A revealing speaker


There's a thread on the use of the word, revealing, but it's really all I could think of to describe these speakers.
They say idle hands are the devils work so in these virus times, Tony Minasian has been very busy. He came over with his newest creation, a stand mount monitor of modest proportions, using off the shelf drivers and the same material he used with my old Tonian Labs TL-D1s: birch ply with a nice walnut veneer.

What was supposed to be an hour session went well over three. We listened to Paris Combo, Anouar Brahem, Johnny Cash, the Breaking Bad soundtrack, Stacy Kent, Pacifika, The Elizabethan Sessions, Billie Eiish, The European Jazz Trio, Abdullah Ibrahim, and a couple of CDs that Tony recorded with some studio musicians. Tony had a couple of calls that had people waiting but we were having too good a time.

My first thought was, where's the bass? Two minutes later I'd completely forgot about it. These monitors "only" go down to the 60s but what bass they do handle easily allow the mind to fill in the rest. There's plenty of growl when called for with electronica coupled with the most see-through I've experienced. I still haven't disabused myself of the thought of selling my JBLs for these stand mounts. If I had them for a week, I'd keep them.

I had to ask Tony what the secret was and as usual, he was a bit mum about it, but he let on that it's all in the crossover, once you've settled on a decent set of drivers. He also explained that the speakers are what one needs to really get right. Your digital source has distortion in the 10/1000s% and your amp has it in the 10/100s% but your speakers are at 10% (or more) so they need to be as correct as can be. 

The most amazing thing about these speakers is they'll make you think you're listening with some mega-buck Swiss amp, fed by a SOTA high-res set up. Listening to his Redbook, 16bit recordings through these speakers had us laughing out loud. My Marantz sounded like my Kinki integrated playing through my JBLs. These speakers could transform any modest system into an excellent sounding one, and that is the point of this hobby, isn't it?

Listening to Tony's CDs had me constantly looking around in an instinctive way, to see where that sound came from. I knew it was recorded but the reaction was on a baser, automatic response level, which irked me. There was even a moment when a dog got up and walked across the soundstage, left to right, and you could hear his paws click across the floor. One of the studio musicians and a frequent performer used by Tony, Brad Dutz, listened to and then bought a pair for his studio after listening to his performance, replacing his NHT and B&W monitors.

These speakers had me working overtime, tuning my set up with my new Isoacoustic Oreas, so I don't have to buy them. I'm used to my JBLs now but I'm still haunted by this revealing, realistic and beguiling speaker. If you're in or around the Los Angeles area, and are in the market for a great monitor, do yourself a favor and give Tony a call and ask him about his G6 (it's what he's calling it for the moment).

As much as I loved my TL-D1s, these are much better, and they don't even go as low. I asked Tony if he could redo the crossovers on my JBLs to eek out some more performance but what he did with his G6, two way, can't be done with a three way in the same manner. He said to just use the pots on the JBL to suit my tastes and not be afraid to use them as it's not like using tone controls on the amp end. He was right. He usually is.

All the best,
Nonoise




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@snowpidgeon,
Thank you for that thorough and enjoyable ride of a review. I thought I had my system finally dialed in, and to a large extent, I have, but after reading your thoughts on the G6, it's bringing back that slight but growing urge to listen to them again. 

It's a good thing I finally sold my other monitors.

All the best,
Nonoise
Very cool to read these reviews of a very appealing-sounding speaker.  I'm assuming they are single-driver?

Also a very classy thread overall -- no sniping, no smugness.
Actually, they are a two-way monitor. Just looking at them, they appear to be just another in a long line of monitors but once your hear them, you'll know you have something special to consider.

All the best,
Nonoise
Problem that I had with Tonian in the past when we discussed his speaker is when he said he "tuned" the thin walled cabinet. I stand by the simple belief that thin walled speaker cabinets made of conventional materials will sing and add colorations without fail. Perhaps not fair, but I dismiss speakers with this type of design instantly. 
It would be to your detriment. I used to have his TL-D1 speakers and they have thin cabinet walls and were tone monsters, recreating an almost impossibly convincing presentation. 

The speakers were designed with that in mind. Some other makes do the same thing; some succeed, some don't. Tonian Labs is one the few that does. If the speaker maker knows what he's doing, then I give them the latitude to make whatever they want as long as it floors me with the sound, and Tony doesn't disappoint.

All the best,
Nonoise