main issue is that I could really hear the corner loading aspect of the sound, especially in the lower mids down. Not that the bass was incontinent per se, more that I was just aware of the way the illusion of the bigger bass and sound was being created, in terms of using wall re-enforcement.
Also, I'm a real stickler about instrumental tone and timbre. I've always found that the more room you introduce into the sound, especially in the upper frequencies, the more it will tend to cast a scrim of room sound over the timbre of voices and instruments, homogenizing the most delicate aspects of the timbre. As the Audio Notes pretty much require or are meant to use the room, this was an aspect it would seem hard to get around. (That's one reason I tend to like speakers that will work closer to my listening position).
Audio Physic:
I'm very familiar with the AP sound - have had the Virgos, Scorpios and Libra in my home and heard much of the line through the years. The Avanti was terrific, tonally neutral sounding, clear lively treble without ear piercing. And of course their magical disappearing act, which I love. But didn't have enough of the richness I'd become used to with the bigger Thiels. I suspect the larger Codex woud be killer, but they get in to the too deep/large category.
Focal
I've always found Focal to have a "look at me" sound to their tweeter. Nonetheless I often admired the rich tonality of their large speakers at audio shows. Unfortunately I never found this to transfer to their smaller stand mounted speakers. They struck me as more clinical and left me cold. Recent Audition of the Kanta 2 still had the "check out our TWEETER!" Focal sound, but was smooth and vivid enough. Unfortunately to my ears sounded too "hi-fi" with disjointed bass. My Thiels at home sounded far more organic and believable.
Raidho
Listened to the tiny X1s which were remarkable performers for their size. Super clear, clean, open, killer soundstaging, good snap on drums - represented Joe Morello's solos on Brubeck at Carnegie Hall far more convincingly than any tiny speaker has a right to. Ultimately, too small.
Dealer had a killer deal on the larger C 1.2 stand mounted speakers and I had hope there. I have never, ever liked a ribbon tweeter with cones because every time I hear the discontinuity. I'd say the Raidhos are the first time I did not hear that discontinuity. So it was all that air and delicacy without the usual drawback. However, I'm thinking part of the magic for this has to do with their house curve, which isn't flat but has a "concert hall" dip in the upper mids (I think). Ultimately I tended to hear this as a coloration, a recessing of a portion of the sound. I'm used to the Thiels which at my place are phenomenally linear sounding top to bottom. So there would be percussion instruments, piano parts, and other instruments that would be more distant and subdued on the Raidhos, losing some of the realistic liveliness. I didn't really hear more detail than I was used to from my Thiels, found the sound a bit "grayed" tonally, though rich in the mids and upper bass. These things KICK in terms of upper bass presence and sound much bigger than they are. But I also found that a slightly over-bearing.
In fact, that's a problem I often have with monitor speakers. So many of them are engineered to sound bigger than they are so you don't feel like you are missing base, but the goosing of the bass to achieve this can be to my ears a bit obnoxious vs the more linear bass of a good floor standing speaker (though down lower, they can have their room problems...my Thiels do not).
JM Reynaud Offrande Supreme v2
I was very serious about these speakers. I'd been around for the initial JMR hype years ago, and heard most of their models at a local store. Always had nice tone, both incisive and warm, but a bit too far into the ever-present-coloration territory to my ears. Still, I believe the Supremes had been updated since then and I had two separate auditions at a Dealer when I was visiting Montreal.
They certainly had the JMR virtues. Super clear, almost hot high end, lively presence all around, yet somehow allied to a gorgeous warm tone. This brings in one of the things I like in a speaker - a warm tone not necessariily in the sense of a ripe lower midrange, but rather timbrally - warm in the sense that when an acoustic guitar track is played through the speaker, the signature is that of the warmth of wood, instead of the cold, electronic coloration of most systems. The JMR does this with acoustic instruments and voices. Everything with an amber or blond-wood "glow." And they definitley have a dynamic/transient/open sound that gives a feeling of musicians being right there, playing right now vibe.
Ultimately I found they were a bit biting to my ear in the upper frequencies. While the forwardness was a boon to putting musicians right in front of me, it also tended to fore-shorten depth. An always "they are here" vs "I'm transported to there" vibe. Also, the bass which was really big and deep - they are huge stand mount speakers! - was a bit on the pudgy side. But I get why people love them. If I had the opportunity I'd have liked to try them at home. (Though...maybe not. I actually don't like how they look, and REALLY don't like the JMR wood finishes).
Paradigm Persona
(I believe it was the 3F). Yup, these babies are clear, clear, clear and grain free. They are balanced top to bottom and were, like the Revel, the closest to my Thiel 3.7 speakers in terms of sounding balanced from top to bottom. Drum snares, cymbals, rim hits, percussion, guitar strings etc all had a fairly riveting precision. They had an open-window into the recording studio feel on almost every track. Plus, for their size they sounded BIG, including the image sizes, depth, width of the soundstage. A tremendous speaker for the money. Ultimately I couldn't get on with their looks, at least for my room. But most important, I did find them somewhat fatiguing to listen to after a while, and a bit less organic than my Thiels. (Though I'd bet that could change for the better if set up at my home on my gear).
Revel
I'd repeat most of what I just wrote about the Paradigms. They sounded similar, though the Paradigms seemed to have a next-level sense of purity and transparency vs the Revel. And the Revels tended to sound just a bit more linear and controlled top to bottom. The Revels just sounded like really competent speakers, but didn't grab me. Again, something about the timbre/tone I get with the Thiels (and some other speakers) have an "it" factor I don't get with the Revels.
Monitor Audio (Gold, I believe - a smaller floor stander)
I've always liked the Monitor Audio sound. My father-in-law uses a HUGE pair of Monitor Audio monitors from the 80's that still strike me as one of the best marriages of believable tone with size and richness I've heard. I own Monitor Audio bronze monitors for various uses, including home theater surrounds. Though I found once they moved to the Platinum line, with ribbons, the tone became a bit too bleached for my comfort. The smaller Gold line still was able to do the "golden, bronze" tones in the upper frequencies...just turning toward silver a bit. They were astonishingly clean and clear, with a rainbow of timbral colors coming through. My main gripe is that I realized nothing actually sounded "real" - in the sense of believably organic. Everything sounded a bit hard around the edge - sibilance in vocals for instance being laid bare as processed in a bit too ruthless manner.
Proac - D20R (I believe...)
Love the look of these especially the wood finish in ebony on the model I auditioned. Would really have been a perfect size replacement for the Thiels, and went down about as low. Unfortunately I couldn't get around the extremely obvious character of the ribbon tweeter vs the mids/bass. I was always aware of it, and generally found the sound too cool in the upper frequencies to really get into. Bass was also not particularly impressive in terms of tone and control. One of the more disappointing speaker auditions.
