Let's start with the basics, I am not an expert nor am I an audiophile. I am a former car audio installer and I have had the pleasure of sampling a very wide range of mobile audio products.
My expirience with home equipment is pretty limited, though I would think that the price range these speakers are in, most people would probably have or had similar equipment to mine.
These speakers are ultimately replacing two different systems that had been in this room.
One is a small cd player satellite set with a set of altec lansing sats and sub connected to the aux outs.
The other is a Sony 935 attached to some horrible Sony bookshelves.
The purpose of this setup is pretty simple, play music from Rhapsody. Not a particularly hard task, and usually this music is set up as background to cooking, cleaning etc... not hardcore listening.
That has changed!
The speakers arrived today and were neatly placed under my porch for when my wife arrived home. I had to work a little late so I didnt get the pleasure of lugging them upstairs (whew!). The av123 procedure was followed even though these were ordered as B-stock. Double boxes, cloth bagged speakers.
As I pulled them out I knew they were different and special already. Very substantial size and weight for a bookshelf. The finish is smooth, they feel and look way more expensive than they are. Oh and for the B-stock, I think I have seen worse blemishes on A-stock speakers of other brands before...very nice and hardly noticable at all.
I set them up, loaded Rhapsody and started with Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" Maybe it had been too long since I listened, LISTENED to music, but the expirience was moving. When the acoustic solo started at the beginning I got chills. When the vocals came in, dead center, thick yet mellow...more shivers. When all the other instruments came in, a tear of joy!
Several other songs followed. Each one as impressive as the last. Bass is not huge, but present, tight and accurate. Heck, watching the speakers move, they look more like a machine than a resonating cone, so precise, no slop.
My wife said "You keep expecting something bad to happen when they are this loud, but they keep sounding good and getting better the louder you get"
If this is what $199 is supposed to sound like then I have thrown away thousands in the past.
I cannot wait to hear what $2400 av123 bucks sounds like...I simply cannot fathom it.
I started listening to these around 9:00pm, it is now 11:43 and I just got off the couch to write this...they are that good.
I have listened to Floyd, the Dead, Peaches, King Missile, Ween, Tori Amos, Portishead, and pretty much every type and genre in between.
No complaints yet.
