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160.62.4.10
In Reply to: RE: Just got some Reference 3a speakers (Master Control MMC) posted by RGA on February 06, 2013 at 16:44:55
You are missing the part where they were Reference 3a and built in Switzerland, which seem to be the more highly prized versions and were of high quality. The ones made in Spain were apparently the original killer but then they resurfaced in Switzerland.
Mine actually say made in France but are Reference 3a and not 3a. My understanding is that they are the direct predecessor of the Reference 3a Royal Master that was made by Innovac for Ref 3a in Switzerland. Mine has Corian side cheeks and front face. The top, back and bottom are wood.
I will hear a Royal Virtuoso and a L'Integral Nouveau next week to see how my older, European model compares to the later Canadian models. Both of these were the top-of-the-line models from Ref 3a Canada before the Grand Veena. The Royal Virtuoso is an all Corian stand mounter with better tweeter than the MM de Capo. The L'integral Nouveau has the same drivers in a floor standing design so it has deeper bass and a thick Corian front plate.
As compared to AN speakers, IMO, the Ref 3a are more coherent and musically satisfying. I hear less obvious problems in the design. The 8 inch carbon fiber driver is, IMO, superior to the same size driver used in AN speakers (of similar price at least). Where the Ref 3a is behind a bit is in bass depth and power but I guess if you shoved them in a corner there would be plenty of that as well.
Suffice to say, I continue to fail to be impressed with AN speakers and the Ref3a was a breath of fresh air to me. The other high sensitivity speakers I find very appealing include:
Horning Hybrids: I heard the Agathon Ultimate and WOW its GOOD. I would guess that the Eufrodite is almost SOTA
Odeon horn speakers: The big models (No. 32 and 38) are at the very top of the loudspeaker world...they are amazingly good. I had their little bookshelf, and while not quite as "alive" as the Ref 3a it is not far behind. I would like to hear the Rigoletto, a two-way, horn loaded floor stander with 94db/watt and 8 ohm load.
Ref 3a: In addition to the Master Control MMC that I own, I heard the original L'integrale and it too was superb and I might get it. I want to hear the latest Episode and Grand Veena to see if the new ones offer something over the older ones.
Living Voice: The Avatar OBX-R2 is a superb speaker, especially when driven by OTLs or other good tube amps. A true 94db/watt and easy load.
Dynavox: Their old (up to 2006 or so) 3.X series are awesome but perhaps a bit more colored than Odeons. True horn bass and 95db + sensitivity (99 for the big ones). Their Gem series is beautiful and pretty good as well.
Apogee Acoustics Synergy: New birth Apogee with Nd magnets and 95db/watt sensitivity. 2.5 ohms so it needs an amp with some current capability. Too damn expensive but a ribbon alternative to horns and cones/domes.
These are what I consider to be good high sensitivty speakers
Follow Ups:
I didn't intend to get into an AN debate with you - I am not terribly interested in what people who don;t hear things like me have to say which is why I tend to read the Art Dudley's and not the John Atkinson's.
The AN K/Spe and the MM De Capo were were, at the time, the same retail price (apples to apples) and at that time The De Capo was my front runner - I was going on about Reference 3a to all those who would read. I heard the Royal Master (with corian) and the La Suprema (their best speakers), and years later the Dulcet(in Korea) and the Grande Veena at CES. And I've liked every single one of them in their respective price points.
I like comparably priced AN speakers better which is why I bought them but that is no slight against Reference 3a. People I know who have heard both and who have chosen AN's know why and no amount of discussion on forums is going to change their minds. AN systems, and I hate saying it because I'm SO NOT religious, take a near religious hold on people and if it does it's very difficult to let go of when everything else tends to sound mechanical and artificial in comparison. If it doesn't do this then they're just another stereo company. And that overriding rightness to live musical instruments is why AN can produce and sell $238,000 versions of the speaker. People want higher orders of the house sound.