Kudos
You really don't hear much about Kudos around here. Lack of dealers and North American presence I guess (as it seems to me a majority of people posting here are from North America...if I am indeed right about that). Anyway, at a TAVES shows a few years ago I was frankly astonished by the sound coming from a pair of Kudos Super 20 floor standing speakers. It had a brilliant, reach out and grab me "alive" tone that made my brain think "real performance" more than most of what I'd heard that day. A bit forward...but wow what an effect. So they went on to my radar.
Turns out a local dealer carried Kudos, and there I heard some very small floor standing Kudos X3 speakers. Well, there it was! That tone! Like the bigger model I'd heard at the show, this one had a dialed up upper frequency range that gave liveliness and detail. But it was, somewhat like the JMR speakers, allied to a generally warm tone, with a spectrum of timbral color to trumpet, wood blocks, acoustic guitar etc. If found the sound quite compelling, and so wondered about Kudos higher end models. As it turned out, Kudos in the last year has come out with the Titan range, a trickle down from their flagship. I really liked the design of the Titan 606 speakers, they were a great replacement size for the Thiels from the specs. But...my local dealer didn't want to bring them in so I would never hear them (I certainly did not want him to order them just for my sake, given I couldn't know before hearing them if I'd want to buy them).
But then during a recent trip to Europe I ended up in London for a couple days, so I found a Kudos dealer there. And not only did he have the 606s for me to hear, but also the literally just introduced stand mounted Titan 505 that had many people raving at a recent British audio show. Very cool. Both speakers, as with most Kudos speakers, employ isobaric loading for the bass.
Both the 505 and 606 displayed the Kudos house sound which was that lively top end. Great for adding bit to guitar picking, hearing the bow on strings, transient aliveness etc. Even if not strictly neutral, it's fun (so long as timbres to my ears are otherwise organic). I found the 505 to actually sound a bit less balanced than the floor standing speaker. I suppose this is my allergy to the "tiny speaker trying to sound like a big speaker" tuning, but the bass seemed somewhat over-warm, and the speakers themselves a tad clinical from the mids up. Still, they were spacious, enthusiastic sounding, with great separation of instruments and voices. And certain tracks like Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind were actually magical on the 505. A similar warm timbre to the JMR speakers, and the added top end sparkle livened up the guitars and strings which can sound a bit tepid on many other speakers.
The larger 606 speakers sounded more linear, richer, a bit darker, and produced a satisfyingly large sound for their size. Similar to the Revel or Paradigm speakers. The upper frequency balance was a double edged sword: it could make drum high hats, snares, cymbals, guitars stand out in particularly, and satisfyingly, vivid relief. But could also highlight the studio/microphone/effects on voices making vocals sound a bit more "hi-fi" than most. But naturally recorded vocals were by the same token vivid and clear. Bass had an interesting character, sort of tight, punchy and big...a sense of the bass "spreading" in the room. My impression veered between "impressive" on the bass and "hmm...not sure I'm sold on this isobaric bass." I'll say that Herbie Hancock's Chameleon, one of my test songs on most speakers, was produced in a particularly compelling, vivid manner. The drums were just crystal clear and had that "live drum playing" feeling. It was one of those "wow" moments that kind of haunt you when you hear a certain track sound different and more realistic than normal.
That said, some other tracks veered into the intolerable territory (e.g. horns too piercing on Earth Wind and F ire live). It's the kind of audition that was very promising in some areas, leaving me thinking "these COULD be awesome if I could tame the problems and keep the good parts." Maybe on tubes, and in my well damped room. But a one time, not terribly long audition didn't allow me to commit to such an expensive purchase, when I hear some things that leave me with misgivings.I wish these models landed locally because I could further warm up to them, but that was the only shot at them.
Harbeth:
I auditioned the various models - Monitor 30.1, C7ES-3, Super HL5 Plus. (Also listened to the 40s, since they had them set up).
I love the Harbeth sound and there's little need to describe it, since so many are familiar. But wow...their particular magic with voices is something. They somehow capture voices actually being produced by an organic person vs an electronic version of a person. No matter what type of material, jazz, processed pop, R&B, even electronica/dance, they always seem be be able to find the "person" singing in the mix. And of course they have such a smooth, full, rich sound with acoustic instruments sounding very much themselves.
The Monitor 30.1 had those qualities, but I was a bit too aware of their bass limitations (cut off at the knees), and was also aware of a bit of darkness, lack of "air." In the close my eyes "could I believe that guitar or person is really there" test, a darkening of tone, a shelving of the upper frequencies, are usually a dead giveaway to me of the artifice. But within it's range....gorgeous.
The C7ES-3 were wonderful. There was that bass extension! Displayed the Harbeth mids if not quite as refined. But over all I found the bass a little less controlled than I'd want.
Super HL5 Plus was the Goldilocks choice of the group. It had the added bass extension I heard from the C7ES, but with better integration and control. It had super refined, open, smooth, rich midrange, but with the added top end openness and extension (addition of the super tweeter?) that made the sound more realistic and believable to me. Though I was still hearing some things that I felt my Thiels did better so I wasn't quite sure yet. Unfortunately, when I came back to this particular store to audition the HL5 Plus I didn't have a good audition experience. I've described the experience elsewhere here, so won't repeat it. But suffice it to say, it did not make me want to move forward with this particular store. (I have more recently had very good interactions with this store, so I would say my bad experience probably turned out to be an anomaly at that location).
Anyway, the Harbeths dropped off my radar for over a year until I heard the Super HL5 Plus sounding superb in the Montreal Audio show. Intriguing. Later on an audio mart I saw a pair in a gorgeous rosewood finish for, by far, the best price I've ever seen for a used Harbeth. I grabbed them, knowing I could definitely sell them without losing money, with this thought: They are not in the finish I want. So I'll use them as a "home audition" of the Harbeths and if I love them, I'll sell these ones and go to my local dealer to buy brand new ones in the finish I require.
It turned out I really really liked the Super HL5 Plus, but didn't love. They did all the wonderful Harbeth things, that big rich sound, in this model especially, also with a studio-monitor clarity, and generally organic sound. However, I simply found my Thiels did essentially everything the Harbeths did, but better. I never could get a satisfying depth to the soundstage of the Harbeths (not usually a problem in my room), always sounding a bit fore-shortened. And it seemed a flip-side of the fullness/lively cabinet design was a certain "filling in the spaces with texture" quality. The Thiels, for instance, separated the Los Angelese Guitar Quartet's guitars more effortlessly, with more precision and realism and tonal density, but without sacrificing any image size or warmth of tone. Nothing quite sounds like the Harbeth on vocals. But ultimately they could not budge me from the Thiels and I sold them.
