Let's see some pics

Dawgfish

DSkip wrote: »

dawg, how do you like those Zu's? I've been intrigued by their speakers for quite a while, but the nearest dealer is a 4 hour hike one way. Do they compare to anything else?

I like them pretty well. They are very sensitive to equipment upstream. They were only decent with my Anthem Amp 1. They actually sounded great when I paired them with a B&K ST125.2. I thought this was odd because they are geared towards low wattage single ended tube amps with their high sensitivity. They sound excellent when paired to my Rogue Eighty Eight Magnum set on triod and pretty good with my Prima Luna Prologue 4. They have excellent mids. The highs are very good. Bass is decent, but nothing compared to my SDAs, even the CRSs. Sound stage and imaging are very good with these, but certainly not on the level of SDAs. The thing that stands out the most with these is the very quick transient response and they are very dynamic. This is a function of the single driver (essentially, they have a supertweeter, but the single 10" driver handles everything from 30-12,000HZ). Being essentially a single driver speaker, they also have a very coherent sound that is very hard to describe if you've never heard a single driver, cross-overless design before (such as the ZUs, Cain & Cain Abbeys, Lowthers).

The closest thing they sound like to me besides other single driver designs are Martin Logans, Maggies, ESl, and other electrostatic or planar speakers with their quick transients. They have a much wider sweet spot though and have more dynamic punch. They sound excellent on jazz, classical, and instrumentals. I've heard many of my favorite classical recordings sound the absolute best I have ever heard them with these. They sound good with male vocals, but there is something about the way they sound with female vocals that can sound a little off to me. It's better with some equipment, but regardless when listening to Diana Krall, Nora Jones, and other similiar female vocalists it just sounds a little thin to me. The best way to describe it is with must music, the soundstage width and depth is very good as stated above, but with female vocals it's like I'm not listening to an actual person, but a cardboard cutout if that makes any since.

Overall I really like them and they are good for a change-up every now and then, but I quickly find myself wanting to go back to my SRS 2s whenever I slip the ZUs in the system. I think the SDAs are just a better all around speaker, but the ZUs are nice for a change.

outlander

This pair of Harbeth 7ES-3’s replaced a pair of Polk Monitor 10B’s. At first the difference between the speakers was so significant that it took a while to get use to the change but now after owning them for five months it’s clear how nice these speakers really are.
O

Jhayman

Awesome setup..
Can't wait for my CC-690 to arrive..Hopefully soon.

mystik610 wrote: »

How bout some paradigms:


DZ2A9294_zpsa5bc39fe


735975_10100899618489506_996317936_o


IMG_2548


IMG_2551

txcoastal1

^^^^you got game

michael1947

My shop telephone circa 1994

The speaker is about 3 inches and weighs more than an I-phone.

michael1947

And speaking of my shop speakers here is a pair of M70's mounted horizontally looking down at 10 degrees.

stevethebrain

Polk dsw micro pro 1000 sub. Def. tech 450 mains, C1 center, pro 80MK2 surrounds.

mhardy6647

The speaker that the Klipsch Heresy should have been... The Electrovoice (EV) Esquire three way. Small, sensitive, dynamic, smooth, and reasonably extended in response. "Great for tube amps" (I really cannot imagine using them on anything else).

Jhayman

The Ushers remind me of TAD Speakers and their angled cabinets..Neat

DSkip wrote: »

Screen is down because I haven't watched a movie since finishing the panels.

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The Usher's are the eye candy for me anyways. I absolutely love the angled cabinets.

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11tsteve

well, here are some infinity RSb's i am trying to refurbish. so far:
re-foamed the woofers
Clarity caps in the crossovers
hurricane nuts and new hardware
dampened the speaker baskets
Cardas binding posts
sanded down the cabs, stained with Colonial Maple, and added 9 or 10 coats of polyurethane
built the speaker stands....

