Review: Energy Loudspeakers Veritas 2.3 Speaker

I have never heard these, but am always intrigued by any speaker that employs a dome midrange driver. I don't know if they provide a wider dispersion or what, but ever since my father bought his original Allison One's back in the '70's, speakers I've heard using this type of mid seem to have a "certain something" that you don't necessarily get from a cone midrange. However, very few manufacturers have ever used this type of driver, since they don't seem to be available as OEM units, so they must make their own. One thing that would seem to have to be true about dome mids is that their voice coils must be of a larger diameter than in conventional design cones. The overall driver size may be smaller than that of a mid cone in some cases, but being driven at the edge may reduce the distortion from a normal cone's less pistonic motion out near the surround. Also, in theory, the physical design could more closely match that of a dome tweeter, perhaps promoting more uniform sonic integration around the crossover point. It could just be a psychological reaction on my part when I see one of these in a speaker, but I would like to check this model out sometime all the same. (What I'm really waiting for is when someone comes out with a coaxial dome mid/tweeter - or does the big Cabasse already have that? Never seen one in the flesh.) Were you influenced to look into this speaker by the TAS review, or did you stumble onto it before that came out?

I also have the energy V2.3 and really like them. In fact, I also have the Dennon dvd3300. I find that this combo is a little too bright. How have you faired? The Dennon is really new. Did your need a long break in period?

Thanks
Andrew

It's somewhat sad that Energy speakers are often overlooked by audiophiles. I have owned Klipsch, Thiels, NHT, and numerous others, and Energy Veritas speakers are so far better than all these its astounding.

I too am a Veritas convert. Been into this hobby for over 30 years and couldn't start to list all the speakers I've been through. Like the author of this review, I went to audition a pair of B&W N803's and came home with a pair of 2.3i's.

These speakers image like there's no tomorrow. Bass is extended, fast and detailed, soundstage width and depth are as good as I've heard from any speaker (dome mid?), verticle and horizontal dispersion is excellent (no 2" sweet spot with these speakers), and they are extremely well balanced throughout the spectrum.

As I try to think of their weakness the only thing that comes to mind is perhaps a little more bass extension. Don't get me wrong, even in this area they are very good and have a very deep bass for their cabinet and driver sizes. But, I can't help but wonder how the much better the 2.4i's are in this regard. I've not had a chance to hear these, but hope to some day. Probably the icing on the cake.

IMO there are very few speakers in their price range that can do so much so well. They do jazz, rock, classical, what ever you throw at them. The only other speaker I've run across recently that caught my attention is the Usher line. I'd love to compare the two side by side.

In closing I'll add that for these speakers to sound their best they need good amplification. Don't think a receiver would work. They're not an inefficient speaker, but they sound best and like good power. Also, they are very revealing so the quality of what you have upstream will show through.

If your in the market for a speaker in the $2500 range give these a listen.

I too am a Veritas convert. Been into this hobby for over 30 years and couldn't start to list all the speakers I've been through. Like the author of this review, I went to audition a pair of B&W N803's and came home with a pair of 2.3i's.

These speakers image like there's no tomorrow. Bass is extended, fast and detailed, soundstage width and depth are as good as I've heard from any speaker (dome mid?), verticle and horizontal dispersion is excellent (no 2" sweet spot with these speakers), and they are extremely well balanced throughout the spectrum.

As I try to think of their weakness the only thing that comes to mind is perhaps a little more bass extension. Don't get me wrong, even in this area they are very good and have a very deep bass for their cabinet and driver sizes. But, I can't help but wonder how the much better the 2.4i's are in this regard. I've not had a chance to hear these, but hope to some day. Probably the icing on the cake.

IMO there are very few speakers in their price range that can do so much so well. They do jazz, rock, classical, what ever you throw at them. The only other speaker I've run across recently that caught my attention is the Usher line. I'd love to compare the two side by side.

In closing I'll add that for these speakers to sound their best they need good amplification. Don't think a receiver would work. They're not an inefficient speaker, but they sound best and like good power. Also, they are very revealing so the quality of what you have upstream will show through.

If your in the market for a speaker in the $2500 range give these a listen.

I have to say that I started my hobby with Energy Pro 22 ...the original speaker that put Energy on the map. I STILL OWN THIS SPEAKER 25 years later....while I have owned many others and let them go....these will never be sold. They were used by CBC as reference monitors. They have the legendary hyperdome tweeter.

