Review: Silverline SR17 Supreme speakers

@seanheis1 was this the original Minuet or one of the more recent revision? I agree the originals were very fun and musical but a little veiled. I think the latest Supreme Plus is significantly more transparent. And the Minuet Grand is in another league, albeit at 3x the price ($2k).

It was the Minuet Supreme. It was the pair that Alan brought to audio shows. He is a really nice guy.

The Rosewood finish is excellent. They definitely beat the RS1s in the looks department. 

TAWW I will be in the bay area in a few days and I would like to travel up to see Alan and take another listen to the SR 17's. In your review you compared the 17's to the audio vectors. Did you end up purchasing the audio vectors?
Thanks for your input !

Hi @char1 - I wound up buying both the Silverlines and Audiovectors. :) They are quite different but both extremely capable. My wife, an oboist, prefers the Silverlines over pretty much anything else she's heard, and for acoustic music I don't disagree with her. The Audiovectors have that amazing tweeter and nearly coloration-free cabinet that make them bracingly clean and incisive, and they play loud like you wouldn't believe, but don't have the body of the SR17. I'm happy to live with either of them but the Silverline is quite a bit easier to position and match to amp/cables whereas the Audiovector is very exacting. The Audiovector does very well close to the back wall though, handy in small rooms. The SR17 is more organic and holographic, with a bigger sound.

One thing I've heard a former SR17 owner not like about them is the cabinet isn't super rigid and well-brace and tends to resonate at high volume, causing some thickening/blurring vs. the Audiovector or in his case an ATC. I don't disagree with this assessment and if you listen to, say, rock or other heavier music at high volumes it might bother you - I prefer the Audiovector for that. For classical and some jazz I think it's less of an issue, and I admit the bit of woody warmth it adds to the lower midrange is quite consonant with a lot of music. 

Also the mounting requirements are a bit different given their different enclosure philosophies and construction - Audiovector prefers isolation (e.g. rubber pads) as is the fashion these days, Silverline is old school and prefers coupling (Blu-Tack) to the heaviest stand you can find, which helps ground the bass and control the cabinet resonance. The former can sound good on light, unfilled stands whereas the latter sounded best on my old heavy steel Osiris filled with sand. I currently use a Dynaudio Stand 6 with sand which is kind of in the middle and not as good as the Osiris, but my wife greatly prefers how they look. :)