Wow, such varied tastes. I guess this is why there are so many speaker manufacturers.
I'm with jc4659. Sound Labs ESLs are it for me specifically the 8 and 9 foot ones. After a decade of drooling I finally positioned life to sneak a pair by my wife. These are my very last loudspeakers. Jasonbourne52,
I understand your fondness for the 9's but you really have to try a pair of these. They have all of the great qualities and none of the vices.
Birdfan, you have to trust me on this. I know they are addicting but you really have to stay away from large ribbon loudspeakers (other than tweeters). They are extremely fragile. Aluminum ribbons are nothing but tinfoil laminated to Saran Wrap. Think about it. Voice of experience, I owned Apogee Divas.
@russ69 , they look impressive, go very loud and have a lot of power down low. But, line arrays of multiple midrange drivers have never done well. I do not know why but for some reason they just do not image well.
The Near Field Pipe Dreams, another sonically impressive speaker of the same ilk could not image either. They will give you two dimensions but the third has gone AWOL. It is either some kind of interference between the drivers or the complexity of the cross over. If you like the presentation of a line source (my very favorite type of loudspeaker) You want to go for a Magneplanar 20.7 or Sound Labs 8 or 9 footer with subwoofers. These speakers have the benefit of being much less expensive. Go Figure! A note about the third dimension. This is not the ability to sense the size of the venue the recording was made in as many people think. They refer to it as a "deep" sound stage. Many systems will relay this sense but few will give you the third dimension. Instead of instruments and voices on a wall, the sonic version of a theater screen, it is instruments floating in space with "air" around them. Listen to a live guitar in the room with you. You know that guitar is right there. You can hear around it. The very best imagers can fool you into believing an instrument/voice is in the room with you and not on just special recordings, on many recordings. You can hear around the instruments. Microphones like your ears can capture that information. Unfortunately, relaying that information is difficult. It seems that it is the most fragile part of recordings. In my lifetime I have heard exactly three systems image like this based on a 4 way dynamic speaker, a ribbon speaker and an ESL.
I'm with jc4659. Sound Labs ESLs are it for me specifically the 8 and 9 foot ones. After a decade of drooling I finally positioned life to sneak a pair by my wife. These are my very last loudspeakers. Jasonbourne52,
I understand your fondness for the 9's but you really have to try a pair of these. They have all of the great qualities and none of the vices.
Birdfan, you have to trust me on this. I know they are addicting but you really have to stay away from large ribbon loudspeakers (other than tweeters). They are extremely fragile. Aluminum ribbons are nothing but tinfoil laminated to Saran Wrap. Think about it. Voice of experience, I owned Apogee Divas.
@russ69 , they look impressive, go very loud and have a lot of power down low. But, line arrays of multiple midrange drivers have never done well. I do not know why but for some reason they just do not image well.
The Near Field Pipe Dreams, another sonically impressive speaker of the same ilk could not image either. They will give you two dimensions but the third has gone AWOL. It is either some kind of interference between the drivers or the complexity of the cross over. If you like the presentation of a line source (my very favorite type of loudspeaker) You want to go for a Magneplanar 20.7 or Sound Labs 8 or 9 footer with subwoofers. These speakers have the benefit of being much less expensive. Go Figure! A note about the third dimension. This is not the ability to sense the size of the venue the recording was made in as many people think. They refer to it as a "deep" sound stage. Many systems will relay this sense but few will give you the third dimension. Instead of instruments and voices on a wall, the sonic version of a theater screen, it is instruments floating in space with "air" around them. Listen to a live guitar in the room with you. You know that guitar is right there. You can hear around it. The very best imagers can fool you into believing an instrument/voice is in the room with you and not on just special recordings, on many recordings. You can hear around the instruments. Microphones like your ears can capture that information. Unfortunately, relaying that information is difficult. It seems that it is the most fragile part of recordings. In my lifetime I have heard exactly three systems image like this based on a 4 way dynamic speaker, a ribbon speaker and an ESL.