Acoustic Zen Adagio, How Good Are They?

Good reading, thanks!

I just came from an extended audition with them in a well-insulated medium sized room and they are definitely the real deal.

On the first CD soundtrack, things started off mixed (although generally excellent) with most of the "O" Cirque du Soleil soundtrack auditioned sounding quite nice, but cymbals sounding harsh to my ears. Detail was definitely a strength though.

Things improved immediately on the next CD with female vocals featured (on a jazz soundtrack). Erin Bode sounded absolutely fabulous on the Adagios! The speakers also handled the low bass strums of the double bass instrument in the CD wonderfully. Detail was exceptional, and the speakers exhibited a nice cohesiveness that is rarely seen anywhere near their price point. The harshness noted with cymbals on CD 1 was not present at all (so it could be the recording).

Male vocals also impressed on the Mark Knopfler CD played next. Definitely among the best I have heard in their class, if not the best.

Finally, we closed out with a track off of the latest Allison Kraus CD "Lonely Runs Both Ways," and her voice sounded just as I would have hoped it to. We played the same track first on a different brand's speakers that were much more expensive (brand and speaker names withheld) and the Adagios clearly improved on their more expensive competitors... I would describe it as having a vail removed over Allison's mouth when we switched to the Adagios.

So how do these compare to Tylers? It depends on which ones... When compared to my Linbrook System Is, the Linbrooks have a bit more midrange detail, are a bit warmer, slighty faster and get lower (even though this is also a strength of the Adagios)... They are also more expensive.

The closest Tyler competitor price-wise would probably be the Linbrook System II, and I really could go either way as to which I would choose (this is a tremendous compliment to the Adagios, as I love the System II and would consider it my reference at its price point). I guess it would depend on what mood I was in at the time, or the associated electronics. I like the looks of both equally as well.

While the Adagios are not going to replace the Tylers in my main rig, I told the dealer (and meant it) that they have gone to the top of my short list for my bedroom system that I will be building in the next year. Excellent speakers!

---Dave

I bought a pair of these speakers for my son and they are awesome. Right out of the box they are great. I picked them up yesterday and after a full night of listening I just can't believe how good they are. I am only waiting for them to get better as they break in. I will only have them at my house for about a week because they will go to my sons house on Saturday. The imaging is incrediable and the sound stage is as well. My two small complaints is there low end the fact that they are a little small for my big room. I will report more as they break in.

Aggielaw, I first heard the Adagios at RMAF driven by the Red Dragons. I went back repeatedly while making only one visit to the Zu room. I had not heard of the RSA Sasons but was going on with your evaluation until you talked about the MacIntosh multi-driver speakers as being better than the Sasons. Wow! I went into the MacIntosh room at CES having learned of them from a dealer in Arizona. I could not leave fast enough! They were loud but just awfully muddy and confused. I suspect the multiple drivers

Your standard for just settling back and toe tapping with the Adagios is my ultimate standard. I should also say that given the comments I am hearing about the Red Dragon mono blocks, they may have been contributing to the sound I heard from the Adagios.

For those asking about being able to drive the Adagios with tubes, we (F2Audio) have now run them with the Cary SLI-80 (in triode 40 watt mode), the Cary 805 Anniversary (50 watts), and the Vincent SP-T100 hybrid amps (100 watts). None of the amps had any problem driving the speakers. Unfortunately, we do not have any lower-watt amps. The main thing to note is that the speakers sounded varied (while still maintaining its overall open and clear sound)with each amp, preamp, and associated tubes. To me, that is the sign of a good speaker...it passes along the signal that it gets.