New Gallo 3.5's

HI Doug,

I'd have to agree that the midrange is a bit depressed with the 3.1s. I replaced a pair of KEF 104/2s which have incredible midrange projection with the Gallo 3.1s. While the Bass is deeper and tighter, the treble comparable but with much broader dispersion, the midrange is shelved down a notch. I had to work a bit to get it to an acceptable level. You can read about it here if you care to:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1204694214&read&keyw&zzgallo+toying

Still not the equal of the KEFs in the midrange, yet very revealing with a more laid back presentation. The KEFs where very forward with "in your face" midrange detail. It's all there with the Gallos, but more blended-in and back a bit. As with everything audio YMMV and there is no doubt that setup and positioning have a great impact here.

Let me say I LOVE the Gallo 3.1 speakers. You can scan through this tread and read many many posts where I'll go an extended weekend listening spree and am just floored by what these speakers can do. So keep that in mind with relation to what I'm articulating. Yes the midrange is a bit depressed, but it's a danm fine loudspeaker overall.

Room correction is next on my list. That said, not sure when I'll get to it. Just picked up the new Oppo BD-983 so my A/V spending budget is capped for a while. (Yeah, I'm a cheap bstard :) Like you, I'm not afraid of EQ either. If we all had perfect hearing and perfect rooms, there would be no need for it. Of course, almost no one has a listening room designed for audio and our hearing varies and deteriorates as we age. So I say, bring it on! It will let us enjoy the music more and longer!

Hi Dan
Thanks for your posting. I also owned a great pair of 104.2s for about 25 years - loved them, and sometimes have wished I kept them instead of selling them. Great speaker, and the 3.1 is in many ways a modern update of it. D'Appolito midrange array, but with better high end and low end - perhaps not quite as good midrange, but the 104.2 was a tough act to follow in that regard.

Have been fiddling around with the Audyssey and have gotten what seems to be a good (not radical) EQ - The NAD has a version of the EQ that is still warmer sounding than the flat EQ, but that makes up for upper midrange-low treble depression in the 3.1. With that EQ program engaged, the speaker sounds remarkably neutral, and interestingly, it trims the bass back just a bit, perhaps too much so for my tastes, but it shows that there is the standard mid-bass hump in the speaker's response when near any kind of boundary. My fiancee likes the bigger bass of the stock stereo without the Audyssey room response correction. but there is no accounting for taste!

I suspect that the 3.5 will fill that area in, but with the EQ, I feel I already have that. And I also spent some time recently dampening the speaker frame resonances, so that now played really loud, there is little noise coming from the metal frame. Still not sure that those frame resonances are truly audible, but compared to a box from B&W or KEF, this thing was a bit of a 'gong' in its stock form.

DW

Yeah, the KEFs are one great speaker. But they are old and really, you'd need to completely rebuild them at this point... which I considered before buying the Gallos. Glad I've moved on and am very very happy with the 3.1s

FYI, the 3.1 frames are filled with sound deadening/absorbing material from the factory. Please, show us some pics of what you've done to yours to aid in resonance reduction. Do you play them with the grills/covers on?

Sorry to be late in responding, swamped at the hospital (where I practice).

The KEFs were still in great shape, because the woofer surrounds were the 2nd generation rubber ones and not the foam ones, and thus still perfect. I sometimes wish I hadn't sold them, because finding as good a speaker for what I got paid seems a long shot, although I do like the Pol LSi15s that were not much more money, but way too boomy in the bass without correction. I would be happy to attach pictures of the frame dampened 3.1s but don't see how to attach a photo on this interface? Send me your email and I can forward some pics. I figured that Gallo has done some dampening already, because otherwise they would ring like a churchbell, but now the frames are just plain acoustically inert.

best, Doug

I just posted about this on one of the other Gallo threads. Several days ago I picked up a pair of the special stands that Pierre Sprey (Mapleshade) created specifically for the Gallo Reference 3, 3.0, 3.1 speakers. After installing them, I thought they made my Ref 3s sound pretty good but I didn't know HOW good until yesterday.

A fellow owner and friend brought over one of his stock Ref 3s and after getting a fix on how my "new" pair sounded, we substituted his for the left speaker with mine as the right speaker, then played a variety of mono stuff. Using the balance control on the remote of my Aesthetix Rhea phonostage, I can quickly switch from left only to balanced to right only. It was uncanny. In balanced mode, we could hardly tell the stock speaker was playing!

The Mapleshades deliver superior bass and dynamics with rich, full-bodied sonics that the stock speakers can't begin to match. We tried my friend's speaker on other platforms, with and without the stock spikes, and on my own Stein Audio stands. Minor differences, yes, but nothing came close to the Mapleshades.

These things are expensive (mine were $775) and won't win any beauty contests, but they come with a 30-day moneyback, and if you are inclined to try them I'll bet you keep them. Dave