Equipment used for first listen...
- Hitachi HT550 turntable
-Grado master reference 2 cartridge.
-Yaqin 12b tube phono amplifier.
- Yaqin MC-100B tube integrated amplifier.
-inter connect are good, nothing special.
-,Speaker wires is 12ga oxygen free flat braided copper. Good wire I've owned for 15+ years... however again nothing all that special.
-the room acousticly is horrible. There is a lot of low frequency dead spots, there is many reflectiv surfaces in and outside this room and the listing position isn't quite centered. Things you would expect when sharing a hone with your 3 boys.
First song played was "When" by Opeth.
The disk is a limited edition from a box set. The vinyl is cut from the original master recording.
This song has beautiful acoustic guitar passeges, soothing 3 male voice harmonies, plenty of key and tempo changes along with 60s rock like organm. Plus black metal double bass drum, down tune distorted guitars along with clean and growling like singing. With so many diverse styles all in one song I couldn't think of a better choice.
First thing I noticed is the depth. Like an Altec 19 instrumes can sound very far away. Second thing I noticed is the wide sound stage. Instruments appear to be farther out than the speakers. Third thiti noticed is how little volume was required to achieve such high loudness.
These speakers didn't care what music was playing. They didn't care how loud or soft the music was. These speakers didn't care how fast, how slow, or how heavy the various parts of the song was... They perform flawlessly.
The frequency response is almost flat. Somewhere in the upper mid, there is a little hump.noemal for this type of speaker. Bass went down to about 100hz and sounded , punchy with a real natural sound to it. Cymbals all have a nice airy like splash sound & all other instruments and placements where all dead on. In the song there was one piticular section that made me say wow. 3 acoustic guitar passage with harmonizing male voices, organ made me feel as if I was standing inside the studio.
I am so far absolutely overjoyed by how amazing these speakers sound. Far beyond my expectations. Honesty not as impressed by how the styling came out. Not bad. .just not quite what I envisioned.
Kids needed to go to bed shortly after. Tomorrow I'm trying several styles of music to see how these speakers respond to Blues, Rock, Big Band, classical and whatever genera I happen to be in the mood for.
