Emerald Physics CS-2, Opinions Please

I'd like to know who Rchau's "dealer friend" is since E-P speakers now have only ONE North American retailer and he absolutely LOVES the speaker.

Rchau,

For the record, I was not insinuating that you made it up. I just found your dealer's reaction quite surprising given that, at the very least, these are simply very good speakers. I would say that the reactions I have seen/heard (dozens) have been probably 95+% positive - most very positive indeed.

As for them not being 'revolutionary' - so what? With speakers, the devil's in the details. And, frankly, they are rather innovative. The magic seems to be due to the combination of very complete frequency response, correct dispersion/power response by the ingenious coupling of open-baffle and a waveguide (the guide takes over where the bass drivers are beaming) (power response is THE critical area neglected by almost all conventional designs), and the complete time/phase alignment offered by the DSP. The result is a speaker that honestly seems to have no dynamic compression whatsoever, has accurate timber, and portrays a very realistic soundstage.
[A lot in common with Duke's designs, incidentally, which also get around the power response problem by coupling a woofer to a similarly-sized waveguide. Duke, if I'm screwing that up please correct me!]

There is no such thing as a perfect speaker, and there are probably better speakers in certain ways, but these things did drop my jaw at RMAF last year and yes, I did finally order a pair.

These are not active speakers - they are speakers that use an active crossover.

To me, active speakers - putting the crossover and amps INSIDE the speaker to ensure that it gets the worst affects of vibration possible - is and was a compromise based on convenience, not sound quality.

In my experience, *simple* passive crossovers are Ok and can be a great solution. Complex passive xovers, however, steal far too much of the signal to be tolerable.