To correct my last post - I was unclear - I said reviewers "killed them" and what that means was they were SOOO raved about that Dehay could not keep up with demand and that is why they opened a second plant that unfortunately pumped out inferior cabinetry due to being rushed (in Europe not Canada) - that apparently caused a lot of failures and killed the company. When they opened in Canada they made first rate builds which made Reference 3a a success. Dehay no longer runs the company but they still make excellent speakers.
I can understand the appeal of the AN speakers as its the same appeal that draws people to Reference 3a and Horning Hybrid. They want a high sensitivity speaker that sounds "alive" compared to most speakers but without the horn shout. I would add the Living Voice Avatar OBX-R2 to that list. If you haven't heard the Living Voice speakers that could be the speaker to out AN an AN speaker.
That being said, at least the models of AN speakers I have heard (not the top but upper middle somewhere, don't know the specific models) sound too uneven and a bit too raw for my taste. At least the Ref 3a speakers I have heard (so far two models the Master Control MMC and the original L'integrale from Switzerland. I haven't heard ANY of the Canadian built models yet) had that liveliness from no crossover and the smoothness of a very very good mid/bass driver. Only the tweeter sounds as if it can be improved upon (maybe the one cap in the whole crossover?) but I will reserve judgement until I get my new NAT SE(T) amp.
Next week I will drive an hour from work to Germany to hear the two previous top Canadian Ref 3a models, the all corian Royal Virtuoso, which was owned by Scot Markwell of TAS and Roy Gregory of HiFi+ and was raved about by UHF magazine (admittedly a magazine favoring Canadian products). The other I will hear is the floor standing L'Integral Nouveau, which has a Corian front baffle (thick) and the same drivers as the Royal Virtuoso. Both are supposed to be leagues better than the MM de Capo i. I know that they are using a very good tweeter, the Seas Millenium, and an improved midbass (UHF measured the Royal Virtuoso and found that the midrange hump that was present in the MM de Capo is completely gone and it measured very well). It is not often that an easy to drive, high sensitivity, no crossover speaker measures good. Normally they measure like shit and then people justify it by the "directness" of the sound. Like lowther lovers.
I don't know if you have heard the Horning Hybrid speakers (not easy in North America I think) but they are shockingly realistic sounding as well and truly full range. That Lowther, properly tamed, is probably the best mid ever made...they just ask it to do too much. His horn loading of the bass makes for some of the best bass quality I have ever heard and I owned IRS Betas and also now own Genesis VI speakers so I know about tight, deep bass! Ok, the best I have heard is STILL my former Acoustat Spectra 4400s. That was a massive panel making big motion and it was AWESOME.
Just a note - UHF tends to be in love with French gear not Canadian gear - they tend to dislike Paradigm and have given positive and quite negative reviews to Bryston over the years. The flagship was the La Suprema (not made in Canada) and that's probably the one to hear. I don't know what their top model is these days. Apparently Canadian models were the lower priced and therefore lower end models - they don't compete with the Euro made models but that doesn't really have anything to do with where they're built. If I had to guess it would be a few factors - 1) Canada is big - you can rent out a much larger space to build gear for far less money. 2) Buyers in the US/Canada were likely buying the lower priced models - far less money to ship to customers 3) labour costs were/are probably considerably lower.
If AN is sounding raw then something else is wrong - they are NOT "warm" speakers like a Sonus Faber but they should NEVER sound shrill or shouty (unless the recording is truly shocking). Frankly the worst I've heard from AN was arguably at CAS which sounded "thin" to me and at times strained and somewhat boomy. It kept hinting at something better around the turn but never really got there.
Under good conditions (AN Digital is a MUST) and an AN amp or "like design" which means no stinking KT88s high powered PP tube amplifiers or SS. I have always felt it's hard to mess up an AN speaker but the silver wired versions you can mess up a lot easier (in other words the mid models) they bring to shows - the AN E/LX and E/D are far gentler to inferior gear. At CES 2010 Peter was running the cheap AN room (well cheap in the AN E/Spe HE (Art's speakers) with Jinro amp and modest CD player - his room sounded FAR FAR better than their big expensive room run by AudioFederation with the $51k speakers external crossovers Gaku-On amps and M9 preamp and Dac 5 Sig. Speaker positioning. The last day AudioFederation caved in and set them up properly and it lept from good to right there with the best there was at the show.