That said, I now have a store near me selling Harbeths and I'm in there buying vinyl a lot. Every time I hear the Harbeths playing I just want to sit down and listen, thinking "These are so beautiful. Why don't I own them?" But then I remember, I did...I did the comparisons. Would love them in a second system, though.
Joseph Audio - Pulsar and Perspectives.
As a long time high audio rag reader, I've long been familiar with the Joseph Audio name, but it wasn't until last year in Montreal that I actually heard a JA speaker: the Pearl 3. Jeff Joseph was playing an acapella group piece and I was just stopped in my tracks. It wasn't just the clarity - tons of high end speakers produce vivid vocals. It was the authenticity of the timbre of the voices! It just sounded bang on. Not cold, gray, steely, silvery, or darkened, or all the "off-timbre" electronic signatures that define for me hi-fi voices vs real. It was that human warmth timbre, that sounded just like the people talking in the room. This was so rare and magical it put the JA speakers immediately on my radar. Upon reading that the stand mounted Pulsars had a similar presentation I found a local dealer and auditioned them. Yup, they did! They were fairly mesmerizing. Even despite my misgivings about small speakers trying to sound big, the Pulsars did this better than almost any other stand mounted speaker I've heard - very rich and satisfying. Though I did note a bit of excess warmth here and there in the lower midrange, upper bass. And I still wondered if I could end up with a stand mounted speaker after living with big floor standers. At home, I listen not only in front of the speakers for "critical listening" but I'll also crank them to listen just down the hall, in my work office or through the house. And at these times I really start to hear the limitation on the small speaker. It can sound like it's going low, but it becomes sort of "fake bass" in a way, where it just doesn't have the solidity and impact of a big speaker.
So the dealer suggested I listen to the floor standing Joseph Audio Perspective model. I said I don't know, they cost more than I was thinking of spending. But, he persisted and...his up-sell worked ;-)
The Perspectives really grabbed me. They sounded more linear than the Pulsars to my ears through the mids down, had really thick, punchy bass that seemed to make every type of music fun, yet seemed controlled enough to make "audiophile" stuff very realistic. They really disappeared with a huge soundstage and great imaging. I'm a tone/timbre buy first, but I ultimately want speakers to disappear and soundstage well - it's part of the illusion, the magic show, that I appreciate and that makes me want to sit in front of a high end system in the first place.
But what really grabbed me was the overall tone/timbre of the presentation! I remember playing some Chet Baker and some Julie London mono recordings and being shocked at how clear the sound was - how the Perspectives took a central mono image of voice, guitar, bass, drums etc and seemed to effortlessly unravel the different timbres and individual players. And how realistic the voices were. Another moment I remember were some tracks from the Bullet soundtrack (I'm a soundtrack fiend). Every instrument that entered the mix - a single sax, a flute, an organ, a group of saxes, horns...sounded incredibly pure, distinct and accurate in timbre! That's one of the things I always loved about going to the symphony, and sitting close, closing my eyes: that rainbow of different acoustic sources, materials, shiny silvery bells, brassy cymbals, woody reeds, woody cellos, golden hued horns...
The Perspectives (and the Pulsars) were giving me more of this sensation, of "surprise" in how each new instrument sounded, than I typically get from most speakers. And they did it with a particular purity, and lack of hash in any part of the frequency spectrum, making for a less mechanical sound than usual (Fremer nailed this in his Pulsar review).
Plus there was a great sense of "flow" to the Perspectives, the way dynamically the sound would swell dramatically when called fo (again, soundtracks were great on the Perspectives). All these elements came together to produce a great emotional connection to music through the speakers.
So, they sounded special to me.
I got a home audition and they continued to sound beautiful in my home. But having both the big Thiels and the Josephs meant I could compare, which inevitably gave some ground to the Thiels - the bigger more realistic image size, the slightly better precision in imaging and tonal density, a more linear presentation from top to bottom from the Thiels, where the Perspectives could sound a bit "puffy" in the bass sometimes. And yet, the Perspectives still had a magic the Thiels couldn't do with tone. I remember playing back Talk Talk's Happiness Is Easy and thinking "I literally don't think reproduced sound gets better than this."
So stuck between A and B I realized this: I couldn't give up the Thiels. After all my auditioning, nothing really did everything as well in the same package and the 3.7s had become very rare on the used market, no longer made, so it could be a big regret to let them go.
BUT...I was also bitten by the Perspectives. Once heard, they were hard to unhear. So I decided, dammit, I'll have both! I tend to hoard speakers somewhat, so I'd keep the Thiels but buy the Perspectives, and I'd have the Thiels to throw in to the room whenever I wanted the Thiel sound.
But....this meant I'd no longer be selling my Thiels to pay for new speakers. So I'd have to save up for the Perspectives. And this I've been doing.
Then, aha! A pair of Thiel 2.7 speakers in the ebony finish I've always wanted showed up on Audiogon. I grabbed them for a killer price and they have been fantastic! Smaller than the 3.7s, better looking in the room, they have the Thiel attributes. Done...right? Naw...I haven't been a fervent audiophile for decades for nuthin'. I've been on track toward the Perspectives for so long, it's hard to get off. So once I got the 2.7s my thinking changed to "Well..now I can sell the big Thiels and have that money to put toward the Perspectives!"
So as I've been readying to sell the big Thiels, and about to spend more than I ever have on a pair of speakers (Perspectives are expensive to us Canucks), I thought "If I'm about to spend this much, I better do some due diligence and make sure I didn't leave another option on the floor." So I recently checked out a speaker brand that I'd wondered about for a while now. Devore Fidelity.
I briefly listened to the Devore X, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. They are too large and too expensive for my needs. Sounded wonderful from the mids up, though a bit overblown in the lower bass. I'm sure they can be mostly tamed in the right room.
Yep. Plus ease, nuance, flow ... trying to get closer to those qualities that live music has (like the way a single note from a French horn just comes to you in an instant in the concert hall).
Plus I know that that the Hornings are very synergistic with my amplifier. (I’ve gradually replaced the upstream components with those from High Water Sound, which carries Horning.)
snopro, did you compare the Euphrodite to the Aristoteles?,
Hi pingvin, Sorry, I didn't hear the Aristoteles. I have a pretty big room and the Eufrodite probably would have filled the room better.
I'm sure they both have the Hornings house sound. They are coherent, fast, natural, organic. Which makes you get emotionally involved in the music without analyzing the sound. Just sitting back and enjoying the performance.
I've been in this hobby a long time and use to like hi-fi sounding speakers (won't name them) as you get older you learn to just appreciate speakers that don't call attention to themselves. The Hornings make you relax and just enjoy the music and the performance.
