3 hour break. Nothing to do but study or eat lunch. Let's drive 20 minutes away to... listen to speakers!?
Disclaimer:The shop I dropped into didn't have the most varied selection, I didn't bring much music I was familiar with, nor did I do any direct A/B comparisions or bring my own speakers. I was literally there to kill time. And no, nothing was level-matched, either.
I dropped in, and asked him to show me a budget bookshelf speaker. He pulled out a Paradigm Mini-Monitor and set it up, and then explained to me how this speaker was declared by some magazine as "the best bookshelf speaker under $1000". Maybe, maybe not. I doubt the magazine was comparing it to the interested in the Usher S520s, Emotiva ERM6.2, Ascend Sierra-1, EMP E41-B, etc. But I kept my mouth shut and gave him the only CD I had in my car and let him pop it into some mysteriously gold coloured esoteric CD player hooked to an integated amp. It wasn't a CD i'm all too familiar with either, but i've heard it a few times in my car so it was a better choice than whatever selection he probably had.
I've heard the Mini-Monitor before, but can't really remember much about that listening session at a different shop in a very different room. My thoughts on the Mini-Monitor this time were that it was... bland. It had nice bass for a small bookshelf, and the highs were reasonably detailed, but nothing stood out. At the time I couldn't describe to myself what was missing compared to my current (surround) bookshelf speakers (EMP e5Bi) but it was something. Still, it's a clean sounding speaker with maybe a bit of a forward sound.
He also asked me what I planed to use to drive it, and I told him I'd probably grab a decent Stereo Receiver like the H/K 3390. He told me he used to stock H/K but (!!) virtually every 3380 and 3480 he sold came back with a defunct power supply! He said it wasn't good for business to sell customers such an unreliable product, although he can still do special orders for them. He said he's strictly denon/marantz for the usual brands, and carries some other stuff like Anthem, cambridge audio, and probably others. All the wires he sold were monster stuff.
I told the dealer that it was a nice speaker and I couldn't say anything bad about it, but it didn't blow me away either. That's understandable of course, at that price range. I asked him if i could listen to "that grand utopia over there". LOL! Well it wasn't actually a Grand Utopia, it was a Scala Utopia. Regardless, it's one of the better speakers in the world, and who doesn't want to hear one when they're in the Hi Fi shop.
The first thing that stood out was the bass. Obviously, one is a 3-way floorstander and the other is a 2-way bookshelf, so of course there ought to be a difference in bass, but i discovered that with this CD(Wake Up - John Legend & The Roots), it was like night and day. The drums all of a sudden had a visceral impact and were so well defined.
That was just the initial impression though. As I listened, I realized now what the Mini-Monitor wasn't doing that I expect out of the e5Bis.
Image. The Focal Scala Utopia, despite a ridiculously wide baffle, was stereo imaging exceptionally. The soundstage was enourmous too, but the imaging was what stood out. I felt as if i could draw an invisible vertical line at exactly where the sound is supposed to be. This is more like the e5bis and e55tis I've got at home. When the sound was meant to come from dead center, it was pin-point at dead center. Unlike my e55s, however, there was a more 3d sense of depth to the soundstage. Not a huge "this costs 35x as much" difference, but it was pretty clear. In comparision, the paradigm minimonitor soundstage felt more like listening to something in a car.. around you, but with no real definition.
What's more, I noticed a much more laid back midrange sound compared to the Paradigms. It sounded more
real. More natural compared to the paradigms. More... like my e55tis.
And then I noticed again the bass. This CD has a ton of it and the bookshelves just couldn't do it justice.
Unfortunately a $30,000 loudspeaker isn't exactly in my budget. I don't even know if I've ever earned that much in my life on part time jobs. And in my room, I don't really have room for the footprint of that speaker, which is like The Incredible Hulk's legs.
Next the guy was about to show me another Focal speaker when I noticed something on his sales desk. A Sonos S5. In
another thread here just this morning, someone suggested this to me as an excellent iPod dock. I'd never heard of the brand before this morning, yet here I was looking at their product by chance. I asked him to throw something on. His Ipod had some rock music on. The thing that stood out to me about this sonos speaker, besides all the wireless networking functionality, was the string distiction. In really does sound excellent. I didn't listen to it for long, but what I listened to impressed me.
Now on to the other Focal speaker. This one's a bit more in my price bracket. I actually wanted to listen to a focal bookshelf to pair with a rythmik sub, but he had no display bookshelves and this speaker was supposed to be the floorstander equivalent. I tried to avoid listening for bass and pay more attention to the mids and highs but it's not exactly easy. The name of the speaker was the chorus 714. What really stood out about this fellow was the grill aesthetics. Go check out a picture if you don't know what i'm talking about.
Anyways, I listened to it and found that the imaging, like the Scala Utopia, was very nice. The soundstage was smaller, but that's not a big deal to me. What was great about this speaker was its midrange.
Natural is the best way to describe it. Again I felt like the paradigm was missing something. Not sure how much this speaker sells for, but I'd assume it'd run around the same amount as a Monitor 7, and it sounds way better to my ears.
I was just about ready to head back to school when something else caught my eye. A circle.
The Focal Dome.
A tiny High-WAF speaker that I wouldn't bother with but hey, I'm here. So he set it up. It was paired with a funky looking sub but I was just interested in bedroom mains with a diy Rythmik Sub. First he put them on with the sub and it sounded really nice. The blend was smooth. If I had to guess, maybe it was crossed at 100hz instead of 80hz, just out of bias against small speakers and maybe a hint of localization that I'm not sure if i was just imagining. Either way, it sounded great. I asked him to turn the sub off so I could hear just the speakers. The imaging was very sharp, maybe moreso than the other Focal. Bass was now rather light, but everything sounded very clean. It uses Cast Aluminum for the cabinet, so I'd be interested in seeing some measurements for resonances, but what I heard was smooth. Yes, the best way to describe this thing is smooth. He told me it'd run ~800 for the pair without the sub. Not bad considering how tiny we're really talking about and that this is a brick and mortar speaker. This seems to me like something that should really sell. I'd love to see Audioholics do a review on this fellow.
I really wish he had the Chorus 705V bookshelf, as he told me that would run just under 500 and sounded similar to the 714 and he could order them. Still, the tiny little Dome is what really stood out. It filled a very large audition room with natural sound.
Overall it was fun and I've made it back with time to spare before my next class. Looking at the
Brochure the Dome is -6 at 72hz and -3 at 80hz so maybe I was wrong on the subwoofer crossover too.
