Gallo Reference 3.1 questions...

I auditioned these recently. I am looking to upgrade from Vandy 1Cs (other Vandys are either too large or too expensive). What I liked was their very smooth presentation in the upper-mid/lower-treble range, hu-normous soundstage, and their freedom from box-like resonances (something I am sensitive to thanks to the 1Cs). My only complaint was that there seemed to be an upper-bass hump, with this range overshadowing lower mids and lower bass notes. This was without the sub amp. To those who are familiar with the 3.1s, does your impression match mine? TIA.

No upper bass hump that I can hear. I would judge that a placement issue, but I've never experienced it and I've had mine positioned all over the place :-)

The bass hump or lack thereof depends on both the room and the orientation of the speaker. In my room, I use a long wall placement and have the woofers firing outwards and they are spaced very wide apart--maybe as much as 10 feet apart. This gives me the best results in MY room. I've also tried placing them closer together and within a certain range--about 6 feet apart or so, I have to orient the woofers so that they are firing inwards to get the best response. Again, exprimentation is key.

I think the response very much depends on the room. My room has a big suckout from about 50 hz to 90 or 100 hz. A hump would be a good thing in my room. I use the Gallo Reference amplifier to fill in, as best I can, that portion of the range.

Another possibility, which, although I've only heard the 1Cs briefly in less than optimal conditions, I doubt, is that the 1C is lean in that area, and your ears have been conditioned to that leaness, and the Gallo sounds like it has a hump. I doubt this because I did not hear any such leaness in the 1C in my brief listen.

I have a few useful hints on how to properly set-up Gallo 3.1s.
- do not point them straight ahead. The tweeters have excellent dispersion and really do not need toe-in, however, to achieve proper focus on the midrange you will need to adjust toe-in, paying attention to well-centered and fleshed-out vocals. I prefer a slight toe-in, so that i can see the speaker grille's internal sides.

-To avoid plummy bass (not a Gallo problem BTW), toe-in at least 20 degrees, to avoid paralell room boundaries and adjust the distance to the back wall until there is the right amount of bass. The woofers work only up to 150 Hz, so do not worry about reflections on your rack...

There are two options to further adjust bass:
-woofers facing each other: more bass.
-woofers facing away from each other: less bass. Season to taste.

-Also, adjust the front spikes/feet to achieve good midrange focus at the listening height and a slightly elevated soundstage.
In summary, there are 3 ways to adjust bass weight and evenness and two ways to adjust midrange focus, making this a very flexible speaker.
Do not worry about treble focus, the Gallo tweeter is good for 300 degrees dispersion, you will hear great soundstaging even if you sit way off-center.

-100W is plenty of power to drive them, though the best sound I got from them was from a Mac Mc402 amp (between 10 and 40W on McIntosh's calibrated VU/power meters). They also love high-power tube amps with 4 ohm taps.

-Lastly, if you do not listen to movie soundtracks and have a smal to medium-sized room, there is no need for the SA amplifier (I bought one to experiment). It sure looks utilitarian but it has an auto-on feature (powers up 10 seconds after receiving an input signal), therefore you can hide it if you want.

I hope this helps