I'm delighted to have something that you admire. The trick with that red is it's lack of brightness in the absence of light. Oh, it's also flat as opposed to egg-shell. It leans way toward brown. In case you want to check it out it is 'Bolero SW 7600' from Sherwin Williams.
Here's a pic that is more representative of how that accent wall fits in the room. It's a smallish place and the room is not a dedicated theater. I couldn't in good conscience turn our living room into a super dark single purpose theater.
Now, here's the flush mounted port:
... no doubt adk will be by and will have noticed the wire pants.
Oh yeah, I put these on special for you, Buddy. Tight, tight, tight ...
When I was down in Maryland with Rich, Kurt and Dennis, they used Copland's
Fanfare for the Common Man to show off their various speaker delights. I happen to have a Telarc recording of that and just played it. I must say the cable pants gave the music a smooth shiny presentation. Seriously, this is very dynamic piece. Granted when I heard it at Swerd's it was louder because I figure I'm only interested in making so much of a nuisance of myself to my neighbors. At Dennis' with Kurt's soon to be Phil3s the bass shook the floor ... effortlessly. The STs fit a different niche. Namely they are much smaller and they sound wonderful backed up very close to a wall.
I don't really know how to describe it but the horns in that piece have this floating tonal quality that must be some sort of interaction between the instrument and the room. It almost loops back into itself with pitch and amplitude ... like a wave, a returning swell of sound. Maybe it's the musician doing that on purpose because it seems so perfectly in time. I don't know. I'm not at all qualified to speak on music never mind performances but I can speak on loudness. With a relatively low powered rec'r I got out of these STs some very serious sound. I'm sure there's more where that came from but again, the neighbors. If I owned a house I'd be deaf. I turned it down after a bit and then another piece with timpani drums made me go back and turn it down again.
The best that can be said about the bass output of the STs in comparison to the Phil3s is that they don't over reach. I mean there is plenty of bass there but none of it extends beyond their ability to reproduce with fidelity ... it's very balanced and a show of knowing when to say when in the design phase.
I almost got mixed up in the $2k-$3k for speakers thread but saw that they had a good thing going audition wise and covered some wide ground. For my particular circumstances these are a perfect fit due to firstly their SQ excellence and secondly their placement flexibility. Oh yeah, their looks ... very important ... for the men with women.
I must say, I crack myself up. Now, it's time for some trim.
