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Worst speakers at Stereophile show

Here's what I thought were the worst sounding speakers at the Stereophile show. The Eggleston speakers that list for 100,000 dollars. I heard them in the Nagra room, with the Nagra 845 tube Amps, Nagra Preamp and Nagra digital reel to reel player. The cabinet on the Egglestons looked gorgeous. But let me tell you, these speakers were horrible. I was shocked how bad they sounded. They were so bright sounding. Eggleston has got to change midrange drivers. Those Morel midbases just sound to bright. Egglestons should use the Dynaudio 3 inch dome mids. Krell came out with a new mini monitor. It cost like 6000 dollars. These Krell Speakers sounded so edgy and the sound could get out of control. I didn't like them. Silverline had the Silverline Sonata speakers there. These speakers had to have the worst crossover. I played a track with a nice beat to it. It sounded horrible on these speakers. Then I put my ear to the speakers and I couldn't believe it, 80 percent of the midrange and bass was coming out of the tweeter. Silverline has got to change the crossover. How could you have the midbase coming out of the tweeter. That's why the bass sounded so edgy. A tweeter cant handle bass. Now another speaker I heard, that I didn't like. I heard the Merlin VSM se speakers. Merlin had 2 rooms with the VSM se speakers. One room had the Joule Electra Tube amps and Preamp. The other room that had the Merlins VSM se was the Sim Audio room. The Merlins in the Joule Electra room sounded not bad. It had nice detail. The same Merlins VSM se in the Sim Audio room sounded so average. The Joule Electra Tube Amps, sounded so much better on the Merlin speakers, then the Sim Room, which was using Sim W5 Amp, Sim P 5 preamp and Sim CD Player on the Merlin VSM se. The Merlins in the Joule Electra Room sounded very detailed, but didn't have that bass impact and large sound that I like. Then I heard the Verity Parsifal speakers on these Tenor OTL Tube Amps and the Audio Aero Capitole 24 bit CD Player. The Veritys didn't sound good. Someone said it perfectly to me, the Verity's dont have a full body sound. I then heard the Meadowlark speakers. I think they were the Herons. The bass did not sound good. It sounded way out of control and to boomy. I was also dissapointed with the Totem designer. Vince is a nice guy. But he kept playing these Totem tower speakers. They used a 5 inch midbase and the tweeter. They didn't sound to good. Then there was these nice looking Totem speakers in the room. They were called the Totem Wind. There's a pic of them on Totemes website. www.totemacoustic.com They used a 8 inch woofer and 2 dynaudio 3 inch dome midbases and a tweeter at the top. Vince played these speakers for like 40 seconds and they sounded really good. The bass and the midrange sounded nice. I wanted to hear more of them. Then Vince stopped playing them and went back to the Totem speakers, with the 5 inch midbase and the Tweeter. Everyone in the Room wanted to hear the other Totem speakers. But he wouldn't play them. He said he would play them later. Every time I went in the Totem room, he was playing the speaker with the 5 inch midbase and the tweeter. The 3rd time I was in the Totem room, another guy wanted to hear the Totem Wind speakers, but Vince said the same thing, he'll play them later.
doug99
jayctoy's avatar
jayctoy
4,095 posts
 
Nrchy
totally agree with you, very few people dont realize
room will make a whole world of a difference.also
you hit it bulls eye, most of this speakers were
made up of quality parts, drivers, but it is our
job to use them right.I also think the one reason
the andra shines in my room, my room is acoustically
right for the andra, and the size of course.
sparkster
9 posts
 
Guys: my dealer (who did not exhibit) but attended, feels that there is simply not enough electrical juice in the hotel to make these things sound their best. But, expectations also factor into our judgements, in my opinion. For what it's worth, most of these systems were just not musical-but maybe the dealers didn't care about musicality, just sonic showmanship. I think most of the rooms were either too small or too big. My best of show were the Meadowlark Swifts, a phenomenal value, and the Innersound Eros-but the bass was far too boomy.
foreverhifi
229 posts
 
Nrchy_
..."Do you really think the manufacturer would let people listen to them if they sounded as bad as these comments indicate?"....

Yes, I do!!!! Just go listen to Bose speakers and you tell me...enough said there. The almighty dollar is too aluring!

Also, Rooms beeing "too big" is not a problem at these shows guy's, trust me! The smaller rooms are BY FAR more difficult to deal with for best sound. You couple that with the fact that in those tiny rooms, there's really only one or two(depending on how they set em up) seats in the room with potentially descent balanced sound from a 2 speaker set up or whatever!(the majority of rooms have 2 speaker set ups I noticed).
Still, because most of these rooms at the hi-fi and CES show's play delicate jazz and vocals, it's not too shabby when you set the speakers up descently enough with some treatment here and there...it's workable I guess.
In a large room getting fantastic sound is generally much easier overall, especially when you consider you're going to likely sit closer to the speakers in addition!(just go into a local AV "Mega chain store" and listen to the surround set up in the middle of the store out in the open!..it'll be the best sounding set up they have likely!(?)
ejr1953
915 posts
 
Years ago I was in the high-end audio business and dreaded working the trade shows. My best advice to potential customers was to survey the equipment on display, then visit the dealership sometime after the show with a pile of one's favorite music to test the equipment and not to put too much emphasis on the sounds they heard at the trade show.

Back in the day of the Klipschorn, I had a customer who thought they sounded just awful at the trade show, who was later so blown away auditioning them in our retail store, he immediately ordered a pair.
czarivey
5,946 posts
 
I strongly believe that consumer who's looking for the level of $30,000 or higher should soon realize that there will be no money better spent than on Meyer Sound that actually would custom install their products for the best acoustics.
I'm not Meyer Sound dealer.
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