Acoustic Zen Adagio, How Good Are They?

I bought a pair of these speakers for my son and they are awesome. Right out of the box they are great. I picked them up yesterday and after a full night of listening I just can't believe how good they are. I am only waiting for them to get better as they break in. I will only have them at my house for about a week because they will go to my sons house on Saturday. The imaging is incrediable and the sound stage is as well. My two small complaints is there low end the fact that they are a little small for my big room. I will report more as they break in.

Aggielaw, I first heard the Adagios at RMAF driven by the Red Dragons. I went back repeatedly while making only one visit to the Zu room. I had not heard of the RSA Sasons but was going on with your evaluation until you talked about the MacIntosh multi-driver speakers as being better than the Sasons. Wow! I went into the MacIntosh room at CES having learned of them from a dealer in Arizona. I could not leave fast enough! They were loud but just awfully muddy and confused. I suspect the multiple drivers

Your standard for just settling back and toe tapping with the Adagios is my ultimate standard. I should also say that given the comments I am hearing about the Red Dragon mono blocks, they may have been contributing to the sound I heard from the Adagios.

For those asking about being able to drive the Adagios with tubes, we (F2Audio) have now run them with the Cary SLI-80 (in triode 40 watt mode), the Cary 805 Anniversary (50 watts), and the Vincent SP-T100 hybrid amps (100 watts). None of the amps had any problem driving the speakers. Unfortunately, we do not have any lower-watt amps. The main thing to note is that the speakers sounded varied (while still maintaining its overall open and clear sound)with each amp, preamp, and associated tubes. To me, that is the sign of a good speaker...it passes along the signal that it gets.

Yesterday, I A/B'd Adagios vs. MBL 116s.

The A/B wasn't for comparative reasons - I'm looking for two pairs of speakers pursuant to a re-organization of my stuff (Don't ask).

Anyway, these speakers have a very similar sound; very dynamic with neutral octave to octave balance (though neither does subterranean bass) and impressive imaging/staging. Both sounded terrific, although, to my ear, there is a certain "presence" or "body" to the MBL that the Adagios don't quite capture. OTOH, I could certainly understand anyone who preferred the Adagio or felt that the comparison was essentially a toss up.

At $22K in rosewood, the MBLs cost 5X as much as the Adagios. On the basis of performance, I imagine it would be hard for most people to justify the price delta relative to the marginal advantage offered by the MBL (for those who ajudge the difference an MBL advantage).

OTO OH, the MBL is a pretty striking looking product. While the Adagio features beautiful cabinetry coupled with an akward grill, I thought the MBL is, visually, a work of art.

At $22K the MBL's should be a "work of art" and do everything well too! That's a very expensive speaker. The fact that you say the MBL's don't do subteranean bass is crazy to me. A speaker at that pricepoint should not lack thunderous low end.