Prof, if you like the Devores I'm sure you would like the Hornings even more. They are easy to drive. I use Frankenstein 300b amps and Pass Labs XA30.8 amps.
Oh man those Horning speakers look nice! I like the design, the wood finish, and I've always enjoyed that lowther-thing when I've heard it (though with the usual lowther caveats).
Would love to hear a pair. But the ones mentioned in this thread are too rich for my blood, and the speakers look to be too deep for my purposes (I need a shallower speaker to fit in my room).
Interesting discussion folks. I’ve heard the Devore O/96 and liked them. this is a good quality speaker IMO. I do however find the Horning ( I heard the Eufrodite) a particularly exceptional sounding speaker. It has a natural/organic sonic character that’s emotionally engaging and very life like in terms of tone, dynamics and sense of tactile musicians presence.
I heard them in the High Water Sound room at CES a few years ago. Honestly one of the best sounding rooms of the entire show. Jeff was driving the speakers with a 10 watt SET amplifier and it really filled the generous sized room with quite beautiful palpable music. The musicians were alive and playing with soul😊.
I strongly suspect the Aristotle would perform similarly in a smaller space. To be clear, nothing against the Devore O/96 but I believe the Horning is more open, dynamic , lively and engaging. As always YMMV. BTW Snowpro has very good ears and taste😊. Charles
Prof, no harm in setting some boundaries in this crazy hobby of ours. FWIW, I believe the O/93s are better for me than the O/96s — the O/96s are more impressive, but I find the smaller speakers are more coherent and “flow” better for some reason.
Interesting pingvin, I may have noticed that a bit too. The sound of the 93 was amazingly similar to the 96. I wish I liked the aesthetics of the 93 as much as the 96s.
Still moving back and forth between a desire for the Devores or the Joseph speakers. I really need to hear the Josephs again, which will probably happen at the end of the month when I get back from vacation.
As thorough as you are, I’m sure you will but check out your listening volume between Devore and JosephAudio, you may find the JA speakers to like to be turned up more. So might depend on your listening style.
Yes I seem to remember the JA speakers liked to be goosed a little.
Then again, that is true to a certain extent with my current Thiels. They manage good low level resolution when at low volume, but to get feeling the music I turn them up. I'd think the Devore speakers with the richer bass presentation would do better for low level listening. But I've actually been enjoying listening louder than I have before. (I have struggled with tinnitus and occasional hyperacusis for many years, but I seem to be able to cope with louder playback these days which is fun).
BTW, I just read the July issue of Stereophile in which Herb Reichert did a follow-up review of the JA Pulsar speakers. He was pretty much amazed by the same things I was and many others: amazing detail with no hash, so it ends up being "musically involving" detail. I've rarely luxuriated in the pure tone of instruments and voices as easily as through the JA speakers.
In the end (spoiler alert!) Herb says he slightly prefers his Harbeth M30's for their fuller sound and added texture. I get that. Though he made a point of saying in a recent show review that, upon hearing the floor standing Perspectives, they sounded bigger and richer than the Pulsars. It has me wondering if that would push him toward the Perspectives over the Harbeths. (Probably not as I think over all the Harbeth sound is more for him).
Very nice! I have been on a speaker journey recently. Thought initially I'd go for a widebander by Cube to go along with my Bakoon amp and dac. Then just decided to give Devore a look. I live in LA and Matt at Perfect Pitch allowed me an audition of the 3XL and O/93. Long story cut short, I now listen to a pair of 3XL's in my small room and loving the music making. And I aspire to reach for the O/93's after a bit more time with the standmounts. Devore has won me over big time!
Interesting stuff Prof...but your conclusions about the Magico are based on one audition without any consideration given to the fact that the upstream components might have some small effect on the sound.
I’m no Magico fanboy, but come on. Really?
So let’s start with the source, preamp and amp. What were they and why do you feel your conclusions about Magico’s sound are valid if you weren’t intimately familiar with everything feeding them upstream?
I briefly listened to the Devore X, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. They are too large and too expensive for my needs. Sounded wonderful from the mids up, though a bit overblown in the lower bass. I'm sure they can be mostly tamed in the right room.
Of course I’ve given consideration to the variables involved in auditioning speakers. That is why I mentioned that caveat right at the start in my OP.
When you say I gave no consideration in my Magico post to the fact it was a single audition with associated equipment variables to consider, I can only imagine you managed to miss this paragraph explicitly stating such considerations:
PROF WROTE: I have to say though, that while this single encounter with the Magico A3s suggest that they are not the right match for me, the general quality of the sound left me with the impression of HUGE POTENTIAL. If those speakers can be set up to tame the bass and smooth out the response, and if they could be dialed in via positioning, acoustics, and perhaps mated with some nice tube amps (which appeal to me) then it’s possible they could be absolutely crazy good. At their price point they really were world-beaters in terms of some of what I heard. (I have a similar feeling about the Paradigm Persona speakers I auditioned - super clarity and low noise floor, that although it left me ultimately fatigued, made me wonder how great they might be with the steps to dial them in to my liking).
@ prof: As loudspeakers don't operate in a vacuum, I'd
reiterate that system context is key towards determining the validity of your
observations. To that end:
"So let’s start with the source, preamp and amp. What were
they and why do you feel your conclusions about Magico’s sound are valid if you
weren’t intimately familiar with everything feeding them upstream?"
You've been quite generous about sharing your
experiences with various other loudspeakers and systems. Why won't you do the same with the Magico
system?
You’ve been quite generous about sharing your experiences with various other loudspeakers and systems. Why won’t you do the same with the Magico system?
I am doing the same with Magico. Do you see associated equipment in any of the speaker posts?
I understand you aren’t a Magico fan boy, so I wonder why you seem fixated on the magico post given I hadn’t detailed associated equipment in all the previous speaker impression posts?
The reason I didn’t include all the associated equipment is that: I could never recount all the associated gear for all these speakers. Never kept track. That includes the Magico. I can only relay that the A3s were driven by solid state amplification, set up by a very experienced Magico dealer. Presumably he wasn’t out to sabatoge his own sale and was able to present me with a fairly representative example of that speaker’s performance. But, hey, it’s an in store (on that case, in house) audition so as I’ve said: caveats apply.
I’ve simply set out to describe my own experience on my recent speaker quest - in case anyone enjoys reading it (apparently many have). And it seems that despite a lack of equipment lists, many have felt I accurately conveyed the character of many speakers on the list, so that’s fun to hear.
But if you are after lists of all the associated gear I’m afraid you’ll remain disappointed and this thread clearly won’t satisfy you. There’s always Stereophile for lists of associated gear. Here you get wut yous pays for :-)
“I understand you aren’t a Magico fan boy, so I wonder why you seem fixated on the magico post given I hadn’t detailed associated equipment in all the previous speaker impression posts?”
