Speaker Asylum: REVIEW: Custom Designed Scan-Speak Monitors Scan-Speak Monitors Speakers by jazzcan General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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Model:	Scan-Speak Monitors
Category:	Speakers
Suggested Retail Price:	$8,000 USD
Description:	2-7 inch Revelator mid/woofers, 1inch Revelator tweeter
Manufacturer URL:	Custom Designed Scan-Speak Monitors
Model Picture:	View

Review by jazzcan ( A ) on March 29, 2006 at 12:25:13 IP Address: 198.163.45.18

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“Finding Magic” – Scan-Speak Monitors (designed/built by Gilles de Champlain (gillesdec@sympatico.ca))

PREAMBLE:
I’m 50 years old, love listening to music and have had 2 channel systems in my life since I was 15 years old. Throughout those years, I’ve tried to make improvements to the sound, in keeping with what I thought I wanted and with what was affordable for me. My listening room is 14 feet wide by 40 feet long with a 15 foot high cathedral ceiling in the centre. The room is a small great room with a living room at one end and an open kitchen at the far end. The listening area is approximately 18 feet from the speakers, but the sound has to be great while in the kitchen area (my wife and I think that we’re gourmet chefs!).

In the 1970s through the early 80s I was using Harman Kardon equipment. Through the late 1980s and into the 1990s, I used 15inch Tannoy Royales powered by a Hafler DH500. These Tannoy speakers were very very special; beautiful sweet sound. Ask any old Tannoy owner! By the late 1990s (at the request of my wife, who hated the size and styling of the Tannoys) I moved to a stand-mount speaker/subwoofer system which gave me a much broader audio spectrum; specifically more pronounced low and top ends. After much hunting I had fallen in love with Angstrom audio products (a little know Canadian Manufacturer with great products). The speakers were dipole design with vifa drivers and tweeters and the subs (I utilized 2, one behind/beside each speaker) had 2-10 inch powered woofers configured in an isobaric design. By 2002, I moved to a tube amp (Copland with 6550 power tubes, output of 67 watts/side) and was extremely happy with the new sound. It was very transparent, with a wide and deep soundstage. The speakers were very, very revealing, and seemed to really splash out the sound to fill the room. The subs could really rock the room, yet were very musical and fast enough to keep up with the speakers.

Also in in the 90s, like many others, I dumped my vinyl and turned to CDs. I currently own well over 3,000 CDs. The genre breakdown would be 70% jazz, 15% electronic (lounge, chill, etc.), 10% classical and 5% rock.

But after about five years with my stand-mount speaker/sub system, I felt that something was missing. At one point a friend came over and asked to hear Ben Heppner’s Nessan Dorma. When we listened to it, I noticed that it didn’t tear at my heart the way it used to, when I still used my Tannoys. You know the feeling you get when you actually feel the power of the music and it sends shivers up your spine!

Throughout my stereo equipment experience I had always been bringing home new equipment in search of “better” sound. That’s how I had found my revered Copland. My experience had shown me that discernable differences could be found by equipment changes in the following order – speakers/amp/source/preamp/tweaking. After tweaking with wiring, stabilization, power conditioning etc. and continuing to try different components, I decided that I was happy with my Copland, happy with my Meitner Bitstream Data II DAC fed by my Teac VRDS 10SE, content with my preamp; a Sunfire Symphonic Reference (with tone controls and tone control bypass so I can listen to those less than well-recorded pieces), happy with my wiring/tweaks; VH audio cabling, and Richard Gray Power Plant, and happy with the low end that I was getting from my two subs. I guess that it was time for new speakers.

So for the next two years, I began to seek out information, listen to speakers in shops and audition speakers in my home (where possible). I listened to Martin Logan, JMlab, Gallo Reference, B&W, AE, Reference 3A, Vienna Acoustics, Kef Q, Avance and Avalon. I also have to confess, that I’m not a planar or ribbon person (though I was tempted by some older Quads and Dayton-Wrights). I live in a Canadian city with a population of 700,000, so speaker variety was sometimes limited and I didn’t find any Green Mountain, Norh, Von Schweikerts, Usher or Shearwaters, that I could audition at home.

