green mountains

Kenjit, Eos moves lots of air through dual ports to achieve mid-bass and LF reinforcement uncharacteristic of most monitor speakers. In any reflex design there are inevitable trade-offs between LF extension and mid-bass and LF coherance. Eos does well in this regard, but its strongest suit is seamless mid to treble. Sitting in the sweet spot close to near-field listening the soundstage is deep and wide with exceptionally stable images contained inside less diffuse boundaries than one may be accustomed to in speakers exhibiting greater phase distortion. The experience takes a bit of getting used to, and falls into the catagory of "less is more."

While "coherant" in terms of phase response, they may not be the last word in resolution and expressiveness of nuances of timbre-- which should be no surprise at this price point. However I haven't heard anything in the $5K range that surpasses them, and their small sins can be forgiven as sins of omission rather than commission.

Why would Thiel deviate from their superior measuring earlier designs??
Simple, this industry demands new products in order for a company to remain viable. This makes things very difficult for any Time/Phase practitioner to survive on anything but the small scale that Roy is maintaining. Case in point is Meadowlark and Dunlavy. Dunlavy came out of the gate with what is quite arguably the most accurate speaker line in the history of audio. (technically speaking) But where to go from there? And Meadowlark, their designs mostly changed with much improved cosmetics in the end. Neither survived.
There are only a small number of music lovers that actually care about truly accurate sound. (The rest are "audiophiles" aka "gear-o-philes")
The Thiel approach, no doubt, was to start looking towards marketing savvy exotic things. Joining the exotic driver bandwagon, etc.
Dunlavy flatly refused to move from the drivers he was familiar with. And Meadowlark took the route of trying to make ever more affordable designs while relying greatly on improved cosmetics and, to a lesser degree, improved performance.
But, ultimately, once you've designed a great time/phase coherent speaker you are essentially competing with yourself. There comes a certain saturation point where the anti time/phase coherent nature of the industry as a whole severely limits the gathering of new converts. And given that fact that a companies older time/phase accurate designs outperform newer "exotic" IN-coherent designs, these products are snatched up on the used market, doing the original manufacturer no good. They must rely, increasingly, on existing customers "upgrading".

On another note...
I've exchanged emails with Roy a few times and would really love to meet him someday. But I did have similar long exchanges with Pat McGinty (Meadowlark) and John Dunlavy. It's truly a very different conversation than with ANY of the other speaker designers out there. I would describe it as educational versus indoctrinational.

I wouldn't say it's a matter of mid bass to LF coherence. I am referring to the tone balance from lower mids upwards or simply the frequency response.

So in this regard what is your impression of the Eos? For example, the reviews of the Eos and Rio stated that there was an upper mid range forwardness. When I first heard the Rio that was pretty obvious to my ears, it just sounded like somebody had equalised the upper mids and boosted them. With the new chroma model, I still hear an unusual frequency response. That is why I would like other owners and people who have heard them, to comment.

Bombbaywalla, I don't think Apogee's are time and phase coherent.

For those who don't know about the Chroma:

www.proaudioitalia.it/pdf/greenmountain_listino.pdf