My current speakers are all ATC and these are the speakers that made the 3" dome mid range design famous. Whilst my ATC SCM 100 actives can play louder with more dynamic range, a slightly tighter bass, a slight bit more articulation/detail in the midrange than the Energy Pro 22's ever could ...there are striking similarities between these monitors in that they share fundamentally the same accurate low distortion with wide dispersion/image and great dynamics...and yet the Energy Pro 22 were but are a mere fraction of the cost of my ATC SCM 100's and they were a mere two way design!!

I can't say enough good things about Energy speakers. The Veritas being a three way design with a closely integrated dome mid and dome tweeter sounds absolutely awesome and would be first on my list to audition if I didnt already own the ATC's. Are the Veritas better than ATC's ....I would say they don't quite have the dynamic range/SPL power (while remaining at low distortion) of ATC's but the sound is pretty close and when you factor in their lower cost I bet many people might say they are better suited for domestic applications where you rarely get to use the kind of power the larger studio ATC's are capable of. To be fair, I guess the SCM 35's might give the Veritas a run for their money in terms of quality and value but I have not heard the 35's to compare.

In any case, all I am saying is that I agree with all the positive comments on this thread 100%.

Hello Guys,

I am an owner of the Veritas 2.3 and the 2.0C center. I picked those up about 3 years ago in Ottawa where I live. They are factory seconds, which means they have some cosmetic imperfections but I have inspected every inch of those speakers and the only thing I found was a tiny tear in the fabric of one of the grills, other than that, they are pristine. Being factory seconds also means I paid 40% less than MSRP.

My experience so far with those speakers have been somewhat lukewarm. For the first 2 years, I had them in my basement in a small "area". My basement is large but has this sort of "cubby" hole that is 2.5 feet deep and about 6 feet wide. So they were setup in there because the rest of the basement had the pool table. As expected they were confined and definitively not in an ideal setup position. Althought the sound was decent, I knew it could be considerably better if they had the room to breathe. At one point and just as a temporary excersise, I moved things around so that they were about 8 feet apart. A friend of mine and I spent over 2 hours "setting up" the speakers for positioning all while listening to the same song to get a point of reference. What we ended up with was next to heaven in my basement. They sounded amazing, but that was expected since they were really not positionned properly for so long. However, you could not get out of the room because one speaker blocked the door so they had to "go back" before the wife got home :)
I did however mark the exact location of the spike marks on the floor so that I could put them back once in a while.

So, about a year ago, I sold the pool table and moved the HT system to the much larger area of the room. My very first impression was absolute disapointement. They sounded awful, terrible, like a wet blanket had been thrown on them and the bass simply disappeared. I was totaly discouraged. I had my friend come back again and we went through another 2 + hours trying to position them to make them sound better. The best we could do was in my opinion a 50% better sound, which is still about 50% less good than what I had them before that other time we did this.

All to say that I know they are good speakers, but to me, they have always been very anemic on bass, I would never run them without a subwoofer, there is simply not enough bass coming out of them, or at least not in my room. They are extremely picky in terms of positioning, to the extreme, it took me and a friend quite a long time to get them to image properly. And we have pretty good hearing both of us.

So, I don't know, I was actually thinking of selling them and getting some B&W 803s or 704s hoping they would be less picky and sound better in my room. But since my cash flow does not permit at this time I will do what I can to address the acoustics of the room first and see if I can come up with something to improve the sound. They lack presence, punch, soundstage dispertion, imaging sweet spot is extremely small.

I just find it very odd that my experience does not match anyone elses that I have read so far. Maybe I have defective units ? or maybe my room has acoustic "holes" that swallow certain frequencies and "bumps" that wreak havoc with the speakers..I don't know anymore..

I would appreciate any feedback anyone may have.

Cheers,

Stephane

Your findings are nothing like mine. I suppose it has to be the room. I have a large room with an open floor plan and high ceilings. I do use a sub with my 2.3i's for HT, but not for music. I use the true bypass provided with my Arcam AVP-700.

Bass is as fast as I've heard with any speaker, barr none. It's also very extended, especially for a speaker this size.

One of the things that impressed me most was the amount of bass these put out. The B&W 804's weren't in the same league.

They do have a sweet spot just like every good speaker, but I also don't think they're a fussy speaker to set up. They have exceptional dispersion which makes placement much easier.

BTW, what are you using for electronics? These speakers need a good amp.

Hey John,

They are well fead via an Anthem MCA20 200W per channel amplifier. My Pre-Amp is the Anthem AVM 20 V2. Since my original post I have done much research and the first thing I need to do is address the room acoustic issues before I make any decisions regarding the speakers.

Thanks for your input.

Stephane