Nothing really did it for me (or moved me enough to make me pull out my wallet)! So I began to try to identify what I was looking for. I think that I missed the sweet tone of the Tannoys. But I didn’t want to go back to huge speakers! Clearly, technology should allow some big sweet sound (NOT dark) with a stand-mount speaker, especially if I kept the two subs in the mix. I began to realize that I liked the MTM configuration, with their bold mids and upper low-end presentation, despite the fact that I had read some engineers’ posts advising of the distortion inherent in the design (I remember also being advised that going to a tube amp was a bad move because of increased distortion!)

My listening experience bolstered my interest in MTM configurations. I was particularly impressed with Avalan’s studio monitors (especially priced at. $3K). I also considered looking at DIY project kits and Ed Frias offerings, but then I came across a local Canadian sound engineer (Gilles de Champlain and his associate Perry) who design and build speakers on a limited basis out of a passion for sound. His MTM speakers had specs that jumped off the page. So I went to hear them and after a brief demonstration, had no recourse but to pull out my wallet!

THE SPEAKERS:
These are a significant speaker, with very high end build quality. Not small; 24 x 10 x 19 inches (H/W/D) and quite heavy at over 60 pounds each. Very rigid Bubinga wood finished cabinet and matching stands with separate internal chambers for each driver, proprietary internal ribbing to break up standing waves, 2 inch sides,1 inch back and 1 inch time aligned baffle. Each speaker features 2-7inch Scan-Speak revelators (18w/8531) and a Scan-Speak revelator tweeter (2904/7100).

Recommended amplification 15-150w RMS, 250w max. 4 Ohm impedence, 90 db efficiency, range of 30HZ – 40kHZ. They feature an outboard crossover with Goertz Alpha Core conductors, Mundorf Supreme capacitors, Vishay film capacitors, Mills resistors connected entirely with high purity (5 nines) solid silver hook-up wire and silver solder. The wiring, including the 32 wire umbilical cord is configured in special litz braids for natural shielding. The crossover boxes have silicone pads under the floating circuit board to provide complete isolation from room vibration. The crossover is a proprietary topology that’s best described as a modified 3rd order Butterworth with no correction circuitry (no attenuation, Zobel, or notch filters). Cardas binding posts of pure copper with silver and rhodium plating (CCGRL). In addition, 4 Bybees per speaker; 2 small slipstream purifiers on each tweeter (1 on the positive pole, 1 on the negative) and 2 large purifiers on each woofer pair (1 on the positive pole output on the crossover and one on the negative pole output).

These cabinet and crossover designs are the evolution of Gilles recoding background and the search for monitors which could reproduce accurate live sound. The monitors and crossover are tuned by ear using acoustic instruments and voice as reference.

This combination of high quality design, cabinetry, wiring and components result in high end product that can compete with the best of speakers on the market today. The total cost of $8,000 ($9,000 Cdn) is more than reasonable when you realize that the parts alone cost apprx. $5,000 (Cdn). I’d hate to think of the cost of these if they were commercially manufactured!

THE SOUND:
Utterly outstanding. Real, real magic! These speakers have a rich deep tone. Very solid imaging. Very natural sound that really brings music to life. The drivers are very dynamic with speed and snap. They are not forward but are not really laid back. They have no harshness, brightness or glare, but have great sweet high-end, a wonderful lush mid-range and low-end definition and punch. They are seemless over the entire frequency range. You can feel the sound, but they’re not fatiguing, although they are intoxicating. They draw you in and make you listen to them for hours! They have wonderful detailed, layered sound with a slight smoothing of the upper lower transients, yet without detracting from the detail. Strangely, older recordings that I haven’t bothered with in years like Sonny Rollins – Way out West (1957) really appeal to me again. The speakers have apprx 300 hours on them.

