Focal Aria 936 / Elac Adante AF-61 / Von Schweikert VR-33 , impressions, thoughts?

Well I could not resist and while waiting for the Focals I saw a pair of DeVore Gibbon 8 for sale at very fair price and bought them as I knew no matter what they could have a home in the second system.

But of course I had to hook them up in the main rig first....

Well first impression was nothing too special and could not really put my finger on it until I examined a little further.
The speaker s/n specify L and R and I had placed the L on my seated L position, this placed the tweeters to the outer edge of each speaker.
A quick Google check of a few images all showed them set up with tweeter in so L on speaker meant L from the amp forward.
Swapped them round, fiddled with toe in a little and tried again.

Whoa! It was like I had plonked down a totally different pair of speakers, now the muddled soundstage and presence was gone replaced with a great dynamic projection of the music without any one area calling attention to itself.

I sat and listened to a complete Joe B album then some Prince, then realized I should be doing work around the house...lol.

The Focals are going to have their work cut out when they arrive!

@uberwaltz……………………………………

I had a pair of Devore Gibbon 8 speakers back in 2011.  I drove from Rhode Island to Annapolis, Maryland and back home (800 miles) on Dec30, 2010 to pick them up from an Audiogon member.  I paid 1800.00 for mine back then.  I felt they sounded best on Jazz music.  The bass in my living room didn't go that low but I had great luck integrating a Paradigm sub into the system.  For whatever reasons, it worked really well.

I had the set up for about a year before selling off the speakers and sub as I felt the highs were a little too polite on Rock music.  They were a real fun speaker though.  They are extremely musical speakers and I am glad I got to experience the Devore sound.  I got to talk briefly with John Devore in the elevator at RMAF last year. He is a very nice guy and invited my wife and I up to  their suite to listen  to the  0/96 speakers.  If I ever set up a third system, it will be either the Devore 0/96 or 0/93 speakers with a nice Line Magnetic integrated amp.

The Devore speakers  really sound more like music than speakers if you know what I mean.  Enjoy!

Stereo5.

Yes I know you did, lol, I read your thread here from back then when I researched the gibbon8!

I would agree they are very musical, best I can describe is they do not seem to add or subtract anything. Nothing shouts out like wow, hear this bass or treble etc.

They just get on with the job.
Polite is a decent description and maybe not ideal for rock but right now they are a refreshing change from the Triangles. They are excellent still imho but are definitely an acquired taste as they are very in your face and immediate if you understand.
Be interesting when the 936 show up.
3 way speaker battle!

I know it’s late, but I did hear the Elac  Adante floorstander and large monitor a few months ago.  Not to my liking I am sorry to report.  Especially the tower.  Boomy, sloppy bass. To me, an unrefined sound.  Room and speaker/seat placement were less than ideal so i’m sure SQ could be improved upon.  I also heard persona 3f in same room.  They were in a different league in terms of refinement.  They too were not at their best due to set up/room.  IMO the problem for the Elacs ***that day, in that room and to my ears***is that they did NOT sound surprisingly good for a speaker half the price of the $10k personas. They sounded like a speaker with a much much lower price tag.  I have no idea how they sound compared to other 5k speakers as i’ve not been auditioning any.  I did hear some proac D30R last week that were just under $8k ( I think).  The proac and the Treo CT are the 2 best $8k speakers i’ve heard so far.

Never too late my friend
ProAc have been on the edge of my radar for a while but you have to cull the potential suspects at some time or another … lol.
We will see how the Focals fare once here and hopefully can step off the speaker merry go round for a while