Simply because this brand, for better or worse, has a reputation for being particularly sensitive to upstream electronics. Some might say that’s because it’s in a league of its own from the standpoint of transparency. In other words, crap in, crap out. While I don’t believe this, my experience with Magico is limited and what I’ve heard doesn’t make me want to hear more.
“I can only relay that the A3s were driven by solid state amplification.”
Thanks, that’s helpful. There’s very little in the way of ss amplification that sounds real to me so to a degree it puts your experience in perspective.
“I’ve simply set out to describe my own experience on my recent speaker quest - in case anyone enjoys reading it (apparently many have).”
murphythecat, No I haven't heard the ATC speakers. I'm not looking for active speakers and on looks alone I don't think I could place those in my living room.
And I always mix ATC up with PMC speakers.
And as I've just brought up PMC speakers, I did actually demo some because I've heard their giant monitors do some incredible things at shows (though always way too loud for me to stay in the room very long).I listened to the "20" series PMC speakers, which are fairly elegant floor standing speakers in terms of shape. But in terms of fit/finish they are well below the level of quality of most of the other speakers I looked at, especially given their price. I didn't include the PMCs in my demo descriptions because the demo environment was the most hilariously ill suited place I've ever experienced to demoing speakers. Imagine one of those cheap speakers stores in Hong Kong, the ones with a narrow hallway and speakers stacked side by side, separated only by inches, lining the entire store. That's what it was like, and the PMCs (at least one of the pairs I listened to) were literally still just stacked in among all the other speakers, and, like 4 feet apart. Almost a mono listening experience.It was...really something! Though I did hear one pair pulled out from the stack of speakers at one point. I found them just kind of boring to listen to.
The Devore offers you so many options for amplifiers that would sound great. No need to say how big a difference that makes as well as how much fun it would be to experiment.
Yeah, that's a plus with the Devore, vs the much less efficient (84dB I think) Joseph speakers. Although the Josephs are supposed to play well with tube amps given their impedance. The Josephs sounded nice on my CJ amps at home. I have an old Eico HF-81 that I treasure and I'm sure that would be fun on the Devores. But aside from that, playing amps - tube amps of the quality I generally prefer - can be as expensive as playing with speakers, and I only have so much money for this obsession :-) I continue to be amazed how well my CJ 140W tube monos drive whatever speaker I put on them. My current Thiel 2.7s have such grip and impact from the bass upward with the CJs.
That said, VAC amps have been on my radar for a long time. I'd love to try some VAC amps some day.
i think vac is over rated. A little pair of Sophia Electric 300B amps are pretty sweet. As Art Dudley used to say, " we don't need more power we just need better sound " .
So with a bit of time off work, I'm deciding on my speaker purchase this month, hopefully within the next 2 weeks.
Tomorrow or Friday I intend to re-visit the Joseph Perspectives which I haven't heard in a long time now. Then it will probably be another listen to the Devores, and I'll decide if I'm buying which one....or neither and just selling my big Thiel 3.7s and sticking with what I have. Of course I'll report in this thread what I hear with the Joseph Perspectives. I'm curious if they will still beguile me, or if some of the shine will have worn off with all the speaker auditions since I heard them.
Well I really put the Joseph Audio Perspectives through their paces today!
It had been over a year since I heard them and I wondered if my memory was still accurate regarding their sound. Turns out: yes!
They are the most tonally ravishing speaker I’ve ever heard. Just a clear, clear almost uniquely grain-free sound that allows such tonal purity and saturation.
There wasn’t a single cut I played on them that didn’t make me want to just keep listening to the whole track. That’s always a good sign.
The nuances of metal, skin, various cymbals etc these speakers bring out in drums are amazing. Every new instrument or voice that appears on a track just sounds so tonally beautiful and individual, it just keeps me pinned to my seat mesmerized.
They image and disappear really well, very deep wide soundstage.
Hesitations are that the bass isn’t as controlled as my Thiels. The Thiels really spoil me in that regard. Also the sound is a bit smaller than the Thiels, and they lose a bit of heft in the upper registers. The Thiels are more consistently "thick and rich" from top to bottom, from sax, violins, woodwinds etc in the upper registers. I’d say the Thiels are more cohesive, coherent and "invisible" top to bottom over all. The Thiels also image with greater precision and produce more densely palpable images. Every time I come back from any speaker audition the Thiels never fail to impress me again.
The Josephs are very neutral, even with a slightly rising top end (as per Stereophile measurements). But their absolute freedom from etch or grain make them easy to listen to, so you get the benefit of a super clearsound without the ouch factor. On the Josephs, acoustic guitars have more sparkle and individual character, even the character of every guitar string seems more individual. The Perspectives are phenomenal for voices but especially so for female voice. I think this is due to the lack of grain factor. Female voices are often more breathy (and I’m especially thinking of some Julie London, almost whisper-singing that I played).And breathy, upper range voice sounds tend to bring forth any grain or electronic artifacts in reproduced sound. When that scrim of whitening hash is cleared away, you get what sounds more like real breath from the singer, and female singers sound less hard, less mechanical. I had the same impressions last time I heard the Josephs. Female voices sound more particularly "female," the timbral difference from male voices being that much more exact.
This also goes for massed strings. With no hash at all, you can hear "in between" all the strings playing so that each slightly different tone becomes audible, yet smooth. The effect is that when string sections soar, especially if the different sections are playing complex and evolving patterns rather than mirroring each other, there is a luxurious complexity and luxury to the sound that is ravishing. Although orchestras don’t sound as large as on the Thiels, I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced sound that was so close, tonally, to what I hear when attending live orchestras, just in terms of tonal nuance, delicacy, ease and bang on tonality. They are very special speakers IMO in this regard. If I can fault the Josephs a bit tonally, it's that they don't have that last bit of "texture" to the sound - the raspy bow on string, finger tips on guitar strings stuff. It's just, in a very subtle way, a bit glazed over. (Interesting as this very same combination of ravishing tonality with slightly reduced texture occurs on my older Hales speakers, which use similar SEAS drivers). The Thiels are somewhat better here. The Devores even better (in fact I remember that sense of texture on the Devores really sticking out).
Bass is alive, big, rich and fun on the Perspectives. Sometimes it even reminded me of the bass from the Devore speakers - taught for the most part, but becomes bigger, bloomier and room filling when there’s bass down low.
The Josephs have a bit more thin and reductive sound, so for instance electric guitar lines will be a bit thinner, less gutsy than on the Thiels.Though, tonally, more revealing and beautiful. The slightly more laid back sound of the Thiels makes it easier to crank rock. But the tonality of individual elements in a mix is more nuanced on the Josephs.
