Anyone listened to Aerial 9's?

Glad to hear you like them Pigtunia. I received mine and have had them up and running for a few days now. I like what I hear. They are quite different from the Alon's (and not necessarily "better"), but definitely better for my situation, listening preferences, and system. I will post a more detailed impression after I listen some more.

Thanks for the responses. Any other opinions?

Hi Worldcat, thats good to hear. Mine get here tomorrow. I am comming off a pair of Alon Circe speakers that were great in many ways, and I hope the 9's do not make me think I made a mistake. I suspect I will give up a little in resolution compared to the Circe, for a speaker that integrates a little better with my room, the wider variety of music that I listen to, and my SS gear. The lack of reviews is interesting for a speaker that could be considered a reasonable priced replacement for the 10t.

Wow, a blast from the past. I have never heard the 7Ts, buy based on this thread I purchased the 9s and owned them for years.  I really enjoyed the clean, dynamic, and somewhat warm sound of the Model 9s.  They sounded good on a variety of rock, pop, and blues music.  Two caveats, they need some power (at least 200 wpc) to really come to life and IMO the bass is probably the weakest aspect of the speaker because they can overwhelm a smaller room and the bass reflex design can result in some degree of boominess in certain rooms/situations, IME.

I recently moved to the slightly less expensive LR5s and I believe the bass is even better with a pair of 9-inch woofers in each sealed (i.e., acoustic suspension), very inert box.  The bass on the LR5s rolls off at about 40Hz but I augment them with a pair of SW12s and the result in the bass is vastly superior IMO to the Model 9s alone.  The cleaner bass performance also seems to improve on the mids and high frequencies in my room.  However, the LR5s need even more power as their sensitivity is only 86dB.  I am happy with the change to the LR5s plus two subs and Michael Kelly told me that set-up is about as good as it gets with his products. 

I have used a variety of amplifiers with the LR5s.  Consistent has been Clayton M300 Class A monoblocks but I also currently own Cary CAD 500MB monos and a pair of DNA-1s that are at SMc for Steve's Signature treatment.  I am in the process of working out the details with Steve and Patrick.  Both the Claytons (300wpc) and the Carys (500wpc) double into 4 ohms and both have plenty of power although they do sound different from each other. The nice thing about the LR5s is that they indeed let you hear the characteristics of whatever gear is in front of them.

@rlovendale

but they look pretty clunky and require stands

True, but they don’t really take up much more room than the Model 9s, which I also had on SA stands. However, with two subs, which is how I use them, they do indeed require more room if you include the floor space required for the subs.

The cabinets are maybe better than the Model 9 since I believe the LR5 cabinets were still being made in Denmark and they do look nice, if a little pedestrian if you a fan of unique shaped speakers. Each LR5 weighs 105 pounds so they are like big bricks. I have mine on Sound Anchor Custom Signature Stands (i.e. "special souped-up versions of our hi-performance 3 and 4 Post stands") which each weighs about 70 pounds so each speaker and stand combo is about 175 pounds - big monitors! They image well due to the narrow’ish face. Another thing that might be of interest to you is that they were actually designed for a variety of placement options and they have environment and treble controls that adjust the crossover for that purpose. From their literature;

"Useful Environment and Treble controls optimize the response of the LR5 to suit its surroundings, insuring correctly balanced sound regardless of room or position. It is at home on its purpose-designed stands, on sturdy shelves, mounted into a wall, or placed in custom cabinetry."

@jdlynch 

can you tell any difference when you feed the LR5s more power?

Aerial speakers like power for sure.  Mike Kelly told me a good 200 wpc amplifier should drive them, meaning 200 wpc into 8 ohms and at least 400 wpc into 4 ohms.  Most Aerial speakers are nominally 4 ohm loads and some dip down to about 3 ohms at the lowest.  I like amplifiers that double (or almost double) their output power when the load is halved and believe that to be a sign of a good power supply - the heart of most amplifiers.   

The least power I have been happy with on Aerial speakers is 300/600 wpc into 8/4 ohms.  That said, my 500/1,000 wpc Cary amplifiers do not seem to power the speakers any better (or worse) than the McCormack DNA-500 (500/900 wpc) and DNA-2 LAE Signature (600/300 wpc) amps I have used previously.  My Clayton M300 Class A amplifiers (also 300/600 wpc - in Class A, not AB) are different sounding in some ways than the others.   I also owned Lamm 1.2 Reference amplifiers which sounded quite good up to a certain point where their 110 wpc ("into 8 and 4 ohms in pure class A") sort of ran out of steam.  If somebody were playing mostly jazz and pop/vocals they may have been perfectly happy with the Lamms. 

Do not confuse having enough power with how the speakers will sound with different amplifiers as those are two different things, i.e., you can have an amplifier with enough power but still not like the sound and like my Lamm example you can get good sound but not have enough power.  My advice for powering Aerial speakers is to first look at amplifiers with strong power supplies and the ability to double or almost double power from 8 to 4 ohms (since the LR5s go down to 3 ohms, the ability to drive a 2 ohm load would also be a good sign that you have sufficient power), second make sure you have enough power to satisfactorily drive the speakers with the type of music you listen to, and finally from that group of amplifiers pick one which you enjoy most sonically.  If you like your ATI amplifier, then just keep it and enjoy it since it certainly falls within the power range recommended by the designer Mike Kelly.