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In Reply to: RE: AXPONA 2013 report planer speaker style posted by TitaniumTroy on March 12, 2013 at 19:31:07
Well on to the show finally, The first planer's I heard were the best. Martin Logan Montis Electrostatic speakers, which are $10k. They were in the Peachtree Audio room which was also showing off an integrated amp in which you can stream at 320k Mogg or Spotify straight to your speakers, via your iPhone.
Anyway those ML Montis speakers had incredible dynamics, soundstage, detail. Very well integrated between the dynamic woofer and electrostatic panel. Supposedly this is the first electrostatic mated with a servo controlled DSP woofer. All I know was this one my favorite room's of the whole show. Others in the same class were, Acoustic Zen, MBL, Linn Athenenum's (from NH not UK) YG Acoustics, and a pair of Focal Alto Utopia Be's
Next planer up was, I think the winner of best of show, Kingsound's Prince III electrostatic. While I thought they were very good I could not get past their limited dynamics, they just sounded restrained to me. These were being powered by some of Bob Carvers new tube amps.
Next was a planer magnetic, Leonardo from Italy. In the room they were out at least 5ft, however from the side walls maybe 5-6" so they bass was boomy and uneven. They are very good looking speaker, very nice build quality, and were run by strange looking tube amps that had a glass case.
Last but not least was a hybrid planer magnetic tweeter with a small 4" mid/woofer, I thought these sounded very nice. I misplaced the literature on their name, however they were in the TEO Audio room.
Follow Ups:
Almost forgot, finally I got to hear some planer magnetic headphones, HiFiMan, Audeze LCD2 and 3's, and a new comer with a sticker shock price of 5k for the Aybss headphones. Being open backed and in a pretty noisy room full of stereo geeks it was hard for me to tell what were the better headphone.I do know I prefer the angled out in back design of the Audeze, to lessen the inside your head effect. Also the Aybss's weird looking rack makes it look you have some kind torture device on your head from the one of the Saw movies.
Edits: 03/12/13
Opps, a couple of more speakers I left out one was the Newform Research, ribbon hybrid. These speakers sound very good, powerful, and fast. The same with Wisdom Audio's ribbon hybrid, however both speakers seemed to have the same problem to me, as with other large mega speakers like Scanea, Focal Utopia III's, Von Schweikert, and Legacy.This is a problem thrown at Maggies a lot, though I think it is more of a room problem. The image and soundstage was always huge, some of the rooms were pretty good sized too. The line source Scanea's were by far the worst to me, though they had incredible transit response and dynamics.
Also the Newforms and Wisdoms seemed to have a much more forward sound, compared to dipole planers. Perhaps most of these problems were the acoustics of the rooms, though ATS did supply lots of bass traps and diffusors. But you have to work with what you got at a show like this for the exhibitor and attendee.
FYI the Peachtree Audio room with the Martin Logan Monits speakers had zero room treatments that I could see, and it was small too, but sounded great.
Edits: 03/13/13
Did not know that Wilson Audio makes a ribbon hybrid. Are you sure you don't mean Wisdom Audio?
Alan
Thanks for pointing that out, yes I meant Wisdom Audio hybrid not Wilson. Hence why you should always proof read your writing.
Crap, too many speakers to remember. The Janzen hybrid electrostatics sounded good overall to me, but seemed strained in upper midrange treble area at the volume they were playing at. I liked their soundstage they did not seem to have that forward sound like Newform Research hybrids. Also their seemed to be a resonance coming from the right speaker.
Edits: 03/13/13
I own the Janszens and was naturally curious to hear how they would play at their first public show. David Janszen and I agreed he was getting some room node issues, a reality of show conditions I suppose. He also chose to use Bryston powerpack amps strapped to the backs of the speakers as a way to minimize the gear in the room. I can't say I'm a fan of Bryston's in general with revealing speakers and these powerpack amps are too commercial (dry) for me, just my opinion.
I was impressed with the exeSound e20 DAC he was using. The DSD files were about the cleanest digital sound I've heard. I prefer a more analog front and and a TT as I have in my setup, but I wasn't running the room.
Thanks for your time an info.Good to know about the ML
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