Corners - hard in - serious toe in so you are staring at the outsides of the cabinet (tweeter crossing a meter in front of your head and the cabinet wall is practically touching the room wall. They don't toe it in as much at shows because there is a big seating area but at home or a dealer that set-up is usually better. And a room with less to no room treatment is better.
And in the manual one positional suggestion in narrow room with no corner is to have the speakers face directly at each other up against both side walls. I was quite impressed by that when I tried it. It's just so wrong according to ever speaker position I've ever read though.
I am very surprised if you can't get the AN E's to work (or the J's if there is too much boom). The K is quite a notch up over the De Capo right in the voice band - the crossoverless speaker should have the advantage there but was recessed considerably more while vocals on the AN K were where they were supposed to be - out front and drivers as seamless as two way speakers get. The AN speakers tend to drop the voice band down a couple of dB giving a slight polite perspective (sitting further away from the stage) than some other speakers. I have less problem with that because Quad does the same kind of thing and it means I can listen to the darn things all day. The ear adjusts to Frequency issues anyway.
The K had better PRAT (as much as I loathe using that term) it simply sounded quicker, clearer and tighter). The De Capo was more seductive, warmer, thicker. The De Capo was much nicer to affordable front end gear - the K/Spe with a SS amp on more than one occasion was bordering on obnoxious - with Odyssey amplifiers, Celeste, Musical Fidelity. The DeCapo sounded more or less the same with Sim Audio, Musical Fidelity, Rotel and Sugden. I did several auditions with these two and to be blunt I could have went either way. They both had merits - I simply decided to go with the one that told me more about the front ends I was listening to. Odyssey was paint peeling - Sugden's A48b was thick and warm and the K was able to show me that - with the De Capo everything was always thick and warm no matter which amp or CD player. Degrees of thick and warm mind you and I liked everything - hugely musically satisfying but that little bit gnawed at me.
RGA,
I heard the AN room for awhile at CAS last year and thought it sounded wonderful, with the caveat that I only got to stay a short time and had never heard AN speakers before. But I thought that the sound was pretty thrilling.
As for the De Capo iA's, I wouldn't characterize them as "thick and warm" at all in my setup, but my room is quite lively. I'm driving them with Manley gear: a Shrimp preamp driving a pair of Mahi's. Love the music they make.
Set-up and the gear running the set-up is important. If you were on forums around 2000 I was raving about Reference 3a - I felt the La Suprema was one of the better full rangers going but no one could really audition them as they began making them to order. The DeCapo I liked because it was a fuller range gutsier sound than you could get from the B&W N805's of the world. I want some oomph and some bass from a loudspeaker and I don;t want to run a subwoofer that doesn't seamlessly integrate (which they never seem to do). Further, the De Capo at that time could easily be driven from most amplifiers (SETs of the not high power variety). At the time there wasn;t a whole lot of speakers in Canada that could do that (aside from horns). Trouble with the horns is that most of them made my head hurt. Even lowther single drivers seem to be wearing in the upper midrange - ribbon panels sounded bright - the 1.6 was obnoxious in the treble even with good tube amps and the Quads which I liked were well over $10,000. The new 2905 is closer to $15,000 and add on 12+% Canadian tax and it's not exactly a cheap thing to do- and the De Capo still has "richer" bass. Boxes may be more coloured but they tend to put in the frequency band which I would say adds more "body" and ultimately more musical satisfaction. Hence truth versus beauty.
