Diural's Roman Centurion Spk:Good or already Gone?

I heard them at the Stereophile show in NYC a couple of years ago and thought they were very impressive (powered by big Krells). The bass and imaging were quite good as I recall and the speaker did something special with violin and cello that made the instruments sound very real. It seemed like it had extremely fast transient response and was very coherent. I'm not sure how extended the highs were, that was hard to judge from my demo, but the speaker seemed to have a nice balance.

Will Roman or any other speaker company still be here next year? If anyone can say, their crystal ball is way more accurate than mine. If I could get a pair of these for a good price I think I'd be interested, regardless. They look very well made and are very attractive in my view.

I don't own them, but I did hear them at the High End show in New York in 2002. They were being played through a Plinius 8200 integrated amp.

They sounded quite good; I went back a few times to hear them.

If you think they are a lot of money for a two-way, you probably don't want to hear about the Kharma Ceramique 3.2 References!

I've owned the Roman Audio Centurions for well over a year now and love every aspect of them. You mentioned that you feel they are quite expensive for a two-way speaker, if you spend any amount of time with them. I think you will find them well worth the money. I have seen on many threads, here on Audiogon, about people wanting to add subs to their 2 channel system. The 8" driver in the Centurions plays low enough that it can easily handle the lowest tones of a pipe organ. After I had these for a while and got real familiar with them, I stated going around to hi-fi shops and listening to other brands, just to compare, and nothing that anyone had on display would come close. IMO, these simply blow-away the B&W 802's, which is a very popular speaker. As far as the imaging goes, they're like the other, one you find the right positioning in your room, pure heaven.
The one thing that you have to remember, like any other high-end speaker, if you run entry-level components and cables, you won't hear the full potential of these speakers. If you have any questions, or would like recommendations, call Roman Audio and speak to Mr. Fontenot. He has been a tremendous amount of help to me. If you would like, feel free to e-mail me and I will help in whatever way I can. I personally don't feel that you can go wrong with these speakers.

http://www.onhifi.com/product/roman_centurion.htm

I hope this gives you a little more information.

I own the pair reviewed by Wes Philips at the above webpage. These speakers sound great, but need power. Don't be fooled by the 93db sensitivity. Fontenot now imports and distributes Cabasse speakers, and if you call the telephone number on his website for Roman, the phone is answered as Cabasse North America. I think Dale is devoting more time to his new distributorship than the old speaker company. He didn't even show his Roman speakers at the 2003 CES, only the Cabasse speakers.