Apogee Duetta Signature or Mini Grand?

The Mini Grand is the Apogee Stage on stands...of course in this case the stands are subs. I have listened to the Stages before but not with their subs or any sub for that matter.

The Stage is a fantastic speaker with one of the best midrange reproductions I've ever heard...the Stage may work in your very small room but I'm not sure about the subs.

The Stage by it's self needs stands of some kind as it is very short. Bass response without it's subs is a very solid 40hz so you may not need or want subs in your room.

The Duetta Signatures (Which I own...see my system pic's) are to large for your room (IMHO) and do not require subs.

My suggestions are only based on room/speaker interface so take them only in this context...both are very good speaker systems when setup properly and used with high quality components.

Dave

Hey Mike

If you would like to contact me I can put you in touch with a couple of fairly new Duetta Sig owners...I don't think they would mind answering a few questions that may help you.

One owner has replaced Maggie 1.6's and also compared Maggie 3.5's to his Duetta Sig's.

The other Duetta Sig owner drives his with Threshold S550e amp...I see you have a Threshold amp also.

Dave

No I have not Richard. As I mentioned to Mike above, I do know someone that does own that amp along with Duetta Signatures. I should mention that he is in the process of trying some other amps at this time...I do not know if it is because he is unhappy with the Threshold or just wants to try something a little different.

I have owned the Ksa-250 well before I moved from Apogee Centaur Minors to Duetta Signatures. I used it to drive my VMPS Supertowers at first.

The only amps I've tried with my speakers were Bat-500 and Pass-150...the Krell was better than both of those.

Thinking about giving a few of the digital amps a listen...change does not come easy for me though so I'm still in my research stage and slow to pull the trigger.

Dave

Rgs92

I have listened to the VMPS products, one of the bigger VMPS dealers is very near my home. I also own some older VMPS speakers and Sub (not hybrid).

I think they sound very good and are a good choice for someone without the extra room that many of the Apogee models (and others) need to sound their best...the VMPS hybrids can be placed very near the front wall.

They did not sound anything like my Duetta Signatures or any of the Maggies I have listened to but did their own thing very well...integration between the two driver types is very good.

The last pair I listened to were the VMPS RM/X's, these were huge and sounded great but did not make me want to sell my Duetta Signatures...this was at the dealer and I thought the room to small for this speaker.

Had I listened in my much larger room my opinion may be different and they may have taken my Duetta Sig's apart...don't know for sure.

"magic natural vocals"

Vocals are great...not as good as the Stage for sure, of course as an X Stage owner you know that very few speakers are...including most other Apogees!

Dave

Trelja

I'll guess that we are not talking 95-100db peaks.

The Stage Mini Grand are out for those levels, the much larger Duetta Signatures will play very loud but are limited by their two way design as the mid/hi-freq ribbon will begin to do a wild dance at those constant spl's...(over worked) as it tries to cover a wide freq range.

The three-way designs have the edge here, the Diva would have no problem. A couple of things to know about the Diva would be:

1. It's very large and needs to be listened to at a greater distance to integrate properly...smaller rooms need not apply IMO.

2. Much more power will be needed...bi/tri-amping will be best IMO

Another thing to remember about Apogee types...Maggies..ect., they do not sound as loud as they are playing, a spl meter will confirm this.

I use my Duetta Signatures (with and without) subs in my 23'x 25'x 9' room at very loud levels at times...what size room are you going to place your speakers in Trelja?

Two of my subs are VMPS Supertowers which are really full-range speaker models (the lower section of these are the large VMPS subs. I could sell these and replace them with the large VMPS subs at no $$$ loss but have not because my thoughts have always been that I might want to use them someday for extream volume levels as full-range...they will play at insane levels!...I have not needed to do this at this point in my room and have come close only a couple of times when I thought the Duetta Sig's or my amp (not the Ksa-250)had reached it's limits.

Would I trade my Duetta Sig's for the Diva to gain higher spl's...no, they play plenty loud for me. Would I rather own a pair of Divas...sure, I have the room for them to open up and they are a better speaker system.

Dave

Hi Joe

You problems as I see them:

You will need at least 3' placement from the wall...more would be even better.

You will need at least 6' between the panels, the panels are 28" wide each. This places us around 1' from each side wall if we use the 13' wall...while the side wall is not as big a problem with the dipoles as other speakers...the corners are.

Placement further into the room and away from the corners may help this...maybe not enough.

The Duetta Sig's are 59" tall...the Caliper Sig's are 48" tall, the other measurements are pretty much the same.

You may find near-field listening to help ease some of the problems you may have...a plus, is that most Apogees sound very good this way...much like quads or Soundlabs.

I agree with Vince, volume levels will be MORE than enough in that room...my room is over 5,000 cubic feet.

Is this a dedicated room we are talking about?

Dave