Reynaud Bliss Jubile vs Cantabile Jubile

Unfortunately Bob knows more about Reynaud speakers than anyone in North America and other than he and maybe a couple of dealers it is unlikely that anyone has listened to both speakers side by side. I have owned Reynaud speakers since 2002 and am currently on my fifth and six pair which are Bliss Jubilee’s and Abscisse Jubilee’s. The Bliss Jubilee is a great speaker and my favorite all time small monitor and I have owned a bunch of them including two previous Reynaud’s from the same family tree as the Bliss Jubilee. There is obviously no doubt just from looking at the two of them that the Cantabile is the superior speaker on several fronts. The larger cabinet and extra driver will give close to another octave of bass information just like my Abscisse’s do over the Bliss. Also the separated tweeter module is an improvement over the baffle mounted one and may in fact may be an upgraded driver. While Bob may in fact may be a dealer I have always found him to be honest and not try to upsell over what is appropriate with your system and room. I had a friend talk to him several months ago and he in fact attempted to talk him down a model due to his room, gear and stated preferences. Give him a call and see what he has to say. You can’t go wrong with either model but if you want or need the extra bass information you may find you need a pair of subs with the Bliss Jubilee though they need not be big expensive ones. I found a great pairing with the Bliss Jubilee’s and a pair of RSL Speedwoofers.

Thank you, @jackd for your response.

I noticed that the Bliss Jubile has a ~6.75" woofer while the Cantabile has two 5.25" woofers. The cabinet on the BJ is a hair wider. 

The thing is I could get an opportunity to demo the Bliss Jubile but not the Cantabile Jubile, however there's an opportunity to get an essentially new Cantabile from a dealer at a great price (I'd get it without hearing it, and no return option), $700 more than the new BJ w/Magic Stand. From what I read, I'd probably love them both, but the CJ would oder better detail and more quickness, in addition to depth (the latter may be good or not, given my small 12'x12' room).

"offer" better, not oder.

I've had a couple of people say to gamble and go for the CJ, including a different dealer. While another couple of people I know say they never buy without hearing first. I would normally side with the latter, but from what I read, this speaker brand is made for me. 

@jackd, what's the sonic difference between the two you own, aside from one going deeper. 

Other than the obvious difference in bass from the multiple drivers and longer transmission line the AMT tweeter in the Abscisse is definitely more detailed and extended but whether or not that is a good thing is personal.  In my experience and to my preference amps for the Abscisse need to be on the warm side of neutral.  The Bliss on the other hand is a more "forgiving" speaker that just gets out of the way and makes music so that you forget about the gear.  I owned four earlier Reynaud's designed by the current owners father and they were a different voicing than the son, who is a recording engineer, tends to use.  According to Bob and what I hear in the Bliss it and the Cantabile beckon back to the earlier days of Jean Marie Reynaud.  If you told me I could only keep one it would surprisingly to most people be the Bliss Jubilee.  If the Cantabile is more of the same you can't go wrong either way and the Cantabile appears that it would actually take up less room than the Bliss' and the Magic stands.   In a room that size the Bliss Jubilee might be the appropriate starting point but this is where a phone conversation with Bob could come in handy.

Bob actually did encourage me to get the Cantabile Jubilé. And that's what I'll be getting. 

I don’t think you will be disappointed.  I love my CJ’s, and they are very similar to the Bliss (Silvers in my case), just more, as has been said.  Very amp friendly as well.

@analogj 

Congrats on the Cantabile Jubilee's I think you will be pleased.

Thanks @jackd. In fact, they're arriving today (Tuesday). It has been a while since I've had loudspeakers in the room. I've been doing a lot of listening through headphones, but it's not the same. 

@analogj 

Do keep us posted on your impressions

I received the Cantabile Jubile in great shape. The retailer said that there had only been about 20 hours on this demo pair.

Thus far, I have about maybe 110 hours on it. The manufacturer encloses a little manual states that it suggests 50 hours to sound good, and then 150-200 hours to fully break in.

Indeed, at first, everything sounded stiff and the top end was very bright, and could get etched, cluttered, and shouty when pushed.  As the speaker has continued to break in, the midrange on down has greatly relaxed and become more expressive. With more midrangey material on down, the sound has become very liquid and relaxed, yet still quick.

But the top end of the Jubile right now, while better than when it started, continues to be overly bright and shouty when pushed, as well as tight. I hear it with higher pitch male and female vocals, as well as massed strings and especially with massed brass (such as Tower Of Power type stuff). It's almost like two different speakers at this point. With music that is predominantly in the midrange on down being very relaxed. I absolutely hear the potential greatness of these speakers. Music which features the top end, however, still sounds tight, constricted, and sometimes etched and shouty.

