New Acoustic Zen Adagio loudspeakers


Any opinions/comments on the new AZ Adagio loudspeakers? Are they compatible with tube amplifiers?
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Showing 11 responses by philnyc

Audphile1...I'll be receiving a pair in about 2 weeks if you want to come by to check them out...
Sorry for the double-post...the first post didn't appear for a few hours, so I thought it didn't go thru...
Audiphile1...I got your email, and you've got a response back!

Drubin...These speakers use a round ribbon tweeter and a pair of ceramic-coated fabric cone woofers with a custom "short-voice-coil/long-magnetic-gap" voice coil design. Asides from saying "they sounded excellent, with a very silky-smooth and warm character being driven by a pair of Class-D amps", not sure how else to answer your question... :-)
Westborn...I don't know who manufactures the drivers, but I'd be surprised if AZ manufactures them themselves; I'd expect that Robert specs them and has someone else do the manufacturing. On another note, the woofers are ceramic coated fabric cones, not paper...
I just received them yesterday, and just set them up this morning. Robert Lee says they take 1-2 days to start sounding good, and 3-4 days to really break in. Personally, I'd be surprised if the break-in was that quick (I've had ribbon-tweeter based speakers before, and the break-in was much longer)...but Audphile1 will be coming over to check them out tomorrow...
FWIW, when Audphile1 came over, I had less than 15 hours on the speakers, but the difference from right out of the box til tonight was already apparent. Right out of the box, the bass was virtually non-existant, but as Audphile1 notes, tonight the bass performance is pretty extended. There's definitely room for the rough edges in the bass and high frequencies to smooth out. Also, I was very surprised at how big a soundstage these speaker throw.

I still have a lot to learn about these speakers in terms of placement and how they interact with my room...tonight, we changed the toe-in by 5-6 degrees, and we noted a significant improvement in soundstage depth and even some tonal balance. I'll play with that more after I get 75-100 hours on them. As noted by Audphile1, at $3700, they are quite good even now...if they smooth out the way I anticipate they will, I will regard them as a pretty serious bargain at their price...
Btw - since posting yesterday, I've probably put another 10 hours on them, and they have already smoothed out significantly since Audphile1 came to listen. At this time, I'm quite happy with the bass response; the high frequencies still need some smoothing, but they are much more listenable now than they were yesterday. Am driving them with a 95wpc hybrid integrated (Blue Circle FtTH) and am quite pleased with the overall sound...
The Adagios are not bi-wireable. There are two colors available...red and light maple (AZ calls them "Figured Maple" (red) and "Mappa Bur" (light). You can see pictures of each here:

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=24700&highlight=adagio

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/galleryimage.php/albuu78/image037.sized.jpg