I took pictures of the process of unpacking the speakers and their new crossovers so you can all see the attention to detail that PG lavishes on his product. All the pics are on Flickr so you can click on them to see higher resolution ones if you like.
Here are my well traveled SMGa's and the box containing the crossovers and new bases. I got the SMGa's about a year out of college, 22 years ago and they were my intro to quality audio. When PG asked me to cut back the fabric of the sock to see how the drivers had fared over time, I told him it felt like desecrating a church.
Here's the crossover box opened up. You can see the one of the new bases and PG's very complete assembly manual.
Closeup of the manual. Reading the manual shows you how much time and effort PG has put into this.
Here's the first base freed from the packing peanuts. Notice the base of the foot spikes under the bubble wrap.
The first base completely unwrapped. After seeing the pictures of other mods that PG had done in sapele I had to go the same route. That's just beautiful wood.
A closeup of the base showing the grain of the sapele.
The underside of the base with the craftsman's signature. Also, look closely at the upper corners of the base near the bolt holes and you can see that the holes have been stamped with numbers to show the order of assembly. This is the sort of attention to detail that I was talking about earlier.
My first view of the crossover boxes. Each set of boxes is different and you never know what you're going to get. A tip to prospective customers: don't ask PG about the influence of James Krenov in his work. It's safer that way. :)
The first crossover box completely unwrapped. It's got a really nice Pennsylvania Dutch type design painted on the side. You can't see it in this picture, but there's a spiral pattern in the black paint as well. Thanks, PG!
Here's the complete contents of the box containing the crossover boxes and the bases.
More attention to detail. Check out this closeup of the parts bag, including a wrench to assemble the speakers with. Move over Ikea, here comes PG!
When PG called me to tell me that the speakers were just about done, I remarked that Christmas was coming early this year. Here's PG's response:
My first view of the modded driver panel.
Sorry, but I have to admit that after this point I was so focused on getting the speakers assembled that I forgot to get pictures along the way. What I do remember is that the alignment was spot on at every step along the way. You know how you sometimes have to wiggle things a bit to get holes to line up properly? Not in this case. I simply dropped the bolts joining the struts to the driver panel into the hole in the strut and tightened it down.
Here they are, fully assembled and in their new home.
It's a good thing that I took pictures, because I just don't have the words to tell you how gorgeous these things are. I am blown away by the quality of work and the attention to detail at every step along the way. This is hand craftsmanship at its finest. PG, you out did yourself!
"How do they sound" you ask? Jeez, it's so easy to get wrapped up in how good they look that you can forget that they're actually speakers. Well, to answer your question, take what I've said about how good they look and double it and you'll get an idea of how good they sound.
I've got a full Maggie 5.1 home theater setup: 1.6 mains, CC-1 center channel and MC-1 rears and an RBH MS-8.1 subwoofer. The SMGa's were originally demoted to rear channel speakers when I got the 1.6's about 10 years ago but were later decommissioned when I moved to the MC-1s for space reasons. Everything is driven by 5 Marantz MA-500 monoblock amps with an Integra 9.8 pre-amp. My primary music source is a Sonos ZP-80 with a library of CD's ripped to FLAC format.
My girlfriend has never liked the way the 1.6's dominated the room (she called them the 2001 space monoliths) so the idea of dusting off the SMGa's and having them modded to outperform the stock 1.6's was very appealing. I know that I could have gone directly to modded 1.6's but that wouldn't have solved the size issue.
Even though you can see that the room isn't the best for two channel music, with a wall of windows on the right side and a large opening on the left, the Integra 9.8's auto-setup did a pretty good job of taming the worst aspects of the room. For my initial chance to listen to the modded SMGa's, I just swapped out the 1.6's and didn't rerun the auto-setup. I did move them about six inches closer to the wall though.
My initial response: wow! They are definitely more detailed than the stock 1.6's. For example, the first thing I heard on Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, was a heavy sigh. I've never heard that before. The next thing I noticed was the bass extension. For two channel music I'd be perfectly happy listening to just the modded SMGa's without the subwoofer.
Here's another example of how detailed these beauties are: one of my favorite guitarists is a Canadian flamenco guitarist named Jesse Cook. On a track titled That's Right!, he partners with Buckwheat Zydeco for a flamenco/zydeco fusion. Towards the end of the track there's a bit of percussion that I always heard but for the first time I was able to recognize it for exactly what it was – flamenco style palmas (handclapping). You could actually hear the slap as the hands were clapping.
Next I checked out some dynamic piano with Bruce Hornsby's Spider Fingers. Even better than I remember it. And Bela Fleck's banjo solo on White Wheeled Limousine is something that you've got to hear.
Perhaps the most surprising thing is the added transparency. While scrolling through the list artists on the Sonos remote, I saw Dan Hartman and I decided to hear what the SMGa's sounded like with an 80's dance beat. Transparent is the only word that applies to the effect of listening to Hartman's voice on I Can Dream About You. It was like he was right there in the room.
All in all, I listened to the SMGa's for about two hours last night. Pleased doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about them. They easily best the stock 1.6's and that's without tweaking their position and re-running the auto-setup again. I'll report back more as I get a chance to play with them more.
I do have one minor nit to report. The terminals on the crossover boxes are spaced a little farther apart than the finished ends of the Transparent speaker cables I was using were comfortable with. Having the terminals a little closer together would mean less strain on the finished cable ends. (However, considering the cable that's in the wall leading to the equipment closet, the Transparent cables are overkill anyway).
If you're considering having PG mod a set of speakers for you, don't hesitate. You'll love the results. I'm already in line again for a special project to try next May. It's been a pleasure working with PG from beginning to end.
Finally, here's a shot of the modded SMGa next to the stock 1.6 that it's replacing.