I know that the design of the speakers, with its 2 and 1/2 way design, allowed the tweeter to go lower in the frequency range that normally done. But it seems as if the tweeter might be taking much longer than the two lower frequency drivers to break in. When I'm hearing something like acoustic music, or chamber classical or jazz, this speaker is sounding lovely. But from the top end of the midrange on up, when pushed, things start to collapse. And I can even hear certain frequencies just suddenly jump out as, say, a saxophone running up a scale. Certain overtones will just jump out. When an instrument or voice (or percussion) jumps out, it pushes that part of the frequency response to jump out and push the instrument out, and it can be unpleasant.  It's better than it was when it started, but I'm wondering what others' experiences might have been with breaking these in?

By the way, my Castle Edens, with the same equipment upstream, didn't have this overly bright or shouty issue. The whole soundstage is placed deeper than with the Castle Edens, my previous speakers, the latter creating larger and more forward images. JM Raynaud, within that same manual, suggests not to be concerned about system matching until reaching that 150-200 hour break in period. I want to be patient, but again, I'm wondering what others might have experienced with these in their break in period.

Thanks,

Jeff

I’m listening to my Cantible Jubilees right now being driven by a Pass xa30.8, and they are smooth at all frequencies.  Give them a bit more time.  BTW, what amp are you using?

Be patient as I didn't find the "recommended" break-in time to be nearly enough with either the Abscisse or Bliss Jubiile"s.  If you said earlier I don't remember, but what is the rest of your gear and cables.  

You'll have to hope your brain "breaks in" to the sound ;-)

Best of luck!

(I've liked the various JMR speakers I've auditioned).

My amp is the Pathos Classic Remix, a tubed hybrid. Certainly not a bright sounding amp. The speaker cables are bi-wired silver Grover Huffman cables. Note that I didn't have this issue with the Castle Edens using the same equipment upstream.

There's certainly a lot of musicality going on. The rest of the frequencies, from the midrange on down, have gotten less tight and more expressive. The speaker is quite liquid when not pushed. The speaker sounds natural and engaging. But when pushed, the top end gets tense and hard, and sticks out from the rest of the presentation.

I'll say this, in that when I first got the speakers, the top end sounded really confused, no focus at all. That is not the case now. It's pretty concise. It's just not relaxed. It's like I'm almost listening to two different speakers with certain kinds of music. With the tweeter taking on more of the frequency response, it seems to be taking longer for the frequencies they're handling to unify.

From the next room, I can hear the life in these speakers. It sounds like real music being made. But I can occasionally hear the hardness up top when pushed. With such ease coming from the rest of the speaker, it makes the top end stick out at that point.

Thanks for the input!

@analogj 

The Eden's are a stand mount speaker with the tweeter below the bass driver and the Cantabile is a floor stander with the tweeter at the top of the cabinet.  How have you set up the Reynaud's in relation to the set up of the Eden's in relation to positioning in the room and to your listening position?  Also you need to take into account your seating height difference for the two speakers as it will be vastly different.  You may need to adjust the rake angle of the Reyanud's either forward or backwards to get you in line with the driver positioning difference.  If you have an adjustable height office chair somewhere in the house try it to determine the correct seating height.  

They're about the same place as the Edens. The Edens, however, were designed with the tweeter below and to the right of the woofer. With the Cantibile Jubile, the tweeter is pretty much on line with my ears. My sitting is done on the couch. Not much I can do about that. If I sit up a bit or even stand, the occasional shouty quality is not as pronounced. Toeing out the speakers lessens it a bit as well (but not completely). But there is also a lack of ease in the top end when pushed compared to the midrange on down which has QUITE an ease to it. I can hear both the relaxed qualities of certain music from the next room, as well as when the reproduction gets relatively up tight up top. I'm wondering if further breaking in will result in the top end getting more relaxed. With certain types of music, these speakers can be remarkable.

But back to the shouty quality, I've noticed that if a vocalist sings a short 'a' (as in "had") or long 'e' (as in "needy"), which results in a reedy quality to the human voice (Anyone should be able to reproduce this), that reedy quality exacerbates the shouty quality, like the particular overtone(s) jump out when that word is sung, and it can be a bit unpleasant.

More break-in could certainly help but I have never noticed this with any Reynaud speaker utilizing their dome tweeters.  Simple thing to try it to raise the spikes on the fronts and then the backs of the speaker and see if a slight tilt up or down might eliminate what you're hearing as a "shouty" quality.  You are used to having the tweeter below your ears so in effect tilting the speaker so that they are either below or above might help and worth a try.  Other obvious thing is to try sitting on a pillow and see what effect that has by raising you up.  Don't know how far you had the Eden's from the back wall but with the Cantabile's front port you could try backing them up a little at a time and see what effect changing the angle this way has. 

