First post, this thread drew me to comment. I have a pair of Final M35’s on order with Ravi. They caught my interest from AXPONA 2024. I believe he had the M15 on show there with some Tekton sub towers. I’m a lifelong Acoustat fan and liked what I heard enough to put in an order not too long after the show. Yes, this is more than a year later, but I have had a big move come up and paused my order so I wouldn’t have to move the M35’s too. They should be arriving in a few weeks. I already had enough to move (7 pairs of various Acoustat models).
When I say I am a lifelong Acoustat fan, my father bought a pair of Acoustats in the late 70’s. I grew up around those and I still have that pair. Having models with the direct drive servo amps and interfaces, I tend to agree that direct drive is better, but my Spectra sets, which only work via interfaces, can be very good with enough power. The problem with direct drive is very limited amplifier options. The Acoustat direct drive servo amps can be updated and taken really far, but we’re still talking about hotrodding amplifiers that were mostly built in the 70’s (I think production of those amps ended in 1980 or 1981). There are plenty of high quality robust amplifiers available today to make the interfaces sing today, but it’s my belief that the interface itself is a weak link holding things back.
So, I’m looking forward to getting and living with my M35’s to see how they stack up to my reference. Oh and the move has provided the benefit of a higher ceiling. Now I can fit the stacked Acoustats, so my collection will likely continue to grow. I’ll finally have room to build some 8-panel (per side) versions. I have heard a setup running 17 panels per side and it was glorious. I never would have thought that would work, but it did. And it was in a fairly small room (considering how big it was to even fit that many speakers). There’s no replacement for displacement and that much surface area extended the bass incredibly low. That was all using interfaces and VTL tube amps to boot.