Unfortunately..the only ""concrete"" news I've got for you, is that these sound ****ing sweet. I was so apprehensive about spending my year's earnings on ANOTHER pair of speakers, and add another 30% apprehension from nuance et al's experience with the recessed midrange.... but after four hours of listening... worth every cent. So many moments where I'm like "that sounds so ****ing correct" or "damn... that makes the EMPs sound ****ing muddy on that sequence". Mind you, many of these are tracks i've heard many times over on different systems. On some tracks, they've got the resolution of headphones, except with more defined high frequencies. Totally tiny things like triangles and cymbal crashes just jump out at you, yet it doesn't affect vocals. I've got one foam pad on the raal. I guess the best way to describe it, is like that first move from "speakers with no tweeter" to "speakers with a tweeter". that's saying a lot, considering the praise Gene had for the EMPs in his review, as well as his review of the Infinity primus that our local revel/orion/kef/philharmonic owner praises
.
....But while the raal is a great tweeter, I have to say the star of the show is the blend between this midwoofer and midrange. It's just so......
correct. These are some surprisingly dynamic speakers. I don't think I heard any compression listening to music.
As for the back wave, i can't comment on it. The soundstage is deep, but maybe not really much deeper than some box speakers, but it's really well-layered. I've got them about ~4 feet from baffle to wall, toed in such that I can slightly see the inside of the speaker. I'll try pulling them out a bit more and using no stuffing at all (i used about two handfuls of stuffing). The only concern with pulling them out so far is driver summation at the reduced distance - but i'll let you guys know if that's a problem or not. it was a problem with the six driver array on the EMPs but these only have 3 drivers. I'll also try no toe-in.
There's a lot more I could be saying right now, but it's unnecessary. these aren't "smooth" speakers - not a thing is missing. When I say that I still mean they're far from harsh - they're just not "forgiving". In contrast they make the EMPs' midrange seem off.
Thank you to Dennis for making these wicked speakers
Thank you to RAAL, BG, and SB for some sweet drivers.
Thank you to Noah for making a silly move and getting magnepans instead.
Thank you to ADTG and every other owner for being my guinea pig
As far as complaints, it's only with the fit and finish. Some of the grill-peg olders seem to be missing or something along those lines. I don't really care about grilles except on the off-day that someone is in the kitchen next to this room and cooking something. BTW dennis, there's a tiny piece of cardboard or something wedged underneath the faceplate of one of the Neo8s in the small hole. Know any way to get it out of there?
Oh, one more thing. Dennis is insane if he's lifting these things himself on a regular basis. Isn't he like.. old?