Hmmm...things to ponder until I hear the Devore 93s again tomorrow....
I was looking at the tech's on the Perspectives. I honestly don't enjoy listening to tweeters that crossover so low, 2kHz. Now that should be covered by the midrange not a tweeter.
So that is my opinion and as Steven Miller said " I shall not be questioned " . Not the fly like an eagle Miller.
Very good reviews and I agree with your comments for the speakers I have heard.
If you want bass with clarity and great tone and slam then this can be a challenge in the current market (one note bass heavy and warm really sells). Try to audition ATC SCM 50 active towers. The bass will sound markedly different on every track (per the recording) and not have the sameness that many modern designs have. This is the same speaker that the late Gordon Holt eventually settled on after countless speaker auditions and a long love affair with large Soundlabs. In his opinion, they were one of the most realistic sounding speakers he ever heard.
I had been meaning to do an update. Yup, my Thiel 3.7s are up for sale.Here’s the story:
I went back and listened to the Devore 93s again at length.
When I first started playing tracks on the 93s it sounded really nice, but it wasn’t doing that special thing the JA speakers do with tone. The 93s had that average layer of just detectable grain that most speakers seem to show, that seems absent in the JAs, and I was missing the incredible timbral beauty and precision of the JAs. (This lack of grain/quietness and timbral precision is almost always remarked upon in reviews and reports of JA speakers).
So I was thinking "Well, I guess I’m going with the JA speakers."
But as I listened more and more, I started falling back under the spell of the Devores. That richness, combined with that open and sparkly sound, is it’s own claim to a "special" sound. I played the opening track from Basil Poledouris’ famously "muscular" Conan The Barbarian soundtrack, which opens with thundering kettle drums driving an augmented french horn section with piercing, souring lines over the percussion. The Devores just lived for this stuff - the horns blazing bright, but not hurting the ears, and that reach out and bloom quality of the bass put me among the kettle drums. It was very affecting.
As some reviews have stated, the Devores seem to "let go" of the music easily, so every line being played in a piece seems to come forth out of the mix with enthusiasm. I was often becoming aware on the Devores of how various lines of rhythm and melody where being played and handed off from one section to another (e.g. hand off from horns to strings, etc). The Devores make a lot of musical sense, of what is happening in a piece.
The openness and clarity in the upper mids/treble means the Devores always let a drum snare and cymbal pop through everything, and hence the Devores always dig out what the drums are doing, which makes them so rythmically engaging.
The 93s produced the most realistic version of Joe Morello’s drum solo in St Luis Blues (Brubeck live in NYC) that I’ve heard. The 93s just nail that papery drum skin sound, and the drums sounded bigger, fatter, more substantially real-sized, with great timbral accuracy. The 93s once again pulled everything closer to me, making me feel more "among" the drums being played right in front of me, vs many speakers that produce that drum solo with more distance.
Finally, the 93s just killed it on Rush’s 2112. They had tremendous - party-in-the-dorm punch with the opening guitar/bass/drum attacks.A real "wall of sound" with THICK layered waves of Alex Lifeson’s multi-tracked guitar textures. They dug out everything Niel Peart was doing on his kit really well.
One thing that really left an impression was the "discovery of the guitar in the cave" section of 2112, where you hear Lifeson start gently tuning and tentatively playing the guitar, until the pace picks up into strumming the tune. What the Devores did there was give that distant guitar-in-cave sound actual heft. The texture, and the minute bits of effort between each note and strum, really struck a convincing, authentic impression of someone playing a guitar in front of me. And the 93s have just enough sparkle to make various picked notes stick out in a rewarding, shimmering fashion as you get with a real guitar.
2112 sound incredible on my Thiel 2.7s as well. in comparison it’s a bigger sonic picture on the Thiels, more cinematically scaled in terms of soundstaging, even if the sonic images within that soundstage are squeezed a bit smaller and tighter than the Devores give. So with the Thiels it feels a bit more like "I’ve entered the cave" to hear the performance, which is cool. The Devores give more sparkle, heft and a sense of "that’s a guitar playing right in front of me" sensation, though with less cinematic imaging, more foreshortened.
I do wonder how big the soundstage might be if I could place the Devores where I have the Thiels.
Also, while I really do prefer the aesthetics of the larger 0/96s (the 93s, though nicely veneered, strike me as more of a plain box), I think I may prefer the 93s over all, at least for my application. The bass generally seems more integrated and controlled, whereas the 96s can get more unruly, more often, needing more set up care. And the 93s seem to give essentially the same tonal attributes as the 96s otherwise.
Anyway....after hearing the Devores again, and coming way confused again, I whipped back to give the Joseph Perspectives another quick spin to hear some of the tracks that really had impressed me on the Devores.
And right away...I fell under the spell of the Perspectives again! (Dammit!)That TONE!
And the Perspectives aren’t just a one trick pony doing timbral delicacy. That sophisticated upper frequency is allied to a juicy, punch, rich midrange and bass that really know how to party. They have a reach-out-and-grab you sense of dynamics, of drama. And their clarity also allows for drum snares, cymbals etc to pop through the mix with great clarity, to drive the sound. In fact I was very surprised when I played some Talk Talk again on the Josephs. The Devores just made those drums sound like a drum set right in front of me. But the Josephs had surprising punch and heft right in to the upper mids, so not only was the kick drum huge, the snare had great weight and punch too. So in it’s own way, the drums were super convincing on the Josephs too.
Rush’s 2112 had plenty of great slam and enthusiasm on the Perspectives as well. They untangled Lifeson’s layers of electric (often paired with acoustic) guitars beautifully and timbrally, and even more spatially than the Devores. Though they could not match the thickness of the the Devores with the guitars. And while the Josephs gave a timbrally super clear, clean rendering of the guitar in the cave, it was a thinner version than I heard from the Devores. The Devores are just so good at maintaining instrumental size from the bottom all the way to the top of the frequency range.
Something of a cincher for the Josephs was when I put on on Emilie Claire Barlow’s album Clear Day - that title song. (This is a fantastic album both musically and sonically - super rich in orchestration, big sonic images, her voice present and natural, some bombastic arrangements).
It starts with xylophones playing a rythmic line, then a string section adding rythm, piano, bass, a horn blast, then the drums kick in. I was just utterly taken aback by the sound - the exactness of the xylophones, the beauty of the strings, the way the horns blasted with such perfect metallic ringing tone and every bit of reverb ringing off with no grain. The clarity of the dums, cymbals, the tonal authenticity of the piano. It was really a rainbow of tones that I couldn’t tear myself away from.