Piano trio jazz has always been high on my list. An audition of Jacques Loussier’s jazz interpretations of Satie and De Bussy reveals a refined balance between the piano/drums/bass. The symbols are crisp without an exaggerated sibilance. The piano sound is smooth and rich; nothing short of beautiful. The bass is well-defined. Overall, the sound is dynamic and exciting with the three instruments dancing and racing with each other.

Bet.e & Stef’s “Day by Day” album produced rich vocals and well-balanced sound. Very natural. The sax is never bright or thin. The album has a very rich, creamy, well produced analogue sound reminiscent of Stan Getz’ 1960s bosa nova creations.

Jon Henderson’s “So Near, So Far” is soulfully beautiful. (Probably my favourite CD in my collection.) In “Miles Ahead” the balance between Al Foster’s drums, especially the symbol-work, against Henderson’s sax, with John Scofield’s bell-like guitar is a treat to listen to. Very rich, textured sound with a wide and deep soundstage. The smashing symbols are never sharp or displeasing. Very natural, lifelike sound.

Wynton Marsalis’ “My Jelly Lord” album with its cornucopia of horns is never sharp yet very present, natural and dwell-defined. Again, very lifelike sound. The speaker are transparent and the horns seem to be all around the room. In “The Magic Hour” album there is very solid imaging with a wide and deep soundstage. Clear, rich, tone, defined but never sharp or harsh. Wynton’s trumpet growls and screams.

In Jimmy Smith’s “Damn” album, the organ’s rich tones seem to float outward. The music is well layered with strong bass, punchy upper bass and beautiful mids. The horn section (including Roy Hargrove and Nicholas Payton), is prominent and detailed, but never strained or glaring.

In David Sanborn’s “Time Again” album there is a rich, detailed texture to the music with very punchy lower midss and well-defined low end. His sax is not forward, but not laid back. You can really feel the music in your chest.

With electronic music, these speakers seem to really come alive. I’m not an engineer, but I love the production inherent in the “Peace Orchestra” album. The tones are mesmerizing and the music is almost a hallucinatory experience on its own. Very powerful low end, solid imaging, with the speakers disappearing and the music becoming completely 3-dimensional. That’s a great achievement for two channel audio! I’ve never heard a system that makes K&D, Mystic Diversions, Tosca, Suba and Claude Challe’s music come so alive (though I know that these recordings are great to start with).

Speaking of alive, Pink Martini’s “Sympathique” reveals outstanding sound. Very lifelike, natural sound with great percussive detail. Bongos, bongos, bongos! The trumpet is gripping. The voice is very natural.

These speakers also work well for rock music. The What About Me cut from Steely Dan’s “Two Against Nature” has a wide deep image, with strong detailed low end, punchiness that you feel but overall very smooth and rich. Great clear definition throughout. Boz Scags Lowdown cut from “Fade Into the Light” has a rich smooth sound. Those ladies singing background seem to be right in the room with me! Again a detailed powerful low end. Well defined crisp percussion; dynamic sound with a great soundstage.

Its reasurring that in todays’ WalMart world, based on mass consumption at the lowest possible cost, that there are still people like Gilles and Perry, who are contributing real quality products to those that seek them out.

Did I mention that these speakers also sound good at low volumes!

Pictures are available in the gallery.

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Product Weakness:	Only in the ears of the beholder
Product Strengths:	Natural sound, rich tone, rock solid imaging, sweet highs, detailed mids, solid low end

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Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	Copland CTA-505
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Sunfire Symphonic Reference
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Teac VRDS 10SE, Meitner Data II DAC
Speakers:	Scan-Speak Monitors
Cables/Interconnects:	VH Audio Cryo'd Pulsar, Flavour 4
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Jazz, electronic, rock
Room Size (LxWxH):	40 x 14 x 15
Time Period/Length of Audition:	2 months (300 hours)
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	Richard Gray Power Plant
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

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