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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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I wanted to separate my Axpona comments under the different forums. Here's some of my thoughts on what I heard this year. I didn't get to all the rooms.
My top 2 picks are for great sound and price, although not cheap, but as compared to other speakers there and their prices.
I notice each year good stuff coming from Eastern Europe, Sultanus had a full range electrostatic speaker at $12k that was outstanding. It featured a control on back to optimize the speaker to tube or SS amplification. They reminded me a lot of Quad in both looks and sound quality. No one frequency range to stand out, you just sat and heard music rendered with a natural and pleasing sound. Vocals sound perfect with no chestiness or other oddities. Piano was pristine.
And tied with the Sultanus on my list at the top was the Dynaudio Contour 60 at $10k. I heard this speaker driven by both Sim Audio and Levinson, in different rooms. I felt Levinson was a better match but both were good. The 60 was dynamic, tonally balanced, did everything right from what I heard. Percussion was tight and fast. The 60 is just a great sounding speaker and although $10k I think it will be big as it sounds even more expensive.
Seania was their with their line array speaker, these sounded excellent, driven by PS Audio's hybrid amplifier.
TAD was showing an entire system that sounded really good. They were using a 6" 3-way stand mount that blew me away, it sounded great overall but the bass extension was unbelievable. If memory serves the speakers were around $12k but if you couldn't see them you would never guess you were hearing a stand mount, the response was flat, no bass hump to give a clue it was a stand mount.
More affordable, Andrew Jones was showing Elac's new $2500 floorstander. It was driven by Audio Alchemy. The speakers sound good but I wasn't as amazed as I was with the price/performance of the cheaper models. The mids/highs were clear but I felt the bass subdued. Keep in mind this is at a show.
KEF was showing the wireless LS50, which is a real over achiever, and, the Blade 2.
I heard a direct comparison of the Revel Salon, still going strong after many years and a deal at $22k for that type of speaker, and, the fairly new JBL 4367. Two different presentations, the Salon goes lower but I prefer the 4367, brass, cymbals and piano are so pristine from those horns with no offense at all, percussion is tight and dynamic, more like live.
Magico's S3 sounded great to me. A good audition of ATC again.
Sadurni, still one of my favorite higher dollar horns.
Gamut had a $40k set of speakers driven by Gamut monoblocks. The speakers sounded good, I would have liked to have heard them more although they were the speaker I listened to the longest. Songs I was used to just sounded different and I was trying to decide if that was good or not so good. The speakers exhibited good separation and imaging, good response. Beno, the designer has a bit different philosophy, he is sort of a minimalist, not going over board with cabinet thickness or insulation.
I heard others there, some I wasn't so excited over, but this is already lengthy and I'm sure you don't want to hear me criticize :)
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Topic - Axpona 2017 - Speakers - Mr Peabody 19:36:00 04/26/17 (4)
- RE: Axpona 2017 - Speakers - jaynemo 08:27:01 05/01/17 (2)
- RE: Axpona 2017 - Speakers - Mr Peabody 16:49:24 05/01/17 (1)
- RE: Axpona 2017 - Speakers - jaynemo 17:01:00 05/01/17 (0)
- Thanks Mr P - Hyfi 04:37:09 04/27/17 (0)
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