I know you guys are hot to trot on new gear and the latest fads, but I thought I'd torture you with yet another mini-review of a semi-vintage speaker. This time I'm listening to a pair of Acoustic Concepts (ACI) LX's. The newly acquired pets are gratis from a good friend in NYC. (They escaped!
)
The LX was a kitted design by Mike Dzurko ca. 1990. The speakers included a nice Vifa tweeter and proprietary designed 8" woofer and crossover. Just to make it more interesting, the builder of the speaker kit placed the woofers on top, tweeters on the bottom. At this time I'm not certain of the measurable acoustic reflection and/or interference effects as a result of this alignment. Without the grills on, it doesn't matter, of course, since I can just flip them over for conventional alignment. However, I prefer to have my speakers wearing all their clothes, so these won't go grill-less. The problem? The grills only fit one way...with the tweeters on the bottom and the ACI logo upright. So that's the way they got auditioned. I'd be interested in any technical input from you all on this woofer-over-tweeter setup. (WmAx? Gene?)
It's pretty tough to get manufacturer specs on these old gals, but I'd guess they're putting out at roughly 50 Hz-20K Hz +/-3db. I'm basing this estimate on comparisons to known speaker specs from which I A/B'ed the LX's. I do not have appropriate FR measuring equipment...so this is pretty much seat of the pants prediction (and more likely a lot of baloney).
) ) They were A/B compared with JBL Studio 312's and Infinity Reference One speakers, using my trusty Yamaha RXV-2500 and Panasonic F87, all mounted with ACES cables. I guess this won't pass Danny Ritchy's muster as decent evaluation equipment, lol. Nevertheless, I pushed forward with my cheapo gear and following is what I heard.
The ACI's were fed a little Mozart, a lot of Joe Satriani, and a hint of Eagles, and a full disc of Misty River Band (a wonderful northwest, acoustic, Celtic/folk all-woman group). The ACI's are largish bookshelves, with that 8" woofer and weigh in at about 20 lbs. per. They kept up with the floor standing JBL's with all but the more dynamic Satriani runs. They may even have had a touch better imaging than the Studios. I could clearly hear the positioning of each instrument and harmonic voice locations. Clarity, top end, imaging, and believability was superior to that of the Infinities (but, except for imaging, not the JBL's). There was air in the ACI upper end that simply was not available in the smaller Infinity Ref. Ones. I could definitely turn into a Vifa fan. Piano, flute, horns, and all stringed instruments separated out nicely across the soundstage. As you'd expect, the 8" woofer held reasonable advantage over the Ref. Ones (6.5") with the mids to mid-bass. Earlier this year, I had ACI's new Protege's here for evaluation, and I liked them. I'd rate these LX's as superior, however, as my taste for strong top end worked against the Proteges' relaxed upper bands. While the Proteges were more rear-stage, the LX's are providing second row, center seating. That's a delightful position for those of us who have lost a bit of hearing through all the hi-fi and rock & roll wars.
And there were some limitations. I didn't feel like Don Henley was in my room singing to me (thank goodness...ewww), but that could have been the fault of the source material. The LX's are fairly revealing but I've heard better.
These speakers are a pretty homely sight, right now. The finish has been badly abused and they need a lot of TLC and refinishing to match their lovely acoustic appearance. That'll give me something to do over the cold winter nights. But they deserve the treatment, as IMHO these ladies will keep up with any of the current set of sub-$1,500/pair bookshelf speakers I've heard (Vienna Acoustics, Monitor Audio, Paradigm, Def Tech, etc.)
After an afternoon of listening to a wide array of musical genres, I'm making these my "music room" speakers, and moving the Infinities out to the rear-surrounds on the HT. (The current rear-surround Infinity RL's get garage duty, now!)
Happy Holidays, all. Give yourselves a gift and save an old speaker for Christmas!
