Apogee speakers

cstmar01

Just curious if anyone here has ever gotten their ears on any of the Apogee speaker line. I know there is a guy that restores them and will resell and they do run a hefty price tag but the stages are a small footprint and not too large a price tag.

Are these close to maggies? I know they can be a super demanding load, the one guy has a pair on the gon stating run at 1 ohm!

It seems like they were good but I don't know of anyone who has owned them or listened to them.

tonyb

One of my buds had a pair, some of the best sounds your ears will ever be treated to and one of my favorite speaker lines. Kicker here is they are hard to drive, and a tad fragile so kids, smoking, humidity, are all out if you want a pair. I know they were resurected from the dead and are putting out new speakers though haven't really dug anything up on them in a while. I personally liked their sound better than maggies, but also just like the Maggies, they can also be finicky to get set up right, placement is key.

Joe08867

I prefer there sound to Maggies especially the ones with built in woofers along the lines of Carver Amazings but different.

Super open sound with an enormous soundstage.

polkfarmboy

You could always restore them by yourself . I could find a link to a thread from the ML forum where one of the members bought an old pair and replaced some parts and took out all the old foam that had failed etc

cstmar01

Joe and Tony do you remember which ones you heard?

And do they have the bass Amazings do? I really like my Amazings but have been wondering what else is out there. I see the small stages pop up every now then but I know they don't have fantastic bass output. I think they go to around 40 or so...

Joe08867

Only the Apogee Grands had the bass output but they were huge. Like 7+ feet tall. I had Apogee Diva's About 6' tall for a short period and just loved how round the sound was. The bass wasn't anywhere on par with Amazings but I believe the sound was more open. They were the only 2ch towers I ever used a sub with. The Mini Grands and Centaurs had built in woofers the Diva's did not.

The other issue with Apogee is they like to drop into the 1ohm range making them very hard to drive well. Probably why the boss from Krell is one of 25 people with a set of Apogee Grands. They need serious amps to be driven.

I traded the Diva's in on a set of Klipschorn's but looking back they were probably one of the best speakers I owned. And I could kick myself for letting them go. Hindsight is always 20/20

carvcom

I own a pair of Centaurs, so I can't comment on the Stage.
The Centaurs sound wonderful, though.
From what I've read about the full range ribbons, make sure the bass ribbon is good.
The gentleman that sells the repair kits will only sell the bass ribbons to a qualified repair center.
A lot of info can be found here:
http://www.apogeespeakers.com/

cstmar01

Thanks for the info guys. I'm really going to try and get my ears on these bad boys and see how I like them. I like my amazings and just want to see what other ribbon speakers are out there or if the combo between ribbons and woofers is a good way to go.

Sean its nice to see you posting again around here. Haven't seen ya for awhile. Where the scintilla you heard the 1 ohm?

dorokusai

They're pretty underrated but also have a few shortcomings in overall response sonically to me. They just sound flat at the extremes and don't have much weight behind the vocals sometimes. Most people that I know, well basically everyone, has moved onto Magnepan, ML or Soundlab.