Worst speakers at Stereophile show


Here's what I thought were the worst sounding speakers at the Stereophile show. The Eggleston speakers that list for 100,000 dollars. I heard them in the Nagra room, with the Nagra 845 tube Amps, Nagra Preamp and Nagra digital reel to reel player. The cabinet on the Egglestons looked gorgeous. But let me tell you, these speakers were horrible. I was shocked how bad they sounded. They were so bright sounding. Eggleston has got to change midrange drivers. Those Morel midbases just sound to bright. Egglestons should use the Dynaudio 3 inch dome mids. Krell came out with a new mini monitor. It cost like 6000 dollars. These Krell Speakers sounded so edgy and the sound could get out of control. I didn't like them. Silverline had the Silverline Sonata speakers there. These speakers had to have the worst crossover. I played a track with a nice beat to it. It sounded horrible on these speakers. Then I put my ear to the speakers and I couldn't believe it, 80 percent of the midrange and bass was coming out of the tweeter. Silverline has got to change the crossover. How could you have the midbase coming out of the tweeter. That's why the bass sounded so edgy. A tweeter cant handle bass. Now another speaker I heard, that I didn't like. I heard the Merlin VSM se speakers. Merlin had 2 rooms with the VSM se speakers. One room had the Joule Electra Tube amps and Preamp. The other room that had the Merlins VSM se was the Sim Audio room. The Merlins in the Joule Electra room sounded not bad. It had nice detail. The same Merlins VSM se in the Sim Audio room sounded so average. The Joule Electra Tube Amps, sounded so much better on the Merlin speakers, then the Sim Room, which was using Sim W5 Amp, Sim P 5 preamp and Sim CD Player on the Merlin VSM se. The Merlins in the Joule Electra Room sounded very detailed, but didn't have that bass impact and large sound that I like. Then I heard the Verity Parsifal speakers on these Tenor OTL Tube Amps and the Audio Aero Capitole 24 bit CD Player. The Veritys didn't sound good. Someone said it perfectly to me, the Verity's dont have a full body sound. I then heard the Meadowlark speakers. I think they were the Herons. The bass did not sound good. It sounded way out of control and to boomy. I was also dissapointed with the Totem designer. Vince is a nice guy. But he kept playing these Totem tower speakers. They used a 5 inch midbase and the tweeter. They didn't sound to good. Then there was these nice looking Totem speakers in the room. They were called the Totem Wind. There's a pic of them on Totemes website. www.totemacoustic.com They used a 8 inch woofer and 2 dynaudio 3 inch dome midbases and a tweeter at the top. Vince played these speakers for like 40 seconds and they sounded really good. The bass and the midrange sounded nice. I wanted to hear more of them. Then Vince stopped playing them and went back to the Totem speakers, with the 5 inch midbase and the Tweeter. Everyone in the Room wanted to hear the other Totem speakers. But he wouldn't play them. He said he would play them later. Every time I went in the Totem room, he was playing the speaker with the 5 inch midbase and the tweeter. The 3rd time I was in the Totem room, another guy wanted to hear the Totem Wind speakers, but Vince said the same thing, he'll play them later.
doug99
It seemed that an inordinate number of attendees at this show were "in the industry" somehow. I sometimes got the impression that 1 out 3 attendees were members of the audiophile press. Jeez, who's left to be a customer?

Anyway, the insiders buzz around and make connections and talk to one another while us average Joes are trying to listen to systems and get information about what we are hearing. At CES, I can understand that business takes precedence, but at the Home Entertainment show, I think manufacturers would be wise to try to encourage and maintain a listening room and to direct the sidebar conversations to the hallway. Those with staged demos accomplish this, of course, but that has its downside too. Some did a great job in my opinion. Others, notably Silverline, blew it.

Hi Doug.

I just read your comments about the Silverline Sonata with great interest. I am a Silverline dealer and am listening to a pair of Sonatas as I write this. At $6000, the Sonata is one of the very best values in loudspeakers today. They are very open, dynamic, detailed and sweet and play with great authority. I have never heard them sound harsh or edgy, unless there were problems else where in the system, the recording or in the room set up.

I was particularly interested in your comments about the tweeter reproducing 80% of the midrange and bass. I just went into my listening room and pulled off the grilles so that I could repeat your test. What I heard was a tweeter that produces sound down to approximately 4000 hz. I noticed that a fair amount of upper midrange does appear to come from the tweeter if your ear is more than a couple of inches from the driver. The reason for this is the dispersion pattern of the 3" Dynaudio dome midrange driver (and no, Dynaudio does not make a 3" dome midbass driver). It has a very wide dispersion and that is probably what you heard. When I placed my ear right up to the tweeter, I heard only high end, no midrange. Regardless of crossover design, it is physically impossible for a 1" soft domed tweeter to produce bass frequencies and I'm left with no possible explanation as to how you could have possibly have heard any midbass coming from this driver.
I am laughing my ass off at Doug99's review!! How incoherent is this guy anyway? Is he "rainman" or something? The fact that he can't even express himself clearly, proves it doesn't matter what the hell he thinks he heard anyhow. And bass coming from a tweeter? You know absolutely NOTHING about loudspeakers! You also know nothing about hifi, if you think that the average illiterate dumbshit can just walk from one room to the next at a hifi show, and somehow make snap judgements on products. WHAT YOU HAVE "OBSERVED" HAS ZERO VALIDITY...so why not stop wasting everyone's time, and get the hell outta here!! You can't even put your comments in the right section: this one is about "amps, preamps", NOT loudspeakers!!
There is no such thing as "good value" in a pair of speakers that costs $6000! The price of speakers is getting as obscene as that of cables, with outrageous mark-up on equipment which requires only modestly complex technology to develop and produce. For your information, Mr. Sonata dealer, $600 is good value, but not $6K. These manufacturers are screwing the consumer. Is it any wonder that the high end market is shrinking? And for the original reviews, they are not very well thought out or presented, but that does not make a person's opinion invalid. But anyone who makes a snap judgement of how something sounds based on an exhibit at a trade show is very poorly informed.
I live in Memphis Tn and have a unique view point of eggleston speakers. I have driven around downtown several times looking for their manufacturing facility, today i found it. Any eggleston owners out there should crack open their cabinets amd look for roaches. The facility pictured on the website represents some of the best digital photographic alteration i have ever seen. If this is a high dollar high dollar company where are the facilities to attest to this. I am not commenting on the sound of these speakers; oddly enough i cant go any where to auddition them here in their home town. Just something to consider.