I was there, at Chuck’s weekend, I am not well read in here, and don’t have a following at all. I knew this when I tried to interest people into trying spring isolation, that someone as polarizing as millercarbon had to be introduced for anyone to pay any real attention.
After two days and nights listening at his home, I got some idea of millercarbon’s musical tastes. He has a large, lively room, with even less absorption than I have in a room about half the volume.
The Moabs do have cabinet colouration, (yep, British spelling, I’m Australian) and yes, the Moabs millercarbon has, in that room, with his electronics are enjoyable to listen to. Are they purist high end audio? They’re probably closer to $8k with the crossover and Townshend Isolation.
On my way up from Texas to Washington, I did stop by Viking Acoustics Santa Fe NM for a listen (thank you willgolf for the introduction) and listened to horn speakers for probably close to five hours, which were very very good. So good in fact, that if your listening room is larger than most, I will write up my impressions, perhaps someone will find of interest?
Back to the Moabs, in my opinion, for the money, to energise a room as large as millercarbons with a diminutive powered valve amp, the Moabs are a budget minded audiophile bargain.
Perhaps this is where I become controversial, Focal for example make a floorstander that has considerable cabinet resonance, that is often ignored because it’s overall presentation is pleasing to those who buy them.
Despite the resonance the Moabs actually surprised me, I wasn’t expecting them to sound as good as they did, based upon some parameters that I find important (especially the inertness of the cabinet and use of multiple drivers to deliver a coherent sound field).
My personal take was it reminded me more of a large performance hall, with a live rock band sound than the polite, and intimate, small venue that I tried to create in my small 24’ x 15’ listening room. I never play music at home at the higher levels millercarbon played some tracks at, which were still lower than many concerts I have attended, I’m more of an intimate, detailed and mellow levels music lover.
Was millercarbons system fun, exciting? Yes
Did the Moabs create an image with defined and easily discerned spatial information of the performance? Yes
Can I understand why he’d want to come home after work and sit back and listen to his system? Yes, I really can.
Does someone who eats Chinese food, find that Thai can be overbearingly spicy to the point it can eclipse the other flavours, because the focus will be on the burning sensation of the chilli? As equally true that someone used to eating Thai food regularly, might find (westernised at least) Chinese food a little bit polite, perhaps bland?
I think for someone not worried about absolute state of the art bang on accuracy, who enjoys the livelier side of music reproduction, will get the same kick out of Tekton Moabs (obviously in this case helped with substantial tweeks). He did play classical music as well, and the lack of heavy bass did reveal their capacity to image well with the array.
All of us are on some budget, and yeah, I do think they offer pleasure equal to the investment in a large listening room. I will bet however, that as millercarbon has invested in superior electronics than the Moabs can (as they stand) resolve at, he’ll eventually find something that works even better for him, as it seems, we all seem to do. They certainly provide value for money in entertainment!
