Inner Sound Eros Experiences

I've got the Newform Research Monitor 30's and the soundstage and imaging are great. The sweet spot, about maybe 2 people wide, but it is listeable in much wider area. They have that great airiness of electrostatics. These are made to mated to subwoofers so not directly comparable to the 645 series. With only a 30 inch ribbon, you can definitely tell the difference when you stand up. These speakers definitely need a quality subwoofer. I need to upgrade to a faster one. I have some of the rare full length grilles, which help their odd apprearance, but they sound better with them off
Thanks, just my two cents worth.

It really boils down to perspective where one mans dream is another mans lunch. In my opinion, ESL's tend to be highly room dependant to a far greater degree that box speakers loaded with dynamic drivers. Even if you have a great room, set up and placement is critical to reveal the optimum sonic character and performance. Additionally, ESL's can tend to be a bit difficult to drive due to the low shifting impedance loads. I've listened to the ML Prodigy on 4 different occasions and have heard them sound magnificent and in a different set up they sounded terrible. The Innersound Eros hybrid certainly fall into this category. The flat ESL panel design scope of the Eros can render extremely detailed, timbre correct top end magic. The bad news is that this flat panel produces a "Sweet Spot" that tends to be smaller than a curved ESL. If a wide sweet spot is mission critical to your listening experience the Eros is probably not going to be your cup of tea.

In my experience, there is no question that the Eros produces better bass definition than anything in the ML product line up from the Prodigy on down. To my ears, transmission line bass enclosures deliver bass like nothing else. Personally I think the build quality of Innersound far exceeds most of ML product offerings and I certainly would not describe it as "shoddy". Take a hard look at the fit and finish of the bass cabinet of the ML Request for design and workmanship. There is no comparison and the bass quality that is produced by both speakers reflect this.

I purchased a pair after months of auditioning the Maggies and ML product offerings. Roger Sanders gets 5 stars for excellent customer support. Innersound is totally customer focused and that is important to me. I suppose the Eros are not perfect for everyone nor are they intended to be. For me, the Eros delivers the music in spades and I'm extremely happy with them. Isn't that what we all dream about? Regards; -Jerie

hi jerie, i agree w/whacha say re: difficulty of set-up & placement of e-stats. this is another reason i'm leaning towards the newforms - they *aren't* bi-polar - no sound out the back. supposed to make for less room interaction difficulties.

regards, doug

Interesting dialogue on the subject of the sweet spot above. As a long-time amateur speaker builder turned dealer, I'd like to offer my $.02 on why the sound outside the sweet spot matters. The ears derive timbre not only from the first-arrival sound, but also from reflections arriving within the first 13 milliseconds. This includes many, many reflections off room surfaces. When the tonal balance of the reverberant field is significantly different from the first-arrrival sound, the ear/brain system has to work harder to integrate the two (your ears expect the reflections to sound like the direct sound with the room superimposed on top). Because of their directional characteristics, very few loudspeakers generate a reverberant field that has the same tonal balance as the on-axis sound. The way to check the reverberant field is this: Turn the volume up a bit louder than normal and walk into the next room, leaving the door open. There, all you can possibly hear is the reverberant field. If it sounds convincingly like live music, then that speaker has a very good reverberant field response, which is a significant contributor to long-term listening enjoyment.

Cool post Audiokinesis!