Stereophile review of Escalante Fremont


Has anyone read Stereophile review (Feb '08) of Escalante Design Fremont spkrs ?
Reviewed by Larry Greenhill & measured by Jon Atkinson .

How come they make a review of the spkrs without proper setup :
- LG didn't attached the stand spikes because of his new wood floor & put some bad comments (nasal / coloured tonal).
- JA measured the spkrs with above condition .
- No information if the spkrs burned-in

In my experience , result could be very sensitive for full range spkrs setup ( freq. resp : 18 hz - 50 khz ) .

How can such a great magazine editor allow to publish review with above condition ?

Really different with Positive-Feedback (by Greg Weaver) & Stereo Times (by Dave Thomas & Greg Petan) reviews .
This three reviewers has bought Fremont after made the review .

Seems our international respectable Stereophile magazine has a lot of degradation in their quality .
Is there politics inside this magazine ?
What a waste review ... i think ...
riwin_h
Unfortunately, Dhaan above is correct about the WP and the hot Focal tweeter -- the breakup resonance indeed causes distortion throughout the presence region, and this is plainly audible in the original Focal (JM Labs) Utopias and the Wilsons.

I don't agree if you are referring to the W/P8 tweeter. I even ran some tests and eliminated it as the cause of issues Dhaan said he had heard with soprano and violin (he said any soprano and violin material would reveal it). He won't give me any specific recordings to test, so I can't figure out specifically what was causing the issues he was hearing. The break up mode should be below adult hearing threshold unless you are a pre-pre-teen.

If you want to give me some music you heard the problem on, as well as specific times and locations on the albums, I'll be glad to figure out what you were hearing. If it was tweeter break-up, which I doubt because of the high frequency location of the break-up mode, I'll be glad to confirm it or figure out what it is. I also have the ability to test it on three decent speakers (as I did previously with only two speakers).

I'm not sure about the W/P7 if that is what you are referring to... The W/P7 and W/P8 use different tweeters...
I was referring to the WP7 and was not aware that the WP8 uses a different tweeter. The WP7 tweeter exhibited harshness in the presence region (3 Khz. - 7 Khz.). Atkinson wrote the following in the measurements section of Stereophile's WP8 review:

"Despite my caution about the tweeter's dome resonance being close to the audioband, very little delayed energy seems to be associated with it, which will minimize any audible problems. The latest version of this Focal tweeter is definitely better than the one used in the W/P7."

That is good news!
Nonsense! It is the same tweeter. It anything, it behaves slightly better in version 7.