Do you know of small speakers that sound ''BIG'' ?

Mdhoover,great review.Are the mid/woofers in these the Scanspeak 7 inch?Friends used these in Proac 2.5 copies.
If so I can imagine the sound.They do produce a very full sounding bass and a smooth and rich sounding midrange with good imaging.Proac stopped making these when lots of people started copying them and selling them for much less money.
I know other guys using them purely as woofers.
I am more into valves and efficient fast dynamic sounding speakers so these sound a bit slow and smeared to me,but can understand their appeal as a great allround sound.

JT

Jtgofish:
The answer to your first question is "no."

As for speed, these things are LIGHTNING fast. When I said they have the most incredible combination of high end detail and smoothness (both) that I'd ever heard in ANY loudspeaker irrespective of price, bar none, that's EXACTLY what I meant.

These are phenomenally, incredibly smooth but they are absolutely, positively, unequivocally, NOT smeared. No, no, no, no.....NO! Quite the opposite (I'm not angry, just trying to hammer home a point here...). I UNDERSTAND that those two things almost NEVER go together, but I swear to you, with this speaker they do. To give you an idea, I thought that these made my Sennheiser HD600's sound....kinda BAD! (To be fair, that was with a Ramsey SHA-1 headphone amp, which is certainly a great value and has gobs of power, but probably falls, um....short...of being hi fi, at least by Audiogon member standards). I ended up getting Stax Lambda Pro Signature Pro Earspeakers with an SRM T1 headphone amplifier/"energizer," and even that set-up doesn't sound as good (to me) as the Summits. The Stax Lambda Signatures MAY have SLIGHTLY more detail, but I'm not even sure about that.

Dale Pitcher is on the cutting edge of the cutting edge, period, AND he's cutting in the RIGHT DIRECTION. In my opinion, he's an under-recognized genius, with a great ear and the practical application skills to match his theoretical brilliance. He doesn't really advertise or toot his own horn, yet has never had to declare bankruptcy in 25 years. He SOLD Essence prior to starting Intuitive Design.

If phenomenal, lightning fast, detailed, smooth, accurate, phase coherent, dynamic speakers are what you're looking for, then you really owe it to yourself to listen to these. These are his "entry level" speaker, with the next models up selling for ~$38,000 (Pingoras), then ~65,000 (most recent version of Denalis).

Mdhoover,fair enough,you have convinced me these Intuitive Design speakers must be something special.I don't know if I will ever get to hear a pair in Australia though[imagine the shipping costs].
As far as speed and smoothness goes I tend to agree that the two rarely come together.I have Edgar midrange horns amongst other speakers and these are one of the very few exceptions that I have heard.People claim stats are fast but I'm yet to really hear it.

JT

JT,

I love Mdhoovers enthusiasm. I have not heard the Summits yet, but I did own a pair of Essence Super Gems for about 12 years. They were an unbelievable speaker in 1990 and I have heard from many that the Summits are many times better.

I live in Minnesota near the Magnaplaner factory. I remember back in the 1990s, Magnapan actually ran an ad saying that they had the 2nd best sound at the Chicago CES.

Guess who won best sound?

Essence Speakers.

I can't wait to get a pair of summits myself. If they are even 15% better thant the Super Gems, they would be worth it.

"I have not heard the Summits yet, but I did own a pair of Essence Super Gems for about 12 years. They were an unbelievable speaker in 1990 and I have heard from many that the Summits are many times better."
-Eandj2000

So....WHY THE HECK AREN'T SOME OF THESE "many" PEOPLE POSTING to the forums?????? I feel so, so, so.........ALONE!