Gallo Reference 3.1 questions...


Howdy,

Just toying with the idea of owning some Gallo Ref 3.1s...

TOYING!

The sub amp is described by some as mandatory, while others describe the speakers as bass rich even without it. Shall I merely infer from this that those who think it mandatory are big ol' bass fiends? Certainly with a 10" driver, I can't imagine it sounding at all anemic.

If a sub amp really is neccessary, does it HAVE to be the Gallo? Couldn't I just use any old amp to run the woofs? Not for nothing, but they need to have their speaker designers take 10 minutes off and help the amp dudes come up with a nicer looking amp. It looks like a DIY kit.

What would be smokin IMO, looks wise, is a Jeff Rowland Concerto integrated running the speakers and a pair of 201s running the subs.

Next Q... I have a tiny joint. Actually I stopped smoking. I have a small apartment. If I placed the Gallos in the hallowed 1.5 foot squares of floorspace I have allocated for speakers, with woofers facing each other, the left one would be inches away from my TV/audio stand, woofer pointing at the rack. The stand is open sided, not solid sided, but I wonder if this could pose a problem.

If I set them up with woofers facing away from each other, the right one would point into my kitchen area, but the left one would face a window about 2-3 ft away, with a big fat AC in it. In the summer the AC runs quite a bit.

OTOH, reviews seem to indicate that the staging on these is very wide (but short, I know), so I wonder just how critical placement is anyway.

Any insights?

Thanks

Rob
rkny
I didn't do any hard break ins like most people and just played it when I can. It seems like it took about a year for me to make it really shine. I would say that might be about 400-500 hrs. I'm thinking that a hard break in over days might be more advantageous and really stretch out the parts permanently as oppose to long term break in which migh revert back to it's original state. But be careful not to play it too loud, someone at AA blew his drivers out during a hard break in.
Is there a review on Stereophile magazine on these speakers? One would think that a speaker with this kind of buzz would be a priority.
Don't know about Stereophile but check out the 6moons website. They have 2-3 very in-depth reviews in the archive section. These guys mostly review high end equipment and they love these speakers.
The 6moons in depth reviews were key in my decision to buy these speakers, and I have read several very positive reviews on the Gallo reference speakers from other publications as well. 6moons seems to pretty much say what they really think about a product, but still wonder why would a big magazine name like Stereophile would miss the opportunity to review them, not that what they say would make a difference to any of us, but still interesting.
The Ref 3 was named Product of the Year in 2004 by The Absolute Sound. That's product of the year, not just speaker of the year. This followed quite a glowing review in TAS.