Coincident's "Victory" spk:beautiful, but... sound??

Sunnyjim, there are some $20k speakers that "roll off sharply at 40Hz". The real question is, how do they handle what they can reproduce? There are a number of speakers that can do far below 40HZ, that sound like crap. I don't have any experience with the Victory, but capability of less than 40Hz is not necessarily the mark of a high end speaker. Many of the members on this board will attest to their need for a subwoofer on many of the "high end" speaker that they own that cost way more than $4600. This, by itself, will tell you that alot of the better speakers are rolled-off around 40Hz, whether the specs show that or not.

Any speaker design will entail some compromises. Deep bass is expensive (multiple drivers, large heavily braced cabinets, etc.), so I am not surprised that at the $5k price level a manufacturer might not even try to attain sub-40Hz performance. Presumably within its somewhat limited bandwidth the Coincident performance well, which as Twl states above, is preferable to sloppy, but deeper bass. Compare the Coincident to the NHT 3.3 (a very good full range speaker (IMO) similarly priced to the Coincident). The NHT will go lower in the bass, but it's not a refined in the mids and treble.

I recently auditioned the Victorys after an extended listening session with Alon Lotus SE's. Both the Alons and the Victorys were driven with a Berning Siegfried amp.

Compared with the Lotus, the Victory struck me as rather forward and lean. I did not feel this was due to inadequate bass, but sounded more like extra upper midrange energy. Now the Lotus SE's are a dipole, and so provide the illusion of spaciousness, air, and a removed presentation, and the Berning is an extemely revealing amp, without any typical tubey warmth. So whatever intrinsic "forward" qualities the Victory might have would be accentuated in this comparison. The Victory's might cotton to a warmer amp, e.g. Cary 300 SEI.

Hope this helps.

Clifford

Clifford is correct. I owned the Victorys. They are a wonderful speaker, and can have enough bass response in a smaller room for most people. But they do need an amp with a warmer midrange. They are very neutral and were voiced using Coincident's own 300B based amps, which do have some warmth in the mids. Read the review done by Scot Markwell on Coincident's website. By the way, one of the absolute best amps I used with the Victorys was a 12W Audion Sterling with NOS Seimans EL34s. I picked it up used for $600., installed the NOS tubes, and was blown away by the result. Yes, this amp didn't help the bass shy Victorys in that department, but they didn't seem to be lacking either when driven by the Audion. What is even more amazing is that I bought this amp after using a Zanden M7000 845 amp ($15,000 retail). I actually preferred the Audion, not because it was a better amp, but it just worked better with the Victorys. I now have Total Eclipses driven by a Wyetech Topaz. I have driven the Total Eclipses with the Audion, and am still amazed. If you get Victorys, you need to try this combination.

Any more thoughts on the Victory loudspeakers ? I am very interested in them also. Thanks.