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A brief review of GR Research Bully

I was looking for speakers that would allow me to enjoy classic rock at reasonable volume. NOT at a venue volume. I don’t like loud music at all. Thus something that allows me to have full spectrum sound without having to crank in up. First I tried ProAc 38R, which were nice, but lacked bass at low volumes. Accuphase amp has loudness and tone controls, but they did not quite worked to my satisfaction.

So I ordered a pair of GR Research Bully, assembled. GR typically sells kits, but I am not into finishing cabinets so rather prefer it professionally done. It took about 12 weeks from the order to delivery. I did not buy matching stands and instead ordered custom metal made for me.

I am very satisfied. The bass section is powered - the amp is Rhythmik. It is, effectively, a subwoofer and is very adjustable - crossover frequency 40-120Hz, phase 0-180 and even includes parametric equalizer. This allowed me to adjust amount of bass to the volume level I prefer.

The speakers come with printed measurement chart (in GR Research room). I also performed a number of measurements in my room with UMIK-1 and REW for Windows. I could make frequency response pretty close to linear, but prefer a bump below 100 Hz to compensate for lower listening volumes. Waterfall is also very clean, no ringing.

Associated gear: Denafrips Terminator with DDC, Rega P6 + SoundSmith MC, Pass XP-12, Accuphase E650. The room is 30x16x8 with some acoustic panels and ASC Tube traps.

Room frequency response

Room waterfall

mikhailark

Showing 3 responses by deep_333

deep_333
1,743 posts
 

I’ve got the NX-Oticas; built them with some skilled help.

I would not trade them for any other speaker I’ve heard and yes, I’ve heard the Magico M9s pushed by ~$750k of top-shelf electronics.

My intro to GR was the double trouble sub kit, which i’ve been using with a variety of speakers over the years....Built out the NX-Studio kit just out of curiosity (not like i had the space or needed another speaker in the house to enrage the spouse), A/B’d it against speakers that costed/costs magnitudes more...the value proposition with these kits is just hard to believe. They tend to scale up really well as the front end electronics get better as well.

Sounds like the OP has a good thing going with his larger room, choice of front-end electronics and the bully.

 

P.S. Danny’s only sin is continuing to tweak certain speakers from some other brands that some dudes found depressing (continuing to ship them to GR in pursuit of happiness again)...tends to get the salesmen for such depressing speakers up in arms, "How dare you make him happy again???!!!", sez the sales guy. laugh

deep_333
1,743 posts
 

Wish they would use higher end finish and have remote for the sub.

In case you didn't know, you can paint over the duratex finish... a rustic wood or whatever.

Not sure if the sub section includes a line-in which could accept a separate line-out from your amplifier.... If that's the case use this unit and you will have a remote control.  

https://www.newark.com/mcm-custom-audio/50-8394/line-level-volume-control-rohs/dp/79X4195

 

deep_333
1,743 posts
 

A couple of things. IMO, The OP tried to do the impossible in the beginning, no passive speaker was going to provide decent bass at low volumes, and IMO the only way to get even bass at low volumes is to get 1 or many powered subwoofers. GR makes very nice speakers, but you could have purchased hundreds of other speakers with a couple of REL subwoofers and achieved what you were looking for. Many other speakers in the past couple of decades have provided powered subwoofers in their speakers, like definitive technology.

Buying a subwoofer is one thing, integrating it correctly is another. The designer (especially if he knows what he’s doing) has additional dofs open in the design phase if he chose to integrate powered subs crossing over as high (a case can be made for it).

I have no idea how some guys claim to have accurately integrated the infamous REL subwoofers in their purist systems that don’t even provide a variable phase input to an user (sounds like a lie to me).

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