The following was posted on Audiogon. Assuming it has not been deleted yet, you will find it here.
“Strenghts: The two things that stuck out for me was the depth of the soundstage which was simply amazing! The 3d effect was addictive! The second thing that struck me was the midrange which was smooth, realistic, and not distorted at all, even at ridiculous listening levels.
Weaknesses (or what I did not like): The ribbon tweeters to me sounded harsh and metallic. There was also a problem with the imaging which was probably due to the setup. Voices seemed too large in comparison to the othe instruments. I felt like I was listening to a giant singing 6 feet away from me. The speakers also did not disappear. I heard way too much music coming directly from the speakers themselves. The soundstage width was restricted to the physical location of the speakers. Again, this could be down to setup. Bass was also light but in a confined room I am sure it would sound better.
Misc: Even though I loved the nice finishes of the cabinet, I do not care for the overall look for the speakers. Also, when played at very loud volumes, I felt like the Adagios were straining. It sounded like a small speaker trying to sound loud. ”
It seems to me an honest and fair review of what Tboooe heard at the Acoustic Zen factory.
Taking these same points:
The soundstage depth is about average around here – but the competition is quite fierce, so yeah, great depth.
It is the stability and linearity and balanced nature of the ‘midrange’ that attracted us to these speakers – these speakers have a ‘mature’ sound, they don’t try to dazzle with a forward upper midrange or a boomy or overly tight bass – which most of the popular poop in this and most other price ranges do. In this case, by midrange I, at least, am referring to everything but the extreme highs and lows.
The ribbon tweeters do NOT sound harsh and metallic after they are broken in. In the first, oh, 100 hours they do indeed, however.
Voices being overly large? I think that is a setup issue like Tboooe conjectured – but we will have to listen for this ourselves [ and I am too lazy to step downstairs and do it now. Perhaps I will update this later…]
The speakers dissappear here really, really well. And in both rooms, in 3 very different locations.
Haven’t checked soundstage width…
Bass is not ‘light’ here at Audio Federation, in fact it is this ‘fullness’ that attacts many people to this speaker in this price range. There are many monitors and monitor-like speakers that sound quite OK in this price range whose bass varies – depending on setup: Audio Note, Starsound Caravelle, Marten Monk, Oskar Heil, etc. But this is the only decent speaker that tries to get down low enough, in enough different room positions, to be satisfying for people who want to feel their music as well as hear it.
Straining when played really loud? Yeah, that is a good way to put it. More or less I think that is the sound of the limitations of the speaker cabinet – on the similarly sized Audio Note AN-E SEC Silver Signature ($40K) and the Kharma Mini Exquisite ($45K – $55K) loudspeakers that we have here now, there is not this problem – just to show that it is not speaker size that is the limitation here.
As people know, we really do not listen carefully to equipment before it is fully broken in. The above was heard in casual listening. But enough was heard, both here and at shows, to know that this is one of those Great Deals that comes along every so often.
It has a sound (the Acoustic Zen sound – eschewing some sophistication and inner detail for a more natural dynamic and rounder harmonics, kind of like Zu Audio speakers but with a more linear, well-balanced top-to-bottom) and limitations do to keeping the price down (many of the components in the Audio Note speaker’s crossover EACH cost more than this speaker).
This is comparable in value and price/performance, in my opinion, with the Dunlavy SC4 and the original Von Schweikert VR4.
Those speakers are what every speaker under $12K should be measured against. And now we have another to make it three.