So...I left pretty much back in to the JA camp. Pretty much settled on the Perspectives. In a way the Devores would be the safer bet - I think they just sound good with everything. The JA’s sound good with almost everything, spectacular on many things, and reveal weakness’s occasionally here and there. Plus they are more expensive. And I get trade in for my Thiels with the Devores. Plus I’d guess the Devores would be easier to re-sell if they didn’t work out. BUT...I’ve been chasing the JAs for so long, saving for them, and I’m under their spell every time I audition them, so I’m willing to roll the dice.
And JUST when I was to push "go" on getting the Perspectives...
...I get some utterly depressing financial news slipped through my mail slot. Which throws all my plans in to disarray. :-(
Man, what a journey. I commend you on your patience and dedication to relentless due diligence. I must say I've really enjoyed this thread - feels like I'm watching one of my favourite reality shows. Please keep us posted as hopefully there will be more exciting "episodes" to come
Fortunately for you there are actually dealers in your area that represent and stock these two prestigious brands. Not always the case in many markets (especially Canada - I'm in Edmonton).
Quite a contrasting presentation comparatively speaking and thoroughly impressive and enjoyable. Now that I've had a taste I'm lusting after these; http://www.spatialaudio.us/x2-modular
Sorry I missed the point that you get confused between ATC and PMC. I agree that aesthetically both PMC and ATC are mainly about the sound without much if any effort with regard to fine aesthetics. Horses for courses. Good luck with your search. I think Nautilus or Vivid G1 might be more your thing....the Nautilus are quite small, the G1 are bigger.
I notice that you are heavily influenced by certain tracks. A great speaker will be good on ALL tracks. Every individual track is imperfect (as they all boil down to the taste and setup of the individual mastering engineer) but on average the majority of tracks should ALL sound in good balance and superb with the right speaker. Be careful about selecting a speaker that plays only Rush 2112 sublimely...that album is an artistic masterpiece but is a bit thin sounding. You might be better served with a tube preamp to create the added warmth and size you so desire rather than a speaker with a specific sonic character.
Yup, I'm known among my audiophile buddies as being able to out obsess them all, particularly when it comes to replacing speakers.(Not so much other gear). I experiment buying used speakers over the years, but when I'm really serious I go all out. I remember years ago when I was going to replace my Quad ESL 63/Gradient subwoofers, I went on a Speaker Odyssey, listening to speakers across north America!Some of my audio friends accompanying me on road trips.
The Thiel 3.7s have been so good they were as close to an "end game" speaker as I've owned. Since I have to replace them, they put a lot of pressure on the other candidates. The Joseph Audio speakers were the only ones after long auditions (previous to this thread) that stood out, but were significantly expensive for me...and once I was getting close to being able to purchase them, well, then I had to leave no stone upturned to make sure I was going to not regret spending that money.
I know myself, though, and whatever speakers I get, I'll notice the flaws over time. That's the "no perfect speaker" problem (though exacerbated by one's own criteria or mindset; if you have a different mindset, any old speaker can satisfy forever). And it's why I tend to own more than one speaker. Though the more I can get from one speaker, the less I have to bother setting up the other speakers.
I've fallen for "beautiful tone" in a speaker before. But after a while you identify the character a speaker places on the sound, and then ask "ok, what's missing?" In the former case some old speakers with superlative tone (Hales Transcendence 5s) were missing some texture and palpability. The Thiels are a sort of long-range reaction to that - they have good texture, great palpability. And very good tone. The Devores go perhaps even a bit further than the Thiels in some respects, a step or two back on others.
A worry could be that the Joseph speakers only beguile with beautiful timbre and tone...but once the shine of that wears off, are they still "fun?" Will they communicate the punch, drive, rhythm of all the music I like? Hopefully. They seem to to well there too. If not...the Devores are always waiting in the wings.
And, wow, those spatial audio speakers look intriguing. Quite a departure from your Harbeths. And Harbeths are supposed to be a "destination" speaker that get people off the speaker merry-go-round.That's why I never believe accounts that any speaker is a destination speaker in any general sense; we all have our different criteria and experience. A lot of people think Quad ESL 57s got them off the merry-go-round and have settled with them. For others, the 57s were their starting point, not end point. I had the Harbeth SuperHL5 Plus and really enjoyed them, totally understanding why people love them. But, they weren't an end point speaker for me. (Though I can always sit down in front of a Harbeth speaker and swoon to the presentation).
I like the funky looks of the Spatial X2. I'd go for a nice wood finish, personally.
I was never a fan of the B&W sound, especially back in the 90’s when they started their lower lines with those hideous kevlar drivers. If any speaker could define the derisive term "hi-fi" those would be it, IMO.
So I was very surprised when I encountered a good listening session with some of the Nautilus speakers, which sounded to my ears surprisingly, tonally rich. But I would never buy a pair for various reasons - aesthetics, ergonomics in my room, price, and I’ve heard other speakers I like better.
I’ve listened to Vivid speakers at shows and briefly demoed the Vivid Oval speakers (B1s I think). Very impressive on the audiophile checkmarks of detail, transparency etc. But the overall tone left me somewhat cold. (Though I’ve heard their larger speakers sound phenomenal at some shows).
I notice that you are heavily influenced by certain tracks.
It depends what you mean. I’ve emphasized some tracks here because I can’t write about all the songs I listened to in each audition. But when I audition a speaker I listen for a long while. At a minimum, I bring 12 CDs along with me burned with a large variety of music - funk, metal, prog rock, disco, classic jazz, fusion, folk, crooner music, Blue Note R&B, lounge music, classical, classical and acoustic guitar, a wide variety of movie soundtrack music, pop music from 60’s, 70’s, 80’s to contemporary, alt-pop, alt-rock, a wide variety of electronica/dance, etc.
At the end the shop owners usually say something along the lines of "I’ve never seen someone play such a crazy and entertaining variety of music to demo speakers! That was awesome!" And inevitably they make lists of some of the stuff I played. I also make sure I play sources that go from audiophile-recording quality to crap, even distorted, and in between, to see how a speaker handles a wide range of source quality.I also have my own recordings I’ve made of instruments I own being played, my kids playing their instruments (sax, trombone), and familiar voices (e.g. wife). Though in these cases I didn’t bring them along. I used to use those to do modest live vs reproduced comparisons when I’d have a new speaker at my place. That was always quite revealing.
As an obsessive, I’ve been doin’ this a long time :-)
(Though if you look at threads in which I’ve said I’m more cautious about, say, cable differences etc, some people there are convinced it must be because I have ears made of cloth and I’m not good at discerning sonic differences).
But yes there are some dear-to-me tracks that I adore not only as demo material but which I am crazy about. And if a speaker doesn’t make me feel those tracks, like other speakers I’ve loved have, then it’s not going to be the speaker for me.