I can try altering that a bit. I can tell you that the hardness when the music in the upper frequencies is dense can be heard from the other room. There's a difference between what's happening from the midrange on down, which is quite sweet.

Funny that I was talking about these speakers in the Steve Hoffman Hardware Forum. I never used the term 'shouty' there, but someone volunteered that they had a pair of Silver Bliss in their house. He tried them in their bedroom and he used the term "shouty". It was unpleasant. They tried them in their large living room and they didn't exhibit that shoutiness. But they couldn't deliver the low end he was looking for, so he ended up selling them. Different tweeter, of course. But that did prompt me to look further at placement.

So in an update, I'm finding that the brightness, the exaggeration of certain upper frequencies can be lessened by other toeing the speakers significantly outward, or listening above the tweeter horizontal axis. As I listen in sort of a fixed position on a couch, my ear line is sort of on the line of the tweeters, therefore what I'll need to do is try to tilt the speaker cabinets forward so I'll be listening above their vertical dispersion. I was leaning back in on the sofa and noticed that the top end of a saxophone was bright, and pushed forward so that the instrument was coming pretty much directly out of the tweeter. When I sat up and above the tweeter, the sax pushed back and became more coherent with the rest of the soundstage, (And when I leaned back, lowering the level of my ears, the sax once again came more directly out of the speaker.).

Another thing about the speaker's performance is that I'm noticing that with simpler material, this speaker is quite lovely to listen to. The speakers sound natural and both relaxed yet quick, as is live music. But when the music gets dense, such as massed brass, massed voices, or massed strings, the upper end soundstage gets cluttered and confused. The speaker loses some of its ability to resolve with clarity and ease in the upper end. I'm still trying to figure out why that is happening and what to do about it.

The thing is, there are many things that this speaker does truly well, and with simpler music, it really plays musically. But then a denser passage will come along and it reminds me that I'm listening through speakers, these speakers.

You could swap out the Grover which I think are silver foil to something copper and maybe swap out the tubes in your Pathos.  What 6922 tubes are in there now?

I have a pair of Monster copper pair of bi-wired cables. They sound darker and a tad slower, but I’ll throw them in. I’m using a pair of 1960s Sylvania, which are an improvement over the Russian-made Electro-Harmonix that came with the unit.

But here is something I did which has improved things quite a bit. I angled the speakers slightly upward. The result was a great lessening of the overt brightness and much better integration between the top end and the rest of it.

I’d still like to see a greater relaxation of the top end compared to what I get from the midrange on down. There isn’t the bloom that there is in the midrange on down. It’s still sounding a bit constrained up there compared to the rest of the speaker’s output, but at least the top end seems to have been tamed from where I’m sitting. If I do raise myself up to me more in the horizontal center plane of the tweeters or if I stand right in front of the tweeters, the brightness returns.

I did replace the Grover Huffman silver speaker wire with the Monster Cable. It's definitely toned down the heightened top end. It's not as precise in the midrange as the Grover Huffman nor as fast, but it's not bad either. I might try to see if I can borrow some other cables to try in my system.

Depending on the vintage the Sylvania 6 volt tubes can be pretty forward and could have much more affect than  changing out speaker cables.  Mullard's would of course tone it down but expensive.  An alternative to them are Matsushita for less. Andy at Vintage Tube Services has them in stock. One speaker cable that will help tone the top end down for not a lot of money is the Dueland 12 gauge dual cable from Parts Connexion.  Add the connectors of your choice or as they recommend use bare wire. It's what I use with the Abscisse Jubile after trying four others.  Glad you found out that tilting them worked. 

i have a pair of cables made of those exact wires with klei banana ends.  my fave cable for most scenarios.  think they'd be too smooth with older reynauds i had but never tried the newer ones.  could be a good match.

sylvania tubes to me does emphasize the highs a bit.  rca is more balanced and ge is a bit smoother. 

Yeah they might have been a bit much for Reynaud's from the Twins and Trente era but do just fine with the Abscisse and Bliss Jubilee.  

RCA's too a good suggestion but not the Clear Tops as they are a different bred to my ears from the Black Plates which are a bit more. 

Now that I've had the Monster Cable speaker cables in my system for a bit, I think they're certainly a better fit. There's still a bit of top end to be toned down. The thing with trying speaker wire is that I can't use standard lengths as I need 12' or so at the least. I don't want to just purchase cables and be stuck with them.

Regarding the Sylvanias, Andy had actually recommended them, but I suppose it's worth trying something else. At least he has a return policy with his tubes.

I also tried the Russian Tung-Sols originally supplied with the Pathos, and they're worse in the high end (brighter, brasher) and worse in the bass as well (tubby).

