Sonics of Soundlabs

A good place to ask questions about SL speakers as well as carry on dialog is the Soundlab owners group and they have a forum:

http://www.soundlabowners.com/forum/index.html

Soundlab speakers are large, a bit delicate, and sensitive to handling (shipping) and set-up issues, such as bias adjustment. You might say they can be a little idiosynchric. But, to answer your question directly about SL reliability, in my opinion their reliability is fine when set up properly with care (bias set properly) and, they have the latest updates including the high efficiency cores. There have been isolated reports from time to time in the past on tears or rips in the membrane for one reason or another but, the company always worked to resolve these issues promptly. I don't think you will find many, if any, reported quality issues on the newest iteration coming out of the factory.

Again, be sure to post your question on the SLOG forum and you should get some responses.

And as a side note, "Mcreyn" is correct about standing waves, room gain and such.

i owned a used pair of U2s. while i personally didn't care for the sonic presentation (very subjective), the membranes did tear and required factory repair, and the backplates were not built w/ the quality one expects of $15k speakers. ---no comparison to the WP6s i now own insofar as quality of craftsmanship (i also like the WPs sound better, but to each his own). ---also, i find any speaker as inefficient as soundlabs to be very limiting insofar as equipment choices go...too limiting.

that said, the factory service was very good and i've no complaints of the folks in utah. having lived w/ planars, i don't like them.

soundlabs (moreso, any powered speaker) are not set & forget. if you want maintenance free, get cones.

rhyno

Boy what an awful piece of equipment to hear a Sound Lab with.I would never want to hear a Soun Lab witha Crown S.S.
Its been a long time ago since I listened to an A-1.This was at a Stereophile Show.The speakers were hooked up to
Audio Note Tube Mono Amps and Preamp.The sound quality and transparency was astonding.The speakers need a very high quality tube based system to audition them properly.Personally I own th Martin Logan Quest Z's,and would never want to depart from them.I noticed with the newer Martin Logan speakers the els panels are getting narrower,and the crossover freq. seems to be getting higher.
I think you and I should keep the speakers we have.Why would u want to sell the Prodigy? Is it lack of deep bass?
the Sound Labs have to much of a radiating surface area to contend with.I think speaker placememt may be more difficult.
Personnally I would keep the speakers u have and work on your source or front end of your system.If u have any issues with your system you can email me.I may be able to help u further in other recommendations I may have.Happy Listening

Chris, the longest diagonal of your room is 28 feet (thanks to the 11 foot ceiling height!) and so flat response down to 20 cycles is possible. I think some of the other posts (regarding the phenomenon of "room gain" in smaller rooms) failed to take into account that the speaker you are considering has what Prof. Linkwitz calls a "dipole woofer" which, as he makes very clear on his website, requires the necessary 1/2 wavelength dimension (or more) to produce a given frequency:

Room modes cannot exist when 1/2 of a sound wavelength exceeds the longest room dimension. If this is 7.5 m (24.6 ft), then a wavelength will be 15 m and the lowest mode frequency is 343 m/s / 15 m = 23 Hz. Below this frequency bass response may increase due to room gain, if the woofer is a monopole. For a dipole woofer the response may stay flat or drop off, depending on the rigidity of room surfaces and lack of any openings.

If your listening room were just a little bit smaller, you would definitely be better off with a hybrid speaker (like the Summit) which have monopole woofers which allow the development of "room gain" thus maintaining SPL at lower frequencies in small spaces. Just remember that "room gain" (or "transfer gain as it is sometimes called) is only an important factor when the room is too small to allow formation of the 1/2 wavelength of a given frequency (an automobile interior is probably the extreme case.) At that point, you are no longer in a "listening room" but instead you are in a "secondary speaker enclosure." And if you push that example even further, in other words, reduce the size of the listening room down to zero, you are wearing headphones!

Thanks for all of your posts so far........ 76doublebass, I am only thinking of trying something new (always on the lookout for the holygrail so to speak). It is probably too early to really judge the Soundlabs but, I am thinking you are right; my Prodigy's sound pretty darn good (if not great!) to my ears. After trying Maggies, Dynaudio, etc. etc. the ony speakers that I have heard that I like better are the WP7's and they're out of reach money wise. Again it does all come down to personal preferences......... Still I'm pretty curious about these SL monsters after all of the good things I've heard.