The De Capo was far and away my front runner as best loudspeaker in its class back then. It did what few other standmounts could do - sound bigger than they were, be able to be run by the best amplifiers (not SS) and still offer the two way advantages of "close to" point source that UHF magazine loves to claim as the speaker ideal. For me the De Capo leans more to the beauty side while the AN K has more truth. There is no wrong choice - you can get more beauty from the AN K and more truth from the De Capo depending what you stick in front of them. The first key is can I listen to all of my music all day all the time at any volume and be "happy."
At the end of the day there really ain't a whole lot out there that satisfies. I listened to a nice famous speaker the other day well set-up with a companies top 300B amplifier and top tube CD player and the system never made me happy. It was an over there experience.
If you like the Reference 3a and AN sound then if you get a chance check out the Von Gaylord "Return of the Legend" loudspeakers. They really have the finger on the goosebump factor with wetness and huge body and presence. Another reviewer felt it was the best sound at the Californioa Audio show and it was in my top four. They're $13,000 so they should be good but they score very high in the musical rightness camp. (I heard the model with out the extra woofer). Not as easy to drive however but similar slanted cabinet and time aligned. The AN K/Spe recently won loudspeaker of the year here in Asia - I had to laugh at that since it's a 30 year old speaker design (maybe older) and it beat out all comers. I auditioned it here again against a floorsanding big name speaker at 4 times the price and it really wasn't much of a contest. The other speaker did do some wonderful things but...
Another real nice speaker is the Acoustic Zen Crescendo - they sound consistently very good every time I hear them. Ditto Sonist loudspeakers.
RGA,
I agree that a lot of this is about what makes you happy. My De Capo's regularly amaze me by making music as they do, to that point that every time I get that "I wonder how speaker X that I've read so much about would sound in my room?" itch, I sit down and listen and remember how fine the De Capo's really are. They are the first speakers I've ever owned that regularly allow me to forget that I'm listening to the stereo and just get lost in the performance, the music. They also REALLY need extended break-in time. I must have at least a couple of hundred hours on them and they still keep opening up.
I also have a clear maximum dollar amount to spend: US $3K is my upper limit. So when I read reviews of monitors that are supposed to be fabulous but cost multiples of that (the Joseph Audio Pulsars, for example), I'm not in that $ league. I'd still like to hear what all the fuss is, about though.
"ribbon panels sounded bright - the 1.6 was obnoxious in the treble even with good tube amps"
While I am not a Maggie fan, I think this is an overstatement.
Have you heard Vaughn speakers by any chance?? They should have a lively sound.
I have not heard them. I generally have trouble with ribbons including ribbons as tweeters with dynamic drivers. Philip Holmes on our staff very much liked Vaughn speakers and prefers them to his Magnepans. That doesn't necessarily help me because I would never have bought Magnepans in the first place so something that beats them to me is like same something beat a Bose 901 - great - now beat something good and it will interest me more.
Try to hear an Apogee Centaur Major sometime if you want to hear a ribbon mated properly to a cone woofer. The Relco Mantis is another good example but needs a sub for deep bass.
Well the ones I have were basically the top part of the La Suprema so I already know more or less what the best from the European Ref 3as sound like (I also had a lengthy session with the L'integrale before choosing the Master Control MMC) strapped to an excellent Graaf GM20 OTL. I can tell you they are very good indeed.
You are right about the majority of the Canadian line in the sense that they use cheaper cabinet materials but not the Royal Virtuoso or L'integral Nouveau, which use a lot of Corian (the RV is all Corian in fact.) Plus it seems that Dehay was still involved to some extent in the early Canadian Ref 3as.
Apparently the RV is a big step up from the MM de Capo but it is not clear if it is actually superior to the older ones like mine, I shall see.
I have heard the ANs now a few times and it never sounds smooth to me...like I said "raw". Maybe after living with very flat measuring electrostats (mine were +- about 1.5 db in-room above 200Hz) That were also basically a single driver without crossover I cannot forgive the rather crude frequency response...I hear it and the box...especially the box. I think this is the biggest sin of the ANs letting the box sing too much. It colors what they do and I hate that and its something that Ref 3a had under control with these Corian boxes (mine are half Corian/half wood).
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