Acoustic Zen Crescendo


I'm pretty interested in these transmission-line, full-range speakers. Has anyone spent serious time with them? How do they compare to other contenders around $16K?

Unfortunately, I'd have to fly to SoCal for an audition, so I'd like to vet them as thoroughly as possible before committing the time and expense. Press has been very positive but also very limited, and user impressions are scarce on the web.

Thanks in advance,

Bill
wrm57

Showing 5 responses by mapman

Charles I share my enthusiasm and whatever knowledge I might if someone is interested but I hesitate to recommend them just because I like them. I think we differ a bit there perhaps.

Reason being they are totally different than what most are used to hearing. A totally different flavor of sound that usually takes time to get used to before falling in love although with a lot of familiar and tasty ingrdients of good sound to offer right out of the gate.

Also those who use radial or omnidirectional speakers are a minority so they are clearly not for everyone otherwise the reverse would be true.

If one is game to try than I am all in. But I probably more often than not tend to recommend more mainstream options for most unless there is some good reason to encourage them to try something radically different, like a history of failure with another approach.

There is the in home audition period and guarantee as an insurance policy so that helps.

Whereas with amps, what I recommend will largely be determined by what speakers will be used. If one wants to start with an amp and build form there, that’s one perfectly fine way to go about it though I would argue start with speaker/room integration because that matters perhaps more than anything and one usually has limited ability to change the sound of their room. Different speaker design, no single one or type will tend to work best in different rooms. That’s pretty much a given. Also choice of amp will determine what speakers are a good match and some choices, like choosing a limited power amp, will likely limit speaker choices most.


My job is to deliver computer based solutions (not audio though I cut my teeth in and sold audio and home electronics for a brief period in college many years ago)) and that means being solution centric and largely technology agnostic and that’s pretty much the way I roll.

I think it started when I worked for Radio Shack first as a salesman and later briefly as a store manager.   We were taught that when someone walked in the store they had some problem (like a blown tube or fuse) or were looking for something (like a particular hifi) and our job was to figure out what and solve their problem and then make a sale.  Good advice!
Charles I know you're not.    We agree that individual personal tastes vary.

 
Charles being happy or not is a purely individual subjective determination. Its fine as a personal recommendation to like minded individuals but not reliable to predict what will happen with the next random guy who tries. How many people are "happy" with a particular solution is a much better indicator.

Just saying...
granny sksos1 could answer best but I suspect zeros might add value if tried with Atmasphere OTL running Crescendos having impedance as described.

Atmasphere seems to lean towards 16 ohm speakers as being better.   Given that 6 ohm nominal load may perform reasonably well perhaps (or not) but there is room for improvement in terms of ratio of input/output imedance which determines performance (up to a point).   Zeros would provide that  if needed.
Zeros are typically used to improve the performance of a high output impedance tube amp with speakers representing a harder load to drive in regards to impedance (and phase angle?).

Better performance is always a plus in my book however performance alone does not necessarily mean better sound which is to a significant extent a largely subjective judgement.

Zeros would add nothing and perhaps even reduce performance used in the wrong cases like with most SS amplifiers that inherently have much lower output impedance than most all tube amps..