Intuitive Summits & R.S. Audio Sasons?

Hi Sirspeedy,

When I spoke to Robert (really nice, accomodating gentleman) he mentioned updating the website was in the plans, no exact date.

I made the same statement you said about the Sasons looking like smaller Avalon Ascents which happens to be not only my favorite speaker, but Roberts too (before he manufactured his own line)

Rx8man,c,mon the Ascents REALLY was your fav design,as well as Robert's,before the Sason?-:)....You are putting me on.No?(just kidding,btw).
A question...What EXACTLY is "Rothboard",other than the play on letters,from the designer's name.
Also,if the front "Rothboard" baffle is 4 inches thick(impressive),is it layered,like how Avalon does it,or one piece?What kind of internal damping is used?I have gone to Home Depot,and checked out Granite slabs,which I considered for component bases.They had a decided PING sound,so I must assume the cabinetry is damped like my friend's Magico.
Finally...What is the current cost,with stands,as well as the SE version cost,and what is the features one can expect to see in the SE version?Sorry for all the questions!!!

I do have a hidden agenda,in that I told my friend to seriously check out the Sason,before he went for the Magicos.His response was that he didn't think they had enough exposure,but BOY would I love to see this really be as good as it seems.The expression from him would be priceless!!
Thanks,and enjoy your fine speaker.

Hi Rx and Sirspeedy.

Rx, enjoyed talking with you too.

Seems it would be good to answer a couple of questions here.

There is a "Short" version of the Sason available. It puts the entire X-over in the stand's back column allowing us to eliminate the isolated chamber for the X-over in the cabinet.
Comparative rendition HERE

The short version is what we'd like to promote but the tall version will remain available. The short version was born out of a couple of things. One being they are simply more manageable for one person. Two, the short version will easily facilitate any upgrade path we offer down the road. The tall version would be fairly more complicated and expensive to do a full Monty upgrade. The upgrade is in the works but it will be a while before we make it available. I'm not prepared to discuss what all the upgrades are but I'm thinking when all is said and done, it will offer performance that will justify a new model designation. The short version will be able to accommodate all the modifications to bring it up to the new model designation. I love the Sasons as they are but I can hear more in my head of what I'd like a loudspeaker to do and I think this can be accomplished. The Sason Ltd will serve as an excellent platform to get there but in the meantime this speaker does enough of what I want that I could be more than content for a very long time.

In case you're wondering, the smaller cabinet does not change the internal volume of the cabinet at all so bass tuning and loading is not affected. There is also no compromise in performance. If anything, I think they may sound a titch better. They seem to disappear better but that very well could be a visual thing complimenting better one of the Sason's sonic virtues to disappear. I suppose another thing that contributes to the perception of it sounding better is that the bass is more impressive - not better but more impressive. You just flat out can't imagine this much extended and excellent bass coming from such a small cabinet.

Well, that's it for now. I've been up since 3:30am and it's 11:20pm now. I'm whacked...LOL I'll post more of what I wanted to say tomorrow sometime.

Oh, BTW...The Accents. They weren't my favorite speaker but one of my favorites. A grand speaker they were. Heard them in Cleveland at a great audio shop called Sound Resource. It was owned by a Gent named Mike Osmond. What a terrific fella! Met him twice in his establishment. Wished I knew what happened to him. I'll probably never forget him and the fun experience of his shop.

Anyway....

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

Robert,
What does the new short version weigh compared to the tall version?

I own the Sasons too and they have taken me further toward musical bliss than any other speaker that preceded them...and by a significant margin! What the Sasons do for me is combine into one package some of the individual strengths I've chased in other speakers over many years.

My longish audio history example: About a decade ago, when I paired the Avalon Eclipse speakers with Manley Neo Classic 250 tube amps, the improvement in coherence, musicality, soundstaging, imaging, and general "believability" was dramatic compared to my previous Martin Logan ReQuests. Over time, the lack of dynamics and "compression" limitations got me searching for "more". I ended up with Kharma Ceramique 1.0's paired with Atma-Sphere MA1 MkII.2. Dynamics were better and driver compression not so noticeable...overall very musical. Ultimately, the Kharma's lacked something and I sold my entire setup, somewhat disillusioned with the hobby and whether or not what I was looking for from an audio system was even possible. A couple of years passed with only a boom box and I jumped in again, purchasing Magnepan MG3.6r's, coupled to Parasound JC1 amps...loved the sense of speed in transients, musicality was high, bass in my room was decent, dynamics ok, though peaks seemed to be compressed. I had no interest in upgrading from the Maggies during my 3 years with them...until hearing the Sasons. Owning the Sasons, I feel I'm getting all of what I loved about the Avalon Eclipses paired with the Manley Tube amps with none of the restrictions. Dynamics from the Sasons can be absolutely startling, something none of my prevous speakers were capable of. Tonality, musicality, transient speed, soundstaging, imaging and, most importantly, "believability" are all better served by the Sasons than any of my previous speakers.

TedmBrady and I had e-mailed back and forth prior to my receiving the Sasons and I was prepared for a long and difficult break-in, but fortunately, my experience was not so bad... basically enjoyable - though unimpressive - for the first 100 hours, improving significantly by the 200 hour mark, and mostly just amazing me ever since. There were more subtle changes within these timeframes, but I just found them too enjoyable to take much note of them. In other words, there was so much "new information" to discover on all my old CDs brought about by the Sason experience that I really couldn't get too worked up about some of the more subtle breakin changes I thought were happening. I probably have in the area of 750 hours of play time on them now.

I often times sit down for a "quick listen", intending on listening for an hour or so to a few select tracks from multiple CD's only to find myself listening to multiple CD's from start to finish. The Sasons have made it difficult to do the "quick listen" thing for me.

Regards,

Jordan