I’m happy with my Conrad Johnson Premier 16LS 2 tube pre-amp and plan to keep it, along with my CJ Premier 12 tube monoblocks.
As to a speaker with a specific sonic character, I find all speakers have a specific sonic character. It matters to me what they are capable of *within that given sonic character.* The Devore speakers have a thicker-than-most sonic character, but then that is an aspect of real acoustic sounds that I find to be accurate - most speakers/sound systems tend to sound more reductive to me. The Joseph Audio speakers have a super smooth crystalline clarity character. But within that character, they produce just about the widest and most surprising range of timbral shadings and colors that I’ve heard.
Such is life indeed with financial set backs. I know that you will rise above it in due time. Continue to enjoy the CS 2.7 loudspeaker. Hope your 3.7s find a new home soon.
@prof Sorry to hear the bad news. I hope you recover quickly. I was thinking of you while listening to music you may hate. I was considering stepping up to the Pearl 3s and selling my Perspectives, but the Perspectives sound great and have terrific WAF.
Was over at a pal’s house listening to his Martin Logan ESLs (hybrids). I started with Quad ESL 63s, and early listening to Quad ESL 57s were formative in my younger days. I still love the 57s, and if there’s a set of electrostatic speakers around I have to sit down and listen. Nothing else quite sounds like an ESL.
Whenever I’m at my friend’s place I listen to his Martin Logans because they are so musical, open, airy, transparent...with that interesting tonally warm color I hear from Martin Logan.
That said, every time I listen to an ESL, especially a Martin Logan, especially any of the Martin Logan hybrids, I’m reminded again why I don’t care to go back to ESLs. It’s that wispy, ghostly sound. They are palpable in the sense of seeing right through the speakers into very detailed musical images. But they are not palpable in the sense of actual solidity and air moving density to those sonic images. It makes me impatient after a while as I want to feel the presence of the music, not just listen as if it’s in another room, or another dimension from me.
I find that most attempts to mate dynamic woofers, especially every Martin Logan hybrid I’ve ever heard, only exacerbates this problem. When music with low end plays, I heard the presence created by the dynamic woofers, but moving up the frequency range the sound just becomes wispy, see-through, insubstantial and ghostly. Hearing dynamic drivers join the sound only emphasizes what the panels are not doing, and I always find it incoherent.
If you are not particularly sensitive to this mismatch, I can see why dynamic woofers mated to an electrostatic can sound just fine. Some low drum and bass line kicks in and you feel the bass, so then it’s "yeah, this has punch!" But for me it’s just so unconvincing.
I replayed a bunch of the same music on my system at home and for me it was so much more realistic and involving, the greater dimensionality, the roundness and solidity of the sonic images, the palpable air-moving energy from top to bottom. I can’t give that stuff up. And the Thiels sound essentially as boxless as the Martin Logans, but with more beef (better overall, actually, as I found the Martin Logans boxy/speakerly in the bass).
I also paid attention to the tonal/timbral quality of voices and instruments on the Martin Logans and as usual I find them generally to "get things right" to quite a degree; clarity with warmth of timber. Some John Zorn had nice ringing, shining guitar lines, with percussion that popped nicely out of the mix around the guitars. Overall, though, I did find the MLs had something of a persistent tonal signature to where I was no longer surprised by how any voice or instrument sounded through them. To my ears, the Joseph speakers have a wider and more convincing tonal pallet, and with at least as much incisiveness and clarity.
But aside from that, since I don’t own the speakers myself, I find them a wonderful place to visit, and always enjoy a listening session.
@prof Sound Lab, IMO, makes the best ESLs and don't have that 'ghostly' quality to which you refer. You do have to put some power on them, and if its tube power, probably about 1/2 to 1/4 of the power you will need if using solid state (IOW, in most rooms a 100 watt or so tube amp will do the job, but to reach the same sound pressures, you would need a 400 watt solid state amp); this is due to the impedance of the speaker.
Also, its useful to understand that ESLs don't work on the same principles as box speakers (this should be obvious... but), and one of the ways that they differ is that their impedance curve is not also a map of their efficiency (which is the case with most box speakers). As a result, the typical 'double power as impedance is cut in half' thing that most solid state amps do these days does not work on most ESLs- they tend to be too bright as a result and often sans bass impact. Neither fault just described is an actual fault of the speaker- its a problem with the interface between the two. If you want to know more, see: http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php
Thanks for the input and info. I read the link; really interesting.
I admit I remain skeptical about an ESL that doesn’t exhibit the ghostly quality I mention, just because I’ve been listening to them since the 90’s - I’ve heard the soundlabs (the hybrids and the giant full range model), Quads of all sorts, powered by all sorts of amplification, Martin Logans a million times, and I’ve never not heard the issue.
Perception seems to change with the listener and what he is focusing on. I asked my friend if he missed anything from dynamic speakers in terms of the palpability and punch, and he said "no not at all, I think these things slam." But for me I think he was mostly reacting to feeling the powered dynamic subwoofers in his hybrid ESLs, where I can’t help focusing on the lack of body in the mids upward.
This is one reason I’ve been quite curious to hear the Janszen electrostatics. I wonder if the sealed version of an electrostatic, as they use in their design, would finally "fix" that issue for me.
Prof, I think I've said this before but the 0/93's really impress with synth bass heavy dynamic party music-e.g. LCD Soundsystem. John DeVore is a synth fan and that has some influence on the strong suits of his speakers. They will make you and anyone in the room start dancing like no other. But yes, they are a bit thick and lightning fast at the same time and they don't sound particularly revealing of inner detail nor do they image more than so-so. They throw a wide soundstage and will splash sound at you from unexpected directions when the recording possesses such information, but they for the most part sound like two boxes throwing sound at you. They are far from perfect. And yes, they look like plain tall wide and shallow boxes with a nice front baffle. I have owned several B&W and still like the original Matrix 805 circa 1995. Your writing has me itching to audit the JA Perspectives. "Audit" and not "audition". Btw, unlike you, I am a vinyl guy. I listen to digital only as a last resort. As I type this, I am listening to a hot-rodded Thorens TD124/Reed 3P combo with an Ortofon Cadenza Bronze and alternating it with a VPI Prime with a Soundsmith MIMC both fed into the same phono stage, a Manley Steelhead. The DeVores are shapechangers when hit with different sources. Once adjusted for proper loading on each cartridge, the Cadenza Bronze sounds airy and detailed and the Soundsmith is like a warm huggy bear and yet texture is spot-on with both. Strings sound palpable, voices sound like they are in the room with you. In summary, the DeVores are just good enough to not call attention to themselves. It sounds to me as though you like your speakers to be like the woman who walks into the room and makes the men briefly stare.
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