I was playing my the UHQR 45rpm of Kind Of Blue, and oh, does it sound great. There's not a ton of high end in that record, but what I do hear is pretty terrific. Neutral, musical, plenty of small-scale dynamic nuance, very natural, and 3-dimensional images.

But while better than with the Grover Huffman silver speaker cables, it get still sound too bright with brighter records. They're not forgiving. If I raise myself up from my sitting position on the couch a little bit, the brightness gets more pronounced. I may try to angle the speakers back just a bit more. I've maxxed out on what I can do with the spikes (lower in back, raised in the front), so I'll need to find some sort of shims.

Try the other direction, higher in the back with the fronts all the way in. 

I already did. Not as good. It put the midrange/woofer drivers angled toward the floor (where there's a carpet and wood coffee table, and resulted in a less open midrange and less coherent with the top end. Tilting them upward is much better overall.

Well, either the speakers are settling in a bit or I am. I have noticed that certain frequencies can sound a bit harsh to my ears outside of listening to the speakers. My previous speakers didn't seem to exacerbate any hearing issues so it might be that these are more revealing? I don't know. The top end can still sound a bit pronounced and dry compared to the rest of the frequency spectrum. It's not as bad as it was, though, overall.

The speaker come with metal spike places upon which to rest the spikes if you're placing them on a wood floor. They're on a carpet, but it allowed me to angle the speakers back just a bit more and that seems to be better.

Listening to music that doesn't have a ton of massed top end sounds great on these. Listening, for example, to the AP UHQR 45rpm pressing of Kind Of Blue is a revelation on these. And I hear more of a qualitative difference between my CD path and my analog path. The Castle had a romanticism that these don't have nearly as much. The Castles tended to make more things sound lusher, whereas the Cantabile Jubilee might be a bit more honest. But when the sound quality is there, it's even greater than before. And top to bottom (particularly from the midrange on down), there's such an openess and coherence to the sound, and the soundstage is wider and taller. It reminds me a bit of the Magnepan SMGc speakers I had. One of the great qualities of Maggies is their top to bottom coherence. 

I just took delivery of the JMR Jubilee Bliss (with magic stands) a few days ago, maybe 20 hours on them thus far. Initial impressions were they were nice right out the box, but were stiff. All the things you mentioned about the tweeter and shoutiness I am experiencing myself. I messed with positioning and find they are better spaced further apart, like 7-8 apart, with only a slight toe inward. For now I am attributing all of this to break in and hoping it improves. If not, I move them along. 

The real issue for me is I can't accelerate break in time since I don't have any digital source, I am 100% analog. So if I am not spinning a record I am not breaking them in. 

How are yours sounding now that you've had time with them? 

Reporting back that after some time breaking these speakers in all that shoutiness went away and they sound simply wonderful. Break in is real, and with these speakers it's real LONG. Once they are burned in though they are simply the best monitors I have heard to date. 

There you go!

I received my JMR CJs in Sept of 2022 retiring a circa 2001 pair of Cantabile Mk1s (single bass driver...) I think they are capable of magic when the recording is just right. Luckily I listen to a lot of string quartets, solo piano, singer songwriter.

I use a Jadis integrated - Orchestra Black with a tube cd player - a Lector and and LP12 w EAR 834 P phono stage.

For a while I used a Blue Circle integrated which have recommended with JMRs. Did things well but prefer how tubes sound. The sound is lit from within.

Rock sounds better on vinyl than on CD.

I don’t listen loudly and I live in a small apartment so the speakers are 9" from the rear wall and 7.5 feet apart from each other. 9 foot ceilings. Speakers fire straight ahead and the wall w couch is only 12’ from the speakers. So not a lot of room to blend the sound. I’m sitting too close and that’s not good for the clarity of those speakers. JMRs dont really have the mini monitor mid bass bump so nothing really hits you in the tummy. they can go really low but this is not a speaker for hip hop. But the last 3 Lana Del Rey cds sound magical. They are delicate and very clear. Not analytical at all. I think they have a sweet spot where they sound their best.

Trust me there are times where I crave some mini monitors like QLNs w warmer overall sound. they would not scale the heights of the JMRs but they wouldn't be so recording dependent. Either that or an amp w loudness contour.

Oh I use Auditorium 23 cables and interconnects with them.  Those were an amazing difference maker w the new tube amp etc.  Added so much more life to the music but no added brightness.  Highly recommend them.  I hear much more space and life and bass.  They are not analytical at all. Perfect w tubes.  

I’ve ordered a DECWARE Z ROCK 2 tube bass restoring device - https://www.decwareproducts.com/zrock2 - which seems to be made for many of the issues I have: a lean sounding speaker and a bright room.

Thoughts comments ?