New Gallo 3.5's

Hi Dan
Thanks for your posting. I also owned a great pair of 104.2s for about 25 years - loved them, and sometimes have wished I kept them instead of selling them. Great speaker, and the 3.1 is in many ways a modern update of it. D'Appolito midrange array, but with better high end and low end - perhaps not quite as good midrange, but the 104.2 was a tough act to follow in that regard.

Have been fiddling around with the Audyssey and have gotten what seems to be a good (not radical) EQ - The NAD has a version of the EQ that is still warmer sounding than the flat EQ, but that makes up for upper midrange-low treble depression in the 3.1. With that EQ program engaged, the speaker sounds remarkably neutral, and interestingly, it trims the bass back just a bit, perhaps too much so for my tastes, but it shows that there is the standard mid-bass hump in the speaker's response when near any kind of boundary. My fiancee likes the bigger bass of the stock stereo without the Audyssey room response correction. but there is no accounting for taste!

I suspect that the 3.5 will fill that area in, but with the EQ, I feel I already have that. And I also spent some time recently dampening the speaker frame resonances, so that now played really loud, there is little noise coming from the metal frame. Still not sure that those frame resonances are truly audible, but compared to a box from B&W or KEF, this thing was a bit of a 'gong' in its stock form.

DW

Yeah, the KEFs are one great speaker. But they are old and really, you'd need to completely rebuild them at this point... which I considered before buying the Gallos. Glad I've moved on and am very very happy with the 3.1s

FYI, the 3.1 frames are filled with sound deadening/absorbing material from the factory. Please, show us some pics of what you've done to yours to aid in resonance reduction. Do you play them with the grills/covers on?

Sorry to be late in responding, swamped at the hospital (where I practice).

The KEFs were still in great shape, because the woofer surrounds were the 2nd generation rubber ones and not the foam ones, and thus still perfect. I sometimes wish I hadn't sold them, because finding as good a speaker for what I got paid seems a long shot, although I do like the Pol LSi15s that were not much more money, but way too boomy in the bass without correction. I would be happy to attach pictures of the frame dampened 3.1s but don't see how to attach a photo on this interface? Send me your email and I can forward some pics. I figured that Gallo has done some dampening already, because otherwise they would ring like a churchbell, but now the frames are just plain acoustically inert.

best, Doug

I just posted about this on one of the other Gallo threads. Several days ago I picked up a pair of the special stands that Pierre Sprey (Mapleshade) created specifically for the Gallo Reference 3, 3.0, 3.1 speakers. After installing them, I thought they made my Ref 3s sound pretty good but I didn't know HOW good until yesterday.

A fellow owner and friend brought over one of his stock Ref 3s and after getting a fix on how my "new" pair sounded, we substituted his for the left speaker with mine as the right speaker, then played a variety of mono stuff. Using the balance control on the remote of my Aesthetix Rhea phonostage, I can quickly switch from left only to balanced to right only. It was uncanny. In balanced mode, we could hardly tell the stock speaker was playing!

The Mapleshades deliver superior bass and dynamics with rich, full-bodied sonics that the stock speakers can't begin to match. We tried my friend's speaker on other platforms, with and without the stock spikes, and on my own Stein Audio stands. Minor differences, yes, but nothing came close to the Mapleshades.

These things are expensive (mine were $775) and won't win any beauty contests, but they come with a 30-day moneyback, and if you are inclined to try them I'll bet you keep them. Dave

Dave, Thanks for sharing your experiences with the Mapleshade stands. I tried to get some input regarding these stands in another thread with no luck. Sounds like the stands are a good upgrade. Will probably check them out.