Usher comes of age

marvda1

has anyone heard the usher mini dancer 1 or 2? you can get these with a diamond or berylium tweeter. i went to take my usher power amp in to the distributor to ship off for repair and he had a pair of the mini dancer 2 ($5000 pair). these are a major step up from my usher 6381 ($3400). not as powerfull sounding in the bass but the bass is tighter, midrange much cleaner and fast. a good deal more detail and the looks of the speaker (think sonus faber) are drop dead gorgous. got me thinking about how to come up with the cash. now i want to hear what the diamond tweeter sounds like. here's a review i found.
http://www.avguide.com/review/playback-23-usher-audio-mini-dancer-two-floorstanding-loudspeaker
let me know what you think if you have heard them

txcoastal1

Demo'ed them last year before LSAF and loved them and plan on picking up a pair this year while I am in town for this years LSAF. I have not heard the different tweeter in the 2's just the Dianond in the BE-10 but very curious. Let me know if you have the chance to hear the different tweets in the MD2. Ben (Falconcry) has a pair of the maple MD2's he is very fond of, I'll let him chime in.
And yes they are gorgeous, met the WAF
Cheers
Ron

falconcry72

They're awesome speakers. I've been going back and forth between the MD 2's and the Magnepan 3.6's. I think I'm going to go a different direction entirely, not because I dislike either speaker, but just because I want to keep exploring. I go through gear pretty quickly.

These Ushers are the most accurate speakers I've owned. More so than the 3.6's, which was surprising to me.

Mine are the BE's. I've never heard the DMD's, but they are drop in replacements for the BE's, and the cost 700 bucks a pair from Usher.

I may be looking to move my MD 2's soon, if you're interested. I have the shipping boxes, and they're good.

Here's a link to a thread about mine:

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?127868-Usher-Dancer-Mini-2-s-IN-THE-HOUSE!!!&highlight=usher

marvda1

stan, the distributor said it was something about the diamond tweeters that when they hit their cutoff point they drop off fast and the sound difference is not worth the $700 price if you already have the Be tweeter but there is a big difference in the sound of the two when you have the more expensive dancers. the ones i heard were the red finish, i thought it was wood untill stan pointed it out. i also saw the white finish, looked like a plastic to me.
ron, you can set them up in a room. tried to talk stan into getting a room at lsaf, i'm taking that friday off maybe we can get a group together and go over to musik matters and give the ushers a run for their money.

brianle

I have the Mini Dancer 2 diamond and used to own the Be-718 with Beryllium tweeter. The diamond tweeter sounds smoother and better for me.

marvda1

dskip, i was using the tubedac-11 as a preamp with the usher and it blew the surge protector it was hooked up to, lights in the room dimmed and a stream of smoke came from the amp. the amp is not under warranty and it's 88 lbs. to california for repair. stan at usher say this is the first r 1.5 to have a problem. they are going to pay for the shipping to and all i pay for is return shipping and repair cost. the tubedac=11 and usher r1.5 combo sure was sounding good before it went out.
i'll stay in contact with stan to see if we can set something up with a demo. dskip.

txcoastal1

Marv
I will be coming in that Thursday evening so Friday sounds great for an Usher jam. I'll be grabbing a room at the Embassy again.
So keep Skip and I posted....Need to ring Russman's bell also to see if he wants to join us or needs help with set up

Cheers
Ron