Gallo Reference 3.1 questions...


Howdy,

Just toying with the idea of owning some Gallo Ref 3.1s...

TOYING!

The sub amp is described by some as mandatory, while others describe the speakers as bass rich even without it. Shall I merely infer from this that those who think it mandatory are big ol' bass fiends? Certainly with a 10" driver, I can't imagine it sounding at all anemic.

If a sub amp really is neccessary, does it HAVE to be the Gallo? Couldn't I just use any old amp to run the woofs? Not for nothing, but they need to have their speaker designers take 10 minutes off and help the amp dudes come up with a nicer looking amp. It looks like a DIY kit.

What would be smokin IMO, looks wise, is a Jeff Rowland Concerto integrated running the speakers and a pair of 201s running the subs.

Next Q... I have a tiny joint. Actually I stopped smoking. I have a small apartment. If I placed the Gallos in the hallowed 1.5 foot squares of floorspace I have allocated for speakers, with woofers facing each other, the left one would be inches away from my TV/audio stand, woofer pointing at the rack. The stand is open sided, not solid sided, but I wonder if this could pose a problem.

If I set them up with woofers facing away from each other, the right one would point into my kitchen area, but the left one would face a window about 2-3 ft away, with a big fat AC in it. In the summer the AC runs quite a bit.

OTOH, reviews seem to indicate that the staging on these is very wide (but short, I know), so I wonder just how critical placement is anyway.

Any insights?

Thanks

Rob
rkny
I used to own the Gallo 3.1.  I would definitely recommend using the sub inputs.  I rolled my own amplification for the second voice coil on the woofer.  I had at the time a 4 channel Wyred4sounnd amplifier and used to channels for the main input and an active crossover (NXT x1) to into the other two channels for the sub input.  I was able to get the bass as good as it was going to get in my room (woofers facing out).  The tuning with the active crossover really made a difference.  I eventually sold that whole set up.  I am pretty much a planar / dipole guy and went with ML stats with self powered bass, so no more need for 4 channels of amplification or active crossover either.  All that said, the Gallo amp is probably more cost effective, but I already had the 4 channel amp from a previous bi-amped set up.
So I do see that these were at once 3.0’s. Dan at Gallo says they upgraded the last of these sent out to 3.1 but the boxes still said 3.0. No tweeter switch. Weird to see these still strapped and new shipped to them in October of 05. Took a chance. Just always wanted a pair. I to am an open box kind of guy and have been through many Martin Logan’s. Still have my SL3’s, Grottoi, Logos and Aerius i’s. Bought them all new and still love them. Going to replace the panels when the basement is finished. Jtucker have you tried Emerald Physics? The centerpoint imaging is crazy. I have to run a sub with them but when I went to do some room correction it was nearly dead on with the DSP graph. It is a small heavily treated room! Awesome “no box” sound!