Hi Todd,
Well a local friend of mine and I did a sort of bookshelf shootout recently. We pitted two pairs of speakers against each other with the winner moving on and against the next pair. We had 6 pair of bookshelf speakers available for the shootout. They were:
Ascend CBM-170
Onix Ref 1
Usher S-520
Phase Tech V-4
NHT SB3
Von Schweikert VR-1
First shootout was between the
V-4s vs Ascend, the Ascend won easily with the fuller sound, deeper bass, and overall excellent sound quailty
Next up
Ascend vs Usher S-520, this was very close but the Usher's won out because of their better (more open) high frequency extension and enough bass extension to nearly equal the Ascend's larger woofer.
Next up
Usher vs Onix Ref 1, surprisingly the Usher also won this comparison. The Onix displayed some annoying port noise with some material containing complex low frequency(such as the second track from the Jack Johnson Brushfire Fairytales CD). And the Ref 1's sounded a little thin compared to the Usher or Ascend.
Next up
Usher vs VR-1, this was a close call. I preferred the Usher sound while my friend preferred the VR-1's more mellow sound. The S-520's sound like a hotrod compared to the VR-1 "comfortable" Mercedes type sound. We went back to the Ascend vs the VR-1 and found these two speakers to have a lot more in common sound wise, with the VR-1 sound a little more "refined".
This was the end of our little shootout until the NHT SB3's showed up a few days later. After some break in, we pitted the SB3's against my favorite, the S-520. Then against the VR-1's, then against the Ascend. In all cases we both preferred the SB3's sound. They have a larger presentation, deeper, tighter bass, detailed extended highs (without ever sounding harsh), they just did everything a little bit better than the strengths of the others.
The SB3's made the Usher's sound thin on the bottom end.
Made the Ascend's sound a little on the small side, but the Ascend's never did anything that we didn't like. I could live with the Ascend's... happily. That is unless I had the SB3's around.
Same with the VR-1's. They are a great sounding bookshelf, but a little to mellow (laid back) for my taste.
This was a fun (and learning experience) experiment my friend and I performed. We plan on doing as many of these type of listening test as we can, doesn't take long and makes you listen more critically. Also these type of auditions help you detrimine what type of sound pushes your buttons.
