Aural Ersatz $159 Speakers-review

Ricardo

I got these speakers a week ago looking for some cheap monitors to be driven by the ASL 20's; these are supposed to be on a blow out special, with a $799 list value....but from what I've read it seems they have always been on sale price.
Sold by Paul Grzybek, at Tubeaudiodesign.com; he has good reputation for tube equipment (some members here have his TAD-60 amp), and the design of these speakers is as I understand his own.
They have one 6 3/4" Kevlar driver with no crossover; this driver presumably gets up to 10KHz. It also has a poly-dome mini-horn tweeter. They have a switch in the back for "hot" or "warm" highs. The cabinet is front ported, with curved sides and top.

Since I like to try "different", I pulled the trigger.
I honestly did not have big expectations based on the price, but these things really surprised me.
When I got them I hooked them up to the Belles 350a (didn't have the ASL's yet). I was very pleased by upper mids and highs. piano, violin, and basically any strings or air instruments (saxo, trumpet) sounded as real as it can get. The lower end though was VERY disappointing. I played a test CD and the bass started to roll off at close to 70 Hz.....basically killing anything good that could happen in mids/highs.
I let them run, since they are supposed to open up after 30 hours. Well, they do. Not only the life of the higher frequencies improved, but after maybe 40-50 hours the same CD tests, with the speakers in the same location, now show flat down to 45-50 Hz. Impressing.

I am VERY happy I decided to take this risk; these are GREAT speakers for acoustic music. Piano is particularly amazing. Vocals give me goose bumps. It is NOT a rock speaker. Even though the bass improved, it is still not enough, and it shows if playing them a bit hard. Imaging is very good.
Nevertheless, for the money they are IMO very good and will probably stay with me for a while. They are now playing Alison Krauss -Union Station Live off the ASL-20's; this is music that reveal their strengths.

I'll probably be taking them to Chicago Polkfest. You basically need to hear to believe.

tonyb

Nice HT!! Told ya,for the dough,not bad at all.I am sure your single drivers sound better than mine.Try them with a sub,you might be diggin them a bit more.Most around here say...yeah,cheap chinese import,but as our number one rule states,let your ears be the judge.Nobody is saying they will compare to the lsi line,but for the buck fifty,hell man,screamin' deal.Congrats on the new toy.