KLapinas

Vienna Acoustics Bach

recoveryone

2ch speakers in Livingroom

KLapinas

RamZet

CM9s.

mhardy6647

THat VMPS speaker above 'pears to feature the really excellent little JVC planar tweeter. Good ol' Radio Shack sold a version of that driver for several years that is, IMO, a sleeper of sorts - inexpensive then (and now, used), fairly sensitive, extended and (best of all) really smooth and sweet sounding. Makes a nice 'helper tweeter' for speaker systems with impaired HF performance (i.e., pretty much all of the ones I really like).

The R/S 40-1375 is a nice little tweeter; I don't know if it was a rip-off of the JVC or actually JVC OEM. It is very similar but not identical to the JVC planar.
R/S also sold a mid-1980s "Optimus" branded loudspeaker system (I think the model was "Optimus 400"?) that featured a planar that looked identical to the JVC (or at least to the one in the VMPS above). I have one of those, courtesy of my favorite local emporium :-) but I have no photo of it.



back (more) on-topic, some other non-polk loudspeakers kickin' down the cobblestones...

If ya gotta own a loudspeaker with "HPM" in its name... this one isn't a bad choice ;-)




Its 15" JBL-esque woofer is in essence a very early TAD driver without the high-zoot Pioneer "Technical Audio Devices" brand name on it.




all drivers needing refoam are subject to CAT scan prior to surgery at the Hardy Hospital for Indigent Loudspeakers...

SCompRacer

Hybrid ESL's, InnerSound Eros MK III's with 2400 total watts available.

txcoastal1

^^^Now that what I call simple Sophisticated sweetness...very nice

bdaley6509

Room 1- Revel Salon

Room 2- Tyler D10's (dwarfing my 82" TV)

ken brydson

bdaley6509 wrote: »

Room 1- Revel Salon

Room 2- Tyler D10's (dwarfing my 82" TV)

Wow, nice!!

mhardy6647

and from the other end of the spectrum...

before:


after:


KLH Thirty-Twos:





(if you haven't heard these extremel modest little 8" two-ways by Henry Kloss, you couldn't imagine how musical they are and in fact how good they sound)

jmwest1970

A pair of Norman Lab 432s circa 1990 are what I'm currently enjoying. I've refoamed the bottom 10" woofer in each speaker and have installed replacement woofers for the upper 10" until I get the other pair refoamed. Even my non-audio wife likes the cabinet work on them.

bdaley6509

jmwest1970 wrote: »

Even my non-audio wife likes the cabinet work on them.

I'm confused...do pro-audio wives exist?

mhardy6647

I know of a few.
Mrs. H isn't really one of them, but she's at least audio agnostic :-) and she tolerates my... habit. She's a saint, she is.

Back on topic; a pair of EPI 110C two-ways.



Everyone should own a pair of EPI/Epicure speakers - they offered a unique twist on the sealed-box "monkey coffin" speaker - with their proprietary concave-dome "air spring" tweeter and a woofer designed for smoothly extended HF response, allowing a simple (and cheap) first-order crossover, minimally mucking with the critical midrange. EPI/Epicure begat Genesis speakers, and also Burhoe and Human Speakers, www,humanspeakers.com (founder Winslow Burhoe and Huw Powell, respectively). Burhoe is still in the business with his Direct Acoustics speakers http://www.directacoustics.com/ His current product is the direct descendant of the fine Epicure 2.0 loudspeaker (wouldn't mind having a pair of those sometime).

Mr. Burhoe in the hapenin' 70s with his flagship EPI 1000 speakers.



I twice had the opportunity to acquire a pair of EPI 1000s and twice turned them down due to lack of space :-(

mhardy6647

DSkip wrote: »

I would love to get my ears on all the gear you've heard mrh, if for nothing more than just to hear them. I'm fantastically content with my speakers, but there's nothing like trying out new speakers, "new or old".

Yup, the more stuff one's heard, the easier it is to form an opinion of the performance of a "new" piece when confronted with one. That opinion is subjective, of course, but at least it's hard-earned and well-informed :-)

Fortunately, there are also enough high-end systems in this neck of the woods that I've also had the chance to hear the kind of things I could never afford :-)




(Both sets of speakers above use, predominantly, "field coil" (electromagnet) drivers rather than the usual permanent-magnet drivers. We ain't talkin' Best Buy products, here :-)