Acoustic Zen Adagio, How Good Are They?

I'm in NYK. Where can I hear them?

Also, pertaining Sallie Reynolds or Anna Log or whoever writes TAS reviews, give me a break. There were no fewer than 4 speaker reviews in current issue. They love everything. The Revel F52 is not only good, it's their Revel fave. The Focal is a masterpiece even though it's Focal's entry stuff no less. The Adagio is so good it's beyond description. The $599.00 pair matched with the $400 Cambridge electronics approached high end. The Tyler's, magical. No measurements at all. Almost no hard facts. Are they biwirable? Anything about placement? Just airy-fairy stuff like they make the hairs on the back of your neck waltz.

Plus, specifically pertaining to Adagios, can't fail to notice the Adagio ad pages earlier. And the wording in the review comes straight from the ad, the stuff about lack of distortion and what not. I have no reason to doubt the Adagios are good, but TAS reviews are totally useless.

Dgolly, I have to agree with you about the review. It was a little "lite" from an information standpoint. However, the review did tweak my curiosity enough that I will try to hear them. As always I'll make my develop my own opinion.

....but where in NYk can I hear them? They aren't even mentioned in Acoustic Zen's website. I assume it's the same company.

FWIW, I was in Kansas City last week, and Al at Primus Audio was extremely gracious and allowed me about 4 hours at his place to hear some big-bang-for-your-buck speakers. Here are my thoughts on those speakers, as I wrote elsewhere...

(BTW, the real purpose when I went to Al's was to hear the VS VR-4Jr's - I'd never even heard of Dali or that Acoustic Zen had a speaker before Al set them up for me.)
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Al at Primus Audio in Kansas City was kind enough to let me spend about 4 hours at his place last week while I was up there, and I got to compare four solid speakers in the +/- $2k-$4k range.
I listened to a pair of Von Schweikert VR-4Jr's, Dynaudio Focus 220's, Dali Helicon 400's and the AZ Adagios. I spent about an hour with each speaker, and listened to six widely differing tracks, relistening to what are key passages to my ear several times in each track.

The Adagios won hands down. The Dynaudios were very pleasant but not at all transparent, and the Dalis had a nice top end (I really liked that super tweeter above 12.5k) but were only moderately transparent. The Adagios were next; more on that in a minute. I saved what I thought would be the best for last: the highly-regarded 4-Jr's that I'd been dying to hear because of their reputation on the 'net. Unfortunately, they disappointed me with a bit of boomy bass (the room was well treated, for those wondering, but did have a 6dB rise around 60Hz, although none of the other speakers sounded boomy) and they sounded very slow and weighty. The soundstage wasn't what I had heard it to be, either; it was pretty narrow to my ears. Imaging was excellent though. Maybe the problem was I listened to them right after the Adagios.

In short, the Adagios were amazing for a $3700 speaker. Lightning fast with beatiful decay - thanks no doubt to the circular ribbon tweeter - and they had surprising bass for just two 5 1/4-inch woofers. (The manual says they are 6 1/2" drivers, but we measured them, and the actual cones are 5 1/4; the 6 1/2 includes the metal mounting plate around the cones.) My only complaint was the soundstage seemed a little narrower than I'd like, and they almost seemed *too* fast and light to my ears. They disappeared very nicely though, which surprised me since they don't have a narrowed front baffle, and I found myself eventually letting my mind shut down and just enjoying the music instead of constantly trying to "hear deeper" into the music.

Al told me these are "transmission line" speakers and that really helped the cones keep pace with the ribbon tweeter. Whatever it was, I'm still amazed at the speed of those speakers.

Frankly, the Adagios were the only of the 4 speakers I heard that I thought bested my Murphy-modified nOrh 9.0's. At $3700 I don't see how I can not buy a pair when I upgrade, unless the Ridge Street Audio Sasons I audition this weekend can blow the Adagios away. The Sasons are $1500 more, but they'd have to be truly amazing for me to steer away from the Adagios as my next speaker.

Howard

Howard,very interesting post.Thank you,for it!I have a friend considering the A/Z's.
Also,could you post your opinion of the Ridge Street speakers,when that occurs?

Best!