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Stereophile reviews the active Grimm LS1C

A day before I started a thread on active speakers Stereophile published a review on the fully active Grimm LS1C. Fully configured (upper and lower sections) you are looking at $30k for a pair or more depending on finish.

There’s a lot I like about the design here, except the price, of course:

  • It’s aesthetically pleasing and doesn’t look like a monolith. It’s thin (front to back) and open.
  • Wide baffle (I’d rather have a wide speaker than narrow)
  • Woofer positioned very close to the ground.
  • Excellent off-axis performance ( a rare thing in high end speakers ) both horizontally and vertically.
  • Excellent recommendations for listening position and speaker angle given the tweeter used

I’m not sure I care about having a "perfect" response curve. Personally my choices have always been to apply EQ sparingly. There are systems like Dirac for instance that can hammer a speaker into measured frequency domain perfection but it’s the time domain performance that I find interesting.

The subwoofer is a bit of a mystery though. They make a big deal of the tweeter and midwoofer but the driver used in the sub is not listed. Given the size and claimed low end extension I suspect they are relying on the DSP to compensate for a cabinet that would otherwise be too small.

Would be really interesting to hear who has heard them and who would think this speaker was for them.

erik_squires

Showing 1 response by erik_squires

erik_squires OP
16,564 posts
 

but in a no more than a moderately sized listening room the Grimm’s are a treat

Based on the driver sizes, this makes sense.  It’s great they can bring the bass down to below 20 Hz but physics are unforgiving.  They can’t possibly get to 20Hz with a tiny module in a large space.  Still, these speakers are quite well sized for most living rooms.  At $30K or more though, most with modest listening rooms will have a tough time affording them.

The one feature they have I think almost all high end speakers should is excellent off-axis performance.  Like really excellent.  This speaks well to having great imaging AND a wide sweet spot, plus the wide baffle IMHO helps thius a great deal.  Besides the price there’s just a lot about this speaker’s design and features I like.  Of course I says htis without actually hearing them, so readers should take my musings as uninformed.

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