I own a pair of YG Anat Reference II Studios, and I have never experienced the "bottoming out" mentioned by Atmasphere and Khrys. The Anats have two mid-woofers per side, whereas the Kipods have one per side. YG literature maintains that the Kipods should be selected for rooms of a certain size and the Anat Studios for larger rooms (and the Anat Professionals, with two subwoofers per side, for still larger rooms). Unusually enough, YG maintains that, allowing for differences in capacity to energize different size rooms, all of their speakers will sound much the same. That is, unlike most other speaker manufacturers, where the sound quality of their speaker lines is claimed to increase with the relative costs of different models, YG claims that the sound quality of Kipods and Anats is very similar, and that the major difference relative to costs is that the more expensive models play louder than the cheaper ones. If this is indeed the case (I myself have never heard the Kipods), then it may be that the Kipods can more easily be driven to some form of distortion than ther Anats if played very loudly. The different YG models, ideally speaking, are selected for their appropriateness in different size rooms. The benefit of adhering to this principle is superb sound in medium or small size rooms at the relatively modest cost of the Kipods (compared to more expensive Anat models). The reciprocal potential cost would be a greater likelihood of overdriving the Kipods as compared to the Anats. In loudspeakers as in life in general, there is usually a trade-off of benefits versus costs.
The advertising claims that disturb some Audiogon members are, I agree, extravagant. It is unlikley to the point of impossibility that the authors of those claims have heard all of the speakers in the world. But YG does maintain a serious and consisten program of testing the loudspeakers of other manufacturers. And, so far, none of the speakers examined test as well as the YG speakers. The YGs are not only remarkably flat, but the drivers in the main modules work together, with very little phase difference. This enables the YGs to achieve the sonic benefits of single driver loudspeaker systems without emulating some of the drawbacks of single driver loudspeaker systems. The results are a clarity and coherence that are a delight to experience.
A real problem in getting the best one can out of the Anats, I have found, has to do with partnering suitable electronics and cables. I started out with a really fine integrated tube amplifier, a unit that I had purchased originally for Sonus Faber Amati loudpeakers. In the years that I had owned the Amatis, I tried quite a number of amplifiers and preamplifiers, and the tube integrated was the best I heard in partnership with the Sonus Faber speakers. It sounded fairly good when I connected it to the Anats (my wife especially remembers it with fondness in handling some of her favorite vocalists). But there were some problems. I have recently shifted to all solid state electronics and new speaker cables, and the sound has very markedly improved. In addition to usual worries about impedance matching and the like, YGs really should be coupled with "neutral" components. I understand "neutral" to mean a minimalization of either adding or subtracting information to or from the signal received. The YGs are carefully designed to be as neutral as possible, and in my opinion one would be subverting their design by coupling them with tone controls. Better, in my opinion, to buy one's personal tastes in euphonia by buying cheaper speakers than to start off with something neutral and then, in a manner of speaking, unneutralize it.
