Gallo Ref III Amps/impressions

The answers to your questions are:

1. Yes
2. Yes

Mark Hampton of ZCable also has these. At least, this is what I was told when I visited the ZCable room at T.H.E.05.
The sound of the Gallo III's is nice but you should hear the sound that Mark Hampton was able to coax out of these speakers. I almost had to pick my jaw from the floor, especially considering the fact that the other components in the chain were not-so-special Sony.
Mark was demonstrating his own process of re-recording music. He played some a capella choral music and the layering of the soundstage is breathtaking. Lots of air, enabling the separation of each individual voice to mesh within a large body of sound. Overall, transparency, resolution and enhanced micro-dynamics were the hallmark.

I'm sure the Bright Star Audio Gallo Stands and the felt strips also helped. Mark Hampton is currently still refining this re-recording process so this is all I can mention. The 6th generation CD-R copy sounds better than the original if you can believe it! The difference was night-and-day. How did I find this out? I was referred by Empirical Audio to check out the ZCable room for a demo.

I have no relations to ZCable, Bright Star Audio or Empirical Audio.

Gaudio I second your opinion of that room, astounding and high value, if not, absurdly because of the system cost and components, some of the best sound of the show. I spent far more time there than in the Maxx2/Arc room right next door and was absolutely floored by the sound. Interesting that they spent more money on vibration isolation (Magix)than they did on the system itself! Of note, the BPT Balanced power tech power treatment was everywhere in that room, and perhaps a major contributor to the result... In fact, I think they had a BPT on EVERY component!

Pretender, how are you setting up the crossover and high/low pass with the Parasound to the second coil? Also, did you just split the LFE output into left and right to do it? What about speaker cables? Can I use less expensive cables, or do I need to pony up for another set of similar cables?

Thanks for your help. I am definitely going to go this way.

Well, fortunately, my Tempest integrated has an active pre-out that I hooked up to the Parasound's inputs, using a pair of FMod 50 Hz in-line low pass filters. (See the review on 6Moons website.) My Parasound has level controls on the back, but right now, I am running it at full output. I picked up a used pair of Analysis Plus Oval 12 speaker cables for a reasonable price, and they seem to work fine.

Maybe I just got lucky, but I am getting much better bass than I did with the subs...

Also, there is a thread on Audio Asylum in which Ric Schultz states that he has good luck reversing the speaker wires...

Anyone have the SA amp yet? Is it available, or are we still waiting? Last I heard, March was the date. Anyone know any different?

When I first bought these speakers, I thought I would need it. Now that mine are broken in, I'm not so sure. They are very well balanced just the way they are. I am looking for others opinions, but the SA's are going to have to be pretty good. Unless they make a huge difference, I will leave the speakers just the way they are.